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I think it's funny how the world as a whole just simply moves the problem (excess resource usage for something a lot of people have deemed 'excessive' like bitc
by scohesc 5y ago
I think it's funny how the world as a whole just simply moves the problem (excess resource usage for something a lot of people have deemed 'excessive' like bitcoin mining) from one type of resource to another. Now we're going to see storage costs skyrocket, which will (hopefully not) affect cloud storage providers, datacenters, etc. etc. etc.
- throwaway894345 5y agoThat would be a bummer, but if it doesn't exacerbate the energy/co2 problem I consider it a net benefit.
- kevingadd 5y agoManufacturing SSDs and platter drives is definitely not carbon neutral. Let's not even get into the problems with rare earth material extraction...
- throwaway894345 5y agoIn order to be considered a net benefit, it only needs to emit less carbon than compute-based mining. It doesn't need to be carbon neutral (and indeed, I don't think anyone posited that it was).
- AlexandrB 5y agoThat's a pretty low bar. To be a net benefit it should emit less carbon than traditional payment processing. If you set my house on fire you don't get to call saving my cat a "net benefit".
- spentrent 5y agoHow much carbon is emitted by traditional payment processing?
- bluescrn 5y agoLess than the carbon that would be emitted by doing everything with physical banknotes, coins, and precious metals?
- AlexandrB 5y agoAs an example: https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-consumption-transaction-comparison-visa/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-co... I'm sure modern, all digital, methods like Venmo or PayPal use even less.
- throwaway894345 5y agoI don’t think you understand what “net benefit” means. It does not mean “the most optimal state”, it only means “better than the status quo”. In this case, the status quo for crypto is compute-based, so storage-based crypto is a net benefit if it beats compute-based crypto. Saying something is a net benefit doesn’t imply that it is optimal, so I’m specifically not suggesting that storage based crypto is optimal (indeed, I’m not even sure it is a net benefit; I only said “if it emits less carbon, then it very likely is a net benefit”).