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Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

65 points by avi_vallarapu 6y ago

geoduck14 6y ago
Bitcoin can stay irrational longer than I can stay solvent.
- Bluestein 6y ago
  I think your quip should be framed above the gates to all exchanges :)
avi_vallarapu 6y ago
This seems to be at the cost of the something much more expensive. The bubble bursts sometimes soon ?
someguydave 6y ago
low effort clickbait
JulianMorrison 6y ago
Bitcoin needs to get mapped across 1:1 to something that doesn't require vast number crunching energy use, and the old blockchain abandoned
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
  A database?
  - Guzba 6y ago
    Who's database?
    - aplummer 6y ago
      It’s ironic the premise is we trust nuclear weapons to the government but not our pithy accounts of bitcoin - which in the event of a trust-less government is worthless (because of the arsenal)
      - Guzba 6y ago
        Odd framing. No one "trusts" nuclear weapons to the government as opposed to having control themselves. "Pithy accounts" (money) represent to a fairly large degree an individual's autonomy / freedom / independence. Is it so bad to find it appealing that one may wish to assert more control over this given the choice? I say this as someone who finds crypto to look like almost a complete scam but I can't dispute the appeal of the concept.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
      We all get databases. They're a commodity. e.g. AWS will sell you a DynamoDB table for $cheap.
      - Guzba 6y ago
        We should migrate Bitcoin to someone's DynamoDB table? Or did you not read the root comment?
        SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
        Yeah. If you only want to handle around 7 transactions a second, you can buy an of the shelf Db such as a DynamoDB table for that, and it will cost you next to nothing.
- throwawayQuwcy 6y ago
  It's already happening! There's approx 150,000 BTC locked in the Ethereum network as ERC20 tokens like WBTC and RENBTC https://wbtc.network/dashboard/order-book https://wbtc.network/dashboard/order-book Ethereum is moving to proof of stake shortly. I imagine a lot more BTC will transfer over to take advantage of this & other benefits like defi interest
  - Aachen 6y ago
    I've heard some skepticism regarding the PoS of eth, so I'm in "let's see it when it's there" mode, but I'm somewhat optimistic here. Can't go fast enough for my taste, I'm really curious if it'll turn out to be what it's supposed to! Hopefully this will also mean people start to move over to this better tech.
    - DennisP 6y ago
      It's been running perfectly in production since Dec. 1, with over $5 billion in ETH staked so far. Migrating the legacy stake and EVM to it still needs to be done, but that's irrelevant to the consensus algorithm. It's just changing the data it reaches consensus about.
      - Aachen 6y ago
        Interesting, I should look into this again and update my knowledge. Thanks for the reply!
  - zadler 6y ago
    For the migration to be complete, there would need to be a coordination between the btc network and an eth contract to move the issuing of the remainder of the supply over to the contract. And an agreement of how the new units would be allocated; it seems doubtful that this could ever take place.
    - throwawayQuwcy 6y ago
      I don't think there's any reason for a 100% migration. It would be impossible to get consensus for that, like you said. Anybody who wants to move their coins over can. There are plenty of economic, technical, and moral (climate change) reasons to do so. Besides, when it's voluntary, people can choose to lock their coins into whichever network they like Ethereum, Cardano, Polkadot. (note: ETH is the only network that has currently has contracts able to lock BTC)
- iagovar 6y ago
  I've very skeptical for cryptos, specially about their regulatory survival, but I've been studying it a bit, and aside some obscure cryptos that are propably genius, I found nano worth mentioning as currency, and Cardano seems on track for a blank sheet replacement of Ethereum.
  - wtf_is_up 6y ago
    I am speculating on Algorand after doing some research and listening to a talk by Biden's SEC chair Gary Gensler where he spoke positively about it. It is a cool project in the Proof of Stake space. Although there are several "Eth killers", Algo included, that could go nowhere.
  - ketamine__ 6y ago
    Cardano doesn't have smart contracts yet. How many years has it been? How can they still be top ranked?
    - reilly3000 6y ago
      It’s like gen 3 crypto, incepted in 2017. I’m a believer in their platform and governance models, and enjoy their fast, cheap transactions today. IOHK is delivering something with vast consequence, generally on schedule. They will lag until dev adoption takes off, but then I have high hopes for the network and protocol to deliver on early crypto promises.
      - ketamine__ 6y ago
        Yeah, but every blockchain that isn't used much has fast transactions. And even with smart contracts they will be missing layer 2. It's a long time to wait.
  - woah 6y ago
    Genuinely curious, why Cardano? There are dozens of reputable, high profile “eth killers”, such as Cosmos, NEAR, Polkadot, Solana, Avalanche, Tezos and many more. All of these have a proof of stake consensus, and smart contracts which are supposed to have some special sauce that makes them better than Solidity, be it functional programming, formal proofs, rust, or what have you. Cardano seems to have accomplished the least of the bunch, (not even fully operational yet) but somehow it has spiked in the last few months to have the highest market cap. Not trying to offend you if you have invested in it or anything, but do you have any idea why?
auntienomen 6y ago
I have come to beieve that bitcoin is art. No intrinsic value, and each unit is individually labeled, nearly as identifiable as a numbered print.
