5 ms·

> BTC (on chain) is still working as intended, after all these years. It's certainly working on destroying the planet with its obscene energy requirements.

systemvoltage 4y ago
I am not a fan of "destroying the planet" arguments mainly because anything goes, super ambiguious and not very precise. Buy our razors because cartridge razors are destroying the planet! https://bandisposablerazors.org/ https://bandisposablerazors.org/ Destroying the planet = Can't question it, can't argue about it, it is the end all of all arguments. How could you ever oppose something that destroys the planet? They all sound the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing
- kevinak 4y ago
  On top of being hard to argue against, it just isn't true. It's a net positive for the environment, at least it will be in a couple of years: https://batcoinz.com/50-landfills-mining-bitcoin-a-zero-emission-bitcoin-network/ https://batcoinz.com/50-landfills-mining-bitcoin-a-zero-emis...
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    Generally though, conceptually the argument goes like this "You can't do X because it destroys the planet. Since we cannot destroy the planet, there is no other option but to accept banning of X". But, there is no limits or guards to this. You can easily go down the slippery slope and say X is the city of Chicago that needs to be destroyed for the collective good. It consumes too many resources. Riddled with subjectivism. You cannot do less since there are no objective limits to what is "acceptable levels of destruction of the planet" means. It has a different subjective weight to different entities arguing the position. In the limit, this would mean we erase humanity all together and leave the planet alone. You can bully a lot of things your way before any one can speak up against it. There is a level of insidious moral superiority built into it which makes it prime for exploitation. Corporations are doing exactly that.
  - pksebben 4y ago
    is this paper saying that Bitcoin _will_ all be mined using methane, or that it _could_? because those are two vastly different conclusions.
    - kevinak 4y ago
      I don't believe it's saying either. It's saying that the trend is towards net zero emission and that this will happen by the end of 2024. After that I would assume we go into the negatives and improve the current situation. "Based on the estimated average growth rate of bitcoin mining operators using vented methane of 6.9 MW/month, the Bitcoin network will become Carbon Negative in Dec ’24."
      - ipython 4y ago
        So… we will solve global warming by running a network of computers with custom ASICs at 100% utilization, cooling them as necessary, performing useless computation, so a cabal of technobros can move imaginary internet money around 10 times per second? Oh and increasing the power usage of this fire pile will, as you say, “improve the current situation”? Your point is that the only way we can avoid burning methane is to use that to power bitcoin mining rigs???
        kevinak 4y ago
        No, I've never claimed that. Regardless of what you think about Bitcoin, if it's useless or not, don't you agree that net negative is better than zero? Burning methane (flaring) is most definitely an improvement over not doing it. That's just a fact. It accounts for about 20% of global emissions and is 25 times as potent as CO2. https://www.epa.gov/gmi/importance-methane https://www.epa.gov/gmi/importance-methane You would use Bitcoin mining as a monetary incentive to flare methane. You could do other things but it requires more infrastructure investment and might not even be possible in certain locations that are far from where the electricity would be used.
        ipython 4y ago
  - Stention314 4y ago
    This is wrong and green washing. We could also use this energy for better things than Bitcoin. And while BTC doesn't make any value besides moving money from one person to another, it also produces hardware garbage like ASIC chips and power supply. It also steals demand from others too. There is only downside for most of us than benefit of allowing Bitcoin mining independent of it's source.
    - kevinak 4y ago
      No, this is not wrong. You can't magically just "use it for something else". That's not how this works. You need to generate electricity where it is needed (or transport it, which costs money). If there are landfills out there that are just spewing methane gas (20x worse than CO2, btw) into the atmosphere, why not make sure that is burned and used more efficiently? Please show me a realistic plan to do this. Bitcoin does it without forcing anyone and without taxes directed towards it.
      - netrus 4y ago
        Aren't landfills close to civilization usually, so it would not be hard to transfer the electricity some miles to charge Teslas, heat homes or power etc. Where are landfills too remote to transport electricity away from?
        kevinak 4y ago
        I'm sure that's the case for some of the landfills, but definitely not all of them. In the US 70% of the methane from landfills is vented, rather than flared. That means that for some reason, either it's too expensive to do or something else is blocking this. And that's just the US. You can also imagine that landfills in the developing world are better targets. Infrastructure is not as good there as it is in the US or in Europe.
        Stention314 4y ago
        The profit is too small. Easy to solve with laws. Shouldn't be allowed anyway to just pick the good things from a gas field...
irusensei 4y ago
Energy which was paid for. If there is a problem with that then price it accordingly.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- me551ah 4y ago
  Energy which is used to mindlessly calculate dumb hashes, trillions of which are discarded every second for the winning 'hash'. Proof of Work is basically lottery, but which consumes energy instead of tickets.
  - irusensei 4y ago
    Not a miner. I do use a computer to calculate dumb stuff all the time for entertainment purposes. I mean… Cyberpunk 2077 could run acceptably on an integrated 65W APU but instead I chose to crank everything on max with ray tracing through a 4090 just to see some dumb frames on a screen that are discarded at a hundred per second. And I don’t ever remember having to ask permission to use the kW h I’m paying for.
    - notahacker 4y ago
      I'm not sure gamers have over-specced their gaming machines to the extent they're using more electricity than a medium-sized European country...
      - irusensei 4y ago
        Are you suggesting the combined power usage of gamers specing their machines above average recommended system requirements is less than the power used by mining industry? I’m skeptical about that. And its beside the point because again its none of your business.
        notahacker 4y ago
netheril96 4y ago
Well, maybe I should raise the example of ETH instead. It is still working as intended, decentralized, and consuming little energy.
- grumpyprole 4y ago
  Given ETH only switched to proof-of-stake this year, I think perhaps it's a bit early to call it out as a long-standing energy efficiency success.

