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It is not a battery in the physical sense because it does not store energy. What it does is, it allows you to transfer the economic utility of cheap local energ

It is not a battery in the physical sense because it does not store energy. What it does is, it allows you to transfer the economic utility of cheap local energy to regions where energy is more in demand. Although, as the article itself highlights, this could also be done more efficiently with aluminum smelting, and other processes that are energy intensive but don't require much infrastructure. From a purely financial point of view I suspect maintaining a bitcoin mining operation in remote areas is harder and requires more frequent upgrades than if you were doing a more traditional manufacturing process.

hinkley 6y ago
Moving bauxite in and doing something with the slag and spent reactants takes quite a bit of infrastructure, no? Perhaps aluminum recycling is a better option for this scenario?
dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
The main infrastructure needed for a bitcoin running operation in a remote place would be: * the mining rig itself. If there's a way to ship manufacturing product from the location, there must be a way to bring this in too. Pound for pound and liter by liter, this can't take more space or infrastructure to bring than aluminum or any other physical product I can think of. * cooling. same as above. * electricity. If you can manufacture aluminum, you have enough. * small amount of on-site workers to perform critical repairs Things you don't need: * large custom-built machines. * many trained/untrained workers to take care of the machines * infrastructure that can consistently ship tons of material to and from a remote location all year round (mining rig upgrades consume much less mass/volume and can be batched to avoid shipping during rough climate seasons)
smashem 6y ago
> ...it does not store energy. Yes it does. It stores what is called "monetary energy", and monetary energy belongs in the same class as kinetic, elastic, and chemical energies. One of the key differences between bitcoin and other monetary assets is that bitcoin is absolutely scarce (the first absolutely scare monetary asset in human history), so its energy cannot leak via inflation.
- mentalpiracy 6y ago
  what?
- Vhano 6y ago
  you forgot another class: big dick energy.

hinkley 6y ago

Moving bauxite in and doing something with the slag and spent reactants takes quite a bit of infrastructure, no? Perhaps aluminum recycling is a better option for this scenario?

dj_mc_merlin 6y ago

The main infrastructure needed for a bitcoin running operation in a remote place would be: * the mining rig itself. If there's a way to ship manufacturing product from the location, there must be a way to bring this in too. Pound for pound and liter by liter, this can't take more space or infrastructure to bring than aluminum or any other physical product I can think of. * cooling. same as above. * electricity. If you can manufacture aluminum, you have enough. * small amount of on-site workers to perform critical repairs Things you don't need: * large custom-built machines. * many trained/untrained workers to take care of the machines * infrastructure that can consistently ship tons of material to and from a remote location all year round (mining rig upgrades consume much less mass/volume and can be batched to avoid shipping during rough climate seasons)

smashem 6y ago

> ...it does not store energy. Yes it does. It stores what is called "monetary energy", and monetary energy belongs in the same class as kinetic, elastic, and chemical energies. One of the key differences between bitcoin and other monetary assets is that bitcoin is absolutely scarce (the first absolutely scare monetary asset in human history), so its energy cannot leak via inflation.

mentalpiracy 6y ago
what?
Vhano 6y ago
you forgot another class: big dick energy.