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Serious question... has there been a bigger waste of electricity in any commodity trading or in any internet trend? A the cost of a single bitcoin transaction

Serious question... has there been a bigger waste of electricity in any commodity trading or in any internet trend? A the cost of a single bitcoin transaction (~300kW) could power a use home for more than a week [1]. How is this even remotely defensible by people who participates in coins and also make posts about climate change? Seems very hypocritical to me, because I’m pretty sure it’s not those “filthy denier types” that are wrapped up in the coin game. [1] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3

mbunch 8y ago
That's part of the reason why Bitcoin is seen as V1 tech that's being moved away from and other cryptocurrencies using variants of Proof of Stake (which consumes orders of magnitude less electricity but has other potential pitfalls) instead of Proof of Work have grown more popular. Ethereum, generally considered the #2 crypto, is planning to make the switch from PoW to PoS, for instance. There are some people who still support large-scale adoption of PoW coins, though, and you are right that they're generally willfully ignorant of the environmental concerns. The only case I can see for those is something that aims for true trustlessness and anonymity like Monero, since most PoS methods make compromises around that. EDIT: I stand corrected. Ethereum is still laying the groundwork for a switch from PoW to PoS and hasn't yet transitioned.
- redbeard0x0a 8y ago
  Ethereum is still PoW, they released an initial PoS that runs along side the PoW, "verifying" every 100 transactions or so. The goal is to move entirely to PoS, but things take time.
  - kimsk112 8y ago
    Why has it taken so long? I thought this would happen in 2017.
    - lostmsu 8y ago
      Because there are still issues with the idea of PoS. Major one AFAIK is that there's nothing preventing miners mining a fork in addition to the "main" chain, which destroys consensus on which chain is the main chain.
- akvadrako 8y ago
  Ethereum has already switched to PoS? This is the first I've heard and I can't find any news about it.
  - tenaciousDaniel 8y ago
    It hasn't moved yet, op is incorrect. They just released the EIP (ethereum improvement proposal). It's going to take some time to get it to production.
- VMG 8y ago
  What's the cost in PoS on working on parallel chains? Does the cost increase in proportion to chain length?
mkirklions 8y ago
There has been a gigantic move to offchain transactions since 2015. Myself, Ive only done 3 'onchain' transactions out of the 60ish transactions ive done. Regarding waste of electricity? Does war count? Prior to electricity, moving and protecting gold was a major industry. Ive read about green solutions to this problem. You'd probably still have miners, but it seems the world is moving to offchain for most transactions.
- pjc50 8y ago
  This is "whataboutery" of the first degree - you can't say that no problems in the world should be addressed while war is still a thing, that's just an excuse for irresponsibility.
- Guvante 8y ago
  If miners were doing the mining for the transactions maybe that would matter but the $100,000 lottery is all that miners care about. They have opinions on transactions because transactions fees make the lottery more lucrative is all (there exist evangelism in miners but they are the minority)
- spookthesunset 8y ago
  > There has been a gigantic move to offchain transactions since 2015. Myself, Ive only done 3 'onchain' transactions out of the 60ish transactions ive done. So your solution the ills of Satoshi's Glorious Bitcoin is to.... wait for it.... not use Bitcoin? What kind of headspace are you bitcoin shysters in where any of this makes sense? I don't understand it.
asketak 8y ago
The question about how much costs a single bitcoin transaction is deeply flawed. The amount of transactions a bitcoin network can process does not directly depend on amount of electricity spent. Bitcoin network can work the same way using 10% of its current electricity consumption. Also, lightning network will allow for thousand times more transactions with same energy cost. Why is everyone obsessed with bitcoin electricity consumption? I wonder how much energy is required by the banking system to operate(imagine those thousands of people burning gas in cars to get to their daily work at bank). Humanity spends vast amount of energy on much more useless stuff with just entertainment value(World football cup, all those fans coming from different parts of world in the jets, logistics...) Also, energy is a resource like any other and it's generation and price is subject to supply/demand. The fact, that is is used on mining bitcoins just indicate, that people value bitcoin technology more than something else they would spend the electricity on.
- Guvante 8y ago
