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Exactly: Bitcoin is using as much energy as the entire country of Sweden in order to do work that could be done by a single desktop PC from 2004.

• fastball 5y ago
  If the work Bitcoin is doing could be done by a single desktop PC from 2004 then... the work would be being done by a single desktop PC from 2004. But clearly it is not. Every time I see a thread on HN about crypto it makes me want to buy BTC or w/e because people are so unbelievably disingenuous on here that it probably still has a lot of steam left. The side that needs to be misleading to make their point is rarely the correct side to be on in my experience.
  • infecto 5y ago
    And sadly both sides are misleading.
  • user-the-name 5y ago
    Bitcoin processes, as a maximum dictated by technological choices, 2-3 transactions per second. Each transaction is around a few hundred bytes.
    • tenuousemphasis 5y ago
      Luckily Bitcoin has second layer systems being built on top of it, which allow it to leverage that 2-3 on-chain transactions per second to process thousands of millions more transactions off chain either through decentralized systems like Lightning or centralized custodial wallets.
      • user-the-name 5y ago
        Second layer solutions that do not actually work and that rely on solving unsolved problems in computer science to actually get working at scale.
        • fastball 5y ago
          Lightning is being used right now. In what way does it not work?