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Is it possible for people to source or certify sustainable Bitcoin? Since there is a transaction chain, can you choose to buy or boycott “dirty coins”?

by graiz 5y ago

WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
coin taint is a real thing but ultimately your wallet just looks at your inputs and writes outputs to other wallets.
RinTohsaka 5y ago
There is a crypto called Monero that doesn't have this problem. it is growing fast.
- gruez 5y ago
  AFAIK monero runs on POW as well so from an environmental impact level I don't see how it's any different. From a traceability perspective I don't see a difference either because mining can be done anonymously. You really can't track a mined block to a specific power plant. I guess you can set up some sort of voluntary program for green miners, and treat non-compliant blocks as "dirty", but with monero this wouldn't be possible so everything would be treated as "dirty".
- mrits 5y ago
  Proof of stake is in or will be in just about every major crypto except bitcoin...
- xur17 5y ago
  Monero uses PoW mining as well.
- hatsunearu 5y ago
  To fix this person's comment, this comment makes sense if by "problem" they meant "defending your coins from boycotters"--Monero is (supposedly) untraceable so presumably it is impossible to boycott specific "dirty" sources of Monero.
jakelazaroff 5y ago
What do you mean? All transactions are verified by miners, so all transactions are equally "dirty".
- peteretep 5y ago
  It’s much much cheaper to verify than it is to mine. That’s kind of the whole point.
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    Verifying Bitcoin transactions is mining.
    - peteretep 5y ago
      Mining is guessing a number that will give a given hash output. The verification part is simple, and only needs to be done once, the guessing and retesting bit is the intensive bit
TylerE 5y ago
So there is actually no such thing as "a bitcoin". It's all just accounts with balances.
yuliyp 5y ago
It's still on the same power grid. The renewable energy would have been used one way or another. It's still contributing to the burning of fossil fuels on the grid.
- gruez 5y ago
  That's not exactly true because interconnection capacity is very limited. That's why quebec has rock bottom prices for electricity[1] but 250mi away in boston the electricity cost several times more. [1] https://www.hydroquebec.com/data/documents-donnees/pdf/comparison-electricity-prices.pdf https://www.hydroquebec.com/data/documents-donnees/pdf/compa...
- graiz 5y ago
  There are times of day that solar and wind farms produce more energy than the grid can use. This excess energy has no marginal value to the grid. You can also have off-grid solar bitcoin farms that don't need interconnectivity.
- jobigoud 5y ago
  The way it works is that your electricity provider company buys the amount of electricity you consume from renewable electricity producers. It balances out and it's equivalent on average to you using only renewable electricity. Multiple providers are working like this in Europe at least. They partner with many local solar/hydro/wind producers. It's approximate of course they can't predict exactly the amount required in advance but in the grand scheme of things it works by supply/demand mechanics.. You could trace btc to a reward allocated to a miner on a renewable electricity contract. Then you know an equivalent amount of energy used to mine these coins was produced sustainably.
jude- 5y ago
I can't see why not. A government could require exchanges to prevent (or even just delay or tax) the sale of Bitcoins that originate from miners that cannot be shown to have used renewable energy to produce the block. The government could, for example, physically inspect the mining rig, certify it as renewable-powered, and require that the miner uses a particular keypair to sign their blocks in order to identify them as "green." Exchanges use this (government-issued) keypair to determine which Bitcoins are "green," and apply whatever restrictions are necessary on those that are not.

Is it possible for people to source or certify sustainable Bitcoin? Since there is a transaction chain, can you choose to buy or boycott “dirty coins”?

by graiz 5y ago

Is it possible for people to source or certify sustainable Bitcoin? Since there is a transaction chain, can you choose to buy or boycott “dirty coins”?

WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago

coin taint is a real thing but ultimately your wallet just looks at your inputs and writes outputs to other wallets.

RinTohsaka 5y ago

There is a crypto called Monero that doesn't have this problem. it is growing fast.

gruez 5y ago
AFAIK monero runs on POW as well so from an environmental impact level I don't see how it's any different. From a traceability perspective I don't see a difference either because mining can be done anonymously. You really can't track a mined block to a specific power plant. I guess you can set up some sort of voluntary program for green miners, and treat non-compliant blocks as "dirty", but with monero this wouldn't be possible so everything would be treated as "dirty".
mrits 5y ago
Proof of stake is in or will be in just about every major crypto except bitcoin...
xur17 5y ago
Monero uses PoW mining as well.
hatsunearu 5y ago
To fix this person's comment, this comment makes sense if by "problem" they meant "defending your coins from boycotters"--Monero is (supposedly) untraceable so presumably it is impossible to boycott specific "dirty" sources of Monero.

jakelazaroff 5y ago

What do you mean? All transactions are verified by miners, so all transactions are equally "dirty".

peteretep 5y ago
It’s much much cheaper to verify than it is to mine. That’s kind of the whole point.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  Verifying Bitcoin transactions is mining.
  - peteretep 5y ago
    Mining is guessing a number that will give a given hash output. The verification part is simple, and only needs to be done once, the guessing and retesting bit is the intensive bit

TylerE 5y ago

So there is actually no such thing as "a bitcoin". It's all just accounts with balances.

yuliyp 5y ago

It's still on the same power grid. The renewable energy would have been used one way or another. It's still contributing to the burning of fossil fuels on the grid.

gruez 5y ago
That's not exactly true because interconnection capacity is very limited. That's why quebec has rock bottom prices for electricity[1] but 250mi away in boston the electricity cost several times more. [1] https://www.hydroquebec.com/data/documents-donnees/pdf/comparison-electricity-prices.pdf https://www.hydroquebec.com/data/documents-donnees/pdf/compa...
graiz 5y ago
There are times of day that solar and wind farms produce more energy than the grid can use. This excess energy has no marginal value to the grid. You can also have off-grid solar bitcoin farms that don't need interconnectivity.
jobigoud 5y ago
The way it works is that your electricity provider company buys the amount of electricity you consume from renewable electricity producers. It balances out and it's equivalent on average to you using only renewable electricity. Multiple providers are working like this in Europe at least. They partner with many local solar/hydro/wind producers. It's approximate of course they can't predict exactly the amount required in advance but in the grand scheme of things it works by supply/demand mechanics.. You could trace btc to a reward allocated to a miner on a renewable electricity contract. Then you know an equivalent amount of energy used to mine these coins was produced sustainably.

jude- 5y ago

I can't see why not. A government could require exchanges to prevent (or even just delay or tax) the sale of Bitcoins that originate from miners that cannot be shown to have used renewable energy to produce the block. The government could, for example, physically inspect the mining rig, certify it as renewable-powered, and require that the miner uses a particular keypair to sign their blocks in order to identify them as "green." Exchanges use this (government-issued) keypair to determine which Bitcoins are "green," and apply whatever restrictions are necessary on those that are not.