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There's lots of misdirected anger these last few days towards Bitcoin. First, the only thing that's energy-intensive about Bitcoin is block production. Making

by jude- 6y ago

There's lots of misdirected anger these last few days towards Bitcoin. First, the only thing that's energy-intensive about Bitcoin is block production. Making transactions, relaying them, validating them and storing them have negligible energy cost. Second, nothing about the Bitcoin protocol requires block production to use fossil fuels. Just like with every other energy-intensive industry, the problem isn't the industry. The problem is the fossil fuel use. Therefore, if you want to get mad about the high energy use of block production leading to environmental pollution, you should direct that anger at the appropriate target: miners who use fossil fuels to mine. How do we fix this? The same way we fixed it in every other energy-intensive industry: through taxes and regulation. Let's get some laws passed to require miners in your area to use only renewable energy, and to require exchanges to impose a carbon tax on coins whose miners rely on fossil fuels to mine. Properly applied, these laws would make fossil-fuel mining unprofitable, which is exactly what we want. Bitcoin and PoW aren't going anywhere at this point. So let's make sure it's continued existence doesn't make the world worse. Sound good?

AdrianB1 6y ago
It is impossible to regulate and tax miners; they live in various countries and in some it is impossible to apply such regulations, if some countries will do it then minim will move to other places. When you have an industry, you get a product that you can use. Mining energy consumption is just about how hard to make the mining, not a real limitation like in industry. It is like "let's make car building 3 times more energy consuming". No, there is no misdirected anger, there are good reasons.
- jude- 6y ago
  > It is impossible to regulate and tax miners; they live in various countries and in some it is impossible to apply such regulations, if some countries will do it then minim will move to other places. Other countries can sanction them until they figure out how to apply such regulations. This isn't unique to PoW; it happens for other such dangerous pollutants as well (like CFC emissions). > When you have an industry, you get a product that you can use. Mining energy consumption is just about how hard to make the mining, not a real limitation like in industry. It is like "let's make car building 3 times more energy consuming". Energy usage and product/market fit are both irrelevant to this discussion. What is important is the pollution PoW creates. If we can get a global handle on that (along with basically every other energy-intense industry), then it hardly matters that the energy is used for PoW. The point is to not pollute. > No, there is no misdirected anger, there are good reasons. You may not think Bitcoin has a right to exist, but it's not up to you, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. Love it or hate it, we're going to be living with it for likely a long, long time, so we might as well figure out a way to get a handle on the pollution it could cause.
lucb1e 6y ago
> Let's get some laws passed to require miners in your area to use only renewable energy Even if every major country on earth requires PoW systems to use renewable electricity (which won't happen any time soon in the first place) and can't run on the regular mixed grid, then after switching to countries without such laws (until there are none left), the renewable energy will be bought up at the source and the coal and gas plants will continue to supply everyone else. Nothing changes. We need to change everything else to renewable before this really starts to be effective. It would make a much bigger impact if some countries, where users want to use cryptocurrency, make it illegal to use proof-of-work-based goods or currencies (whatever it's classified as). Suddenly a coin with PoS or something else becomes much more popular and we might, perhaps, shift over to a digital coin that is not a climate disaster.
- jude- 6y ago
  > Even if every major country on earth requires PoW systems to use renewable electricity (which won't happen any time soon in the first place) and can't run on the regular mixed grid, then after switching to countries without such laws (until there are none left), the renewable energy will be bought up at the source and the coal and gas plants will continue to supply everyone else. Nothing changes. Never say never. Humanity has successfully banned itself from using CFCs in refrigerants, for example. I also agree that regulating pollution from PoW specifically isn't as high of a priority as, say, regulating pollution from coal-fired power plants or concrete production. But it's something that could, in theory, be regulated if we find the will to do so. And if we don't believe that we can regulate CO2 production, then we must also believe that humanity is doomed anyway, and thus PoW pollution ought to be beneath our concern. > We need to change everything else to renewable before this really starts to be effective. It would make a much bigger impact if some countries, where users want to use cryptocurrency, make it illegal to use proof-of-work-based goods or currencies (whatever it's classified as). Suddenly a coin with PoS or something else becomes much more popular and we might, perhaps, shift over to a digital coin that is not a climate disaster. Why stop there? Why not impose a global carbon tax on all goods and services known to produce pollution? Then it doesn't matter what the goods are or how the goods are procured; what matters is that CO2 concentration stays steady or goes down. My original point was to channel focus on what matters -- energy-intensive industries are in need of pollution regulation. But as you point out here, this need isn't specific to PoW.
wendyshu 6y ago
Fossil fuels are already taxed and regulated.