- smcameron 6y ago
  Surely you must be aware of the crypto-art bubble currently happening. See, e.g. https://foundation.app https://foundation.app https://rarible.com https://rarible.com https://mintable.app https://mintable.app etc. Full disclosure, I'm trying to fund my open source space game via https://mintable.app/u/smcameron https://mintable.app/u/smcameron It's totally not working though, because it's obviously ridiculous. Luckily my funding needs are quite modest. (I should have just bought Cardano instead of this silliness.)
- jobigoud 6y ago
  Coins are not labelled. Only addresses and transactions.
juanbyrge 6y ago
It is quite pathetic that a purported 'future of payments' is so inefficient in so many ways. This is why I will never participate in systems like bitcoin that consume hundreds of TwH (and growing) each year.
- analog31 6y ago
  In my view, "law of unintended consequences" looms large here. On the other hand, "proof of work" reminds me that the equivalence of heat and work was proven more than 150 years ago by Joule.
  - eurasiantiger 6y ago
    That equivalence exists in the domain of classical physics. Bitcoin only exists in semiconductor systems: its ineffectiveness stems from the extra logical layer (gates on silicon) which, while based on quantum effects, does not utilize quantum effects directly for calculation.
    - AaronFriel 6y ago
      This sounds like quantum woo. If we had desktop quantum computers, and a computationally hard algorithm on qubits was used for proof of work instead, we would still end up in the same arms race of ever more expensive, ever more power hungry systems do that work. What would happen if Bitcoins work function (the hardness) was made 10 times easier, would miners use 1/10th the power budget? No, they'd just 10x their mining rate. Why? Because other miners have every incentive to do the same. Likewise with a quantum algorithm.
    - dogma1138 6y ago
      Isn’t a perfect computer is also a perfect heater? Quantum or not...
    - flyinglizard 6y ago
      Doesn’t any method by which work is done, in a proof of work system, consume energy?
nabla9 6y ago
Lack of market liquidity is what will burst Bitcoin bubble.
- copumpkin 6y ago
  The market is more liquid than it ever has been. But yeah, not as liquid as I or many others would like. But if you really think it's gonna burst, there are plenty of eager sellers who would love to sell you some put options on LedgerX :) very above board, and the only CFTC-regulated physically settled BTC options exchange out there
  - nabla9 6y ago
    Where you buy and sell BTC derivatives for 1 - 5 year time span with minimal counterparty risk?
    - copumpkin 6y ago
      ledgerx.com is tightly regulated (all trades reported to CFTC) and physically settled with (in my opinion) very good security practices, but it's only available to US residents. Their longest expiry dates are December 2022, so about 2 years out. I haven't seen anything longer, unfortunately. Since it's physical delivery, when you sell an option, the exchange "locks" the coins or USD that would be required if it were to get exercised until the position is closed (either by expiring worthless, getting assigned, or if you trade out of it), so the counterparty risk is against the exchange only. They're aware that it makes people uncomfortable to lock up coins for a long time, so they work with BitGo to actually handle the coin custody, in separate accounts per customer. It's all reasonable enough to me that I feel comfortable sending them a decent amount of money. Deribit is a larger derivatives exchange by trading volume, and is open to the rest of the world (explicitly not the US), but isn't physically settled so is more of a "side bet" and is riskier. That said, it's been operating successfully for a while now. I haven't used it because I'm not allowed to in the US.
      - nullc 6y ago
sand_castles 6y ago
Corruption and QE is wayy more expensive though.
pfisch 6y ago
Why would this cause the bubble to burst? Btc doesn't require the difficulty to be this high to function. "The fact is, it's not really used much in the legal economy now. Yes, one rich person sells it to another, but that's not a final use. And without that it really doesn't have a long-term future." Sentences like this make me think the author is clueless. That could be said of any neutral storage of value, like gold. Btc is super convenient compared to gold, and transacting with it can't be easily shut down by anyone. Seems like that is all btc needs to be. It could be more maybe, but that is hardly a requirement for it to be successful.
capableweb 6y ago
What about if the supposed "bubble" lasts until it's unfeasible to continue mining on the same speed as now? Eventually, bitcoin will have been mined, and then there is no need for as much mining, depending on transaction fees only. By then the energy use is massively lowered as well.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- throwawayQuwcy 6y ago
  Well, the security of Bitcoin == amount of transaction fees + block rewards. The cost to 51% attack the network is opportunity cost of mining valid transactions So you either get secure wasteful bitcoin, or insecure bitcoin. Not really any other options with PoW
  - capableweb 6y ago
    > The cost to 51% attack the network is opportunity cost of mining valid transactions Which, after the block rewards run out and the price of Bitcoin probably looks different, will still be difficult to attack. But, the mining will have stopped then. Although it's pretty far in the future presumably. Tons of other solutions than PoW as well, Algorand's PPoS is just one example.
bpodgursky 6y ago
Great. I welcome this! [continues to hold my Proof-of-Stake Ethereum]
- Aachen 6y ago
  Ethereum isn't currently proof of stake, or did I miss out on some huge news?
  - bpodgursky 6y ago
    It's... partway there. The Beacon chain is running, although I don't think it's processing all transactions yet.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
