5 ms·

> First - clearly reducing the environmental impact of anything by this much is pro-humanity. How long until BTC follows suit?

chizhik-pyzhik 4y ago
Probably never. Bitcoin is famously conservative in comparison to other blockchain projects.
rglullis 4y ago
Judging by the BTC maxis on this thread and all the FUD they are spreading, never. If I have to make a bet, though, I think that what will happen is that financial institutions will start pushing for the idea of wrapping BTC on the Ethereum blockchain, and once it reaches a certain threshold (let's say 80%) they will campaign to drop the bitcoin PoW altogether. But this is a conversation that bitcoiners are not ready to have, yet.
- exo762 4y ago
  There is an amazing proposal [0] on building trustless bridge for BTC on Ethereum. Leona Hioki is GOAT. [0] https://ethresear.ch/t/trustless-bitcoin-bridge-creation-with-witness-encryption/11953 https://ethresear.ch/t/trustless-bitcoin-bridge-creation-wit...
  - swalsh 4y ago
    Check out btc.b on Avalanche. Already exists.
    - AgentME 4y ago
      The Avalanche Bridge isn't trustless. It's dependent on specific privileged operators to continue functioning who have the ability to cheat or get hacked.
josu 4y ago
Never. PoW is a fundamental part of what makes bitcoin valuable.
- exo762 4y ago
  May I ask you to elaborate? This sounds intriguing.
  - unnouinceput 4y ago
    It costs an average of ~5k USD to mine one bitcoin. Meaning even if the value drops at exchanges, no miner will sell below this value due to not breaking even on electricity. That's why also bitcoin miners go to places where electricity cost is low, and why they undervoltage their mining cards.
    - petters 4y ago
      What cards? Bitcoin has not been mined on GPUs for a long time and I would have thought that the ASICs used were already optimal.
      - thinkmassive 4y ago
        ASICs are also populated onto cards, and miner firmware handles tuning the hash rate of each chip (or card) based on inputs like desired temperature and power consumption. These inputs are often adjustable. Heat causes chips and other components to degrade, so not everyone runs their miners at maximum output all the time.
    - exo762 4y ago
      Why does it make any difference for me (a hypothetical BTC holder) how BTC is minted? > Meaning even if the value drops at exchanges, no miner will sell below this value due to not breaking even on electricity. It does not work like that. If you need to pay your bills you will sell BTC for whatever price it is right now. Unless you want to long BTC, but that's a different story.
    - 4y ago
yieldcrv 4y ago
BTC mining will be the methane reduction solution as the market dynamics force it to be the process generally creates some CO2, rerouting that energy on flare gas sites into power for miners, but thats much less worse than methane, and we can’t let a sustainability goal of perfect be the enemy of good
stiltzkin 4y ago
Never, maxis know how much BTC will be worth when the last BTC is mined.
beambot 4y ago
If bitcoin doesn't find a more environmentally-conscious scaling mechanism, it will be challenging for any ESG-conscious institutional investor to remain invested. The capital exodus toward PoS-ETH could accelerate a sea change.
swalsh 4y ago
Satoshi consensus is essentially the bible to their cultural ideology. You can bridge bitcoin to another chain with faster finality, smart contracts, and environmental consensus. But at the end if the day there will still be a huge amount of people who will never deviate from the core ideology.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  It's not ideology. There are pros and cons to both proof and stake and proof of work. The idea behind PoW was to decentralize proofs by allowing anyone to participate. This is a valuable property in a cryptocurrency. Bitcoin's implementation utterly failed in that regard. There are better projects out there, like Monero, but Bitcoin just refuses to die.
sph 4y ago
Never, and that's a feature. The energy consumption has always been a red herring. Everything consumes energy. Humanity's goal is to optimise energy generation and make it as green as possible, not reduce total energy usage to zero. That's just an idiotic proposition. The problem has never been "Bitcoin draws too much power", the problem is "we need more energy generation, and cheaper, and possibly not from fossil fuels." But it certainly doesn't fit on a slogan.
- Gazoche 4y ago
  So your argument is "it doesn't matter that Bitcoin wastes energy because we'll all eventually transition to green"? Don't you think the extra consumption makes that transition harder?
  - sph 4y ago
    Bitcoin mining is profitable only if you can get cheap energy. That means outside of city centres, off peak, often energy that is otherwise unsaleable. No, Bitcoin mining isn't making summer heatwave weekday peak electricity more expensive. Imagine governments putting a tax on fossil fuels. Bam! coal and petrol cheap energy is non-viable anymore, you'll see Bitcoin miners building solar and wind plants to power their operation. And along with them the rest of the world. It's easier for politicians and keyboard warriors to blame climate change on Bitcoin than actually moving to a greener world by making fossil fuels unprofitable. The extra consumption angle doesn't make any sense for an ultra technologic world, that only 1/4th of the world populace has access. Bitcoin or not, energy usage will be ramping up, especially if we want to create a fairer world. The only way to reduce energy usage is to stop being a technological civilisation, or give access to electricity to fewer and fewer people.

