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It's not BS. The world in general is trying to find ways to be more energy efficient and up pops bitcoin, now using more power than a country of 44 million peop

by Nursie 6y ago

It's not BS. The world in general is trying to find ways to be more energy efficient and up pops bitcoin, now using more power than a country of 44 million people. It's ridiculous. As is your reference on that article - "Most bitcoin mining is using energy at the source that was uneconomical to use for other purposes, because of the loss experienced in transporting the energy to economic centers", which just links to one of your own comments on HN! The rest appears to be handwaving - "Gold is worse!" or "It'll move to proof of stake!" (edit: the link to the comment is not the OPs own, but it is an HN comment which just contains an assertion about green energy use)

simonebrunozzi 6y ago
What I meant by "BS" is that most discussions about Bitcoin and its polluting effects are very superficial, and ignore some of the facts that I try to highlight in my post. > just links to one of your own comments on HN! No, the comment that I reference on HN is not mine, it's by someone else. BTW, I quite agree with it. > The rest appears to be handwaving I don't see why. We have used, and are still using, Gold as store of value. Each year gold pollutes tens of times more than Bitcoin. The ones criticizing Bitcoin should have been criticizing Gold all along; and they should criticize Gold way more than Bitcoin even now.
- betterunix2 6y ago
  Mining gold is environmentally problematic, but no new gold needs to be mined when gold is transferred from one person to another. Bitcoin transactions require new blocks to be added to the block chain, and therefore more "mining" must take place. There is a bigger problem, however. If a gold miner finds a more energy-efficient mining process, they will use it because it is more profitable. No technological improvements make Bitcoin mining more energy efficient (miners are incentivized to expand their operation rather than to mine at the same rate using less power), because the whole point of Bitcoin mining is to prove that electricity was utilized. That means that there is no real solution to Bitcoin's pollution problem, other than scrapping Bitcoin entirely and replacing it with something more energy-efficient (like a distributed ledger operated by a consortium of banks).
  - Biganon 6y ago
    Bitcoin's energy consumption is a function of the number of miners, not the numbers of users. Just because more people transfer and use bitcoin doesn't mean more energy is used.
    - mikeyjk 6y ago
      Transfers use energy, though
    - betterunix2 6y ago
      Every transaction requires at least one block (typically several) to be added to the block chain, and the block size limit means that, in fact, energy consumption in Bitcoin is proportional to the number of transactions. Beyond technical details, there is also the economic incentive: miners are paid to include transactions in new blocks, and if there are more transactions (thus higher demand) the fee will rise and miners will consume more power in order to collect the higher fees.
- afavour 6y ago
  > No, the comment that I reference on HN is not mine, it's by someone else. BTW, I quite agree with it. I've seen this claim made a few times now: that most Bitcoin is mined using renewables, at source. Where's the actual evidence for it?
  - sneak 6y ago
    In general it isn't very profitable to mine bitcoin using power that isn't extremely discounted.
    - afavour 6y ago
      That is a) not the same as the original claim b) not evidence
- Nursie 6y ago
  > No, the comment that I reference on HN is not mine, it's by someone else. BTW, I quite agree with it. Ok, misread that. Either way it's just an HN comment, it's not proof of anything much. Gold mining is terribly polluting, yep, but your attitude to it is pretty much the definition of whataboutery.
purple_ferret 6y ago
>which just links to one of your own comments on HN! I found this bit hilarious. I guess he's banking on people not actually clicking the source links? Medium journalism at its finest.
hobofan 6y ago
How do we determine how much/little energy usage is acceptable though? Is it okay for Google to use about as much energy as Tunisia? Maybe Bitcoin provides more economical value than Argentina? How much energy has and is being expended during the mining of all the gold that is just being used as store of value? (Mostly playing devil's advocate here. I would personally be for strong carbon taxes on electricity.)
- Nursie 6y ago
  > How do we determine how much/little energy usage is acceptable though? Well, a purely electronic financial instrument that pretty much by definition cannot produce anything, and provides little but an arena for speculation, would seem to me to be a bad thing to introduce to a world that's trying to reduce energy use. If you want to get into "well people clearly value it", the evidence being the money they pump in, well then any energy expenditure is justified if it is profitable, and this conversation is pointless. > How much energy has and is being expended during the mining of all the gold This is just whataboutery. Gold can be a problem as well.

