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Bitcoin is now worth $50k – and it's ruining the planet faster than ever

44 points by dsr12 6y ago

BenoitP 6y ago
Why is it that these articles never mention halvings?
- tromp 6y ago
  Because within 3 or 4 halvings, transaction fees will dominate the block subsidy. Coupled with possible further price increases, this means Bitcoin will maintain its huge carbon footprint.
  - BenoitP 6y ago
    Well, in a balanced article that'd be something relevant to mention. I think too that transaction fees will dominate the block subsidy, but the effect of an eventually successful level 2 solution remain to be evaluated. Part of the fee pressure would be taken off by level 2 transactions. Whether that amounts to 0.01% (which should be close to the current amount) or to 99.99% (which would be the goal/opinion of a bitcoin maximalist) remains to be seen. There's also the argument that relieving fee pressure will boost adoption, and fees would remain the same. Anyway, back to my point: it should have been mentioned, and it never is. IMHO the goal of these articles is not to inform, but to modify or confirm the readers' opinion.
Ulrich2 6y ago
The core issue has nothing to do with Bitcoin: The environmental impact of "X" has to be priced into the product cost. That is a legal question at its core. I know that is easier said than done, but it is the only long term solution. CO2 certificates are one way to do it, and it already helps. *X= Air Travel, Bitcoin, Cement... whatever creates large amount of CO2 And while we are at it: Overfishing is another huge tragedy of the commons that needs more attention. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
- hkt 6y ago
  True, but the author is highlighting bitcoin as being a massive net contributor to CO2 emissions on a significant growth trend. It gets reported as "Bitcoin now uses more energy than $country" every once in a while now: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/27/bitcoin-mining-consumes-electricity-ireland https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/27/bitcoin-m... https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952 That differentiates it from air travel, cement, etc. It is a worrying trend, even more so than the prosaic stuff. Again, I don't disagree with the point you are making, but it seems remiss not to highlight the worst offenders.
  - Ulrich2 6y ago
    Fully agree. Interesting enough, global CO2 certificates would not affect Bitcoin at all (unlike air travel and cement). In the case of Bitcoin they would simply mean that the price per hash rate goes up for everyone, and therefore the difficulty is reduced. So... if Bitcoin can push politics to make better, more air(!)-tight rules for CO2 certificates faster, then it would be clearly have a net benefit for the world.
inglor_cz 6y ago
From the article. "Bitcoin is deeply colonial, deeply extractive, and deeply damaging to the environment and marginalized people around the world. This privileged crypto-colonialism almost exclusively benefits white men" While just a few paragraphs before that, the author states that most Bitcoin mining is now happening in China... I hate this neo-racist narrative so much, it sucks out oxygen and reason from every space it occupies. Is nowadays ecology subsumed under critical race theory? Can't you make an environmental argument without dumping on someone's skin color? At least the author does not try to argue that Bitcoin is intrinsically transphobic, I would frankly expect it to be added to the mix above.
- risyachka 6y ago
  It looks like the only reason for mentioning white men in the context of bitcoin is for the article to get some extra attention.
- zpeti 6y ago
  Just to be completely cynical about it, I think the author's aim is to get as much coverage and clicks as possible, and so is including every buzzword possible. Which of course in the current media climate means everything that you don't like is colonial and white supremacy.
- yoavm 6y ago
  I know nothing about who benefits from Bitcoin or where is it being mined, but isn't it plausible that group A is benefiting from asset X, while group B is mining it? If I'm not mistaken, that was the case with mining since pretty much forever...
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    Oh, yes, but in this case, probably for the first time in history, group B (miners) consists of computers, not people. Owners of said computers are part of group A, and they are unlikely to sell freshly mined Bitcoin under market value. It is probably impossible to map ethno-religious structure of Bitcoin trade exactly, given that it often serves to circumvent regulations and thus necessarily partly lives in the shadows. But a lot of Bitcoin-related activity happens in East Asia, so the participants aren't probably majority white.
perryizgr8 6y ago
The biggest problem I have with Bitcoin et al is not even the electricity consumption. It's that you can't even find decent GPUs at a decent price anymore. I have just given up on ever being able to buy a good RTX3070.