m00dy 6y ago
Hi guys, I'm trying to reach bitcoin miners or mining farms that are powered by renewable energy. Anyone can help me to get any leads ? eren@countingcarbons.co
- aresant 6y ago
  Check out https://www.crusoeenergy.com/ https://www.crusoeenergy.com/ - not renewable but a major enterprise capturing otherwise "wasted" energy
- throwawayQuwcy 6y ago
  https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bitcoin+mining+renewable+energy https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bitcoin+mining+renewable+energy https://cointelegraph.com/news/report-76-crypto-miners-use-renewables-as-part-of-their-energy-mix https://cointelegraph.com/news/report-76-crypto-miners-use-r...
DennisP 6y ago
> The CCAF team surveys the people who manage the Bitcoin network around the world on their energy use and found that about two-thirds of it is from fossil fuels. Nice to see actual data on this. Bitcoin advocates keep claiming it's mostly renewable.
- Aachen 6y ago
  If that were true, we'd be seeing fluctuations in how frequently blocks are being created depending on where the sun shines and where it's windy. Water power is more stable but not enough to explain the TWhs all disappearing into bitcoin every year. No need to do a lot of work surveying miners to disprove these trolls, also they'll just come up with a new argument like that it's the payment method of the future and they don't want to miss out on that (that's what people threw at me on reddit in a similar thread earlier today)... just admit it, btc investors, you want to use the investment vessel and not feel bad about the enormous amount of pollution you cause in the process...
  - sp332 6y ago
    I am kinda surprised it's not higher, just because solar and wind energy is so cheap now I assumed it would be attractive. That said, even if it was run with renewable energy, at this point in time it would still contribute to emissions indirectly. That power could have been used to displace fossil fuel usage, so diverting it to bitcoin hashing causes a net emissions increase for... very little benefit.
    - packetlost 6y ago
      Not to mention the eWaste created by all the useless ASICs, burned out graphics cards, and wonky otherwise-useless motherboards.
  - rntksi 6y ago
    I find it funny that in every post that denounces the energy use of bitcoin, which is one of its apparent weakness and strength at the same time, there are what I'd call "apologists" who come in and give other reasonings to support bitcoin, ignoring facts that go against it. Let's be honest with each other: - The reason why bitcoin is revolutionary is because it opens up a way to do transactions on a ledger between millions of people without a central authority. Even if you say owning 51% of the network means you are the central authority, you have to keep pushing those resources forever, basically impossible to happen in a "struggle" situation. - The reason that in itself is its weakness is because it relies on computational proof of work, and that means energy. The more people are involved in bitcoins the more energy will be consumed to vie for the possibility of mining out rewards, to the point where the costs doesn't make sense anymore and you have to rethink mining strategy. Any system that proposes a central authority to lessen this energy use burden is just making it weaker, not stronger, if you care about decentralised transaction systems. That's why it's both a weakness and strength.
fetacheese 6y ago
its a subsidization program for graphics card makers
blfr 6y ago
Reminds me of this tweet. https://twitter.com/HedgingChaos/status/1364675046191546377 https://twitter.com/HedgingChaos/status/1364675046191546377
- Aachen 6y ago
  To save everyone a click: > What’s the yearly energy usage of this single USD full node? [picture of aircraft carrier] Edit: anything wrong with this comment that I can do better in the future?
trhway 6y ago
All the such energy/BTC arguments miss that BTC (and other crypto) mining in space has no limit and will become feasible when Starships start flying. And it looks to be more profitable than asteroid mining :) People frequently raise the issue of cooling in space while missing the fact that at 60C 1m2 radiates away 700w - enough to cool 3-4 mining GPUs which can basically be just slapped on that heatsink.
- tempestn 6y ago
  Surely the cost of blasting mining rigs into space would vastly outweigh any disadvantages of keeping them on the ground.
  - trhway 6y ago
    Not sure. For example at $100/kg blasting a manufactured home into space is comparable to getting a land to put it in Silicon Valley. The point here is that such low price of space access will drastically change a lot of calculations.
anm89 6y ago
And then this one time, bitcoin went all the way up to $30 and then crashed all the way down to $13. And another time bitcoin went all the way up to $1100 and then crashed all the way down to $200. So the moral of this story is don't buy bitcoin. You know it's going to crash.
- erikpukinskis 6y ago
  Takeaway: Buy the peak and your investment will still go up 7x.
cletus 6y ago
Yeah this has increasingly become my view [1]. It seems to me that Bitcoin has only really solved one problem: to allow transactions that governments don't allow and there's really two classes of that: 1. Illegal stuff 2. Capital controls and other government impediments on the movement of money. What I didn't realize until Bitcoin was nearing $1000 was just how much (2) contributed to driving its value, specifically all the affluent Chinese (who are subject to capital controls) who used Bitcoin mining to move wealth beyond the reach of the Chinese government. I really wish I'd figured that out earlier but hindsight is 20/20. At this point it's hard to view anything other than speculation as driving Bitcoin prices. We're still figuring out what cryptocurrencies are. I don't think it's likely to be as a currency anytime soon. Traditional currencies just have better properties (stability in value, reversible transactions and the banking system are more of a feature than a bug). If it's an asset, it's hard yet to say what drives the price so this is little more than gambling. That really just leaves it as a temporary medium for exchange and for Bitcoin at least, we're spending an awful lot of energy to maintain that. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26213693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26213693
