4 ms·

If bitcoins price continues to rise, miners will be greatly incentivized to further decrease power costs. I hope this leads to innovation in clean power tech, e

If bitcoins price continues to rise, miners will be greatly incentivized to further decrease power costs. I hope this leads to innovation in clean power tech, especially in developing nations.

differentView 6y ago
If bitcoin price continues to rise, wouldn't the power cost become relatively smaller? Wouldn't miners care less?
- mlyle 6y ago
  The amount of money for a given amount of energy spent mining you get is effectively Bitcoin price / difficulty. If Bitcoin price goes up, then the return on energy gets greater. Therefore, it's worth it to spend more energy mining. Then difficulty rises and takes this incentive away, reaching a new equilibrium with more energy spent.
ohgodplsno 6y ago
Right. 60% of the hashrate in China, where 60% of the power comes from coal, to mine a useless coin. If miners could burn cyanide to mine, they would. They don't give a single shit about clean energy, just cheap energy
- vmception 6y ago
  so upwards of ~36% of Bitcoin mining is coal powered. yes, that fits all the estimates that Bitcoin mining is almost a supermajority using renewable energy at some plants and and curbing pollution as a sustainability solution at other plants.
  - ohgodplsno 6y ago
    1/ Bitcoin itself might be 100% on renewables. But it's still causing a need for non renewables to be used, to compensate for the fact that you're mining a useless coin. I'd rather have us use this energy in a useful way. 2/ Bitcoin is causing _more_ energy consumption. It's not curbing pollution, in any way. It's just grafting itself where the energy is cheap. Noone's building wind farms for bitcoin. 3/ If I cut off 36% (which is a low bound, other countries are not clean either) of your salary, go ahead and tell me it's okay because you still have the supermajority of it.
    - vmception 6y ago
      2/ at flare gas plants bitcoin is curbing pollution, and this helps the plants and the state meet their climate goals. yes their pursuit of cheap power is what takes them where they are, an economic incentive for sustainability solutions that 50 years of idealists never were able to consider and are now fighting to ignore because this solution doesnt decrease energy use. 3/ I’m not sure what you are saying here? Is this supposed to be an analogy to something? What happens if you get rid of that energy use? The bitcoin network will adapt to a lower difficulty rate... not sure what you think you’re saying here.
imtringued 6y ago
>If bitcoins price continues to rise, miners will be greatly incentivized to further decrease power costs. That's not how bitcoin works. The price of bitcoin is the budget you can spend on mining a single coin. If the price is higher, you can afford to run more miners. If the cost of electricity goes down, you can afford to run more miners. If the efficiency goes up, you can afford to run more miners. Running more miners increases the mining difficulty and you are back where you started. If Bitcoin is worth $50k people will destroy $50k of energy to acquire Bitcoin.
- whoanow 6y ago
  Miners are motivated by profit, if your cost of electricity is lower, your profit is higher. I’m not sure why you are trying to obfuscate that simple fact.
  - Supermancho 6y ago
    Miners are motivated by simple profit calculation, not R&D into energy generation. R&D has an unbounded capital risk, while bitcoin is a (relatively simple) statistical calculation of energy-cost which is a bounded cost (at any given time, within a range). Not a single bitcoin MINER is "greatly incentivized to further decrease power cost".
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    There are industries in much better positions to revolutionize energy production than bitcoin miners. In fact, there basically a single industry that doesn't have this incentive.
- banannaise 6y ago
  If bitcoin is worth $50k, people will destroy MORE than $50k of energy to acquire bitcoin, using resources that are subsidized either intentionally or unintentionally.

If bitcoins price continues to rise, miners will be greatly incentivized to further decrease power costs. I hope this leads to innovation in clean power tech, especially in developing nations.

differentView 6y ago

If bitcoin price continues to rise, wouldn't the power cost become relatively smaller? Wouldn't miners care less?

mlyle 6y ago
The amount of money for a given amount of energy spent mining you get is effectively Bitcoin price / difficulty. If Bitcoin price goes up, then the return on energy gets greater. Therefore, it's worth it to spend more energy mining. Then difficulty rises and takes this incentive away, reaching a new equilibrium with more energy spent.

ohgodplsno 6y ago

Right. 60% of the hashrate in China, where 60% of the power comes from coal, to mine a useless coin. If miners could burn cyanide to mine, they would. They don't give a single shit about clean energy, just cheap energy

vmception 6y ago
so upwards of ~36% of Bitcoin mining is coal powered. yes, that fits all the estimates that Bitcoin mining is almost a supermajority using renewable energy at some plants and and curbing pollution as a sustainability solution at other plants.
- ohgodplsno 6y ago
  1/ Bitcoin itself might be 100% on renewables. But it's still causing a need for non renewables to be used, to compensate for the fact that you're mining a useless coin. I'd rather have us use this energy in a useful way. 2/ Bitcoin is causing _more_ energy consumption. It's not curbing pollution, in any way. It's just grafting itself where the energy is cheap. Noone's building wind farms for bitcoin. 3/ If I cut off 36% (which is a low bound, other countries are not clean either) of your salary, go ahead and tell me it's okay because you still have the supermajority of it.
  - vmception 6y ago
    2/ at flare gas plants bitcoin is curbing pollution, and this helps the plants and the state meet their climate goals. yes their pursuit of cheap power is what takes them where they are, an economic incentive for sustainability solutions that 50 years of idealists never were able to consider and are now fighting to ignore because this solution doesnt decrease energy use. 3/ I’m not sure what you are saying here? Is this supposed to be an analogy to something? What happens if you get rid of that energy use? The bitcoin network will adapt to a lower difficulty rate... not sure what you think you’re saying here.

imtringued 6y ago

>If bitcoins price continues to rise, miners will be greatly incentivized to further decrease power costs. That's not how bitcoin works. The price of bitcoin is the budget you can spend on mining a single coin. If the price is higher, you can afford to run more miners. If the cost of electricity goes down, you can afford to run more miners. If the efficiency goes up, you can afford to run more miners. Running more miners increases the mining difficulty and you are back where you started. If Bitcoin is worth $50k people will destroy $50k of energy to acquire Bitcoin.

whoanow 6y ago
Miners are motivated by profit, if your cost of electricity is lower, your profit is higher. I’m not sure why you are trying to obfuscate that simple fact.
- Supermancho 6y ago
  Miners are motivated by simple profit calculation, not R&D into energy generation. R&D has an unbounded capital risk, while bitcoin is a (relatively simple) statistical calculation of energy-cost which is a bounded cost (at any given time, within a range). Not a single bitcoin MINER is "greatly incentivized to further decrease power cost".
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  There are industries in much better positions to revolutionize energy production than bitcoin miners. In fact, there basically a single industry that doesn't have this incentive.
banannaise 6y ago
If bitcoin is worth $50k, people will destroy MORE than $50k of energy to acquire bitcoin, using resources that are subsidized either intentionally or unintentionally.