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Lol, that the author isn't accounting for Bitcoins being used more than once makes this comparison one of the most laughable "bitcoin is too energy inefficient"
by cwkoss 6y ago
Lol, that the author isn't accounting for Bitcoins being used more than once makes this comparison one of the most laughable "bitcoin is too energy inefficient" arguments I've seen yet.
This is basically like saying, "If you only account for the first passenger on the bus, busses are way less efficient than everyone driving their own sportscar!".
- filleduchaos 6y agoEach subsequent transaction still uses a significant amount of energy, no?
- cwkoss 6y agoYeah, a better comparison would be energy usage per transaction, and completely disregard coin creation as a distinct kind of transaction (fundamentally, coin creation is just another transaction in the block). There are still many caveats and nuances when analyzing this number, but at least it would be a valid comparison.
- aeternum 6y agoThe miner hash power secures the blockchain and is independent of transaction rate. Increasing the transaction rate does not require any additional energy expenditure and transaction rate (block size) has already been increased twice since Bitcoin's inception. Dividing the total power consumption of bitcoin by the relatively small transaction rate makes for good headlines so I'd expect it to continue even though the two are unrelated.
- Triv888 6y agoAnd they verify many transactions each time they mine a block.
- EdSchouten 6y agoStill, how much energy would it take to print an equal amount of money in the form of banknotes?
- cwkoss 6y agoMore energy than printing 100x that quantity of Bitcoins on your own private chain
- africanboy 6y agoas a data point: the entire Bank of Italy consumes around 700Mw/year, 100% of them comes from renewable sources since 2015 (vs at least 100Tw for bitcoins, it's 140 thousand times less energy). the whole Bank of Italy emits 14.8 thousands tons of CO-2 a year, the equivalent of buying 185 Tesla in bitcoins.
- HDMI_Cable 6y agoHow many people are buying a Tesla in cash though?
- imtringued 6y agoIt's ironic considering the articles he links at the end actually hold more water: https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-mining-more-polluting-than-gold-mining https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-mining-more-polluting-than-... Gold mining is less energy intensive and produces more value.