madrox 6y ago
There are a lot of arguments against Bitcoin, and the energy consumption argument has always struck me as the most asinine. It's an anchoring fallacy rooted in the fact that bitcoin's energy consumption is easy to estimate with a fair amount of confidence. However, because Bitcoin is easy and other industries are hard, we do not scrutinize the utility of any other industry in this way, though data suggests global video gaming is a comparable energy hog[1][2]. We have no way of estimating the energy consumption of the finance industry, and I wouldn't trust any attempt. Bitcoin is being compared to countries instead of other industries because it looks alarming, but many global industries that rely on energy look like this. I hate pointing this out, because I get misconstrued as a Bitcoin supporter. I hold no Bitcoin, and I never have because of other principles. However, criticisms such as this one don't create constructive conversation, in my experience. Unless we want to start regulating what you can and cannot use energy for in your home, there's no point to thinking this way. The fossil fuel angle, in my mind, is simply a sign that we need to get off fossil fuels, Bitcoin or not. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257768246_Electricity_consumption_and_energy_savings_potential_of_video_game_consoles_in_the_United_States https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257768246_Electrici... - US energy consumption by video game consoles in the US alone was 16 TWh in 2010 [2] https://grist.org/article/video-games-consume-more-electricity-than-25-power-plants-can-produce/ https://grist.org/article/video-games-consume-more-electrici... - Globally, PC gaming (not console gaming) was estimated at 75 TWh in 2018
- joshspankit 6y ago
  I might be a little rusty, but don’t we know exactly how much calculating is being done (measured in M/G/T/P/E hashes/second)? And don’t we also have fairly accurate measurement of how much electricity it takes to calculate those hashes (assuming everyone is using this year’s tech)?
  - madrox 6y ago
    We do, which is why it's so attractive to look at Bitcoin's energy consumption. The result is a big number, but we don't know how bad this number actually is because we don't have fairly accurate measurements of any other industry to compare it to. We can't answer the first questions that arise from this kind of analysis. For example, is Bitcoin the most energy intense industry, or is it really just because computing in general is energy intense? What percentage of overall computing is taken up by bitcoin? Are there other computing segments that are worse? We can't answer these questions very well, and even if we could the only way to regulate it would be to limit what we can do with our computers. Last I checked, the HN community hated such suggestions.
scotty79 6y ago
Bitcoin is just a way of funneling money from financial markets into energy production. Since we will need way more energy to produce out carbon free all electric future and solar is cheapest way to get new energy already I believe that bitcoin will eventually lead to more investment in renewables. And since bitcoin mining is variable load that can easily be adjusted to momentary demand for electricity I think it will solve the problem of storing energy from renewables. Why store energy if you can produce vastly more than is needed and use excess whenever available to mine bitcoin?
Shadonototro 6y ago
And if they fix the energy problem? what's gonna happen? bitcoin issue is not energy consumption, it's just useless, it's used to scam people, lot of pump/dump and market manipulation same for other altcoins, this is shady buisiness
chemmail 6y ago
Really just more crybabies crying. It is only about 20x more than the total electricity used annually for Xmas lights in the USA. Thank about it. If you want to save the environment. Cancelling Xmas is a much better choice.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Triv888 6y ago
If you stop mining bitcoins, Bitcoin would not disappear....
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  If you stop mining bitcoins, anybody with a small rig can produce a double spend and destroy all trust in the network. It wouldn't disappear, but the coins wouldn't be worth much.
  - Triv888 6y ago
    Proof of stake would solve that?
    - nieve 6y ago
      But then you're no longer talking about Bitcoin.
      - Triv888 6y ago
        Bitcoin is whatever the majority decides... They could also increase the supply if they wanted to, or whatever other change comes to mind? Think of it as Bitcoin 3.0, 4.0, etc...
    - UncleMeat 6y ago
      Changing the block size was so controversial that it split the community and created years of bad blood and claims of shilling. I don't believe that the core devs are capable of making such a huge change as moving to PoS.
- muskox2 6y ago
  If no more bitcoins were mined, you couldn't move bitcoins around. You can only include new transactions by mining a new block.
  - Triv888 6y ago
nodamage 6y ago
It's worth noting that Tether has not minted any significant amount of new coins since the NYAG settlement was announced. If the terms of the settlement effectively prevent them from being able to print any more coins, we will soon find out whether or not the theory of Tether propping up the price of BTC was indeed accurate or not.
debbiedowner 6y ago
Why is proof of work so much more popular than proof of stake?

