11 ms·

I am so conflicted about the environmental impact of Proof-Of-Work. In many ways it feels like an arbitrary energy spend - but I think criticizing cryptocurrenc

by reedf1 6y ago

I am so conflicted about the environmental impact of Proof-Of-Work. In many ways it feels like an arbitrary energy spend - but I think criticizing cryptocurrency for it seems a little disingenuous when we don't apply the same logic to other areas. What's the environmental impact of better refresh rates on monitors? What's the environmental impact of large scale cctv systems? What's the environmental impact of western-style mattresses?

ForHackernews 6y ago
No other systems I know of are deliberately designed to continuously become less efficient. That's why Bitcoin/PoW is in a different category to me: It's a Red Queen's Race where all the miners are incentivized to keep wasting more and more energy (for no greater benefit) or else risk that somebody else can execute a 51% attack. Imagine if your email host needed to keep burning more and more energy, not to send any more emails, but because if they ever backed off, somebody else could steal your email address from you.
- djbebs 6y ago
  Except they are not incentivised to expend more and more energy. The amount of energy expended is a direct correlation to how important bitcoin is. You wouldn't criticize a government for spending millions keeping ita gold reserves safe, even though it can store them just as easily in a warehouse as it can in fort knox
  - ForHackernews 6y ago
    This is a completely bogus analogy. Even if I accepted that bitcoin was analogous to gold (hint: it's not), the government secures Ft. Knox to whatever level of security it feels appropriate, and then it's done/maintained at that level. It's not like Russia adds one more guard to their gold vault, the US has to keep pace or else if Russia has 51% more guards outside their vault, then by magic they can suddenly steal/double-spend gold. Do bitcoin folks really not understand this, or are they all just pretending to be blind because they hope it will make them rich?
    - fvdessen 6y ago
      A country cannot hold a significant amount of cash/gold/value without spending the appropriate amount on military defence to deter other countries from seizing the value. The armed guards at Ft. Knox is a small amount of the total expense, the aircraft carriers also participate at least in part.
      - lottin 6y ago
        The army isn't just protecting the gold. It's protecting the country and everything that's in it, including the gold of course.
  - rebuilder 6y ago
    How secure does the Bitcoin network need to be? What mechanism exists to determine that? Rhetorical question, BTW. There is no market mechanism that determines what is sufficient security. This should become clear if one looks at what the network is choosing to pay the miners who secure transactions. The block reward is now 12.6% of what it originally was, and tx fees have certainly not gone up correspondingly. So is the network now undersecured? Or was it previously overpaying for security? Again, rhetorical questions - the users of the network aren't paying for security, they're paying to have their transactions processed and have no choice but to subsidize the miners with the block reward as well. As far as how much security is needed goes, the Bitcoin answer is simply "more is more." But in the future, as the block reward dwindles, won't market forces start to price in security? I'm sceptical, personally, because the only gauge of whether or not the network is paying its miners enough is whether or not the network works. So if, in the process of finding the proper price of security, the market goes too low, attacks will be possible and the price of BTC will likely suffer as a consequence. This would make it less attractive to mine BTC and less attractive to use BTC. You can see how this could lead to a downward spiral.
    - Geee 6y ago
      Answers to those questions are not yet known. The price competition between different cryptocurrencies should be the necessary market mechanism. Someone has to pay the price of mining, and if mining is not necessary, then it's not going to be paid. If it can be proven that the same security can be achieved with less mining, then either the Bitcoin protocol is updated, or a Bitcoin fork will become more valuable (and that fork will be named Bitcoin). There are lots of cryptocurrencies which have infinite supply, which means that the mining rewards will keep the network running. For example Ethereum, Monero, Dogecoin and Grin. Bitcoin will rely on transaction costs, but it doesn't provide fully deterministic security as far as I know.
      - rebuilder 6y ago
        I don't quite see how price competition between cryptos is a mechanism that optimizes security spending, unless you mean that cryptos that fail security will crash and burn. As for mining, it is necessary for reasons that have nothing to do with security. If you want to send a tx, you will pay a fee or perhaps hope for a kind miner to include your spend in a block. In no way are you signaling how much you think the Bitcoin network should spend on security.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
  - cecja 6y ago
    You Sir are retarded :)
- pizza234 6y ago
  > No other systems I know of are deliberately designed to continuously become less efficient. Well, there are - think of bcrypt :) It actually fits exactly the definition of design that deliberately becomes less efficient. Ultimately it's a matter of the perceived cost/benefit - encryption is deemed necessary, so the benefits [perceived] offset the costs, while the cryptocurrencies' benefits don't (or do, depending on the opinion).
