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If Ethereum had as much use as Bitcoin it would use as much energy--probably more because of the extra processing power required by smart contracts. So this arg

If Ethereum had as much use as Bitcoin it would use as much energy--probably more because of the extra processing power required by smart contracts. So this argument reduces to "Ethereum isn't popular so leave it alone", which doesn't make sense because you all are trying to make it popular. None of the PoS networks are popular outside of the crypto space, and almost certainly never will be. Most institutions are busy working on their own, highly centralized coins (e.g. Libra, whatever the PRC's coin is, etc) and aren't gonna adopt one of these anyway, so they're irrelevant. But if they were, they would have the same problems that any PoS network has: rich people control them. How exactly does that improve on the existing system?

pa7x1 5y ago
Have you looked at the data before making the claims? Ethereum far surpasses in use Bitcoin by pretty much any metric you look. For example, in the last 24h Ethereum processed 1.24M of transactions and netted a revenue of $ 60M in transaction fees. Bitcoin processed 0.24M transactions in the same time period and netted a revenue of $ 0.88M. Source: messari.io The transition to PoS cuts the energy consumption by 99.95%, btw.
- mechanical_bear 5y ago
  Of course they don’t actually consider facts when wielding their hate boners for cryptocurrencies. It’s become tired and predictable every time this topic is brought up. It’s as bad as Religion on Reddit. If they don’t like cryptocurrency, just move on, no one is going to win hearts and minds being the negative jerk about it every time it’s brought.
- camgunz 5y ago
  The metric that matters is price, for two reasons: - Gas fees are based on price - As price increases it's more attractive to mine. That means devs will increase the mining difficulty. That means more electricity use. > The transition to PoS cuts the energy consumption by 99.95%, btw. It also makes Ethereum Visa, so what's the point?
  - pa7x1 5y ago
    > Gas fees are based on price This is not correct. Gas fees are essentially an auction for blockspace, the basefee is adjusted dynamically via EIP-1559 but the tip is essentially an auction (highest bidders go first). If demand outstrips blockspace gas fees go up, independently of ETH price. If supply of blockspace is greater than demand, then gas fees go down irrespectively of ETH price. EDIT: To clarify. What you say would be the case if gas fees were a set amount of ETH. Then, of course, gas fees denominated in $ would be totally correlated with ETH price. But this is not the case. Gas fees work as explained above and thus are, in principle, decoupled from ETH price. Although some correlation might occur due to market dynamics (bull markets bring network activity, bear markets take away network activity) but is not built-in into the gas price mechanism. > - As price increases it's more attractive to mine. This is correct. > That means devs will increase the mining difficulty. The mining difficulty adjusts itself, the devs do not need to modify. Same as in Bitcoin, it's designed to adjust to maintain an even block production. You might be thinking of the difficulty bomb that needs to be defused once in a while but it has nothing to do with this topic. > It also makes Ethereum Visa, so what's the point? Not following.
    - sanderjd 5y ago
      Bitcoin maximalists believe that PoS is definitionally centralized and therefore pointless. This does not make much sense, especially since PoW has always devolved into a small number of large mining pools.
      - camgunz 5y ago
        I'm not a Bitcoin maximalist, and I agree with your point about mining pools. I just think PoS is centralization with extra steps with fewer steps than PoW.
        sanderjd 5y ago
        I didn't totally mean that you personally are a Bitcoin maximalist, just that this is one of their arguments. Did you mean extra steps or fewer? Either way, I think it mostly remains to be seen on the centralization question. The newer-fangled PoS chains are certainly more centralized than Bitcoin or Ethereum, but nobody has actually tried distributing tokens broadly through a bunch of years of PoW and only then switching to PoS. It could plausibly end up being quite a bit more decentralized than Bitcoin.
jallen_dot_dev 5y ago
The energy used by Ethereum has nothing to do with contracts, it's all in the PoW. The reason it uses less energy than Bitcoin is because the block reward[1] per unit of difficulty is less. That's the real determinant for energy used, the more money you can earn for mining a block the more you can afford to throw at the task of mining it. The block reward is only loosely related to popularity, in that more transactions trying to get into blocks will increase fees and demand for ETH will increase price. But as the sibling comment already pointed out Ethereum is more "popular" than Bitcoin by many counts. [1] reward being: (block subsidy + fees) * price
- camgunz 5y ago
  > The energy used by Ethereum has nothing to do with contracts, it's all in the PoW. Processing smart contracts requires processing power, which requires energy. > the block reward[1] per unit of difficulty is less. That's the real determinant for energy used Doesn't this go out the window as ETH's price goes up? Also EthHash requires a lot more energy than Bitcoin's SHA-256 (this [1] says SHA-256 is in the Th/s where the latest EthHash ASIC is in the Gh/s), so if the dinosaur BTC dies and ETH takes its rightful place, aren't things much worse? [1]: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2019/06/15/mining-algorithms-proof-of-work/ https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2019/06/15/mining-algorithms-proo...
  - jallen_dot_dev 5y ago
    > Processing smart contracts requires processing power, which requires energy. My point is the energy used to process smart contracts is so small compared to the energy used to find a low block hash, it rounds to 0. Also, if we're comparing to Bitcoin, then by that same token Bitcoin also requires energy to process its "smart contracts" (ScriptPubKey/ScriptSig scripts, which are just small programs). There is nothing special about contracts in Ethereum. > Also EthHash requires a lot more energy than Bitcoin's SHA-256 More energy to perform 1 hash. But what does it matter how many hashes are performed? What matters is how much energy is used to perform those hashes. If you made the hashing algorithm 10x more efficient you would have 10x more hashes, not 10x less energy spent hashing on the network.
rglullis 5y ago
Ethereum already has more transactions than bitcoin and consistently moves more value around than BTC. If you think that "Ethereum isn't popular", please explain why so many people are complaining about network congestion and network fees. The "extra smart contracts" do not take processing power. The problem for scaling blockchains is on blockspace and network synchonization. It is I/O bound, not CPU bound. Ethereum validators will not consume a lot more power based on its usage, and currently the energy consumption of eth validators is 10000x smaller than of the energy of consoles playing videogames. You really don't know what you are talking about, but you will be too proud to admit it.
- camgunz 5y ago
  As I said in a sibling comment, the important metric is price, because of gas fees and mining profit incentives. Price goes up, more miners start up, difficulty increases, more carbon burned, Earth dead. Also I/O here means adding a block, which is proc-bound, which roasts the planet. Finally, video games have entertainment utility. Cryptocurrencies have no non-crime utility. It's not useful to compare the energy use of things that have utility to things that don't.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    Your sibling point about mining is a strawman against PoS, already responded. As for "utility": You don't get to decide what is the utility and the value of what people do on the blockchain, just like we don't get to decide what is the value of playing GTA V or Minecraft. Again, you are just wrong but too proud to admit it.
sanderjd 5y ago
PoS clearly improves on the energy usage situation, which was the criticism of the comment I replied to. The other criticisms of PoS are out of scope for the specific criticism I was responding to. I believe current PoW ethereum actually runs more transactions than the bitcoin chain, but I am not defending its energy usage. If it doesn't ever manage the switch to PoS then it will deserve the same criticism with respect to energy usage.

