7 ms·

“Energy intensive processes, such as cryptomining operations and data encryption, could require significantly less energy and have a smaller carbon footprint.”

“Energy intensive processes, such as cryptomining operations and data encryption, could require significantly less energy and have a smaller carbon footprint.” Wouldn’t the difficulty just go up such that you’d need to expand the number of computers calculating hashes until the electricity usage again becomes the limiting factor?

ottumm 5y ago
Yeup.
Hjfrf 5y ago
The best part is that all the old ASICs go in the bin each time a performance improvement is found.
- travoc 5y ago
  Where are these bins full of ASICs?
  - sbierwagen 5y ago
    https://www.ebay.com/b/Virtual-Currency-Miners/179171/bn_1642258?rt=nc&LH_ItemCondition=3000&mag=1 https://www.ebay.com/b/Virtual-Currency-Miners/179171/bn_164... Once a year or so I check on the prices of used miners to see if it would be reasonable to use one as a space heater. Payback period has never been low enough for me to be comfortable with it. (If you buy $300 of equipment and mining becomes illegal tomorrow, then those miners are worthless.)
    - naikrovek 5y ago
      mining will never be illegal. at best it will be heavily taxed as a discouragement. doesn't matter, though; just buy a space heater if you want a space heater.
      - naasking 5y ago
        Come again? It's already happened: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/business/china-cryptocurrency-bitcoin.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/business/china-cryptocurr...
        naikrovek 5y ago
        well I apologize for not knowing all laws across the world. clearly I am unfit to be part of the blockchain discussion given that my knowledge of mining laws is not entirely complete and fully up to date. forgive me senpai! by the way, all (all) blockchain and NFT stuff are complete and total scams and one should kick the scammers between the legs, hard, whenever they are encountered in daily life... if you wanted to know my true opinion on this.
    - EForEndeavour 5y ago
      Would they become worthless, or would their black market value shoot up?
      - thehappypm 5y ago
        Hard to imagine people will still be buying and selling crypto anywhere near the scale it is today if it’s illegal in the US. A lot of the value is “future value” like a stock.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
      Not entirely worthless, given you’ve already sunk the cost they’d still be an effective space heater.
      - sbierwagen 5y ago
        "Sunk cost" is for money you've already spent! The sunk cost here is my existing forced-air electric heat, which is already installed in my house and already turns 1 watt of electricity into 1 watt of heat, or the other space heater I bought ten years ago and can easily put anywhere I need spot heating. If the goal is turn electricity into heat and nothing else, then I am already well supplied with ways to do that.
        rbanffy 5y ago
        Since there's very little mechanical work on a miner, it also turns one watt of electricity into one watt of heat. What it'll also do is generate a small amount of bitcoin to help you pay for the electricity. It's sunk cost if you already have a miner and need a room heater.
        thedougd 5y ago
        Or a heat pump that uses 1 watt of electricity to move 6 watts of heat into your house.
        TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
        Under ideal conditions. What the sales people neglect to tell you is their efficiency drops precipitously as the temperature approaches zero. Heat pumps are much more consistently efficient in their other configuration as an air conditioner.
        TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
        Yes, sorry, I should have written: you’d’ve. Assuming you had already bought the mining rig, it would continue to function as a heater regardless of legislative changes, and act as a redundant system to your existing heaters to boot.
    - tiahura 5y ago
      That such things exist is just, sad. Bitcoin’s intrinsic value seems to be as a way of turning $100 of electricity into $1 of currency.
      - marderfarker2 5y ago
        You’re not wrong. Mining operators tamper their energy meters so their usage don’t reflect in the bill. My neighbour turned his residence into a mining farm, judging by the ludicrous number of installed air conditioning lol.
        travisgriggs 5y ago
        Maybe he’s running a side morgue. Or a swine vault. Or his kids just need lots of white noise to sleep and mama needs her nap. So many possibilities!
    - semi-extrinsic 5y ago
      For a used Antminer S9 you need average total electricity price to be below $0.08/kWh to have break-even in 1 year, it seems. In year 2 you will have earned about $600. If you look at GPU mining, a single RTX 3090 setup (assuming you already have a computer to put it in) requires electricity cost below $0.05/kWh to have break-even in 1 year.
  - garmaine 5y ago
    eBay.
dylan604 5y ago
Shouldn't Watson be smart enough to tell them that? Clearly, IBM doesn't dogfood
- kgwxd 5y ago
  Watson told them most readers wouldn't understand any of that so go ahead an use it in the press release because it sounds good looking.
vmception 5y ago
Eventually, yes. Could quickly phase out the less efficient hardware in the nearer term or cause a temporary stasis in energy use keeping it the same as now. So you’ll want to keep innovating on all parts of the stack, consensus models, proof of work hashing algorithms that work orders of magnitude better on boutique lower powered hardware architectures (optical/analog is gaining interest), and municipal regulations
ucha 5y ago
Not really. If operational expenditure decrease while capital expenditures stays constant, it could still cost the same amount of money to mine but use less electricity. A miner pays both for power and the mining rigs.
verytrivial 5y ago
I would not march in the streets in protest if laws were passed curtailing proof-of-waste cryptocurrencies.
- ephbit 5y ago
  Let's chat about "proof-of-waste" again when in a few years central banks will have created so much inflation and enabled so much unsound government budgeting (simulaneously making inequality explode) that "proof-of-waste" will have become one of (if not) the most important non-manipulable linchpins that will coerce central banks to return to a less inflationary path. Just listen to what's happending in Turkey right now.
  - verytrivial 5y ago
    So, let's solve corruption with more corruption. No. Regrettably I've read the first half of The Sovereign Individual and it's all about shifting obscene wealth around, not improving the lot of the average human -- that fig leaf covers nothing.
  - optimalsolver 5y ago
    Meanwhile, at Tether HQ...
  - simonh 5y ago
    I understand where you are right now, but the fact is central banks aren’t knowingly creating inequality, and aside from the ponzi scheme aspect the only economic use of cryptocurrencies is financing crime. I’m not going to persuade you now, so I wont try. Put a pin in your expectations for the future and revisit this in a few years or a decade’s time. Look at whether any of the extreme outcomes you are predicting now came anywhere even close to actually happening, and why they didn’t happen. Look back now at your opinions in the past of what extreme outcomes would have happened by now. Has any of it come to pass? Crypto in particular was supposed to have taken over as the payment method of choice, with near costless micro transactions funding amazing new businesses previously impossible. Instead it’s turned into a ridiculous ponzi cult, criminal financing network, and a way for wealthy dilettantes and rich world teenage gamers to collect imaginary fashion statements. It’s an utter farce and a complete betrayal of its founding principles and goals.
metanomicon 5y ago
Yes, it's essentially a factor of cost, not electrical consumption per se. So at best I don't see it helping to reduce the carbon foot print. In fact, there is a chance the problem would get worse. Consider the Braess Paradox as an analogy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox It's possible that increased efficiency (more capacity) would incentivize a greater number people to mine until usage was higher than before - similar to how expanding roadways creates more traffic. Then again, there might not be the time for the problem to get worse before people realized that money is the bottom line, not conservation. Why bother with greener chips.. when it's faster chips that matter. That's one of the big problems with proof-of-work consensus. The game theoretics work against our survival interests.
- Apfel 5y ago
  Jevons' Paradox would also apply in this context. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
  - metanomicon 5y ago
    Nice. Very true. That's probably a better example. I could only think of an analogy.
xyzzy21 5y ago
Yes. It's called Jevons Paradox. Something to keep in your pocket for discussions about efficiency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

