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> When people say "transactions cost X amount to process", they mean "in the current state of bitcoin", not in the past when there were very few transaction val

> When people say "transactions cost X amount to process", they mean "in the current state of bitcoin", not in the past when there were very few transaction validators there are only so many miners (and so much energy spent) because security of bitcoin is what gives it value. so when people say "transactions cost X amount to process" they are saying something non-sensical, because it's not transactions that cost, it's security of those transactions. it's important to separate, because there are many kinds of transactions in bitcoin ecosystem with various security characteristics that land anywhere from very low to on-chain settlement with multiple confirmations.

axlee 5y ago
> because it's not transactions that cost, it's security of those transactions. Logically wrong, but let's follow the reasoning. Let's assume Bitcoin transactions were indeed not secure (and thus, according to you, costing little energy). - Would these unsafe-but-cheap transactions still be considered "Bitcoin transactions" in the way that we know them? - Would these unsafe-but-cheap transactions fulfill the requirements that Bitcoin has in place for itself? - Would an unsafe-but-cheap Bitcoin still be a great option in your eyes to replace the worldwide financial system? If you agree with all these statements and their corollaries, I can follow you in saying "Bitcoin transactions do not cost energy". You are creating a false dichotomy: security is an integral component of bitcoin transactions, and if security costs, transactions cost as well. You cannot just summon it away and pretend it is unrelated to the nature of Bitcoin transactions itself, when in fact it is one of its largest selling points.
- keymone 5y ago
  > You are creating a false dichotomy: security is an integral component of bitcoin transactions, and if security costs, transactions cost as well that would be true if only on-chain settlements would count as transactions in BTC ecosystem. there are more ways to exchange BTC with security landing anywhere between very low and on-chain settlement. thing is, that it's not even transactions that have security, it's blocks. energy is spent to make sure that it's expensive to override/rollback blocks. and it's true that blocks exist to assert ordering of on-chain settlements, but it's not true to claim that there is 1-1 correspondence between on-chain settlements and transactions. each on-chain settlement can embed trillions of bitcoin transactions (in colloquial sense, exchanges of an asset). what does that do to your "energy per tx" metric?
afiori 5y ago
this is pretty much the same thing as saying that "guns kills people" is nonsensical because there are many non equivalent ways a gun could be involved in killing someone
- keymone 5y ago
  wow, it's amazing how you got that completely backwards. saying "guns kill people" is exactly the same as saying "bitcoin uses energy" - it's a way to shift blame from the real perpetrator to the instrument. perpetrator in this case being people who want to secure their assets via energy expenditure. if bitcoin disappears - exactly the same amount of energy will be used because the cat is out of the bag - satoshi showed the world how asset security can be expressed as energy expenditure and for as long as there is a demand on the market for that kind of security, energy will be spent.
  - afiori 5y ago
    That is perfectly a way to look at it but saying that "guns kills people is nonsensical" is making a straw-man of the argument. The statement is essentially "guns are bad, more guns means more death, less guns means less death" which is far from nonsensical independently with how much you agree with it or not. Bitcoin transaction use energy. The proof is that if no more transaction happened no energy would be spent in bitcoins. saying that it is the security requirements that waste energy is like saying that bullets are the real culprits not guns: they go hand in hand. Bitcoin without security is no bitcoin at all. It is technically feasible to have bitcoin with no security just like you can have an army with rifles and no bullets. In both cases obviously the root cause is people, we still haven't found out neither our lucertoloid overlords nor the simulators to blame, so it is lapalissian: "people are the cause of people's action" but it is not a particularly useful rebuttal to many arguments.
    - keymone 5y ago
      > Bitcoin transaction use energy. The proof is that if no more transaction happened no energy would be spent in bitcoins. That is not proof that bitcoin uses energy, in fact bitcoin only does about 2k on chain settlements every 10 minutes, and it has been like that for a decade, but energy usage has grown multiple orders of magnitude over that time period. Obviously energy is used for something other than transactions.

axlee 5y ago

> because it's not transactions that cost, it's security of those transactions. Logically wrong, but let's follow the reasoning. Let's assume Bitcoin transactions were indeed not secure (and thus, according to you, costing little energy). - Would these unsafe-but-cheap transactions still be considered "Bitcoin transactions" in the way that we know them? - Would these unsafe-but-cheap transactions fulfill the requirements that Bitcoin has in place for itself? - Would an unsafe-but-cheap Bitcoin still be a great option in your eyes to replace the worldwide financial system? If you agree with all these statements and their corollaries, I can follow you in saying "Bitcoin transactions do not cost energy". You are creating a false dichotomy: security is an integral component of bitcoin transactions, and if security costs, transactions cost as well. You cannot just summon it away and pretend it is unrelated to the nature of Bitcoin transactions itself, when in fact it is one of its largest selling points.

keymone 5y ago
> You are creating a false dichotomy: security is an integral component of bitcoin transactions, and if security costs, transactions cost as well that would be true if only on-chain settlements would count as transactions in BTC ecosystem. there are more ways to exchange BTC with security landing anywhere between very low and on-chain settlement. thing is, that it's not even transactions that have security, it's blocks. energy is spent to make sure that it's expensive to override/rollback blocks. and it's true that blocks exist to assert ordering of on-chain settlements, but it's not true to claim that there is 1-1 correspondence between on-chain settlements and transactions. each on-chain settlement can embed trillions of bitcoin transactions (in colloquial sense, exchanges of an asset). what does that do to your "energy per tx" metric?

afiori 5y ago

this is pretty much the same thing as saying that "guns kills people" is nonsensical because there are many non equivalent ways a gun could be involved in killing someone

keymone 5y ago
wow, it's amazing how you got that completely backwards. saying "guns kill people" is exactly the same as saying "bitcoin uses energy" - it's a way to shift blame from the real perpetrator to the instrument. perpetrator in this case being people who want to secure their assets via energy expenditure. if bitcoin disappears - exactly the same amount of energy will be used because the cat is out of the bag - satoshi showed the world how asset security can be expressed as energy expenditure and for as long as there is a demand on the market for that kind of security, energy will be spent.
- afiori 5y ago
  That is perfectly a way to look at it but saying that "guns kills people is nonsensical" is making a straw-man of the argument. The statement is essentially "guns are bad, more guns means more death, less guns means less death" which is far from nonsensical independently with how much you agree with it or not. Bitcoin transaction use energy. The proof is that if no more transaction happened no energy would be spent in bitcoins. saying that it is the security requirements that waste energy is like saying that bullets are the real culprits not guns: they go hand in hand. Bitcoin without security is no bitcoin at all. It is technically feasible to have bitcoin with no security just like you can have an army with rifles and no bullets. In both cases obviously the root cause is people, we still haven't found out neither our lucertoloid overlords nor the simulators to blame, so it is lapalissian: "people are the cause of people's action" but it is not a particularly useful rebuttal to many arguments.
  - keymone 5y ago
    > Bitcoin transaction use energy. The proof is that if no more transaction happened no energy would be spent in bitcoins. That is not proof that bitcoin uses energy, in fact bitcoin only does about 2k on chain settlements every 10 minutes, and it has been like that for a decade, but energy usage has grown multiple orders of magnitude over that time period. Obviously energy is used for something other than transactions.