4 ms·

I don’t follow. Can you explain?

by dfee 8y ago

vasilipupkin 8y ago
gold mining uses a ton of energy, more than bitcoin mining. To the extent that people substitute gold for bitcoin in financial portfolios, this is positive since net energy waste is lower.
- moocow01 8y ago
  How do you know that gold mining uses more energy than bitcoin mining?
  - vasilipupkin 8y ago
    I mean, I don't know it for sure, that's why I said "to the extent..." but here is one article https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-07/bitcoin-is-greener-than-its-critics-think https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-07/bitcoin-i...
- JBReefer 8y ago
  Gonna need a lot of citations to believe that
  - vasilipupkin 8y ago
    https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-07/bitcoin-is-greener-than-its-critics-think https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-07/bitcoin-i...
- mikeash 8y ago
  It seems like a bad comparison, since you don’t need to mine gold just to move it around. Transferring ownership can be accomplished for the amount of energy it takes to send a small electronic message.
  - vasilipupkin 8y ago
    to move it around you need trucks which use gasoline
    - mikeash 8y ago
      You don’t need to move it to transfer ownership of it.
      - vasilipupkin 8y ago
        by that logic, same thing applies to bitcoin. on a centralized exchange ownershp is just an entry in the database
        mikeash 8y ago
        It would apply to bitcoin if that were the usual way to transfer it, but it doesn’t look like that’s the case.
        vasilipupkin 8y ago
        what do you mean? most bitcoin volume is done on centralized exchanges, so that's exactly the usual way of trading it.
        mikeash 8y ago
        From some quick searching around, volume on the exchanges is around 500,000/day while volume on the blockchain is over a million. If that’s accurate (and it may not be, I’m not an expert on this and the sources I found might suck) then most volume is on the blockchain by a pretty good margin. I don’t know how much gold is actually shifted around physically, but the trading volume in a year is several times the actual amount of gold that has been mined, so I suspect the proportion of that which involves physical movement is tiny.

I don’t follow. Can you explain?

by dfee 8y ago

I don’t follow. Can you explain?

gold mining uses a ton of energy, more than bitcoin mining. To the extent that people substitute gold for bitcoin in financial portfolios, this is positive since net energy waste is lower.

moocow01 8y ago
How do you know that gold mining uses more energy than bitcoin mining?
- vasilipupkin 8y ago
  I mean, I don't know it for sure, that's why I said "to the extent..." but here is one article https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-07/bitcoin-is-greener-than-its-critics-think https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-07/bitcoin-i...
JBReefer 8y ago
Gonna need a lot of citations to believe that
- vasilipupkin 8y ago
  https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-07/bitcoin-is-greener-than-its-critics-think https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-07/bitcoin-i...
mikeash 8y ago
It seems like a bad comparison, since you don’t need to mine gold just to move it around. Transferring ownership can be accomplished for the amount of energy it takes to send a small electronic message.
- vasilipupkin 8y ago
  to move it around you need trucks which use gasoline
  - mikeash 8y ago
    You don’t need to move it to transfer ownership of it.
    - vasilipupkin 8y ago
      by that logic, same thing applies to bitcoin. on a centralized exchange ownershp is just an entry in the database
      - mikeash 8y ago
        It would apply to bitcoin if that were the usual way to transfer it, but it doesn’t look like that’s the case.
        vasilipupkin 8y ago
        what do you mean? most bitcoin volume is done on centralized exchanges, so that's exactly the usual way of trading it.
        mikeash 8y ago
        From some quick searching around, volume on the exchanges is around 500,000/day while volume on the blockchain is over a million. If that’s accurate (and it may not be, I’m not an expert on this and the sources I found might suck) then most volume is on the blockchain by a pretty good margin. I don’t know how much gold is actually shifted around physically, but the trading volume in a year is several times the actual amount of gold that has been mined, so I suspect the proportion of that which involves physical movement is tiny.