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PoW generates heat, which is not waste, if it is utilized. The endgame of Bitcoin mining is that every bit of heat is utilized, because that's the only way mini

by Geee 5y ago

PoW generates heat, which is not waste, if it is utilized. The endgame of Bitcoin mining is that every bit of heat is utilized, because that's the only way mining will be profitable. Running these miners is profitable even without block rewards (heat alone is sold at a profit). You didn't take into account, that: - Bitcoin price growth won't continue forever; it'll find a stable price - Mining rewards halve every 4 years Therefore, it seems that the heat demand of humans can run the Bitcoin network securely, even without block rewards. It won't "eat the world", but find a beautiful balance.

DennisP 5y ago
You would think then that large bitcoin miners would already be doing this. Maybe installing their miners in large office buildings in cold climates. In theory they could eliminate their cost of electricity and outcompete other miners. Why isn't this happening?
- analog31 5y ago
  If they could generate electricity with the heat from the miners, they could use it to power the miners. ... Oh.
- mastax 5y ago
  There was a startup on here a year or so ago with this idea. They built self-contained cabinets and put them in people's houses as heaters. Wonder how they're doing. Sounds like an ops nightmare.
- Geee 5y ago
  It doesn't make sense yet, because it's currently too profitable to warrant such optimizations. Cheap energy is enough to be competitive.
arbuge 5y ago
> PoW generates heat, which is not waste, if it is utilized. There are far more energy-efficient ways of generating that heat than PoW. This is an (extremely) flawed argument. PoW is roughly akin to resistive heating. Heat pumps are about three times as energy-efficient as resistive heating. This does not even begin to take into account that there is no practical way to transfer the heat generated in massive server farm installations to where it would actually be useful without incurring massive losses.
- Geee 5y ago
  There's also the need to heat water, and that requires resistive heaters. Also, heat pumps don't really work in colder climates as the only heat source. Resistive heating is the most common way to heat spaces with electricity.
  - pkulak 5y ago
    Heat pumps can run at greater than 100% efficiency at nearly any temperature possible outside. And they can heat water just fine.
  - ben-schaaf 5y ago
    > There's also the need to heat water, and that requires resistive heaters. In terms of a kettle or cooking you're right, but you also can't cook/boil using mining hardware as they're heat limited to ~100C. For hot water heat pumps work great. > Also, heat pumps don't really work in colder climates as the only heat source. Ground source heat pumps work just fine in cold climates and have been rapidly getting cheaper.
mym1990 5y ago
If the rewards halve every 4 years but the price keeps going up, wouldn't miners just increase infrastructure to mine the same amount of rewards?
- freeflight 5y ago
  Yes, that's what's been happening for the longest time. But it doesn't scale endlessly because of real world practical scarcities like affordable electricity and enough affordable silicon to mine on. Which then results in situations like miners buying up the majority of new GPU releases, leading to shortages for any other users, and still not having enough to keep up with the difficulty increases.

by Geee 5y ago

DennisP 5y ago

You would think then that large bitcoin miners would already be doing this. Maybe installing their miners in large office buildings in cold climates. In theory they could eliminate their cost of electricity and outcompete other miners. Why isn't this happening?

analog31 5y ago
If they could generate electricity with the heat from the miners, they could use it to power the miners. ... Oh.
mastax 5y ago
There was a startup on here a year or so ago with this idea. They built self-contained cabinets and put them in people's houses as heaters. Wonder how they're doing. Sounds like an ops nightmare.
Geee 5y ago
It doesn't make sense yet, because it's currently too profitable to warrant such optimizations. Cheap energy is enough to be competitive.

arbuge 5y ago

> PoW generates heat, which is not waste, if it is utilized. There are far more energy-efficient ways of generating that heat than PoW. This is an (extremely) flawed argument. PoW is roughly akin to resistive heating. Heat pumps are about three times as energy-efficient as resistive heating. This does not even begin to take into account that there is no practical way to transfer the heat generated in massive server farm installations to where it would actually be useful without incurring massive losses.

Geee 5y ago
There's also the need to heat water, and that requires resistive heaters. Also, heat pumps don't really work in colder climates as the only heat source. Resistive heating is the most common way to heat spaces with electricity.
- pkulak 5y ago
  Heat pumps can run at greater than 100% efficiency at nearly any temperature possible outside. And they can heat water just fine.
- ben-schaaf 5y ago
  > There's also the need to heat water, and that requires resistive heaters. In terms of a kettle or cooking you're right, but you also can't cook/boil using mining hardware as they're heat limited to ~100C. For hot water heat pumps work great. > Also, heat pumps don't really work in colder climates as the only heat source. Ground source heat pumps work just fine in cold climates and have been rapidly getting cheaper.

mym1990 5y ago

If the rewards halve every 4 years but the price keeps going up, wouldn't miners just increase infrastructure to mine the same amount of rewards?

freeflight 5y ago
Yes, that's what's been happening for the longest time. But it doesn't scale endlessly because of real world practical scarcities like affordable electricity and enough affordable silicon to mine on. Which then results in situations like miners buying up the majority of new GPU releases, leading to shortages for any other users, and still not having enough to keep up with the difficulty increases.