- zpeti 6y ago
  Buying a good cheap GPU is clearly colonialism, how dare you want to do that.
- Koiwai 6y ago
  I was in a similar spot, but after a bit of thinking I bought an overpriced (about $200 more than MSRP) RTX3090 instead, now the price extra I paid to the scalper are already paid by mining eth, and current RTX3090 price (from scalpers) is about $300 more (than what I've paid), I should have bought like 50 of them back then...
Koiwai 6y ago
"This privileged crypto-colonialism almost exclusively benefits white men"
- Koiwai 6y ago
  May I ask why I was downvoted?
  - Freak_NL 6y ago
    You posted a quote without context. If you wish to refute a point or support it, do so. Just posting the quote without stating your own opinion is meaningless and doesn't lead to any valuable discourse.
    - Koiwai 6y ago
      If you didn't get my point from that, I'm not able to help you.
  - exceltior 6y ago
    There is an anti bitcoin propaganda in this site and it's users...probably resentful in several ways.
exceltior 6y ago
BiTcoIn IS baD foR EnviroNment, in other news mining, centralized banks and others are very good... Bitcoin is bad for environment? Yes it is but did any of these critics ever bother to study or complain about all banks and mining industries around the world? I can guarantee you that these two other industries produce much more harm to the environment in several scales of magnitude than bitcoin Also, never seen such propaganda about those industries like they are doing to bitcoin...
- simonh 6y ago
  If we want to own stuff we need the materials to make it from (mines), and if we want to be able to earn money and buy stuff we need banks. We do not need Bitcon for anything.
- hkt 6y ago
  Yes, they did complain about the other stuff and still do.
  - exceltior 6y ago
    Show me a recent study about them with the same level of propaganda, than recent bitcoin studies that are coming out in every news outlet... I will be awaiting.
degif 6y ago
What are some examples contrary to Bitcoin of human made things that are high in monetary value, but low on total (creation, distribution and maintenance) environmental impact?
- practicalpants 6y ago
  This is a good point and I'm hard pressed to think of anything, but maybe concrete? It's actually very environmentally friendly, it just makes up like 30-50% of all things produced on earth so sums to a large CO2 footprint.
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  Music, art, literature are obvious examples.
AndrewSChapman 6y ago
Bitcoin is hugely problematic from an energy consumption point of view. Do we actually need it? Is there any mainstream use of it outside of speculation and gambling? Largely it seems to be a tool to make money, exploited by the rich and powerful with machine learning and automatic trades. If we really need a way to transact without using banks, there's alternatives that have massively lower energy footprints such as Nano. Do we need Bitcoin? Should there be regulations around digital currencies and energy usage given the state of play with global warming?
- katbyte 6y ago
  Buying drugs. Figured that was what most Bitcoin transactions were for
  - CyberDildonics 6y ago
    No one is using bitcoin for transactions since the average transaction fee is $28.
    - katbyte 6y ago
      are you sure? the first link when i googled this: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333388187_Sex_Drugs_and_Bitcoin_How_Much_Illegal_Activity_Is_Financed_through_Cryptocurrencies#:~:text=We%20estimate%20that%20around%20%2476,European%20markets%20for%20illegal%20drugs https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333388187_Sex_Drugs.... "We estimate that around $76 billion of illegal activity per year involve bitcoin (46% of bitcoin transactions), which is close to the scale of the U.S. and European markets for illegal drugs"
      - CyberDildonics 6y ago
        What you linked is dated June 2017
- gge 6y ago
  Why are you shilling Nano? No one uses it, and no one will ever use it.
cft 6y ago
There are two angles of attack on Bitcoin by the fiat printer operators: terrorist use and electricity consumption. Currently both are being tried to see what sticks, to justify the imminent regulatory action.
- frongpik 6y ago
  And white colonialism, as we've just learned from the article.
frongpik 6y ago
The article is a frankenstein of all cliches stitches together. You can reverse the order of words in it and it won't lose meaning, for its just a soup of emotions. Highly recommend to read it.
g42gregory 6y ago
I wish the people who are rightfully bringing up the negative environmental impact of Bitcoin would do two things: (1) never buy Bitcoin and (2) never work in the cryptocurrency Industry.
- 3np 6y ago
  I find this a very bad stance. Why not put efforts and research into theoretial solutions that square the triangle without the need for the costly PoW? Be the change you want in the world and all that.
wsc981 6y ago