ottumm 5y ago

Yeup.

Hjfrf 5y ago

The best part is that all the old ASICs go in the bin each time a performance improvement is found.

travoc 5y ago
Where are these bins full of ASICs?
- sbierwagen 5y ago
  https://www.ebay.com/b/Virtual-Currency-Miners/179171/bn_1642258?rt=nc&LH_ItemCondition=3000&mag=1 https://www.ebay.com/b/Virtual-Currency-Miners/179171/bn_164... Once a year or so I check on the prices of used miners to see if it would be reasonable to use one as a space heater. Payback period has never been low enough for me to be comfortable with it. (If you buy $300 of equipment and mining becomes illegal tomorrow, then those miners are worthless.)
  - naikrovek 5y ago
    mining will never be illegal. at best it will be heavily taxed as a discouragement. doesn't matter, though; just buy a space heater if you want a space heater.
    - naasking 5y ago
      Come again? It's already happened: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/business/china-cryptocurrency-bitcoin.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/business/china-cryptocurr...
      - naikrovek 5y ago
        well I apologize for not knowing all laws across the world. clearly I am unfit to be part of the blockchain discussion given that my knowledge of mining laws is not entirely complete and fully up to date. forgive me senpai! by the way, all (all) blockchain and NFT stuff are complete and total scams and one should kick the scammers between the legs, hard, whenever they are encountered in daily life... if you wanted to know my true opinion on this.
  - EForEndeavour 5y ago
    Would they become worthless, or would their black market value shoot up?
    - thehappypm 5y ago
      Hard to imagine people will still be buying and selling crypto anywhere near the scale it is today if it’s illegal in the US. A lot of the value is “future value” like a stock.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
    Not entirely worthless, given you’ve already sunk the cost they’d still be an effective space heater.
    - sbierwagen 5y ago
      "Sunk cost" is for money you've already spent! The sunk cost here is my existing forced-air electric heat, which is already installed in my house and already turns 1 watt of electricity into 1 watt of heat, or the other space heater I bought ten years ago and can easily put anywhere I need spot heating. If the goal is turn electricity into heat and nothing else, then I am already well supplied with ways to do that.
      - rbanffy 5y ago
        Since there's very little mechanical work on a miner, it also turns one watt of electricity into one watt of heat. What it'll also do is generate a small amount of bitcoin to help you pay for the electricity. It's sunk cost if you already have a miner and need a room heater.
      - thedougd 5y ago
        Or a heat pump that uses 1 watt of electricity to move 6 watts of heat into your house.
        TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
        Under ideal conditions. What the sales people neglect to tell you is their efficiency drops precipitously as the temperature approaches zero. Heat pumps are much more consistently efficient in their other configuration as an air conditioner.
      - TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
        Yes, sorry, I should have written: you’d’ve. Assuming you had already bought the mining rig, it would continue to function as a heater regardless of legislative changes, and act as a redundant system to your existing heaters to boot.
  - tiahura 5y ago
    That such things exist is just, sad. Bitcoin’s intrinsic value seems to be as a way of turning $100 of electricity into $1 of currency.
    - marderfarker2 5y ago
      You’re not wrong. Mining operators tamper their energy meters so their usage don’t reflect in the bill. My neighbour turned his residence into a mining farm, judging by the ludicrous number of installed air conditioning lol.
      - travisgriggs 5y ago
        Maybe he’s running a side morgue. Or a swine vault. Or his kids just need lots of white noise to sleep and mama needs her nap. So many possibilities!
  - semi-extrinsic 5y ago
    For a used Antminer S9 you need average total electricity price to be below $0.08/kWh to have break-even in 1 year, it seems. In year 2 you will have earned about $600. If you look at GPU mining, a single RTX 3090 setup (assuming you already have a computer to put it in) requires electricity cost below $0.05/kWh to have break-even in 1 year.
- garmaine 5y ago
  eBay.