by Nursie 6y ago

simonebrunozzi 6y ago

What I meant by "BS" is that most discussions about Bitcoin and its polluting effects are very superficial, and ignore some of the facts that I try to highlight in my post. > just links to one of your own comments on HN! No, the comment that I reference on HN is not mine, it's by someone else. BTW, I quite agree with it. > The rest appears to be handwaving I don't see why. We have used, and are still using, Gold as store of value. Each year gold pollutes tens of times more than Bitcoin. The ones criticizing Bitcoin should have been criticizing Gold all along; and they should criticize Gold way more than Bitcoin even now.

betterunix2 6y ago
Mining gold is environmentally problematic, but no new gold needs to be mined when gold is transferred from one person to another. Bitcoin transactions require new blocks to be added to the block chain, and therefore more "mining" must take place. There is a bigger problem, however. If a gold miner finds a more energy-efficient mining process, they will use it because it is more profitable. No technological improvements make Bitcoin mining more energy efficient (miners are incentivized to expand their operation rather than to mine at the same rate using less power), because the whole point of Bitcoin mining is to prove that electricity was utilized. That means that there is no real solution to Bitcoin's pollution problem, other than scrapping Bitcoin entirely and replacing it with something more energy-efficient (like a distributed ledger operated by a consortium of banks).
- Biganon 6y ago
  Bitcoin's energy consumption is a function of the number of miners, not the numbers of users. Just because more people transfer and use bitcoin doesn't mean more energy is used.
  - mikeyjk 6y ago
    Transfers use energy, though
  - betterunix2 6y ago
    Every transaction requires at least one block (typically several) to be added to the block chain, and the block size limit means that, in fact, energy consumption in Bitcoin is proportional to the number of transactions. Beyond technical details, there is also the economic incentive: miners are paid to include transactions in new blocks, and if there are more transactions (thus higher demand) the fee will rise and miners will consume more power in order to collect the higher fees.
afavour 6y ago
> No, the comment that I reference on HN is not mine, it's by someone else. BTW, I quite agree with it. I've seen this claim made a few times now: that most Bitcoin is mined using renewables, at source. Where's the actual evidence for it?
- sneak 6y ago
  In general it isn't very profitable to mine bitcoin using power that isn't extremely discounted.
  - afavour 6y ago
    That is a) not the same as the original claim b) not evidence
Nursie 6y ago
> No, the comment that I reference on HN is not mine, it's by someone else. BTW, I quite agree with it. Ok, misread that. Either way it's just an HN comment, it's not proof of anything much. Gold mining is terribly polluting, yep, but your attitude to it is pretty much the definition of whataboutery.

purple_ferret 6y ago

>which just links to one of your own comments on HN! I found this bit hilarious. I guess he's banking on people not actually clicking the source links? Medium journalism at its finest.

hobofan 6y ago

How do we determine how much/little energy usage is acceptable though? Is it okay for Google to use about as much energy as Tunisia? Maybe Bitcoin provides more economical value than Argentina? How much energy has and is being expended during the mining of all the gold that is just being used as store of value? (Mostly playing devil's advocate here. I would personally be for strong carbon taxes on electricity.)

Nursie 6y ago
> How do we determine how much/little energy usage is acceptable though? Well, a purely electronic financial instrument that pretty much by definition cannot produce anything, and provides little but an arena for speculation, would seem to me to be a bad thing to introduce to a world that's trying to reduce energy use. If you want to get into "well people clearly value it", the evidence being the money they pump in, well then any energy expenditure is justified if it is profitable, and this conversation is pointless. > How much energy has and is being expended during the mining of all the gold This is just whataboutery. Gold can be a problem as well.