From the article. > There is no physical, economic, or social justification for something like this. Personally I do feel there is very much an economic justification for Bitcoin to exist and to a lesser extent a social justification (privacy). Bitcoin allows people to keep their wealth outside of the hands of the government and I feel this is a good thing. Bitcoin makes it cheap and easy to transfer value to another country. Much cheaper compared to using banks with their crazy interbank currency conversion that is very expensive. Also, banks are often quite slow to do the transfers, especially in weekends. I like the facts that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can be traded 24-7. Again this to me is a good thing. The markets are always open. I don't like what Western central banks have been doing in the last few years: Quantitate Easing (QE). QE basically caused the rich to become richer and the poor to become poorer since most of the printed money arrived in the stock markets. And rich people own stocks. So rich people in turn might have rebalanced their portfolios by selling some stocks in order to buy property, causing property prices to increase as well. Inflation is visible in the stock and property markets. But wages at the same time have not grown much (if at all) in some countries for a very long time now. At least Bitcoin is doing the opposite - keep it in your wallet and its value grows. Now I am not sure if the Bitcoin approach is the best idea, to me it seems a very small consistent inflation (~2%) every year is a good thing - especially since wallets get lost and such, but I guess we'll see how it pans out. But ... perhaps it's a good thing in the long run to have a currency that increases in value if it's not being used. Such a currency might encourage saving and thus reduce consumption which might be good for the environment as well.
- pimterry 6y ago
  > Personally I do feel there is very much an economic justification for Bitcoin to exist and to a lesser extent a social justification (privacy). Does any of that apply if you compare bitcoin to other crypto alternatives, rather than traditional finance? Is there a justification for using Bitcoin over Celo, Stellar, Cardono, Ethereum (with proof-of-stake), etc, which don't have the same environmental impact?
  - wsc981 6y ago
    > Does any of that apply if you compare bitcoin to other crypto alternatives, rather than traditional finance? Not necessarily no, other cryptos might fill the gap fine as well.
exdsq 6y ago
I see a lot of these articles, but realise bitcoin is 'only' consuming half of the electricity of dormant (always on but inactive) devices in the US. This isn't taking into account the amount of green energy used in mining bitcoin, or the fact it could easily be powered entirely by green energy in the future. I do think it is a slightly overblown argument. Aside from that, there's the normal point that crypto is moving towards proof of stake which means you no longer use 'mining' to maintain the network which will stop this argument entirely, albeit bitcoin may not go this way itself. https://cbeci.org/cbeci/comparisons https://cbeci.org/cbeci/comparisons
yoavm 6y ago
I keep seeing statements both like "most electricity used to mine Bitcoin comes from fossil fuels" and like "Bitcoin is using 75% renewables". It seems like people just choose those that fits their agenda. I assume there really isn't a way to know what sources of energy Bitcoin mining is using, and how those sources were used if it wasn't for Bitcoin, right?
tomputer 6y ago
These "Bitcoin is using too much energy" articles are posted almost weekly here. With all the great minds in the world, instead of fighting and complaining, why hasn't anybody come up with something better than Proof-of-Work to keep Bitcoin alive? Bitcoin is open source, if there is something that can keep the network secure without using all the energy, feel free to submit a bitcoin improvement proposal (BIP). After all, if the world would agree and shutdown the Bitcoin network today, all the energy after all these years would "really" be wasted.
- Udo 6y ago
  Proof-of-work's advantage is that it was first and is thus the standard. It's not a good standard, but it'll be around for some time. > why hasn't anybody come up with something better In theory, anything with (artificial) scarcity could work, and not all crypto currencies are "energy credits". For example, you could trivially start a new crypto currency where all the coins already exist and from there on out it's just the energy of processing transactions. I don't think this could be tacked on to BTC as an improvement plan though. Bitcoin being an energy equivalent is just too entrenched in its DNA.
- Freak_NL 6y ago
  The energy invested is already wasted — it is literally proof of pointless work after all. If Bitcoin mining stopped tomorrow the world would see a net benefit. And saying 'patches welcome' is a cheap way to dismiss the criticism of Bitcoin being extremely wasteful. With the amount of money invested in Bitcoin now changing the way it works goes against the interests of so many Bitcoin investors that I doubt anyone can get it fixed even if a viable solution existed.
  - andirk 6y ago