  - ForHackernews 6y ago
    BCrypt is designed to BE inefficient. It doesn't automatically become increasingly less efficient.
- bouncycastle 6y ago
  > or else risk that somebody else can execute a 51% attack No, they aren't motivated by that. They are motivated purely by profit. If more miners start mining, the difficulty goes up, and therefore profit goes down. So they need to keep adding more machines. The price is driving this cycle too. The current hashrate & difficulty are at their ATH levels. (Edited)
  - ForHackernews 6y ago
    Potato/potato The bitcoin advocates like to pretend this is somehow about "securing the network" instead of pure greed, but it doesn't matter either way. Even if we take them at their word, the miners have to keep pouring in more and more energy or risk a 51% attack.
    - bouncycastle 6y ago
      No, that's incorrect. More energy does not mean more secure, and it's a common fallacy in bitcoin. If you read bitcoin.pdf, the security depends on the % of miners that are honest. In a nutshell, more energy just means that the "difficulty" goes up, i.e more hashes are required, but that's nothing to do with security.
- Dma54rhs 6y ago
  All the major industries are built on people consuming and buying more, from clothes to phones. They give power ratings for electronics themselves but that is for that one unit not how they expect you to keep buying more and more. We could ban tons of industries if we wanted to and life would go on, it's difficult to say what deserves the energy spent and what not.
  - lottin 6y ago
    An industry can simultaneously increase its output and be more efficient. Look up 'efficiency'.
powvans 6y ago
What’s the environmental impact of Zoom running away with my CPU? What about Chrome? I’ve finally accepted that I have to switch to Firefox because of Chrome’s performance problems. Apple and Intel and thermals are a know problem, but Chrome is awful too. There seems to be some sort of problematic interaction between MacOS, Chrome, and Google’s software updater that triggers runaway CPU usage. See: https://mobile.twitter.com/lorenb/timelines/1338892756752732169 https://mobile.twitter.com/lorenb/timelines/1338892756752732... If there’s a flaw here that turns millions of computers into space heaters, what’s the impact? Inefficiency is all around us. The Bitcoin inefficiency is by design and it’s a big part of why Bitcoin works. On the other hand, it feels like the paper clip game; eventually all matter in the universe will be converted into energy to mine Bitcoin.
- dralley 6y ago
  A single bitcoin transaction (amortized) uses as much electricity as an entire house uses (on average) in more than 2 days. This is like saying why should a massive agricultural project worry about saving water when your uncle Steve leaves the sink running while brushing his teeth. Or complaining about a splinter while impaled on a 2x4. The scale of the inefficiency is so large as to be difficult to truly comprehend.
  - NullPrefix 6y ago
    >A single bitcoin transaction (amortized) uses as much electricity as an entire house uses (on average) in more than 2 days. That could be true, but how much energy does the finance world consumes through all the quantitative easings and other shenanigans? I doubt it's even possible to burn that worth of energy in electricity.
    - godlikeNoob 6y ago
      quantitative easing -> Needed to ward off a recession as seen fit by most of the economists ... Not saying it's efficient / needed, can't say anything for sure since I am a lowly dev and not a world class economist This whole concept of bitcoin having value just because it's finite is asinine ... The whole world used gold standard and there was a reason the US and other nations got rid of it after WWI. Comparing bitcoin's energy usage to traditional financial systems makes zero sense, mainly because traditional financial systems have a much bigger purpose. I'll never buy any goods or services with my bitcoin because of the upside potential and I'll never accept payments in bitcoin because of the downside risk.
ComodoHacker 6y ago
Perhaps it's more reasonable to compare the energy footprint of cryptocurrency with that of our traditional fiat currencies. Including all computing power used by banks to settle their transactions.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  You really also need to include the entire military budget (and eco damage) as that's what props up the state, which backs the fiat.
  - analog31 6y ago
    The military budget also props up the energy supply for bitcoin mining.
    - solosoyokaze 6y ago
      Bitcoin can be mined with any available resource, even by hand (although that's clearly not ideal).
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - minitoar 6y ago
        How many people would use Bitcoin in this scenario? I reckon so few as to render it worthless. Ergo, Bitcoin requires the same expensive infrastructure as our fiat banking.
        solosoyokaze 6y ago
        "This scenario" being the complete disbanding of the US military? I imagine everyone would be using crypto at that point since there would be no USD.
        6y ago
yrgulation 6y ago
I see a lot of whataboutism when debating crypto currency issues. We assess the env impact of everything you just listed - monitors and cctv have energy ratings, and if you google for eco friendly mattresses you will see there is a lot going on in that area as well. So, really, whats the issue with making sure cryptos are energy efficient?
- lottin 6y ago
  I imagine the scale of the problem is much bigger.
ryanmarsh 6y ago
How do you feel about the externalities of central banks and oligarchs?