chizhik-pyzhik 4y ago

Probably never. Bitcoin is famously conservative in comparison to other blockchain projects.

rglullis 4y ago

Judging by the BTC maxis on this thread and all the FUD they are spreading, never. If I have to make a bet, though, I think that what will happen is that financial institutions will start pushing for the idea of wrapping BTC on the Ethereum blockchain, and once it reaches a certain threshold (let's say 80%) they will campaign to drop the bitcoin PoW altogether. But this is a conversation that bitcoiners are not ready to have, yet.

exo762 4y ago
There is an amazing proposal [0] on building trustless bridge for BTC on Ethereum. Leona Hioki is GOAT. [0] https://ethresear.ch/t/trustless-bitcoin-bridge-creation-with-witness-encryption/11953 https://ethresear.ch/t/trustless-bitcoin-bridge-creation-wit...
- swalsh 4y ago
  Check out btc.b on Avalanche. Already exists.
  - AgentME 4y ago
    The Avalanche Bridge isn't trustless. It's dependent on specific privileged operators to continue functioning who have the ability to cheat or get hacked.

josu 4y ago

Never. PoW is a fundamental part of what makes bitcoin valuable.

exo762 4y ago
May I ask you to elaborate? This sounds intriguing.
- unnouinceput 4y ago
  It costs an average of ~5k USD to mine one bitcoin. Meaning even if the value drops at exchanges, no miner will sell below this value due to not breaking even on electricity. That's why also bitcoin miners go to places where electricity cost is low, and why they undervoltage their mining cards.
  - petters 4y ago
    What cards? Bitcoin has not been mined on GPUs for a long time and I would have thought that the ASICs used were already optimal.
    - thinkmassive 4y ago
      ASICs are also populated onto cards, and miner firmware handles tuning the hash rate of each chip (or card) based on inputs like desired temperature and power consumption. These inputs are often adjustable. Heat causes chips and other components to degrade, so not everyone runs their miners at maximum output all the time.
  - exo762 4y ago
    Why does it make any difference for me (a hypothetical BTC holder) how BTC is minted? > Meaning even if the value drops at exchanges, no miner will sell below this value due to not breaking even on electricity. It does not work like that. If you need to pay your bills you will sell BTC for whatever price it is right now. Unless you want to long BTC, but that's a different story.
  - 4y ago

yieldcrv 4y ago

BTC mining will be the methane reduction solution as the market dynamics force it to be the process generally creates some CO2, rerouting that energy on flare gas sites into power for miners, but thats much less worse than methane, and we can’t let a sustainability goal of perfect be the enemy of good

stiltzkin 4y ago

Never, maxis know how much BTC will be worth when the last BTC is mined.

beambot 4y ago

If bitcoin doesn't find a more environmentally-conscious scaling mechanism, it will be challenging for any ESG-conscious institutional investor to remain invested. The capital exodus toward PoS-ETH could accelerate a sea change.

swalsh 4y ago

Satoshi consensus is essentially the bible to their cultural ideology. You can bridge bitcoin to another chain with faster finality, smart contracts, and environmental consensus. But at the end if the day there will still be a huge amount of people who will never deviate from the core ideology.

matheusmoreira 4y ago
It's not ideology. There are pros and cons to both proof and stake and proof of work. The idea behind PoW was to decentralize proofs by allowing anyone to participate. This is a valuable property in a cryptocurrency. Bitcoin's implementation utterly failed in that regard. There are better projects out there, like Monero, but Bitcoin just refuses to die.

sph 4y ago

Never, and that's a feature. The energy consumption has always been a red herring. Everything consumes energy. Humanity's goal is to optimise energy generation and make it as green as possible, not reduce total energy usage to zero. That's just an idiotic proposition. The problem has never been "Bitcoin draws too much power", the problem is "we need more energy generation, and cheaper, and possibly not from fossil fuels." But it certainly doesn't fit on a slogan.

Gazoche 4y ago
So your argument is "it doesn't matter that Bitcoin wastes energy because we'll all eventually transition to green"? Don't you think the extra consumption makes that transition harder?
- sph 4y ago
  Bitcoin mining is profitable only if you can get cheap energy. That means outside of city centres, off peak, often energy that is otherwise unsaleable. No, Bitcoin mining isn't making summer heatwave weekday peak electricity more expensive. Imagine governments putting a tax on fossil fuels. Bam! coal and petrol cheap energy is non-viable anymore, you'll see Bitcoin miners building solar and wind plants to power their operation. And along with them the rest of the world. It's easier for politicians and keyboard warriors to blame climate change on Bitcoin than actually moving to a greener world by making fossil fuels unprofitable. The extra consumption angle doesn't make any sense for an ultra technologic world, that only 1/4th of the world populace has access. Bitcoin or not, energy usage will be ramping up, especially if we want to create a fairer world. The only way to reduce energy usage is to stop being a technological civilisation, or give access to electricity to fewer and fewer people.