  > Also, energy is a resource like any other and it's generation and price is subject to supply/demand Actually most municipalities treat electricity like they treat water, more akin to a public utility. The actual cost isn't necessarily related to supply/demand. Normally this isn't a big deal as historically the electricity use either was minor (homes) or lead to economic growth (businesses) similarly most businesses would make specific deals if they had heavy use. Now Bitcoin threw a curve ball by allowing electricity -> money in a system not designed to make the cost of electricity support it. Yes the fundamental idea of Bitcoin is great but the current external cost to support the "investment market" is quite high.
  - iainmerrick 8y ago
    I mostly agree, except that the fundamental idea is bad because it inevitably leads to an arms race between miners. Using more electricity gives you a bigger share of the pie, but doesn’t actually grow the pie. So the electricity is really wasted. And this at a time when our energy demand is contributing to climate change.
- deadmetheny 8y ago
tgb 8y ago
That's 300 kWh not kW.
- Freak_NL 8y ago
  A surprisingly common mistake nowadays. I've spotted a couple of times in a major Dutch newspaper over the past few years. Perhaps it's easier to use Joule instead of kWh.
  - SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
    It’s not a mistake. It’s pretty common and IMO as an EE to say kW when kWh is the only unit that makes sense. It’s colloquially acceptable.
Arnt 8y ago
Sure. Think about polling backends in mobile apps for example. Not just talking about twitter and facebook clients: The app that provides my bus tickets downloads the company's logo and a few other assets every few hours. A billion smartphone users, a few apps per phone, an asset or five per day, before you know it the numbers are big. But I think you weren't interested in an answer like that, right? You wanted to criticise bitcoin, fairly or not.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- wufufufu 8y ago
  But you can optimize those things. Google's current logo is now 305 bytes. Also there's caching. The internet is not built on proof of work.
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    I'd say gif memes are probably a lot more of a waste. So much bytes stored and streamed u_u; appalling
  - Arnt 8y ago
    That's a perfect example of the trend I tried to describe. "Let's download it every 12 hours but optimize that shrinking the file size to just 305 bytes and caching it on the CDN". For a logo that hasn't changed since before the app was first developed.
toomuchgov 8y ago
I am curious how much energy is wasted in municipal recycling programs (plastic, paper, glass, aluminum)?
mrb 8y ago
«A the cost of a single bitcoin transaction (~300kW)» Transactions don't consume energy. This is the biggest misunderstanding floating around here. The transaction rate could halve or double tomorrow without affecting the energy consumption of miners. Furthermore, it's a misleading statement because it implies Bitcoin's utility is equated solely to its transaction rate. The social benefits we extract from Bitcoin are much more than just a raw transaction processing system. For example: - Some Bitcoin users have become so wealthy that they are donating millions to charities, like the Pineapple Fund (https://pineapplefund.org/ https://pineapplefund.org/). - The mining industry is pushing so hard for low electricity prices that it is starting to accelerate the research & development of renewables (which are now the cheapest source of energy), helping the industry as a whole move away from fossil fuels. - A Venezuelan can escape the high inflation rate of his national currency by simply holding bitcoins (whether he withdraws/transacts from his "bitcoin savings" once or ten times a month doesn't really change the utility of the system for him) None of these points are taken into account if one simply looks at the transaction rate to determine whether Bitcoin's energy use is worth it or not.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  >Some Bitcoin users have become so wealthy that they are donating millions to charities Are you serious? Like, that’s a serious argument? Cartel bosses donate money... same thing right? >Transactions don't consume energy. This is the biggest misunderstanding floating around here. The misunderstanding is that you think there is a difference between transaction number and miner power. We don’t care. It’s the same thing because what we’re looking at is total power used (massive) and dividing it by a transaction number which is effective output which is transactions. Bitcoin is a resource waste, you’re defending it in part because “some people have donated to charity. Good luck with that.
  - VMG 8y ago
    There can be an infinite number of off-chain transactions based on a single on-chain transaction.
    - 8y ago
CalRobert 8y ago
300 kW.. for how long? That's like saying it's 400 horsepower.
- Grangar 8y ago
  kWh I'd wager, it's used interchangeably here.
  - contoraria 8y ago
    That would be anywhere between 9 to 90 $ per transaction at domestic rates, assuming 3 to 30 cent per kWh. JSYK
  - CalRobert 8y ago
    Where is here? They mean completely different things. (we have joules for this.. but that's a lost battle)