65 points by avi_vallarapu 6y ago

geoduck14 6y ago

Bitcoin can stay irrational longer than I can stay solvent.

Bluestein 6y ago
I think your quip should be framed above the gates to all exchanges :)

avi_vallarapu 6y ago

This seems to be at the cost of the something much more expensive. The bubble bursts sometimes soon ?

someguydave 6y ago

low effort clickbait

JulianMorrison 6y ago

Bitcoin needs to get mapped across 1:1 to something that doesn't require vast number crunching energy use, and the old blockchain abandoned

SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
A database?
- Guzba 6y ago
  Who's database?
  - aplummer 6y ago
    It’s ironic the premise is we trust nuclear weapons to the government but not our pithy accounts of bitcoin - which in the event of a trust-less government is worthless (because of the arsenal)
    - Guzba 6y ago
      Odd framing. No one "trusts" nuclear weapons to the government as opposed to having control themselves. "Pithy accounts" (money) represent to a fairly large degree an individual's autonomy / freedom / independence. Is it so bad to find it appealing that one may wish to assert more control over this given the choice? I say this as someone who finds crypto to look like almost a complete scam but I can't dispute the appeal of the concept.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
    We all get databases. They're a commodity. e.g. AWS will sell you a DynamoDB table for $cheap.
    - Guzba 6y ago
      We should migrate Bitcoin to someone's DynamoDB table? Or did you not read the root comment?
      - SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
        Yeah. If you only want to handle around 7 transactions a second, you can buy an of the shelf Db such as a DynamoDB table for that, and it will cost you next to nothing.
throwawayQuwcy 6y ago
It's already happening! There's approx 150,000 BTC locked in the Ethereum network as ERC20 tokens like WBTC and RENBTC https://wbtc.network/dashboard/order-book https://wbtc.network/dashboard/order-book Ethereum is moving to proof of stake shortly. I imagine a lot more BTC will transfer over to take advantage of this & other benefits like defi interest
- Aachen 6y ago
  I've heard some skepticism regarding the PoS of eth, so I'm in "let's see it when it's there" mode, but I'm somewhat optimistic here. Can't go fast enough for my taste, I'm really curious if it'll turn out to be what it's supposed to! Hopefully this will also mean people start to move over to this better tech.
  - DennisP 6y ago
    It's been running perfectly in production since Dec. 1, with over $5 billion in ETH staked so far. Migrating the legacy stake and EVM to it still needs to be done, but that's irrelevant to the consensus algorithm. It's just changing the data it reaches consensus about.
    - Aachen 6y ago
      Interesting, I should look into this again and update my knowledge. Thanks for the reply!
- zadler 6y ago
  For the migration to be complete, there would need to be a coordination between the btc network and an eth contract to move the issuing of the remainder of the supply over to the contract. And an agreement of how the new units would be allocated; it seems doubtful that this could ever take place.
  - throwawayQuwcy 6y ago
    I don't think there's any reason for a 100% migration. It would be impossible to get consensus for that, like you said. Anybody who wants to move their coins over can. There are plenty of economic, technical, and moral (climate change) reasons to do so. Besides, when it's voluntary, people can choose to lock their coins into whichever network they like Ethereum, Cardano, Polkadot. (note: ETH is the only network that has currently has contracts able to lock BTC)
iagovar 6y ago
I've very skeptical for cryptos, specially about their regulatory survival, but I've been studying it a bit, and aside some obscure cryptos that are propably genius, I found nano worth mentioning as currency, and Cardano seems on track for a blank sheet replacement of Ethereum.
- wtf_is_up 6y ago
  I am speculating on Algorand after doing some research and listening to a talk by Biden's SEC chair Gary Gensler where he spoke positively about it. It is a cool project in the Proof of Stake space. Although there are several "Eth killers", Algo included, that could go nowhere.
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  Cardano doesn't have smart contracts yet. How many years has it been? How can they still be top ranked?
  - reilly3000 6y ago
    It’s like gen 3 crypto, incepted in 2017. I’m a believer in their platform and governance models, and enjoy their fast, cheap transactions today. IOHK is delivering something with vast consequence, generally on schedule. They will lag until dev adoption takes off, but then I have high hopes for the network and protocol to deliver on early crypto promises.
    - ketamine__ 6y ago
      Yeah, but every blockchain that isn't used much has fast transactions. And even with smart contracts they will be missing layer 2. It's a long time to wait.
- woah 6y ago
  Genuinely curious, why Cardano? There are dozens of reputable, high profile “eth killers”, such as Cosmos, NEAR, Polkadot, Solana, Avalanche, Tezos and many more. All of these have a proof of stake consensus, and smart contracts which are supposed to have some special sauce that makes them better than Solidity, be it functional programming, formal proofs, rust, or what have you. Cardano seems to have accomplished the least of the bunch, (not even fully operational yet) but somehow it has spiked in the last few months to have the highest market cap. Not trying to offend you if you have invested in it or anything, but do you have any idea why?