dylan604 5y ago

Shouldn't Watson be smart enough to tell them that? Clearly, IBM doesn't dogfood

kgwxd 5y ago
Watson told them most readers wouldn't understand any of that so go ahead an use it in the press release because it sounds good looking.

vmception 5y ago

Eventually, yes. Could quickly phase out the less efficient hardware in the nearer term or cause a temporary stasis in energy use keeping it the same as now. So you’ll want to keep innovating on all parts of the stack, consensus models, proof of work hashing algorithms that work orders of magnitude better on boutique lower powered hardware architectures (optical/analog is gaining interest), and municipal regulations

ucha 5y ago

Not really. If operational expenditure decrease while capital expenditures stays constant, it could still cost the same amount of money to mine but use less electricity. A miner pays both for power and the mining rigs.

verytrivial 5y ago

I would not march in the streets in protest if laws were passed curtailing proof-of-waste cryptocurrencies.

ephbit 5y ago
Let's chat about "proof-of-waste" again when in a few years central banks will have created so much inflation and enabled so much unsound government budgeting (simulaneously making inequality explode) that "proof-of-waste" will have become one of (if not) the most important non-manipulable linchpins that will coerce central banks to return to a less inflationary path. Just listen to what's happending in Turkey right now.
- verytrivial 5y ago
  So, let's solve corruption with more corruption. No. Regrettably I've read the first half of The Sovereign Individual and it's all about shifting obscene wealth around, not improving the lot of the average human -- that fig leaf covers nothing.
- optimalsolver 5y ago
  Meanwhile, at Tether HQ...
- simonh 5y ago
  I understand where you are right now, but the fact is central banks aren’t knowingly creating inequality, and aside from the ponzi scheme aspect the only economic use of cryptocurrencies is financing crime. I’m not going to persuade you now, so I wont try. Put a pin in your expectations for the future and revisit this in a few years or a decade’s time. Look at whether any of the extreme outcomes you are predicting now came anywhere even close to actually happening, and why they didn’t happen. Look back now at your opinions in the past of what extreme outcomes would have happened by now. Has any of it come to pass? Crypto in particular was supposed to have taken over as the payment method of choice, with near costless micro transactions funding amazing new businesses previously impossible. Instead it’s turned into a ridiculous ponzi cult, criminal financing network, and a way for wealthy dilettantes and rich world teenage gamers to collect imaginary fashion statements. It’s an utter farce and a complete betrayal of its founding principles and goals.

metanomicon 5y ago

Yes, it's essentially a factor of cost, not electrical consumption per se. So at best I don't see it helping to reduce the carbon foot print. In fact, there is a chance the problem would get worse. Consider the Braess Paradox as an analogy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox It's possible that increased efficiency (more capacity) would incentivize a greater number people to mine until usage was higher than before - similar to how expanding roadways creates more traffic. Then again, there might not be the time for the problem to get worse before people realized that money is the bottom line, not conservation. Why bother with greener chips.. when it's faster chips that matter. That's one of the big problems with proof-of-work consensus. The game theoretics work against our survival interests.

Apfel 5y ago
Jevons' Paradox would also apply in this context. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- metanomicon 5y ago
  Nice. Very true. That's probably a better example. I could only think of an analogy.

xyzzy21 5y ago

Yes. It's called Jevons Paradox. Something to keep in your pocket for discussions about efficiency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox