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Bitcoin consumes more electricity than Argentina
- megous 6y agoSlightly terrifying thought is that given the distributed nature of the software, noone really controls this as a whole, by design. So how far can this go?
- bspammer 6y agoIf major countries started making its use illegal, its value would plummet and so would the incentive to mine. Not saying I hope that happens, just that it’s one route to stopping it.
- capableweb 6y agoAccording to who? If we assume normal supply/demand rules apply (because why wouldn't they?), the countries which ban bitcoin will have to buy bitcoin for a larger sum, to take into account that the trading is now illegal. Because the demand won't disappear just because you make it illegal, we've already seen how this works in practice with illicit drugs.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mytherin 6y agoDrugs have a purpose beyond trading. Currency does not. I fail to see how these are comparable.
- nostrebored 6y agoBecause drugs aren't a speculative good.
- sktrdie 6y agoYou could make it illegal, but there are ways to be completely anonymous and still use it, and have no way for anybody to know that you performed a transaction (not even governments). So fundamentally, sure making it illegal will make the hype less attractive, but it will continue being used for illegal activities and/or anybody who wants to transact without the government knowing. But it's fundamentally unstoppable, that's its main selling point.
- riffraff 6y ago> there are ways to be completely anonymous and still use it only if you stay within the ecosystem, but then the moment you want to spend money in real life you need to basically resort to money laundering. Now, that may not be a problem for some users, but it'd be a serious one for most people, and the price would plummet.
- viraptor 6y agoThere are other ways to kill that market - heavy regulation on crypto exchanges and regulation on high energy usage via environment laws. Users will go away if it's both unprofitable to use/mine and if they can't find a reasonable exchange.
- imtringued 6y ago> but it will continue being used for illegal activities and/or anybody who wants to transact without the government knowing. You're confusing Monero and Bitcoin. Those are completely different cryptocurrencies.
- PragmaticPulp 6y agoThe reality is that most Bitcoin users don’t use the blockchain and they don’t care to. They buy Bitcoin in their exchange like Coinbase or Robinhood, they watch the price in the exchange, and they sell in the exchange. Transaction fees are currently in the $8 range. Losing your password or having it phished away will irreversibly lose all funds. The average person doesn’t care about being their own bank. They only care about seeing the number go up, so they stick to exchanges. If the exchanges were cut off, Bitcoin would still exist. But the demand would disappear from average people, and the price would fall.
- is_true 6y agoI think the main use rn is to flight capital from countries with restrictions like China.
- whywhywhywhy 6y agoIf it's environmental impact justifies making it illegal what else could potentially be on the chopping block with the same logic? Videogames also run GPU hardware full pelt, so does creating the majority of what you see on the screen for a Marvel movie. How much of the worlds resources are burned daily encoding video for social media.
- PragmaticPulp 6y agoBitcoin is unique in that the system itself is designed to inefficiently burn energy doing deliberately useless proof of work. We can “whatabout” other energy consumers all day, but the bottom line is that everything else is incentivized to use a little energy as possible. Even your GPU example would only benefit from less energy consumption (less heat, faster clock speeds) Meanwhile, Bitcoin consumes more and more energy all of the time, without ever producing any more transactions.
- PurpleFoxy 6y agoThere is no reason to make Bitcoin illegal. Just set up a carbon tax at the amount it costs to remove carbon from the air and build renewables. At that point who cares what happens or how people use their resources.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- alloutblitz85 6y agoSuch a worthless fad.
- CaptArmchair 6y agoHm. This article is rather terse. > The energy it uses could power all kettles used in the UK for 27 years, it said. Comparisons like this only say "one thing consumes more power then another thing". But that's only the tip of the iceberg. It doesn't tell the whole story. The article doesn't go on to ask the bigger questions. What's the fraction of global power consumption that's dedicated to Bitcoin? What's the fraction of fossil fuel based versus renewable power consumed by Bitcoin? In what respects does Bitcoin power consumption affect pricing of power on the energy market? Does Bitcoin power consumption directly affect power availability in households and industries? How does this compare between different regions across the globe? Arguably, mining Bitcoinis going to have a massive environmental hit if a miner relies on power generated by a coal plant, or a hydrothermal plant. Two extreme examples come to mind would be a "dark" mining operation in a non-descript sub-urban building in mainland China, versus a mining operation in Iceland. To my mind, Bitcoin as a "power hog" isn't the primary issue. The big issue is energy production, delivery and consumption as a whole. Bitcoin is the business case that painfully shows the shortcomings and the inequities in today's energy markets. I think Bitcoin should prompt us to find answers to these questions. > "It turned around and spent $1.5bn on Bitcoin, which is mostly mined with electricity from coal. Their subsidy needs to be examined." That's just token support on the part of Tesla. Moreover, the problem with this criticism is that it attacks a brand, and does not address the underlying problem. Arguably, Tesla or Apple or Samsung could also be condemned for using natural resources such as rare metals which come with a massive environmental impact as well. All of that is - ultimately - an example of large private actors externalizing the costs, the impact, associated with their products and services towards society and the biosphere. And that's not a new tale. I think that Tesla buying $1.5bn in and of itself is rather inconsequential towards driving this notion home. In that regard, the article fails to show the bigger picture and inadvertently ends up painting investing in Bitcoin as "morally wrong". Something which - historically - has always been the case (see: Usury - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury). Only now, it uses a weird, nonsensical argument - "it could power all kettles used in the UK for 27 years" - to make that case.