auntienomen 6y ago

I have come to beieve that bitcoin is art. No intrinsic value, and each unit is individually labeled, nearly as identifiable as a numbered print.

smcameron 6y ago
Surely you must be aware of the crypto-art bubble currently happening. See, e.g. https://foundation.app https://foundation.app https://rarible.com https://rarible.com https://mintable.app https://mintable.app etc. Full disclosure, I'm trying to fund my open source space game via https://mintable.app/u/smcameron https://mintable.app/u/smcameron It's totally not working though, because it's obviously ridiculous. Luckily my funding needs are quite modest. (I should have just bought Cardano instead of this silliness.)
jobigoud 6y ago
Coins are not labelled. Only addresses and transactions.

juanbyrge 6y ago

It is quite pathetic that a purported 'future of payments' is so inefficient in so many ways. This is why I will never participate in systems like bitcoin that consume hundreds of TwH (and growing) each year.

analog31 6y ago
In my view, "law of unintended consequences" looms large here. On the other hand, "proof of work" reminds me that the equivalence of heat and work was proven more than 150 years ago by Joule.
- eurasiantiger 6y ago
  That equivalence exists in the domain of classical physics. Bitcoin only exists in semiconductor systems: its ineffectiveness stems from the extra logical layer (gates on silicon) which, while based on quantum effects, does not utilize quantum effects directly for calculation.
  - AaronFriel 6y ago
    This sounds like quantum woo. If we had desktop quantum computers, and a computationally hard algorithm on qubits was used for proof of work instead, we would still end up in the same arms race of ever more expensive, ever more power hungry systems do that work. What would happen if Bitcoins work function (the hardness) was made 10 times easier, would miners use 1/10th the power budget? No, they'd just 10x their mining rate. Why? Because other miners have every incentive to do the same. Likewise with a quantum algorithm.
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    Isn’t a perfect computer is also a perfect heater? Quantum or not...
  - flyinglizard 6y ago
    Doesn’t any method by which work is done, in a proof of work system, consume energy?

nabla9 6y ago

Lack of market liquidity is what will burst Bitcoin bubble.

copumpkin 6y ago
The market is more liquid than it ever has been. But yeah, not as liquid as I or many others would like. But if you really think it's gonna burst, there are plenty of eager sellers who would love to sell you some put options on LedgerX :) very above board, and the only CFTC-regulated physically settled BTC options exchange out there
- nabla9 6y ago
  Where you buy and sell BTC derivatives for 1 - 5 year time span with minimal counterparty risk?
  - copumpkin 6y ago
    ledgerx.com is tightly regulated (all trades reported to CFTC) and physically settled with (in my opinion) very good security practices, but it's only available to US residents. Their longest expiry dates are December 2022, so about 2 years out. I haven't seen anything longer, unfortunately. Since it's physical delivery, when you sell an option, the exchange "locks" the coins or USD that would be required if it were to get exercised until the position is closed (either by expiring worthless, getting assigned, or if you trade out of it), so the counterparty risk is against the exchange only. They're aware that it makes people uncomfortable to lock up coins for a long time, so they work with BitGo to actually handle the coin custody, in separate accounts per customer. It's all reasonable enough to me that I feel comfortable sending them a decent amount of money. Deribit is a larger derivatives exchange by trading volume, and is open to the rest of the world (explicitly not the US), but isn't physically settled so is more of a "side bet" and is riskier. That said, it's been operating successfully for a while now. I haven't used it because I'm not allowed to in the US.
    - nullc 6y ago

sand_castles 6y ago

Corruption and QE is wayy more expensive though.

pfisch 6y ago

Why would this cause the bubble to burst? Btc doesn't require the difficulty to be this high to function. "The fact is, it's not really used much in the legal economy now. Yes, one rich person sells it to another, but that's not a final use. And without that it really doesn't have a long-term future." Sentences like this make me think the author is clueless. That could be said of any neutral storage of value, like gold. Btc is super convenient compared to gold, and transacting with it can't be easily shut down by anyone. Seems like that is all btc needs to be. It could be more maybe, but that is hardly a requirement for it to be successful.

capableweb 6y ago

What about if the supposed "bubble" lasts until it's unfeasible to continue mining on the same speed as now? Eventually, bitcoin will have been mined, and then there is no need for as much mining, depending on transaction fees only. By then the energy use is massively lowered as well.

deleted 6y ago
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throwawayQuwcy 6y ago
Well, the security of Bitcoin == amount of transaction fees + block rewards. The cost to 51% attack the network is opportunity cost of mining valid transactions So you either get secure wasteful bitcoin, or insecure bitcoin. Not really any other options with PoW
- capableweb 6y ago
  > The cost to 51% attack the network is opportunity cost of mining valid transactions Which, after the block rewards run out and the price of Bitcoin probably looks different, will still be difficult to attack. But, the mining will have stopped then. Although it's pretty far in the future presumably. Tons of other solutions than PoW as well, Algorand's PPoS is just one example.

