4 ms·

So what? Is there some assumption that traditional banking don't consume a significant amount of energy? I think we're all familiar with towering bank building

So what? Is there some assumption that traditional banking don't consume a significant amount of energy? I think we're all familiar with towering bank buildings full of employees using computers, air conditioners and a range of appliances (alongside their daily commute). This is without even thinking about banking tech and system infrastructure.

not_kurt_godel 6y ago
The difference is banks don't inherently rely on directly converting electricity into currency at scale.
- compton 6y ago
  How do you think coins are made? And distributed? Of course at the moment, both systems exist so it appears that blockchain is additional and therefore unnecessary. Isn't that often how new technology first appears though? As another example, there have been similar articles about the amount of energy used by internet datacentres. While a lot of energy is certainly used to keep the internet running, such figures are only really meaningful when compared against the existing systems they can replace. What is the environmental impact of building libraries, stocking them with books, heating and lighting them, and the physical journeys that their users have to make to get there?
  - not_kurt_godel 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure electricity use of the existing currency system does not alone potentially account for 2 degrees C of global warming. Since you know, making a physical coin doesn't require deliberately burning untold numbers of CPU cycles for each transaction once it's made (nor does any corresponding digital record-keeping of it either).
zaarn 6y ago
Bitcoin consumes as much energy as a mid-sized country, including it's banking infrastructure. I doubt that if all banks where in one country, they'd consume more energy, including the energy consumed by all banking employees and other infrastructure necessary.

4 ms·

So what? Is there some assumption that traditional banking don't consume a significant amount of energy? I think we're all familiar with towering bank building

by illustriousbear 6y ago

not_kurt_godel 6y ago
The difference is banks don't inherently rely on directly converting electricity into currency at scale.
- compton 6y ago
  How do you think coins are made? And distributed? Of course at the moment, both systems exist so it appears that blockchain is additional and therefore unnecessary. Isn't that often how new technology first appears though? As another example, there have been similar articles about the amount of energy used by internet datacentres. While a lot of energy is certainly used to keep the internet running, such figures are only really meaningful when compared against the existing systems they can replace. What is the environmental impact of building libraries, stocking them with books, heating and lighting them, and the physical journeys that their users have to make to get there?
  - not_kurt_godel 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure electricity use of the existing currency system does not alone potentially account for 2 degrees C of global warming. Since you know, making a physical coin doesn't require deliberately burning untold numbers of CPU cycles for each transaction once it's made (nor does any corresponding digital record-keeping of it either).
zaarn 6y ago
Bitcoin consumes as much energy as a mid-sized country, including it's banking infrastructure. I doubt that if all banks where in one country, they'd consume more energy, including the energy consumed by all banking employees and other infrastructure necessary.