    And the answer is always yes it is energy-intensive but when properly compared to its counterpart of fiat currency, it isn't that wasteful. Nonetheless, there are dozens of well-oiled projects out there that are less energy intensive that may marry with btc well.
ForHackernews 6y ago
This is a poor example of this genre of the article, but that doesn't make its conclusions wrong. For a better article covering similar ground: https://www.ft.com/content/a9bd5b42-272e-465c-9284-9fe2a7906f48 https://www.ft.com/content/a9bd5b42-272e-465c-9284-9fe2a7906... [1] Everyone in this thread parroting the usual lines about bitcoin[0] needs to explain why legacy environmentally destructive proof-of-work coins should not be superseded by vastly more efficient proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies. [0] "banks also have lights and computers", "it's mined with renewable energy", "something something secure the network" [1] bypass paywall https://crosat.com/the-environmental-idiocy-of-teslas-bitcoin-bet/ https://crosat.com/the-environmental-idiocy-of-teslas-bitcoi...
- frongpik 6y ago
  It's the conservation of momentum that prevents bitcoin from flopping. All those bitcoin owners holding a massive amount of wealth today won't just go home because someone said bitcoin is not optimal.
pimterry 6y ago
I find the most frustrating issue & the most compelling part of this argument to be the last: there are decent crypto alternatives that don't have this problem. You can find all sorts of people who will justify bitcoin for all its thrilling advantages over traditional finance, and explain why this ecological garbage fire is a good idea. I'm yet to find a single person who even tries to argue that bitcoin's advantages over other cryptos are worth the huge comparative cost. At the beginning of crypto, bitcoin was the only option. Today, bitcoin is successful purely because it has the highest price, and so the most opportunity to make random investors rich, rather than any technological advantage. When that price eventually crashes so that there's serious competition between crypto alternatives for usage & investment, I don't see how bitcoin can possibly survive without a huge reinvention.
AntiImperialist 6y ago
>In 2021, most Bitcoin is produced – mined – in China by massive computer servers solving unnecessarily complex math problems where subsidized coal-fired power plants produce some of the cheapest energy in the world. It’s a not-unlikely coincidence that a huge amount of Bitcoin is mined in Xinjiang province, the same place where Uighur Muslim minorities have been inflicted with horrific human rights abuses mining the very same coal used to create Bitcoin. The salty tears taste better with the rise of value of the coin. China is the biggest users of renewable energy in the world. For Bitcoin, they're using abandoned hydro plants and solar, for the most part. In Xinjiang, they're using wind power. China has a lot of minorities. So why are they targeting Uighurs? The Uighur Muslim minorities were radicalized by Middle Eastern allies of the US to act against Chinese interests. So, they had to intervene. Which is most likely what the US expected them to do, so that they could use this as a political propaganda by omitting obvious information.
jgeerts 6y ago
To put this in perspective, YouTube (243.6 tw/h) uses about double of Bitcoin's (124 tw/h) energy consumption, but there is no outrage about that. People care about the environment if it doesn't take away their comfort, airconditioning use is about 2000 tw/h globally, expected to triple in the next 30 years, some of the outrage on Bitcoin is being written in airconditioned rooms by people that drive combustion engine cars. If you compare Bitcoin's environmental footprint to the whole financial system with air cooled offices around the world, with equipment, server rooms it doesn't come close. A positive side of Bitcoin mining is that it's geographically independent and it can move to where they have too much energy which cannot be stored. In some cases the abundance of energy would be wasted through gas flaring which puts more CO2 into the atmosphere. Now they can get rid of their excessive energy and store it in the form of Bitcoin. * https://thefactsource.com/how-much-electricity-does-youtube-use/ https://thefactsource.com/how-much-electricity-does-youtube-... * https://research.arcane.no/news/equinor-partners-with-bitcoin-mining-company https://research.arcane.no/news/equinor-partners-with-bitcoi...
- lexa1979 6y ago
  THANK YOU !
- me_me_me 6y ago
  That's because this is a coordinated smear campaign that started shortly after US finance started signalling that they don't like BTC. I don't remember who it was. There was an official conference. Ever since then those BTC caused global warming are popping up every other day. I guess the terrorists and drug cartels angle is dead since Elon has now btc.
  - throwawayx1112 6y ago
    I've noticed this too, it's like a switch flipped.
    - me_me_me 6y ago
      more like a greyhounds had been released by the masters :) yapping and biting at the ankles