pa7x1 5y ago

Have you looked at the data before making the claims? Ethereum far surpasses in use Bitcoin by pretty much any metric you look. For example, in the last 24h Ethereum processed 1.24M of transactions and netted a revenue of $ 60M in transaction fees. Bitcoin processed 0.24M transactions in the same time period and netted a revenue of $ 0.88M. Source: messari.io The transition to PoS cuts the energy consumption by 99.95%, btw.

mechanical_bear 5y ago
Of course they don’t actually consider facts when wielding their hate boners for cryptocurrencies. It’s become tired and predictable every time this topic is brought up. It’s as bad as Religion on Reddit. If they don’t like cryptocurrency, just move on, no one is going to win hearts and minds being the negative jerk about it every time it’s brought.
camgunz 5y ago
The metric that matters is price, for two reasons: - Gas fees are based on price - As price increases it's more attractive to mine. That means devs will increase the mining difficulty. That means more electricity use. > The transition to PoS cuts the energy consumption by 99.95%, btw. It also makes Ethereum Visa, so what's the point?
- pa7x1 5y ago
  > Gas fees are based on price This is not correct. Gas fees are essentially an auction for blockspace, the basefee is adjusted dynamically via EIP-1559 but the tip is essentially an auction (highest bidders go first). If demand outstrips blockspace gas fees go up, independently of ETH price. If supply of blockspace is greater than demand, then gas fees go down irrespectively of ETH price. EDIT: To clarify. What you say would be the case if gas fees were a set amount of ETH. Then, of course, gas fees denominated in $ would be totally correlated with ETH price. But this is not the case. Gas fees work as explained above and thus are, in principle, decoupled from ETH price. Although some correlation might occur due to market dynamics (bull markets bring network activity, bear markets take away network activity) but is not built-in into the gas price mechanism. > - As price increases it's more attractive to mine. This is correct. > That means devs will increase the mining difficulty. The mining difficulty adjusts itself, the devs do not need to modify. Same as in Bitcoin, it's designed to adjust to maintain an even block production. You might be thinking of the difficulty bomb that needs to be defused once in a while but it has nothing to do with this topic. > It also makes Ethereum Visa, so what's the point? Not following.
  - sanderjd 5y ago
    Bitcoin maximalists believe that PoS is definitionally centralized and therefore pointless. This does not make much sense, especially since PoW has always devolved into a small number of large mining pools.
    - camgunz 5y ago
      I'm not a Bitcoin maximalist, and I agree with your point about mining pools. I just think PoS is centralization with extra steps with fewer steps than PoW.
      - sanderjd 5y ago
        I didn't totally mean that you personally are a Bitcoin maximalist, just that this is one of their arguments. Did you mean extra steps or fewer? Either way, I think it mostly remains to be seen on the centralization question. The newer-fangled PoS chains are certainly more centralized than Bitcoin or Ethereum, but nobody has actually tried distributing tokens broadly through a bunch of years of PoW and only then switching to PoS. It could plausibly end up being quite a bit more decentralized than Bitcoin.

