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It'd be nice if some of the money were used to make it easier for charities to convert to cash as quickly as possible. Bitcoin pointlessly consumes so much dirt

It'd be nice if some of the money were used to make it easier for charities to convert to cash as quickly as possible. Bitcoin pointlessly consumes so much dirty energy, I imagine many environmental charities see bitcoin akin to blood money.

antipodes12 9y ago
https://blog.bitcoin.org.hk/bitcoin-mining-and-energy-consumption-4526d4b56186 https://blog.bitcoin.org.hk/bitcoin-mining-and-energy-consum... While some coal in landlocked and inaccessible locations is fired up in an environmentally unfriendly process to mine Bitcoins, most miners are powered by hydrogen dams, geysers and other geothermal energy sources that cannot be transported or stored.
- s0rce 9y ago
  I think you mean hydroelectric dams.
drcross 9y ago
This meme needs to die. Keeping the lights on tens of thousands of banks and keeping hundred of thousands of servers running transaction processing cost a lot of electricity too. Efforts are underway to get rid of dirty energy because the costs of renewable and battery storage are so much cheaper that this is a non-issue.
- harryh 9y ago
  Efforts are underway to get rid of dirty energy because the costs of renewable and battery storage are so much cheaper that this is a non-issue. Um what? Certainly we have made great progress as a civilization switching to cleaner forms of energy production but calling greenhouse pollution a "non issue" at this point is pretty nuts!
  - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
    Install clean energy sources then. Charge for it, I don't care. Don't blame bitcoin because of cheap energy.
- spookthesunset 9y ago
  Give me a fucking break. The "traditional financial world" processes tens if not hundreds of thousands of transactions per second worldwide. Bitcoin processes no more than 4 per second. On a per-transaction basis, you could be insane to argue that Bitcoin is anything other than an environmental disaster. Worse, Bitcoin's energy consumption scales based on the price of bitcoin, not on transaction volume. The more USD each bitcoin is worth, the more miners will spend on energy to get that sweet, sweet block reward. So it isn't a "meme" and Bitcoin's proponents would do well to concede that "yeah, bitcoin pisses away a lot of electricity--sorry about that...".
  - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
    Supply and demand. If you want mining to reduce emissions, increase the cost of energy. Bitcoin will remain unaffected. Don't blame bitcoin because of the cost of energy. Blame the energy producers for selling it to miners at that price.
    - dsacco 9y ago
      Why not blame both?
      - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
        Because one is to blame and the other is not.
        dsacco 9y ago
        That's tautological. Implicit in the question is a request for an explanation of why both are not to blame. If you don't believe Bitcoin has an enabling or encouraging effect on activity that is bad for the environment, why is that? Why is it more appropriate to shift blame entirely on the energy provider instead of the very energy inefficient process? Do you also suppose that we should reduce vehicle emissions by increasing the cost of gasoline? Why isn't it fair to blame vehicles that run on gasoline and vehicles which are particularly inefficient at running on gasoline?
- scottnyc 9y ago
  This meme needs to die. You think if bitcoin became a transaction standard there wouldn't be thousands of institutions and companies servicing the use of bitcoin? You don't think Coinbase won't become just like JPMorgan and employ 100k people to provide customer service? Just look at all the startups and people currently employed to figure out blockchain today. So take your assumption of all of modern-day finances's electricity demands and add that to the infinite loop of energy that is required to keep your bitcoins in existence whether you transact or not.
- asciimo 9y ago
  And all the armored trucks, the parking meters, the security staff and equipment, the phone calls, the faxes, the mailed documents...

antipodes12 9y ago

https://blog.bitcoin.org.hk/bitcoin-mining-and-energy-consumption-4526d4b56186 https://blog.bitcoin.org.hk/bitcoin-mining-and-energy-consum... While some coal in landlocked and inaccessible locations is fired up in an environmentally unfriendly process to mine Bitcoins, most miners are powered by hydrogen dams, geysers and other geothermal energy sources that cannot be transported or stored.

s0rce 9y ago
I think you mean hydroelectric dams.

drcross 9y ago

This meme needs to die. Keeping the lights on tens of thousands of banks and keeping hundred of thousands of servers running transaction processing cost a lot of electricity too. Efforts are underway to get rid of dirty energy because the costs of renewable and battery storage are so much cheaper that this is a non-issue.

harryh 9y ago
Efforts are underway to get rid of dirty energy because the costs of renewable and battery storage are so much cheaper that this is a non-issue. Um what? Certainly we have made great progress as a civilization switching to cleaner forms of energy production but calling greenhouse pollution a "non issue" at this point is pretty nuts!
- Frogolocalypse 9y ago
  Install clean energy sources then. Charge for it, I don't care. Don't blame bitcoin because of cheap energy.
spookthesunset 9y ago
Give me a fucking break. The "traditional financial world" processes tens if not hundreds of thousands of transactions per second worldwide. Bitcoin processes no more than 4 per second. On a per-transaction basis, you could be insane to argue that Bitcoin is anything other than an environmental disaster. Worse, Bitcoin's energy consumption scales based on the price of bitcoin, not on transaction volume. The more USD each bitcoin is worth, the more miners will spend on energy to get that sweet, sweet block reward. So it isn't a "meme" and Bitcoin's proponents would do well to concede that "yeah, bitcoin pisses away a lot of electricity--sorry about that...".
- Frogolocalypse 9y ago
  Supply and demand. If you want mining to reduce emissions, increase the cost of energy. Bitcoin will remain unaffected. Don't blame bitcoin because of the cost of energy. Blame the energy producers for selling it to miners at that price.
  - dsacco 9y ago
    Why not blame both?
    - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
      Because one is to blame and the other is not.
      - dsacco 9y ago
        That's tautological. Implicit in the question is a request for an explanation of why both are not to blame. If you don't believe Bitcoin has an enabling or encouraging effect on activity that is bad for the environment, why is that? Why is it more appropriate to shift blame entirely on the energy provider instead of the very energy inefficient process? Do you also suppose that we should reduce vehicle emissions by increasing the cost of gasoline? Why isn't it fair to blame vehicles that run on gasoline and vehicles which are particularly inefficient at running on gasoline?
scottnyc 9y ago
This meme needs to die. You think if bitcoin became a transaction standard there wouldn't be thousands of institutions and companies servicing the use of bitcoin? You don't think Coinbase won't become just like JPMorgan and employ 100k people to provide customer service? Just look at all the startups and people currently employed to figure out blockchain today. So take your assumption of all of modern-day finances's electricity demands and add that to the infinite loop of energy that is required to keep your bitcoins in existence whether you transact or not.
asciimo 9y ago
And all the armored trucks, the parking meters, the security staff and equipment, the phone calls, the faxes, the mailed documents...