44 points by dsr12 6y ago

BenoitP 6y ago

Why is it that these articles never mention halvings?

tromp 6y ago
Because within 3 or 4 halvings, transaction fees will dominate the block subsidy. Coupled with possible further price increases, this means Bitcoin will maintain its huge carbon footprint.
- BenoitP 6y ago
  Well, in a balanced article that'd be something relevant to mention. I think too that transaction fees will dominate the block subsidy, but the effect of an eventually successful level 2 solution remain to be evaluated. Part of the fee pressure would be taken off by level 2 transactions. Whether that amounts to 0.01% (which should be close to the current amount) or to 99.99% (which would be the goal/opinion of a bitcoin maximalist) remains to be seen. There's also the argument that relieving fee pressure will boost adoption, and fees would remain the same. Anyway, back to my point: it should have been mentioned, and it never is. IMHO the goal of these articles is not to inform, but to modify or confirm the readers' opinion.

Ulrich2 6y ago

The core issue has nothing to do with Bitcoin: The environmental impact of "X" has to be priced into the product cost. That is a legal question at its core. I know that is easier said than done, but it is the only long term solution. CO2 certificates are one way to do it, and it already helps. *X= Air Travel, Bitcoin, Cement... whatever creates large amount of CO2 And while we are at it: Overfishing is another huge tragedy of the commons that needs more attention. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

hkt 6y ago
True, but the author is highlighting bitcoin as being a massive net contributor to CO2 emissions on a significant growth trend. It gets reported as "Bitcoin now uses more energy than $country" every once in a while now: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/27/bitcoin-mining-consumes-electricity-ireland https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/27/bitcoin-m... https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952 That differentiates it from air travel, cement, etc. It is a worrying trend, even more so than the prosaic stuff. Again, I don't disagree with the point you are making, but it seems remiss not to highlight the worst offenders.
- Ulrich2 6y ago
  Fully agree. Interesting enough, global CO2 certificates would not affect Bitcoin at all (unlike air travel and cement). In the case of Bitcoin they would simply mean that the price per hash rate goes up for everyone, and therefore the difficulty is reduced. So... if Bitcoin can push politics to make better, more air(!)-tight rules for CO2 certificates faster, then it would be clearly have a net benefit for the world.

inglor_cz 6y ago

From the article. "Bitcoin is deeply colonial, deeply extractive, and deeply damaging to the environment and marginalized people around the world. This privileged crypto-colonialism almost exclusively benefits white men" While just a few paragraphs before that, the author states that most Bitcoin mining is now happening in China... I hate this neo-racist narrative so much, it sucks out oxygen and reason from every space it occupies. Is nowadays ecology subsumed under critical race theory? Can't you make an environmental argument without dumping on someone's skin color? At least the author does not try to argue that Bitcoin is intrinsically transphobic, I would frankly expect it to be added to the mix above.

risyachka 6y ago
It looks like the only reason for mentioning white men in the context of bitcoin is for the article to get some extra attention.
zpeti 6y ago
Just to be completely cynical about it, I think the author's aim is to get as much coverage and clicks as possible, and so is including every buzzword possible. Which of course in the current media climate means everything that you don't like is colonial and white supremacy.
yoavm 6y ago
I know nothing about who benefits from Bitcoin or where is it being mined, but isn't it plausible that group A is benefiting from asset X, while group B is mining it? If I'm not mistaken, that was the case with mining since pretty much forever...
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  Oh, yes, but in this case, probably for the first time in history, group B (miners) consists of computers, not people. Owners of said computers are part of group A, and they are unlikely to sell freshly mined Bitcoin under market value. It is probably impossible to map ethno-religious structure of Bitcoin trade exactly, given that it often serves to circumvent regulations and thus necessarily partly lives in the shadows. But a lot of Bitcoin-related activity happens in East Asia, so the participants aren't probably majority white.

perryizgr8 6y ago

The biggest problem I have with Bitcoin et al is not even the electricity consumption. It's that you can't even find decent GPUs at a decent price anymore. I have just given up on ever being able to buy a good RTX3070.

zpeti 6y ago
Buying a good cheap GPU is clearly colonialism, how dare you want to do that.
Koiwai 6y ago
I was in a similar spot, but after a bit of thinking I bought an overpriced (about $200 more than MSRP) RTX3090 instead, now the price extra I paid to the scalper are already paid by mining eth, and current RTX3090 price (from scalpers) is about $300 more (than what I've paid), I should have bought like 50 of them back then...