jallen_dot_dev 5y ago

The energy used by Ethereum has nothing to do with contracts, it's all in the PoW. The reason it uses less energy than Bitcoin is because the block reward[1] per unit of difficulty is less. That's the real determinant for energy used, the more money you can earn for mining a block the more you can afford to throw at the task of mining it. The block reward is only loosely related to popularity, in that more transactions trying to get into blocks will increase fees and demand for ETH will increase price. But as the sibling comment already pointed out Ethereum is more "popular" than Bitcoin by many counts. [1] reward being: (block subsidy + fees) * price

camgunz 5y ago
> The energy used by Ethereum has nothing to do with contracts, it's all in the PoW. Processing smart contracts requires processing power, which requires energy. > the block reward[1] per unit of difficulty is less. That's the real determinant for energy used Doesn't this go out the window as ETH's price goes up? Also EthHash requires a lot more energy than Bitcoin's SHA-256 (this [1] says SHA-256 is in the Th/s where the latest EthHash ASIC is in the Gh/s), so if the dinosaur BTC dies and ETH takes its rightful place, aren't things much worse? [1]: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2019/06/15/mining-algorithms-proof-of-work/ https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2019/06/15/mining-algorithms-proo...
- jallen_dot_dev 5y ago
  > Processing smart contracts requires processing power, which requires energy. My point is the energy used to process smart contracts is so small compared to the energy used to find a low block hash, it rounds to 0. Also, if we're comparing to Bitcoin, then by that same token Bitcoin also requires energy to process its "smart contracts" (ScriptPubKey/ScriptSig scripts, which are just small programs). There is nothing special about contracts in Ethereum. > Also EthHash requires a lot more energy than Bitcoin's SHA-256 More energy to perform 1 hash. But what does it matter how many hashes are performed? What matters is how much energy is used to perform those hashes. If you made the hashing algorithm 10x more efficient you would have 10x more hashes, not 10x less energy spent hashing on the network.

rglullis 5y ago

Ethereum already has more transactions than bitcoin and consistently moves more value around than BTC. If you think that "Ethereum isn't popular", please explain why so many people are complaining about network congestion and network fees. The "extra smart contracts" do not take processing power. The problem for scaling blockchains is on blockspace and network synchonization. It is I/O bound, not CPU bound. Ethereum validators will not consume a lot more power based on its usage, and currently the energy consumption of eth validators is 10000x smaller than of the energy of consoles playing videogames. You really don't know what you are talking about, but you will be too proud to admit it.

camgunz 5y ago
As I said in a sibling comment, the important metric is price, because of gas fees and mining profit incentives. Price goes up, more miners start up, difficulty increases, more carbon burned, Earth dead. Also I/O here means adding a block, which is proc-bound, which roasts the planet. Finally, video games have entertainment utility. Cryptocurrencies have no non-crime utility. It's not useful to compare the energy use of things that have utility to things that don't.
- rglullis 5y ago
  Your sibling point about mining is a strawman against PoS, already responded. As for "utility": You don't get to decide what is the utility and the value of what people do on the blockchain, just like we don't get to decide what is the value of playing GTA V or Minecraft. Again, you are just wrong but too proud to admit it.

sanderjd 5y ago

PoS clearly improves on the energy usage situation, which was the criticism of the comment I replied to. The other criticisms of PoS are out of scope for the specific criticism I was responding to. I believe current PoW ethereum actually runs more transactions than the bitcoin chain, but I am not defending its energy usage. If it doesn't ever manage the switch to PoS then it will deserve the same criticism with respect to energy usage.