by reedf1 6y ago

ForHackernews 6y ago

No other systems I know of are deliberately designed to continuously become less efficient. That's why Bitcoin/PoW is in a different category to me: It's a Red Queen's Race where all the miners are incentivized to keep wasting more and more energy (for no greater benefit) or else risk that somebody else can execute a 51% attack. Imagine if your email host needed to keep burning more and more energy, not to send any more emails, but because if they ever backed off, somebody else could steal your email address from you.

djbebs 6y ago
Except they are not incentivised to expend more and more energy. The amount of energy expended is a direct correlation to how important bitcoin is. You wouldn't criticize a government for spending millions keeping ita gold reserves safe, even though it can store them just as easily in a warehouse as it can in fort knox
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  This is a completely bogus analogy. Even if I accepted that bitcoin was analogous to gold (hint: it's not), the government secures Ft. Knox to whatever level of security it feels appropriate, and then it's done/maintained at that level. It's not like Russia adds one more guard to their gold vault, the US has to keep pace or else if Russia has 51% more guards outside their vault, then by magic they can suddenly steal/double-spend gold. Do bitcoin folks really not understand this, or are they all just pretending to be blind because they hope it will make them rich?
  - fvdessen 6y ago
    A country cannot hold a significant amount of cash/gold/value without spending the appropriate amount on military defence to deter other countries from seizing the value. The armed guards at Ft. Knox is a small amount of the total expense, the aircraft carriers also participate at least in part.
    - lottin 6y ago
      The army isn't just protecting the gold. It's protecting the country and everything that's in it, including the gold of course.
- rebuilder 6y ago
  How secure does the Bitcoin network need to be? What mechanism exists to determine that? Rhetorical question, BTW. There is no market mechanism that determines what is sufficient security. This should become clear if one looks at what the network is choosing to pay the miners who secure transactions. The block reward is now 12.6% of what it originally was, and tx fees have certainly not gone up correspondingly. So is the network now undersecured? Or was it previously overpaying for security? Again, rhetorical questions - the users of the network aren't paying for security, they're paying to have their transactions processed and have no choice but to subsidize the miners with the block reward as well. As far as how much security is needed goes, the Bitcoin answer is simply "more is more." But in the future, as the block reward dwindles, won't market forces start to price in security? I'm sceptical, personally, because the only gauge of whether or not the network is paying its miners enough is whether or not the network works. So if, in the process of finding the proper price of security, the market goes too low, attacks will be possible and the price of BTC will likely suffer as a consequence. This would make it less attractive to mine BTC and less attractive to use BTC. You can see how this could lead to a downward spiral.
  - Geee 6y ago
    Answers to those questions are not yet known. The price competition between different cryptocurrencies should be the necessary market mechanism. Someone has to pay the price of mining, and if mining is not necessary, then it's not going to be paid. If it can be proven that the same security can be achieved with less mining, then either the Bitcoin protocol is updated, or a Bitcoin fork will become more valuable (and that fork will be named Bitcoin). There are lots of cryptocurrencies which have infinite supply, which means that the mining rewards will keep the network running. For example Ethereum, Monero, Dogecoin and Grin. Bitcoin will rely on transaction costs, but it doesn't provide fully deterministic security as far as I know.
    - rebuilder 6y ago
      I don't quite see how price competition between cryptos is a mechanism that optimizes security spending, unless you mean that cryptos that fail security will crash and burn. As for mining, it is necessary for reasons that have nothing to do with security. If you want to send a tx, you will pay a fee or perhaps hope for a kind miner to include your spend in a block. In no way are you signaling how much you think the Bitcoin network should spend on security.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
- cecja 6y ago
  You Sir are retarded :)
pizza234 6y ago
> No other systems I know of are deliberately designed to continuously become less efficient. Well, there are - think of bcrypt :) It actually fits exactly the definition of design that deliberately becomes less efficient. Ultimately it's a matter of the perceived cost/benefit - encryption is deemed necessary, so the benefits [perceived] offset the costs, while the cryptocurrencies' benefits don't (or do, depending on the opinion).
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  BCrypt is designed to BE inefficient. It doesn't automatically become increasingly less efficient.
bouncycastle 6y ago
> or else risk that somebody else can execute a 51% attack No, they aren't motivated by that. They are motivated purely by profit. If more miners start mining, the difficulty goes up, and therefore profit goes down. So they need to keep adding more machines. The price is driving this cycle too. The current hashrate & difficulty are at their ATH levels. (Edited)
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  Potato/potato The bitcoin advocates like to pretend this is somehow about "securing the network" instead of pure greed, but it doesn't matter either way. Even if we take them at their word, the miners have to keep pouring in more and more energy or risk a 51% attack.
  - bouncycastle 6y ago
    No, that's incorrect. More energy does not mean more secure, and it's a common fallacy in bitcoin. If you read bitcoin.pdf, the security depends on the % of miners that are honest. In a nutshell, more energy just means that the "difficulty" goes up, i.e more hashes are required, but that's nothing to do with security.
Dma54rhs 6y ago
All the major industries are built on people consuming and buying more, from clothes to phones. They give power ratings for electronics themselves but that is for that one unit not how they expect you to keep buying more and more. We could ban tons of industries if we wanted to and life would go on, it's difficult to say what deserves the energy spent and what not.
- lottin 6y ago
  An industry can simultaneously increase its output and be more efficient. Look up 'efficiency'.