by jude- 6y ago

AdrianB1 6y ago

It is impossible to regulate and tax miners; they live in various countries and in some it is impossible to apply such regulations, if some countries will do it then minim will move to other places. When you have an industry, you get a product that you can use. Mining energy consumption is just about how hard to make the mining, not a real limitation like in industry. It is like "let's make car building 3 times more energy consuming". No, there is no misdirected anger, there are good reasons.

jude- 6y ago
> It is impossible to regulate and tax miners; they live in various countries and in some it is impossible to apply such regulations, if some countries will do it then minim will move to other places. Other countries can sanction them until they figure out how to apply such regulations. This isn't unique to PoW; it happens for other such dangerous pollutants as well (like CFC emissions). > When you have an industry, you get a product that you can use. Mining energy consumption is just about how hard to make the mining, not a real limitation like in industry. It is like "let's make car building 3 times more energy consuming". Energy usage and product/market fit are both irrelevant to this discussion. What is important is the pollution PoW creates. If we can get a global handle on that (along with basically every other energy-intense industry), then it hardly matters that the energy is used for PoW. The point is to not pollute. > No, there is no misdirected anger, there are good reasons. You may not think Bitcoin has a right to exist, but it's not up to you, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. Love it or hate it, we're going to be living with it for likely a long, long time, so we might as well figure out a way to get a handle on the pollution it could cause.

lucb1e 6y ago

> Let's get some laws passed to require miners in your area to use only renewable energy Even if every major country on earth requires PoW systems to use renewable electricity (which won't happen any time soon in the first place) and can't run on the regular mixed grid, then after switching to countries without such laws (until there are none left), the renewable energy will be bought up at the source and the coal and gas plants will continue to supply everyone else. Nothing changes. We need to change everything else to renewable before this really starts to be effective. It would make a much bigger impact if some countries, where users want to use cryptocurrency, make it illegal to use proof-of-work-based goods or currencies (whatever it's classified as). Suddenly a coin with PoS or something else becomes much more popular and we might, perhaps, shift over to a digital coin that is not a climate disaster.

jude- 6y ago
> Even if every major country on earth requires PoW systems to use renewable electricity (which won't happen any time soon in the first place) and can't run on the regular mixed grid, then after switching to countries without such laws (until there are none left), the renewable energy will be bought up at the source and the coal and gas plants will continue to supply everyone else. Nothing changes. Never say never. Humanity has successfully banned itself from using CFCs in refrigerants, for example. I also agree that regulating pollution from PoW specifically isn't as high of a priority as, say, regulating pollution from coal-fired power plants or concrete production. But it's something that could, in theory, be regulated if we find the will to do so. And if we don't believe that we can regulate CO2 production, then we must also believe that humanity is doomed anyway, and thus PoW pollution ought to be beneath our concern. > We need to change everything else to renewable before this really starts to be effective. It would make a much bigger impact if some countries, where users want to use cryptocurrency, make it illegal to use proof-of-work-based goods or currencies (whatever it's classified as). Suddenly a coin with PoS or something else becomes much more popular and we might, perhaps, shift over to a digital coin that is not a climate disaster. Why stop there? Why not impose a global carbon tax on all goods and services known to produce pollution? Then it doesn't matter what the goods are or how the goods are procured; what matters is that CO2 concentration stays steady or goes down. My original point was to channel focus on what matters -- energy-intensive industries are in need of pollution regulation. But as you point out here, this need isn't specific to PoW.

wendyshu 6y ago

Fossil fuels are already taxed and regulated.