Koiwai 6y ago

"This privileged crypto-colonialism almost exclusively benefits white men"

Koiwai 6y ago
May I ask why I was downvoted?
- Freak_NL 6y ago
  You posted a quote without context. If you wish to refute a point or support it, do so. Just posting the quote without stating your own opinion is meaningless and doesn't lead to any valuable discourse.
  - Koiwai 6y ago
    If you didn't get my point from that, I'm not able to help you.
- exceltior 6y ago
  There is an anti bitcoin propaganda in this site and it's users...probably resentful in several ways.

exceltior 6y ago

BiTcoIn IS baD foR EnviroNment, in other news mining, centralized banks and others are very good... Bitcoin is bad for environment? Yes it is but did any of these critics ever bother to study or complain about all banks and mining industries around the world? I can guarantee you that these two other industries produce much more harm to the environment in several scales of magnitude than bitcoin Also, never seen such propaganda about those industries like they are doing to bitcoin...

simonh 6y ago
If we want to own stuff we need the materials to make it from (mines), and if we want to be able to earn money and buy stuff we need banks. We do not need Bitcon for anything.
hkt 6y ago
Yes, they did complain about the other stuff and still do.
- exceltior 6y ago
  Show me a recent study about them with the same level of propaganda, than recent bitcoin studies that are coming out in every news outlet... I will be awaiting.

degif 6y ago

What are some examples contrary to Bitcoin of human made things that are high in monetary value, but low on total (creation, distribution and maintenance) environmental impact?

practicalpants 6y ago
This is a good point and I'm hard pressed to think of anything, but maybe concrete? It's actually very environmentally friendly, it just makes up like 30-50% of all things produced on earth so sums to a large CO2 footprint.
ForHackernews 6y ago
Music, art, literature are obvious examples.

AndrewSChapman 6y ago

Bitcoin is hugely problematic from an energy consumption point of view. Do we actually need it? Is there any mainstream use of it outside of speculation and gambling? Largely it seems to be a tool to make money, exploited by the rich and powerful with machine learning and automatic trades. If we really need a way to transact without using banks, there's alternatives that have massively lower energy footprints such as Nano. Do we need Bitcoin? Should there be regulations around digital currencies and energy usage given the state of play with global warming?

katbyte 6y ago
Buying drugs. Figured that was what most Bitcoin transactions were for
- CyberDildonics 6y ago
  No one is using bitcoin for transactions since the average transaction fee is $28.
  - katbyte 6y ago
    are you sure? the first link when i googled this: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333388187_Sex_Drugs_and_Bitcoin_How_Much_Illegal_Activity_Is_Financed_through_Cryptocurrencies#:~:text=We%20estimate%20that%20around%20%2476,European%20markets%20for%20illegal%20drugs https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333388187_Sex_Drugs.... "We estimate that around $76 billion of illegal activity per year involve bitcoin (46% of bitcoin transactions), which is close to the scale of the U.S. and European markets for illegal drugs"
    - CyberDildonics 6y ago
      What you linked is dated June 2017
gge 6y ago
Why are you shilling Nano? No one uses it, and no one will ever use it.

cft 6y ago

There are two angles of attack on Bitcoin by the fiat printer operators: terrorist use and electricity consumption. Currently both are being tried to see what sticks, to justify the imminent regulatory action.

frongpik 6y ago
And white colonialism, as we've just learned from the article.

frongpik 6y ago

The article is a frankenstein of all cliches stitches together. You can reverse the order of words in it and it won't lose meaning, for its just a soup of emotions. Highly recommend to read it.

g42gregory 6y ago

I wish the people who are rightfully bringing up the negative environmental impact of Bitcoin would do two things: (1) never buy Bitcoin and (2) never work in the cryptocurrency Industry.