systemvoltage 4y ago

I am not a fan of "destroying the planet" arguments mainly because anything goes, super ambiguious and not very precise. Buy our razors because cartridge razors are destroying the planet! https://bandisposablerazors.org/ https://bandisposablerazors.org/ Destroying the planet = Can't question it, can't argue about it, it is the end all of all arguments. How could you ever oppose something that destroys the planet? They all sound the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing

kevinak 4y ago
On top of being hard to argue against, it just isn't true. It's a net positive for the environment, at least it will be in a couple of years: https://batcoinz.com/50-landfills-mining-bitcoin-a-zero-emission-bitcoin-network/ https://batcoinz.com/50-landfills-mining-bitcoin-a-zero-emis...
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  Generally though, conceptually the argument goes like this "You can't do X because it destroys the planet. Since we cannot destroy the planet, there is no other option but to accept banning of X". But, there is no limits or guards to this. You can easily go down the slippery slope and say X is the city of Chicago that needs to be destroyed for the collective good. It consumes too many resources. Riddled with subjectivism. You cannot do less since there are no objective limits to what is "acceptable levels of destruction of the planet" means. It has a different subjective weight to different entities arguing the position. In the limit, this would mean we erase humanity all together and leave the planet alone. You can bully a lot of things your way before any one can speak up against it. There is a level of insidious moral superiority built into it which makes it prime for exploitation. Corporations are doing exactly that.
- pksebben 4y ago
  is this paper saying that Bitcoin _will_ all be mined using methane, or that it _could_? because those are two vastly different conclusions.
  - kevinak 4y ago
    I don't believe it's saying either. It's saying that the trend is towards net zero emission and that this will happen by the end of 2024. After that I would assume we go into the negatives and improve the current situation. "Based on the estimated average growth rate of bitcoin mining operators using vented methane of 6.9 MW/month, the Bitcoin network will become Carbon Negative in Dec ’24."
    - ipython 4y ago
      So… we will solve global warming by running a network of computers with custom ASICs at 100% utilization, cooling them as necessary, performing useless computation, so a cabal of technobros can move imaginary internet money around 10 times per second? Oh and increasing the power usage of this fire pile will, as you say, “improve the current situation”? Your point is that the only way we can avoid burning methane is to use that to power bitcoin mining rigs???
      - kevinak 4y ago
        No, I've never claimed that. Regardless of what you think about Bitcoin, if it's useless or not, don't you agree that net negative is better than zero? Burning methane (flaring) is most definitely an improvement over not doing it. That's just a fact. It accounts for about 20% of global emissions and is 25 times as potent as CO2. https://www.epa.gov/gmi/importance-methane https://www.epa.gov/gmi/importance-methane You would use Bitcoin mining as a monetary incentive to flare methane. You could do other things but it requires more infrastructure investment and might not even be possible in certain locations that are far from where the electricity would be used.
        ipython 4y ago
- Stention314 4y ago
  This is wrong and green washing. We could also use this energy for better things than Bitcoin. And while BTC doesn't make any value besides moving money from one person to another, it also produces hardware garbage like ASIC chips and power supply. It also steals demand from others too. There is only downside for most of us than benefit of allowing Bitcoin mining independent of it's source.
  - kevinak 4y ago
    No, this is not wrong. You can't magically just "use it for something else". That's not how this works. You need to generate electricity where it is needed (or transport it, which costs money). If there are landfills out there that are just spewing methane gas (20x worse than CO2, btw) into the atmosphere, why not make sure that is burned and used more efficiently? Please show me a realistic plan to do this. Bitcoin does it without forcing anyone and without taxes directed towards it.
    - netrus 4y ago
      Aren't landfills close to civilization usually, so it would not be hard to transfer the electricity some miles to charge Teslas, heat homes or power etc. Where are landfills too remote to transport electricity away from?
      - kevinak 4y ago
        I'm sure that's the case for some of the landfills, but definitely not all of them. In the US 70% of the methane from landfills is vented, rather than flared. That means that for some reason, either it's too expensive to do or something else is blocking this. And that's just the US. You can also imagine that landfills in the developing world are better targets. Infrastructure is not as good there as it is in the US or in Europe.
        Stention314 4y ago
        The profit is too small. Easy to solve with laws. Shouldn't be allowed anyway to just pick the good things from a gas field...

irusensei 4y ago

Energy which was paid for. If there is a problem with that then price it accordingly.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
me551ah 4y ago
Energy which is used to mindlessly calculate dumb hashes, trillions of which are discarded every second for the winning 'hash'. Proof of Work is basically lottery, but which consumes energy instead of tickets.
- irusensei 4y ago
  Not a miner. I do use a computer to calculate dumb stuff all the time for entertainment purposes. I mean… Cyberpunk 2077 could run acceptably on an integrated 65W APU but instead I chose to crank everything on max with ray tracing through a 4090 just to see some dumb frames on a screen that are discarded at a hundred per second. And I don’t ever remember having to ask permission to use the kW h I’m paying for.
  - notahacker 4y ago
    I'm not sure gamers have over-specced their gaming machines to the extent they're using more electricity than a medium-sized European country...
    - irusensei 4y ago
      Are you suggesting the combined power usage of gamers specing their machines above average recommended system requirements is less than the power used by mining industry? I’m skeptical about that. And its beside the point because again its none of your business.
      - notahacker 4y ago

netheril96 4y ago

Well, maybe I should raise the example of ETH instead. It is still working as intended, decentralized, and consuming little energy.

grumpyprole 4y ago
Given ETH only switched to proof-of-stake this year, I think perhaps it's a bit early to call it out as a long-standing energy efficiency success.