mbunch 8y ago

That's part of the reason why Bitcoin is seen as V1 tech that's being moved away from and other cryptocurrencies using variants of Proof of Stake (which consumes orders of magnitude less electricity but has other potential pitfalls) instead of Proof of Work have grown more popular. Ethereum, generally considered the #2 crypto, is planning to make the switch from PoW to PoS, for instance. There are some people who still support large-scale adoption of PoW coins, though, and you are right that they're generally willfully ignorant of the environmental concerns. The only case I can see for those is something that aims for true trustlessness and anonymity like Monero, since most PoS methods make compromises around that. EDIT: I stand corrected. Ethereum is still laying the groundwork for a switch from PoW to PoS and hasn't yet transitioned.

redbeard0x0a 8y ago
Ethereum is still PoW, they released an initial PoS that runs along side the PoW, "verifying" every 100 transactions or so. The goal is to move entirely to PoS, but things take time.
- kimsk112 8y ago
  Why has it taken so long? I thought this would happen in 2017.
  - lostmsu 8y ago
    Because there are still issues with the idea of PoS. Major one AFAIK is that there's nothing preventing miners mining a fork in addition to the "main" chain, which destroys consensus on which chain is the main chain.
akvadrako 8y ago
Ethereum has already switched to PoS? This is the first I've heard and I can't find any news about it.
- tenaciousDaniel 8y ago
  It hasn't moved yet, op is incorrect. They just released the EIP (ethereum improvement proposal). It's going to take some time to get it to production.
VMG 8y ago
What's the cost in PoS on working on parallel chains? Does the cost increase in proportion to chain length?

mkirklions 8y ago

There has been a gigantic move to offchain transactions since 2015. Myself, Ive only done 3 'onchain' transactions out of the 60ish transactions ive done. Regarding waste of electricity? Does war count? Prior to electricity, moving and protecting gold was a major industry. Ive read about green solutions to this problem. You'd probably still have miners, but it seems the world is moving to offchain for most transactions.

pjc50 8y ago
This is "whataboutery" of the first degree - you can't say that no problems in the world should be addressed while war is still a thing, that's just an excuse for irresponsibility.
Guvante 8y ago
If miners were doing the mining for the transactions maybe that would matter but the $100,000 lottery is all that miners care about. They have opinions on transactions because transactions fees make the lottery more lucrative is all (there exist evangelism in miners but they are the minority)
spookthesunset 8y ago
> There has been a gigantic move to offchain transactions since 2015. Myself, Ive only done 3 'onchain' transactions out of the 60ish transactions ive done. So your solution the ills of Satoshi's Glorious Bitcoin is to.... wait for it.... not use Bitcoin? What kind of headspace are you bitcoin shysters in where any of this makes sense? I don't understand it.

asketak 8y ago

The question about how much costs a single bitcoin transaction is deeply flawed. The amount of transactions a bitcoin network can process does not directly depend on amount of electricity spent. Bitcoin network can work the same way using 10% of its current electricity consumption. Also, lightning network will allow for thousand times more transactions with same energy cost. Why is everyone obsessed with bitcoin electricity consumption? I wonder how much energy is required by the banking system to operate(imagine those thousands of people burning gas in cars to get to their daily work at bank). Humanity spends vast amount of energy on much more useless stuff with just entertainment value(World football cup, all those fans coming from different parts of world in the jets, logistics...) Also, energy is a resource like any other and it's generation and price is subject to supply/demand. The fact, that is is used on mining bitcoins just indicate, that people value bitcoin technology more than something else they would spend the electricity on.