3np 6y ago
I find this a very bad stance. Why not put efforts and research into theoretial solutions that square the triangle without the need for the costly PoW? Be the change you want in the world and all that.

wsc981 6y ago

From the article. > There is no physical, economic, or social justification for something like this. Personally I do feel there is very much an economic justification for Bitcoin to exist and to a lesser extent a social justification (privacy). Bitcoin allows people to keep their wealth outside of the hands of the government and I feel this is a good thing. Bitcoin makes it cheap and easy to transfer value to another country. Much cheaper compared to using banks with their crazy interbank currency conversion that is very expensive. Also, banks are often quite slow to do the transfers, especially in weekends. I like the facts that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can be traded 24-7. Again this to me is a good thing. The markets are always open. I don't like what Western central banks have been doing in the last few years: Quantitate Easing (QE). QE basically caused the rich to become richer and the poor to become poorer since most of the printed money arrived in the stock markets. And rich people own stocks. So rich people in turn might have rebalanced their portfolios by selling some stocks in order to buy property, causing property prices to increase as well. Inflation is visible in the stock and property markets. But wages at the same time have not grown much (if at all) in some countries for a very long time now. At least Bitcoin is doing the opposite - keep it in your wallet and its value grows. Now I am not sure if the Bitcoin approach is the best idea, to me it seems a very small consistent inflation (~2%) every year is a good thing - especially since wallets get lost and such, but I guess we'll see how it pans out. But ... perhaps it's a good thing in the long run to have a currency that increases in value if it's not being used. Such a currency might encourage saving and thus reduce consumption which might be good for the environment as well.

pimterry 6y ago
> Personally I do feel there is very much an economic justification for Bitcoin to exist and to a lesser extent a social justification (privacy). Does any of that apply if you compare bitcoin to other crypto alternatives, rather than traditional finance? Is there a justification for using Bitcoin over Celo, Stellar, Cardono, Ethereum (with proof-of-stake), etc, which don't have the same environmental impact?
- wsc981 6y ago
  > Does any of that apply if you compare bitcoin to other crypto alternatives, rather than traditional finance? Not necessarily no, other cryptos might fill the gap fine as well.

exdsq 6y ago

I see a lot of these articles, but realise bitcoin is 'only' consuming half of the electricity of dormant (always on but inactive) devices in the US. This isn't taking into account the amount of green energy used in mining bitcoin, or the fact it could easily be powered entirely by green energy in the future. I do think it is a slightly overblown argument. Aside from that, there's the normal point that crypto is moving towards proof of stake which means you no longer use 'mining' to maintain the network which will stop this argument entirely, albeit bitcoin may not go this way itself. https://cbeci.org/cbeci/comparisons https://cbeci.org/cbeci/comparisons

yoavm 6y ago

I keep seeing statements both like "most electricity used to mine Bitcoin comes from fossil fuels" and like "Bitcoin is using 75% renewables". It seems like people just choose those that fits their agenda. I assume there really isn't a way to know what sources of energy Bitcoin mining is using, and how those sources were used if it wasn't for Bitcoin, right?

tomputer 6y ago

These "Bitcoin is using too much energy" articles are posted almost weekly here. With all the great minds in the world, instead of fighting and complaining, why hasn't anybody come up with something better than Proof-of-Work to keep Bitcoin alive? Bitcoin is open source, if there is something that can keep the network secure without using all the energy, feel free to submit a bitcoin improvement proposal (BIP). After all, if the world would agree and shutdown the Bitcoin network today, all the energy after all these years would "really" be wasted.

Udo 6y ago
Proof-of-work's advantage is that it was first and is thus the standard. It's not a good standard, but it'll be around for some time. > why hasn't anybody come up with something better In theory, anything with (artificial) scarcity could work, and not all crypto currencies are "energy credits". For example, you could trivially start a new crypto currency where all the coins already exist and from there on out it's just the energy of processing transactions. I don't think this could be tacked on to BTC as an improvement plan though. Bitcoin being an energy equivalent is just too entrenched in its DNA.
Freak_NL 6y ago
The energy invested is already wasted — it is literally proof of pointless work after all. If Bitcoin mining stopped tomorrow the world would see a net benefit. And saying 'patches welcome' is a cheap way to dismiss the criticism of Bitcoin being extremely wasteful. With the amount of money invested in Bitcoin now changing the way it works goes against the interests of so many Bitcoin investors that I doubt anyone can get it fixed even if a viable solution existed.
- andirk 6y ago
  And the answer is always yes it is energy-intensive but when properly compared to its counterpart of fiat currency, it isn't that wasteful. Nonetheless, there are dozens of well-oiled projects out there that are less energy intensive that may marry with btc well.

