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> 'wasting' is the wrong word there. It is converting power into work in order to validate blocks of transactions. We have tellers in banks who drive their cars

> 'wasting' is the wrong word there. It is converting power into work in order to validate blocks of transactions. We have tellers in banks who drive their cars into nice air conditioned offices every single day, that effectively do the same thing. Is that also wasting power in your eyes? Tellers help human beings interact with the banking system. Being able to talk to a human to help resolve problems with your account, start the process of getting a loan, etc. is nice and not really comparable to what mining does. Lest we start adding every Coinbase employee, wallet developer, and so on to Bitcoin's list of costs. To determine whether Bitcoin mining is "wasteful" or not we would have to know exactly how much mining is needed for Bitcoin to remain secure against double spend attacks. As far as I know that is not something that can be calculated. But it seems like most people are confident the current amount of mining expenditure is way more than necessary, since nobody is concerned about the drop in security that will immediately follow the next halving event.

latchkey 3y ago
> Tellers help human beings interact with the banking system. Being able to talk to a human to help resolve problems with your account, start the process of getting a loan, etc. is nice and not really comparable to what mining does. I'd argue that we don't need the help and it is something that can be automated. One can take out collateralized loans in DeFi all day long without interacting with a human. > But it seems like most people are confident the current amount of mining expenditure is way more than necessary, since nobody is concerned about the drop in security that will immediately follow the next halving event. Target difficulty adjusts, so the drop in security will only last 2016 blocks. Over time, I'd expect bitcoin mining energy usage to drop significantly with the halvings, which is a good thing. I agree, we don't need as much as we have today, but the reality is that there is a large land grab happening ahead of the drops. I do predict it will even out over time.

latchkey 3y ago

> Tellers help human beings interact with the banking system. Being able to talk to a human to help resolve problems with your account, start the process of getting a loan, etc. is nice and not really comparable to what mining does. I'd argue that we don't need the help and it is something that can be automated. One can take out collateralized loans in DeFi all day long without interacting with a human. > But it seems like most people are confident the current amount of mining expenditure is way more than necessary, since nobody is concerned about the drop in security that will immediately follow the next halving event. Target difficulty adjusts, so the drop in security will only last 2016 blocks. Over time, I'd expect bitcoin mining energy usage to drop significantly with the halvings, which is a good thing. I agree, we don't need as much as we have today, but the reality is that there is a large land grab happening ahead of the drops. I do predict it will even out over time.