- krageon 6y agoThank you for writing a comment about environmental impact that is actually well thought out. I really appreciate it.
- Farts_in_mouth 6y agoI am glad humans now have a money which cannot be manipulated by the energy production of any single country.
- geraldbauer 6y agoFor more articles on Bitcoin and Energy Consumption, see the Yes, Bitcoin is a Ponzi page [1] collecting many articles over the years on the gigantic CO2 and electronic waste environmental disaster. [1] https://github.com/openblockchains/bitcoin-ponzi https://github.com/openblockchains/bitcoin-ponzi
- lightgreen 6y ago> CO2 In many places Bitcoin is mined electricity is co2 free. Generally, there are no reasons why electricity needs to emit co2: nuclear power plants can produce enough electricity to power all bitcoins in the world. > electronic waste environmental disaster As well as any other consumption. Bought a new car while old one if still running? You damaged the environment. To reduce the damage to the environment, garbage tax can be introduced, so market can decide what’s more important and less damaging, bitcoins or a new PlayStation. Bitcoins might be useless, but don’t blame it for all the problems in the world.
- cbzbc 6y ago> In many places Bitcoin is mined electricity is co2 free. And that electricity could otherwise be used to displace the use of electricity that generates co2.
- lightgreen 6y agoNo, electricity cannot be efficiently transferred over large distances or where there are no power lines with enough capacity. In certain places unused electricity is just lost.
- diegocerdan 6y agoThe question that matters is: Does the existence of Bitcoin allow better coordination such that the global productivy raises 2%? And I would with no doubt answer: YES. Central Banks are distorting the function of Money and bringing economies to their knees. A decentralized and digital form of Money would force the system to self-heal.
- ChrisLomont 6y agoCan you cite an econ paper with that 2% claim? Economists would most certainly not have missed such a massive productivity factor. I'm guessing it's not true, nor anywhere near true, for such a tiny asset.
- zoobab 6y agoIf Bitcoin can replace banks, who are using our money to invest in fossil fuels, why not. And it is mined once, when all the coins are mined, the mining stops.
- forty 6y agoHow are the transactions going to be verified then? :)
- lanevorockz 6y agoThat likely makes Tesla carbon neutral, all the good things they made to the environment by pushing electric cars and now they put over a billion on energy waste.
- is_true 6y agoIsn't green public transport better for the environment than electric cars? I understand they went for cars because it's Elon's vision and he doesn't seem to be the kind of guy that would ride in the subway.
- Hamuko 6y agoDidn't Elon create the Boring Company to ride in a subway - albeit one where there is only one car and it's his car?
- PurpleFoxy 6y agoYes but getting Americans to use public transport is one of the worlds greatest challenges.
- Triv888 6y agoIf I had a Tesla, I might charge it using a coal-powered power plant...
- PragmaticPulp 6y agoDo you have a “charcoal-powered” power plant at your house? Or do you use the power grid like everyone else, which is a mix of sources that is gradually migrating to clean energy? If you had a fossil-fuel powered car, you would definitely burn fossil fuels to go anywhere. And every time you used the brakes, none of that energy would be re-captured. Suggesting that electric cars are bad because they might use some amount of fossil-fuel produced energy is a really bad false equivalency, and missing the point of electric cars.
- Triv888 6y ago
- simonebrunozzi 6y agoI wrote a blog post [0] on the subject of Bitcoin and pollution. Hope you like it. Tl;dr: I make the point that Bitcoin is mostly a store of value, and if it can replace Gold for that function, it would be great for the environment, as Gold mining and storing/trading pollutes far more. [0]: https://simon.medium.com/bitcoin-and-pollution-the-definitive-answer-a010b0826f2a https://simon.medium.com/bitcoin-and-pollution-the-definitiv...