ForHackernews 6y ago

This is a poor example of this genre of the article, but that doesn't make its conclusions wrong. For a better article covering similar ground: https://www.ft.com/content/a9bd5b42-272e-465c-9284-9fe2a7906f48 https://www.ft.com/content/a9bd5b42-272e-465c-9284-9fe2a7906... [1] Everyone in this thread parroting the usual lines about bitcoin[0] needs to explain why legacy environmentally destructive proof-of-work coins should not be superseded by vastly more efficient proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies. [0] "banks also have lights and computers", "it's mined with renewable energy", "something something secure the network" [1] bypass paywall https://crosat.com/the-environmental-idiocy-of-teslas-bitcoin-bet/ https://crosat.com/the-environmental-idiocy-of-teslas-bitcoi...

frongpik 6y ago
It's the conservation of momentum that prevents bitcoin from flopping. All those bitcoin owners holding a massive amount of wealth today won't just go home because someone said bitcoin is not optimal.

pimterry 6y ago

I find the most frustrating issue & the most compelling part of this argument to be the last: there are decent crypto alternatives that don't have this problem. You can find all sorts of people who will justify bitcoin for all its thrilling advantages over traditional finance, and explain why this ecological garbage fire is a good idea. I'm yet to find a single person who even tries to argue that bitcoin's advantages over other cryptos are worth the huge comparative cost. At the beginning of crypto, bitcoin was the only option. Today, bitcoin is successful purely because it has the highest price, and so the most opportunity to make random investors rich, rather than any technological advantage. When that price eventually crashes so that there's serious competition between crypto alternatives for usage & investment, I don't see how bitcoin can possibly survive without a huge reinvention.

AntiImperialist 6y ago

>In 2021, most Bitcoin is produced – mined – in China by massive computer servers solving unnecessarily complex math problems where subsidized coal-fired power plants produce some of the cheapest energy in the world. It’s a not-unlikely coincidence that a huge amount of Bitcoin is mined in Xinjiang province, the same place where Uighur Muslim minorities have been inflicted with horrific human rights abuses mining the very same coal used to create Bitcoin. The salty tears taste better with the rise of value of the coin. China is the biggest users of renewable energy in the world. For Bitcoin, they're using abandoned hydro plants and solar, for the most part. In Xinjiang, they're using wind power. China has a lot of minorities. So why are they targeting Uighurs? The Uighur Muslim minorities were radicalized by Middle Eastern allies of the US to act against Chinese interests. So, they had to intervene. Which is most likely what the US expected them to do, so that they could use this as a political propaganda by omitting obvious information.

jgeerts 6y ago

To put this in perspective, YouTube (243.6 tw/h) uses about double of Bitcoin's (124 tw/h) energy consumption, but there is no outrage about that. People care about the environment if it doesn't take away their comfort, airconditioning use is about 2000 tw/h globally, expected to triple in the next 30 years, some of the outrage on Bitcoin is being written in airconditioned rooms by people that drive combustion engine cars. If you compare Bitcoin's environmental footprint to the whole financial system with air cooled offices around the world, with equipment, server rooms it doesn't come close. A positive side of Bitcoin mining is that it's geographically independent and it can move to where they have too much energy which cannot be stored. In some cases the abundance of energy would be wasted through gas flaring which puts more CO2 into the atmosphere. Now they can get rid of their excessive energy and store it in the form of Bitcoin. * https://thefactsource.com/how-much-electricity-does-youtube-use/ https://thefactsource.com/how-much-electricity-does-youtube-... * https://research.arcane.no/news/equinor-partners-with-bitcoin-mining-company https://research.arcane.no/news/equinor-partners-with-bitcoi...

lexa1979 6y ago
THANK YOU !
me_me_me 6y ago
That's because this is a coordinated smear campaign that started shortly after US finance started signalling that they don't like BTC. I don't remember who it was. There was an official conference. Ever since then those BTC caused global warming are popping up every other day. I guess the terrorists and drug cartels angle is dead since Elon has now btc.
- throwawayx1112 6y ago
  I've noticed this too, it's like a switch flipped.
  - me_me_me 6y ago
    more like a greyhounds had been released by the masters :) yapping and biting at the ankles