powvans 6y ago

What’s the environmental impact of Zoom running away with my CPU? What about Chrome? I’ve finally accepted that I have to switch to Firefox because of Chrome’s performance problems. Apple and Intel and thermals are a know problem, but Chrome is awful too. There seems to be some sort of problematic interaction between MacOS, Chrome, and Google’s software updater that triggers runaway CPU usage. See: https://mobile.twitter.com/lorenb/timelines/1338892756752732169 https://mobile.twitter.com/lorenb/timelines/1338892756752732... If there’s a flaw here that turns millions of computers into space heaters, what’s the impact? Inefficiency is all around us. The Bitcoin inefficiency is by design and it’s a big part of why Bitcoin works. On the other hand, it feels like the paper clip game; eventually all matter in the universe will be converted into energy to mine Bitcoin.

dralley 6y ago
A single bitcoin transaction (amortized) uses as much electricity as an entire house uses (on average) in more than 2 days. This is like saying why should a massive agricultural project worry about saving water when your uncle Steve leaves the sink running while brushing his teeth. Or complaining about a splinter while impaled on a 2x4. The scale of the inefficiency is so large as to be difficult to truly comprehend.
- NullPrefix 6y ago
  >A single bitcoin transaction (amortized) uses as much electricity as an entire house uses (on average) in more than 2 days. That could be true, but how much energy does the finance world consumes through all the quantitative easings and other shenanigans? I doubt it's even possible to burn that worth of energy in electricity.
  - godlikeNoob 6y ago
    quantitative easing -> Needed to ward off a recession as seen fit by most of the economists ... Not saying it's efficient / needed, can't say anything for sure since I am a lowly dev and not a world class economist This whole concept of bitcoin having value just because it's finite is asinine ... The whole world used gold standard and there was a reason the US and other nations got rid of it after WWI. Comparing bitcoin's energy usage to traditional financial systems makes zero sense, mainly because traditional financial systems have a much bigger purpose. I'll never buy any goods or services with my bitcoin because of the upside potential and I'll never accept payments in bitcoin because of the downside risk.

ComodoHacker 6y ago

Perhaps it's more reasonable to compare the energy footprint of cryptocurrency with that of our traditional fiat currencies. Including all computing power used by banks to settle their transactions.

solosoyokaze 6y ago
You really also need to include the entire military budget (and eco damage) as that's what props up the state, which backs the fiat.
- analog31 6y ago
  The military budget also props up the energy supply for bitcoin mining.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    Bitcoin can be mined with any available resource, even by hand (although that's clearly not ideal).
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - minitoar 6y ago
      How many people would use Bitcoin in this scenario? I reckon so few as to render it worthless. Ergo, Bitcoin requires the same expensive infrastructure as our fiat banking.
      - solosoyokaze 6y ago
        "This scenario" being the complete disbanding of the US military? I imagine everyone would be using crypto at that point since there would be no USD.
        6y ago

yrgulation 6y ago

I see a lot of whataboutism when debating crypto currency issues. We assess the env impact of everything you just listed - monitors and cctv have energy ratings, and if you google for eco friendly mattresses you will see there is a lot going on in that area as well. So, really, whats the issue with making sure cryptos are energy efficient?

lottin 6y ago
I imagine the scale of the problem is much bigger.

ryanmarsh 6y ago

How do you feel about the externalities of central banks and oligarchs?