bpodgursky 6y ago

Great. I welcome this! [continues to hold my Proof-of-Stake Ethereum]

Aachen 6y ago
Ethereum isn't currently proof of stake, or did I miss out on some huge news?
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  It's... partway there. The Beacon chain is running, although I don't think it's processing all transactions yet.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

m00dy 6y ago

Hi guys, I'm trying to reach bitcoin miners or mining farms that are powered by renewable energy. Anyone can help me to get any leads ? eren@countingcarbons.co

aresant 6y ago
Check out https://www.crusoeenergy.com/ https://www.crusoeenergy.com/ - not renewable but a major enterprise capturing otherwise "wasted" energy
throwawayQuwcy 6y ago
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bitcoin+mining+renewable+energy https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bitcoin+mining+renewable+energy https://cointelegraph.com/news/report-76-crypto-miners-use-renewables-as-part-of-their-energy-mix https://cointelegraph.com/news/report-76-crypto-miners-use-r...

DennisP 6y ago

> The CCAF team surveys the people who manage the Bitcoin network around the world on their energy use and found that about two-thirds of it is from fossil fuels. Nice to see actual data on this. Bitcoin advocates keep claiming it's mostly renewable.

Aachen 6y ago
If that were true, we'd be seeing fluctuations in how frequently blocks are being created depending on where the sun shines and where it's windy. Water power is more stable but not enough to explain the TWhs all disappearing into bitcoin every year. No need to do a lot of work surveying miners to disprove these trolls, also they'll just come up with a new argument like that it's the payment method of the future and they don't want to miss out on that (that's what people threw at me on reddit in a similar thread earlier today)... just admit it, btc investors, you want to use the investment vessel and not feel bad about the enormous amount of pollution you cause in the process...
- sp332 6y ago
  I am kinda surprised it's not higher, just because solar and wind energy is so cheap now I assumed it would be attractive. That said, even if it was run with renewable energy, at this point in time it would still contribute to emissions indirectly. That power could have been used to displace fossil fuel usage, so diverting it to bitcoin hashing causes a net emissions increase for... very little benefit.
  - packetlost 6y ago
    Not to mention the eWaste created by all the useless ASICs, burned out graphics cards, and wonky otherwise-useless motherboards.
- rntksi 6y ago
  I find it funny that in every post that denounces the energy use of bitcoin, which is one of its apparent weakness and strength at the same time, there are what I'd call "apologists" who come in and give other reasonings to support bitcoin, ignoring facts that go against it. Let's be honest with each other: - The reason why bitcoin is revolutionary is because it opens up a way to do transactions on a ledger between millions of people without a central authority. Even if you say owning 51% of the network means you are the central authority, you have to keep pushing those resources forever, basically impossible to happen in a "struggle" situation. - The reason that in itself is its weakness is because it relies on computational proof of work, and that means energy. The more people are involved in bitcoins the more energy will be consumed to vie for the possibility of mining out rewards, to the point where the costs doesn't make sense anymore and you have to rethink mining strategy. Any system that proposes a central authority to lessen this energy use burden is just making it weaker, not stronger, if you care about decentralised transaction systems. That's why it's both a weakness and strength.

fetacheese 6y ago

its a subsidization program for graphics card makers

blfr 6y ago

Reminds me of this tweet. https://twitter.com/HedgingChaos/status/1364675046191546377 https://twitter.com/HedgingChaos/status/1364675046191546377

Aachen 6y ago
To save everyone a click: > What’s the yearly energy usage of this single USD full node? [picture of aircraft carrier] Edit: anything wrong with this comment that I can do better in the future?

trhway 6y ago

All the such energy/BTC arguments miss that BTC (and other crypto) mining in space has no limit and will become feasible when Starships start flying. And it looks to be more profitable than asteroid mining :) People frequently raise the issue of cooling in space while missing the fact that at 60C 1m2 radiates away 700w - enough to cool 3-4 mining GPUs which can basically be just slapped on that heatsink.

tempestn 6y ago
Surely the cost of blasting mining rigs into space would vastly outweigh any disadvantages of keeping them on the ground.
- trhway 6y ago
  Not sure. For example at $100/kg blasting a manufactured home into space is comparable to getting a land to put it in Silicon Valley. The point here is that such low price of space access will drastically change a lot of calculations.

anm89 6y ago

And then this one time, bitcoin went all the way up to $30 and then crashed all the way down to $13. And another time bitcoin went all the way up to $1100 and then crashed all the way down to $200. So the moral of this story is don't buy bitcoin. You know it's going to crash.

erikpukinskis 6y ago
Takeaway: Buy the peak and your investment will still go up 7x.

