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Interesting question! When mankind will really need to calculate costs and try to get rid of such an entrenched "habits" as av-scanning (same as to crypto-minin

Interesting question! When mankind will really need to calculate costs and try to get rid of such an entrenched "habits" as av-scanning (same as to crypto-mining nowadays), it could be too late to do something. Or take banks. I was amazed to see how much manual work is done in financial institutions. Skyscrapers with bank name on top of it filled with tens of thousands people. Everyone has computer, among other things burning electricity. Separately, datacenters. How does it compares to crypto? I doubt it's less, if sum up all banks. But anyway, av-scanning is doing much good, but can be socially out-engineered in a single click, making it useless in most critical cases.

nightfly 5y ago
Re: banks/crypto Crypto's current energy consumption is doing a miniscule fraction of the transaction handling that banks are. If you scaled up current crypto to match banks, I don't think that would even be possible.
- therein 5y ago
  Crypto's power consumption is not truly related to the transaction volume.
  - nwah1 5y ago
    Right, the transaction volume it can support will never change, but the energy consumption rises as a function of the price, with no upper bound.
    - Groxx 5y ago
      ... every piece of that sentence is straightforwardly incorrect.
      - jazzyjackson 5y ago
        Do you want to explain how? AFAIK The number of transactions per block and the rate at which blocks are confirmed has nothing to do with how many people are burning through hashes. And the price of a token is a kind of bounty for mining a block: the higher the price, the more money can be spent trying to win the bounty while still being profitable. You wouldn't see data centers full of ASICs if the reward was only a few hundred bucks. So how straight forward is it?
        Groxx 5y ago
        Their: >the transaction volume it can support will never change is plainly ridiculous (as proof: transaction volume has changed, and multiple changes have been successfully made that increase the peak volume), and is also covered by your: >AFAIK The number of transactions per block and the rate at which blocks are confirmed has nothing to do with how many people are burning through hashes. as for: >the energy consumption rises as a function of the price, with no upper bound. though there's obviously some relation to price and electricity use (i.e. hashing power, ignoring tech improvements), that direct relation really only makes sense with the per-block rewards... which keep halving, and that does not immediately lead to 1/2 hashing power. the market has repeatedly demonstrated that price and value-per-block do not directly relate to hashing/electricity. on top of that, transaction fees are taking a larger and larger proportion of it, and that's related pretty much solely to transaction volume (which does not noticeably affect electricity, as you pointed out), not value per coin or electricity. as far as "no upper bound"... only if you ignore market effects, like if electricity became free globally. since it's market-driven though, as beyond a certain point it's not profitable, you can't ignore that. and again, hashing power has dropped many times in the past, clearly demonstrating effective upper bounds at any given time.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - ggrrhh_ta 5y ago
        Can you explain in which ways is it incorrect? I am puzzled. I guess that what was is incorrect is using the word "crypto" instead of "POW blockchain-based"?
    - nfin 5y ago
      after a halving (every 210.000 bitcoin blocks, roughly every 4 years), all other things being equal (bitcoin price, energy price, bitcoin fees, … and enough chip production), the energy consumption would get cut in half (as the reward gets cut by two). This fact should stay true for another 2-3 halvings (including same energy consumption if price doubles which is the same), until the factor 0.5 (energy consumption after halving) starts to increase to 1 when/if higher fees compensate for the diminished issuance of new coins (while issuance of new coins goes to 0). Because fees for now are very low, in the big picture and almost not relevant in the power consumption calculstions. But until these about 2-4 halvings happen (=Y), price might increased by factor X and energy consumption only X/2^Y (which could even be a decrease if price does not go up much!). And if price would stay the same, then energy consumption would actually drop by 50% every halving! (if all other things being equal and supply of miners and mining chips were not a problem). So to sum it up differently: Bitcoin consumes a lot of energy to have a fair new issuance of coins. Instead of being created out of nothing and being distributed unfairly (worldwide privacy issuance of a new coin is REALISTICALLY very very very hard, and has been tried by many projects and all failed), bitcoin gives you new coins for the same amount that you burn energy, so you can‘t fake it or corrupt it in the hands of politicians or any other left/right/religious/… group
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
Spooky23 5y ago
I’ve always found amusement in the ironic carbon navel gazing found on message boards.
saghm 5y ago
Sure, but banks those banks are actually providing value for large numbers of real people right now; cryptocurrencies have yet to show that they can do much what has been claimed about them.
- atoav 5y ago
  I recall paying for a coffe with bitcoin once. The transaction took 30 minutes despite an above average fee which was much more than e.g. PayPal would have taken. This was when I knew that bitcoin is unsuitable to replace other payment providers.
jahnu 5y ago
Most manual financial work in banks is not on mere transactions. It's on higher level structures such as doing due diligence on lending. A small fraction of the employees are actively keeping the basic transaction mechanisms going. Rest assured that fraction that is working on those is, per transaction, a mere fart in the proverbial hurricane that is crypto energy use per transaction.
cycomanic 5y ago
> Interesting question! When mankind will really need to calculate costs and try to get rid of such an entrenched "habits" as av-scanning (same as to crypto-mining nowadays), it could be too late to do something. > Or take banks. I was amazed to see how much manual work is done in financial institutions. Skyscrapers with bank name on top of it filled with tens of thousands people. Everyone has computer, among other things burning electricity. Separately, datacenters. How does it compares to crypto? I doubt it's less, if sum up all banks. You'd be likely wrong. Bitcoin now uses the same energy as the whole country of Argentina with 43 million people. For comparison Bank of America has 200 000 employees. Are there more than 200 banks of that size, maybe but I'm doubtful. Moreover Argentinas energy consumption includes vastly more energy intensive endeavours than banking (manufacturing, mining etc). from that estimate I would be very doubtful that the whole banking sector uses more energy than bitcoin mining. Moreover as others pointed out the banking sector serves many more people with many services that bitcoin can't provide.