Guvante 8y ago
> Also, energy is a resource like any other and it's generation and price is subject to supply/demand Actually most municipalities treat electricity like they treat water, more akin to a public utility. The actual cost isn't necessarily related to supply/demand. Normally this isn't a big deal as historically the electricity use either was minor (homes) or lead to economic growth (businesses) similarly most businesses would make specific deals if they had heavy use. Now Bitcoin threw a curve ball by allowing electricity -> money in a system not designed to make the cost of electricity support it. Yes the fundamental idea of Bitcoin is great but the current external cost to support the "investment market" is quite high.
- iainmerrick 8y ago
  I mostly agree, except that the fundamental idea is bad because it inevitably leads to an arms race between miners. Using more electricity gives you a bigger share of the pie, but doesn’t actually grow the pie. So the electricity is really wasted. And this at a time when our energy demand is contributing to climate change.
deadmetheny 8y ago

tgb 8y ago

That's 300 kWh not kW.

Freak_NL 8y ago
A surprisingly common mistake nowadays. I've spotted a couple of times in a major Dutch newspaper over the past few years. Perhaps it's easier to use Joule instead of kWh.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  It’s not a mistake. It’s pretty common and IMO as an EE to say kW when kWh is the only unit that makes sense. It’s colloquially acceptable.

Arnt 8y ago

Sure. Think about polling backends in mobile apps for example. Not just talking about twitter and facebook clients: The app that provides my bus tickets downloads the company's logo and a few other assets every few hours. A billion smartphone users, a few apps per phone, an asset or five per day, before you know it the numbers are big. But I think you weren't interested in an answer like that, right? You wanted to criticise bitcoin, fairly or not.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
wufufufu 8y ago
But you can optimize those things. Google's current logo is now 305 bytes. Also there's caching. The internet is not built on proof of work.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  I'd say gif memes are probably a lot more of a waste. So much bytes stored and streamed u_u; appalling
- Arnt 8y ago
  That's a perfect example of the trend I tried to describe. "Let's download it every 12 hours but optimize that shrinking the file size to just 305 bytes and caching it on the CDN". For a logo that hasn't changed since before the app was first developed.

toomuchgov 8y ago

I am curious how much energy is wasted in municipal recycling programs (plastic, paper, glass, aluminum)?

mrb 8y ago

«A the cost of a single bitcoin transaction (~300kW)» Transactions don't consume energy. This is the biggest misunderstanding floating around here. The transaction rate could halve or double tomorrow without affecting the energy consumption of miners. Furthermore, it's a misleading statement because it implies Bitcoin's utility is equated solely to its transaction rate. The social benefits we extract from Bitcoin are much more than just a raw transaction processing system. For example: - Some Bitcoin users have become so wealthy that they are donating millions to charities, like the Pineapple Fund (https://pineapplefund.org/ https://pineapplefund.org/). - The mining industry is pushing so hard for low electricity prices that it is starting to accelerate the research & development of renewables (which are now the cheapest source of energy), helping the industry as a whole move away from fossil fuels. - A Venezuelan can escape the high inflation rate of his national currency by simply holding bitcoins (whether he withdraws/transacts from his "bitcoin savings" once or ten times a month doesn't really change the utility of the system for him) None of these points are taken into account if one simply looks at the transaction rate to determine whether Bitcoin's energy use is worth it or not.

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
>Some Bitcoin users have become so wealthy that they are donating millions to charities Are you serious? Like, that’s a serious argument? Cartel bosses donate money... same thing right? >Transactions don't consume energy. This is the biggest misunderstanding floating around here. The misunderstanding is that you think there is a difference between transaction number and miner power. We don’t care. It’s the same thing because what we’re looking at is total power used (massive) and dividing it by a transaction number which is effective output which is transactions. Bitcoin is a resource waste, you’re defending it in part because “some people have donated to charity. Good luck with that.
- VMG 8y ago
  There can be an infinite number of off-chain transactions based on a single on-chain transaction.
  - 8y ago

CalRobert 8y ago

300 kW.. for how long? That's like saying it's 400 horsepower.

Grangar 8y ago
kWh I'd wager, it's used interchangeably here.
- contoraria 8y ago
  That would be anywhere between 9 to 90 $ per transaction at domestic rates, assuming 3 to 30 cent per kWh. JSYK
- CalRobert 8y ago
  Where is here? They mean completely different things. (we have joules for this.. but that's a lost battle)