cletus 6y ago

Yeah this has increasingly become my view [1]. It seems to me that Bitcoin has only really solved one problem: to allow transactions that governments don't allow and there's really two classes of that: 1. Illegal stuff 2. Capital controls and other government impediments on the movement of money. What I didn't realize until Bitcoin was nearing $1000 was just how much (2) contributed to driving its value, specifically all the affluent Chinese (who are subject to capital controls) who used Bitcoin mining to move wealth beyond the reach of the Chinese government. I really wish I'd figured that out earlier but hindsight is 20/20. At this point it's hard to view anything other than speculation as driving Bitcoin prices. We're still figuring out what cryptocurrencies are. I don't think it's likely to be as a currency anytime soon. Traditional currencies just have better properties (stability in value, reversible transactions and the banking system are more of a feature than a bug). If it's an asset, it's hard yet to say what drives the price so this is little more than gambling. That really just leaves it as a temporary medium for exchange and for Bitcoin at least, we're spending an awful lot of energy to maintain that. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26213693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26213693

madrox 6y ago

There are a lot of arguments against Bitcoin, and the energy consumption argument has always struck me as the most asinine. It's an anchoring fallacy rooted in the fact that bitcoin's energy consumption is easy to estimate with a fair amount of confidence. However, because Bitcoin is easy and other industries are hard, we do not scrutinize the utility of any other industry in this way, though data suggests global video gaming is a comparable energy hog[1][2]. We have no way of estimating the energy consumption of the finance industry, and I wouldn't trust any attempt. Bitcoin is being compared to countries instead of other industries because it looks alarming, but many global industries that rely on energy look like this. I hate pointing this out, because I get misconstrued as a Bitcoin supporter. I hold no Bitcoin, and I never have because of other principles. However, criticisms such as this one don't create constructive conversation, in my experience. Unless we want to start regulating what you can and cannot use energy for in your home, there's no point to thinking this way. The fossil fuel angle, in my mind, is simply a sign that we need to get off fossil fuels, Bitcoin or not. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257768246_Electricity_consumption_and_energy_savings_potential_of_video_game_consoles_in_the_United_States https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257768246_Electrici... - US energy consumption by video game consoles in the US alone was 16 TWh in 2010 [2] https://grist.org/article/video-games-consume-more-electricity-than-25-power-plants-can-produce/ https://grist.org/article/video-games-consume-more-electrici... - Globally, PC gaming (not console gaming) was estimated at 75 TWh in 2018

joshspankit 6y ago
I might be a little rusty, but don’t we know exactly how much calculating is being done (measured in M/G/T/P/E hashes/second)? And don’t we also have fairly accurate measurement of how much electricity it takes to calculate those hashes (assuming everyone is using this year’s tech)?
- madrox 6y ago
  We do, which is why it's so attractive to look at Bitcoin's energy consumption. The result is a big number, but we don't know how bad this number actually is because we don't have fairly accurate measurements of any other industry to compare it to. We can't answer the first questions that arise from this kind of analysis. For example, is Bitcoin the most energy intense industry, or is it really just because computing in general is energy intense? What percentage of overall computing is taken up by bitcoin? Are there other computing segments that are worse? We can't answer these questions very well, and even if we could the only way to regulate it would be to limit what we can do with our computers. Last I checked, the HN community hated such suggestions.

scotty79 6y ago

Bitcoin is just a way of funneling money from financial markets into energy production. Since we will need way more energy to produce out carbon free all electric future and solar is cheapest way to get new energy already I believe that bitcoin will eventually lead to more investment in renewables. And since bitcoin mining is variable load that can easily be adjusted to momentary demand for electricity I think it will solve the problem of storing energy from renewables. Why store energy if you can produce vastly more than is needed and use excess whenever available to mine bitcoin?

Shadonototro 6y ago

And if they fix the energy problem? what's gonna happen? bitcoin issue is not energy consumption, it's just useless, it's used to scam people, lot of pump/dump and market manipulation same for other altcoins, this is shady buisiness

chemmail 6y ago

Really just more crybabies crying. It is only about 20x more than the total electricity used annually for Xmas lights in the USA. Thank about it. If you want to save the environment. Cancelling Xmas is a much better choice.

deleted 6y ago

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Triv888 6y ago

If you stop mining bitcoins, Bitcoin would not disappear....

UncleMeat 6y ago
If you stop mining bitcoins, anybody with a small rig can produce a double spend and destroy all trust in the network. It wouldn't disappear, but the coins wouldn't be worth much.
- Triv888 6y ago
  Proof of stake would solve that?
  - nieve 6y ago
    But then you're no longer talking about Bitcoin.
    - Triv888 6y ago
      Bitcoin is whatever the majority decides... They could also increase the supply if they wanted to, or whatever other change comes to mind? Think of it as Bitcoin 3.0, 4.0, etc...
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    Changing the block size was so controversial that it split the community and created years of bad blood and claims of shilling. I don't believe that the core devs are capable of making such a huge change as moving to PoS.
muskox2 6y ago
If no more bitcoins were mined, you couldn't move bitcoins around. You can only include new transactions by mining a new block.
- Triv888 6y ago

nodamage 6y ago

It's worth noting that Tether has not minted any significant amount of new coins since the NYAG settlement was announced. If the terms of the settlement effectively prevent them from being able to print any more coins, we will soon find out whether or not the theory of Tether propping up the price of BTC was indeed accurate or not.

debbiedowner 6y ago

Why is proof of work so much more popular than proof of stake?