nightfly 5y ago

Re: banks/crypto Crypto's current energy consumption is doing a miniscule fraction of the transaction handling that banks are. If you scaled up current crypto to match banks, I don't think that would even be possible.

therein 5y ago
Crypto's power consumption is not truly related to the transaction volume.
- nwah1 5y ago
  Right, the transaction volume it can support will never change, but the energy consumption rises as a function of the price, with no upper bound.
  - Groxx 5y ago
    ... every piece of that sentence is straightforwardly incorrect.
    - jazzyjackson 5y ago
      Do you want to explain how? AFAIK The number of transactions per block and the rate at which blocks are confirmed has nothing to do with how many people are burning through hashes. And the price of a token is a kind of bounty for mining a block: the higher the price, the more money can be spent trying to win the bounty while still being profitable. You wouldn't see data centers full of ASICs if the reward was only a few hundred bucks. So how straight forward is it?
      - Groxx 5y ago
        Their: >the transaction volume it can support will never change is plainly ridiculous (as proof: transaction volume has changed, and multiple changes have been successfully made that increase the peak volume), and is also covered by your: >AFAIK The number of transactions per block and the rate at which blocks are confirmed has nothing to do with how many people are burning through hashes. as for: >the energy consumption rises as a function of the price, with no upper bound. though there's obviously some relation to price and electricity use (i.e. hashing power, ignoring tech improvements), that direct relation really only makes sense with the per-block rewards... which keep halving, and that does not immediately lead to 1/2 hashing power. the market has repeatedly demonstrated that price and value-per-block do not directly relate to hashing/electricity. on top of that, transaction fees are taking a larger and larger proportion of it, and that's related pretty much solely to transaction volume (which does not noticeably affect electricity, as you pointed out), not value per coin or electricity. as far as "no upper bound"... only if you ignore market effects, like if electricity became free globally. since it's market-driven though, as beyond a certain point it's not profitable, you can't ignore that. and again, hashing power has dropped many times in the past, clearly demonstrating effective upper bounds at any given time.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - ggrrhh_ta 5y ago
      Can you explain in which ways is it incorrect? I am puzzled. I guess that what was is incorrect is using the word "crypto" instead of "POW blockchain-based"?
  - nfin 5y ago
    after a halving (every 210.000 bitcoin blocks, roughly every 4 years), all other things being equal (bitcoin price, energy price, bitcoin fees, … and enough chip production), the energy consumption would get cut in half (as the reward gets cut by two). This fact should stay true for another 2-3 halvings (including same energy consumption if price doubles which is the same), until the factor 0.5 (energy consumption after halving) starts to increase to 1 when/if higher fees compensate for the diminished issuance of new coins (while issuance of new coins goes to 0). Because fees for now are very low, in the big picture and almost not relevant in the power consumption calculstions. But until these about 2-4 halvings happen (=Y), price might increased by factor X and energy consumption only X/2^Y (which could even be a decrease if price does not go up much!). And if price would stay the same, then energy consumption would actually drop by 50% every halving! (if all other things being equal and supply of miners and mining chips were not a problem). So to sum it up differently: Bitcoin consumes a lot of energy to have a fair new issuance of coins. Instead of being created out of nothing and being distributed unfairly (worldwide privacy issuance of a new coin is REALISTICALLY very very very hard, and has been tried by many projects and all failed), bitcoin gives you new coins for the same amount that you burn energy, so you can‘t fake it or corrupt it in the hands of politicians or any other left/right/religious/… group
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

Spooky23 5y ago

I’ve always found amusement in the ironic carbon navel gazing found on message boards.

saghm 5y ago

Sure, but banks those banks are actually providing value for large numbers of real people right now; cryptocurrencies have yet to show that they can do much what has been claimed about them.

atoav 5y ago
I recall paying for a coffe with bitcoin once. The transaction took 30 minutes despite an above average fee which was much more than e.g. PayPal would have taken. This was when I knew that bitcoin is unsuitable to replace other payment providers.

jahnu 5y ago

Most manual financial work in banks is not on mere transactions. It's on higher level structures such as doing due diligence on lending. A small fraction of the employees are actively keeping the basic transaction mechanisms going. Rest assured that fraction that is working on those is, per transaction, a mere fart in the proverbial hurricane that is crypto energy use per transaction.

cycomanic 5y ago

> Interesting question! When mankind will really need to calculate costs and try to get rid of such an entrenched "habits" as av-scanning (same as to crypto-mining nowadays), it could be too late to do something. > Or take banks. I was amazed to see how much manual work is done in financial institutions. Skyscrapers with bank name on top of it filled with tens of thousands people. Everyone has computer, among other things burning electricity. Separately, datacenters. How does it compares to crypto? I doubt it's less, if sum up all banks. You'd be likely wrong. Bitcoin now uses the same energy as the whole country of Argentina with 43 million people. For comparison Bank of America has 200 000 employees. Are there more than 200 banks of that size, maybe but I'm doubtful. Moreover Argentinas energy consumption includes vastly more energy intensive endeavours than banking (manufacturing, mining etc). from that estimate I would be very doubtful that the whole banking sector uses more energy than bitcoin mining. Moreover as others pointed out the banking sector serves many more people with many services that bitcoin can't provide.