- riffraff 6y agodiscussed yesterday https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26088455 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26088455
- brutuscat 6y ago> It’s pretty clear by now that, looking just at costs (without getting into the detail of the actual type of pollution), mining gold is ~50 times more expensive than mining bitcoins AND running the bitcoin network. Bitcoin pollutes far, far less than gold. > mining gold is ~50 times more expensive than mining bitcoins > It’s even harder to compare the type of pollution created by mining gold versus mining bitcoin. What’s easy to do is to simply state that mining gold is MUCH WORSE than mining bitcoins. Mining gold is an environmental disaster. Poisoned waters, solid waste, endangered communities, and so on. Producing gold for one wedding ring alone generates 20 tons of waste. https://simon.medium.com/bitcoin-and-pollution-the-definitive-answer-a010b0826f2a#8925 https://simon.medium.com/bitcoin-and-pollution-the-definitiv...
- cool_dude85 6y agoThis is taking the Bitcoin "mining" metaphor too far. The correct comparison for Bitcoin energy usage or environmental impact is obviously other software, not real-world mining. I mean, Bitcoin also produces less GHG than making concrete, but, so what?
- jpambrun 6y agoIt could be that mining gold solely to hold value and Bitcoin are both wasteful and of dubious moral quality.
- abiro 6y agoWhat's usually missing from these conversations is that the moment clean energy becomes cheaper than fossils, bitcoin miners will instantly switch to it. So yeah it's bad right now, but the problem will likely resolve itself (unlike in many other industries where there is significantly higher friction in switching to clean energy).
- mtsr 6y agoDriving up the price of clean energy that could be used for other applications instead... I don't know the net social value of bitcoin or how to compare it to other applications, but it's fair to be critical of it, at least.
- croon 6y agoThere's higher friction in industries to switching to cheaper electricity? But the question still stands: Is Argentina-levels of energy (now) whether "clean" or not, equal to not using something based around PoW and the inevitable burning of energy. (IMO) It's bad by design.
- abiro 6y agoI'm curious if there are other approaches to artificial scarcity of decentralized digital assets.
- block_dagger 6y agoIts design is based in thermodynamics and math. It’s the best design out there, regardless of what amount mostly to invalid comparisons based on misunderstanding the potential utility of BTC.
- croon 6y agoSo is monster truck design. That doesn't mean it's productive.
- viraptor 6y agoFor miners it's economical to expand into any energy source cheaper than the average used in the network. (Simplified) That means instead of making clean energy and using in houses, miners are first in line for the extra load on the cheap sources and we have to keep burning fossil fuels too support the load which existed before. That's not a path to resolving anything.
- narcissismo 6y agoYoutube consumes more electricity than South Africa. https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+total+power+consumption+of+youtube%3F https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+total+power+cons... https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+total+power+consumption+of+south+africa%3F https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+total+power+cons...
- contravariant 6y agoThough youtube is mostly doing 'useful' work in the process, bitcoins consume energy by existing.
- whywhywhywhy 6y agoI presume most people who use Bitcoin consider the wealth made from it useful.
- walkingolof 6y agoDo people "use" bitcoins? Right now it seems like something your betting on will eventually be useful.
- PragmaticPulp 6y agoBitcoin holders don’t want Bitcoin to be useful for spending or transacting, or even selling. Previous attempts to increase the block size, a trivial modification, have failed to gain traction. They only want Bitcoin useful for two things: Buying and holding. These actions drive the price up. As long as no one is using or selling Bitcoin, the price stays high. Between the high transaction fees ($8 right now), the deflationary nature, and the “HODL” narrative, everything about Bitcoin was designed to disincentivize actually using it. It’s designed for hoarding and speculating.
- jpambrun 6y agoThis true for everyone who profited from pollution such as many oil tycoon/deforestation/etc, but they are not typically held in high regards.
- EdwinLarkin 6y agoBTC actually has a purpose unlike many many other software products that are just pure waste and net loss to society (FB).
- Hamuko 6y agoYeah, it's purposefully wasting energy. Facebook is only incidentally wasting energy as a side effect.
- Ariez 6y agoPerhaps you should compare the usefulness of bitcoin versus Facebook when you consider the energy usage of both, intentional or otherwise.
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- xnx 6y agoTax carbon when it's extracted and we wouldn't need to debate the utility of its various uses.