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> those transactions occur via a polluting process. How much CO2 pollution is each transaction responsible for, and how much would it cost to offset that CO2?

> those transactions occur via a polluting process. How much CO2 pollution is each transaction responsible for, and how much would it cost to offset that CO2? It seems like there should be some threshold above which the donation will include within it the funds needed to compensate for its externalities, but I don't know if it's possible to create a smart contract that only allows donations above a threshold amount.

Imnimo 5y ago
It costs about $20 to buy the carbon offsets for a single bitcoin transaction (at least according to the first article I found on Google), so double that for the two transactions to receive and then sell. Carbon offsets in practice are often not as much as what you're paying for, so you would probably need to buy more of them to truly offset. You would also have to factor in the pollution from e-waste generated by miners buying and replacing ASICs, although that's harder to quantify. But we should also consider whether engaging in such a transaction is worthwhile as a matter of principle. If the organization's goals include environmentalism, does legitimizing Bitcoin by advertising their acceptance of it run counter to those goals?
- buildbuildbuild 5y ago
  There is a lot of game theory behind why people mine a PoW cryptocurrency. Attempts to quantify “CO2 per transaction” are fundamentally flawed in my opinion. Bitcoin’s pollution is not strongly correlated with its transaction volume. It’s a famous rare collectible. People will mine it whether there is a high volume of transactions or not.
sodality2 5y ago
> How much CO2 pollution is each transaction responsible for, and how much would it cost to offset that CO2? 369.49 kgCO2eq. https://www.forbes.com/sites/philippsandner/2021/11/19/bitcoin-co2-emissions-from-an-investor-perspective-and-how-to-compensate-them/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/philippsandner/2021/11/19/bitco... > An average Bitcoin transaction has a size of 670 bytes on the Bitcoin blockchain, representing an estimated carbon footprint of 369.49 kgCO2eq. Given a price of USD 50 per metric tonne of CO2eq, the compensation of one average Bitcoin transaction costs USD 18.47.
charcircuit 5y ago
>How much CO2 pollution is each transaction responsible for Near 0. PoW is about agreeing on what the current state is. A transaction itself doesn't cost very much energy. If you were to process 0 transactions for the next agreed upon state it would take just as much energy as processing thousands of them.
- bytelines 5y ago
  This is equivalent to claiming riding an airline doesn't emit any CO2 because the plane was going to fly anyways
  - buildbuildbuild 5y ago
    Flying an empty plane does not generate a rare collectible that the airline is speculating may some day be worth over six figures each.

Imnimo 5y ago

It costs about $20 to buy the carbon offsets for a single bitcoin transaction (at least according to the first article I found on Google), so double that for the two transactions to receive and then sell. Carbon offsets in practice are often not as much as what you're paying for, so you would probably need to buy more of them to truly offset. You would also have to factor in the pollution from e-waste generated by miners buying and replacing ASICs, although that's harder to quantify. But we should also consider whether engaging in such a transaction is worthwhile as a matter of principle. If the organization's goals include environmentalism, does legitimizing Bitcoin by advertising their acceptance of it run counter to those goals?

buildbuildbuild 5y ago
There is a lot of game theory behind why people mine a PoW cryptocurrency. Attempts to quantify “CO2 per transaction” are fundamentally flawed in my opinion. Bitcoin’s pollution is not strongly correlated with its transaction volume. It’s a famous rare collectible. People will mine it whether there is a high volume of transactions or not.

sodality2 5y ago

> How much CO2 pollution is each transaction responsible for, and how much would it cost to offset that CO2? 369.49 kgCO2eq. https://www.forbes.com/sites/philippsandner/2021/11/19/bitcoin-co2-emissions-from-an-investor-perspective-and-how-to-compensate-them/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/philippsandner/2021/11/19/bitco... > An average Bitcoin transaction has a size of 670 bytes on the Bitcoin blockchain, representing an estimated carbon footprint of 369.49 kgCO2eq. Given a price of USD 50 per metric tonne of CO2eq, the compensation of one average Bitcoin transaction costs USD 18.47.

charcircuit 5y ago

>How much CO2 pollution is each transaction responsible for Near 0. PoW is about agreeing on what the current state is. A transaction itself doesn't cost very much energy. If you were to process 0 transactions for the next agreed upon state it would take just as much energy as processing thousands of them.

bytelines 5y ago
This is equivalent to claiming riding an airline doesn't emit any CO2 because the plane was going to fly anyways
- buildbuildbuild 5y ago
  Flying an empty plane does not generate a rare collectible that the airline is speculating may some day be worth over six figures each.