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The student arguing that is has the potential for that doesn't contradict the fact that Bitcoin is not mainly used for illegal activities currently. Even if you

The student arguing that is has the potential for that doesn't contradict the fact that Bitcoin is not mainly used for illegal activities currently. Even if you assume buying weed on dark markets was a major driver of adoption in the early days (having followed the space early on I find that doubtful because the people who were in Bitcoin were mainly interested in the technology), when you look at it currently the vast majority of the funds isn't even moved much. It sits in cold storage as digital gold. It's mainly an investment these days. Even Blackrock is coming out with an ETF now, they just announced it a few days ago. As for criminals, they have learned that authorities understand blockchains a lot better than they used to, and that there are professional firms tracking crypto movements. It's all public after all. Unless they're in a jurisdiction where they're safe from prosecution because they have state backing, it's not really used illegally much any more. So these cases are more state terrorism, where countries like Russia or North Korea intentionally hurt businesses in enemy states, or at least turn a blind eye in the latter case. In those cases it's ultimately the internet that enables it.

rollcat 3y ago
> [...] the vast majority of the funds isn't even moved much. It sits in cold storage as digital gold. It's mainly an investment these days. So you're saying, all of that CO2 has been "invested" into our atmosphere, where it will continue getting the planet hotter (can we call it "hot storage"?) until somehow removed (someone else's problem!); in order to enable continued speculation, while the ridiculously overprovisioned infrastructure is not even doing much anymore, in terms of processing actual transactions? Future of finance.
- panarky 3y ago
  Sure, just like all the CO2 from diesel engines manufacturing and transporting last year's useless, disposable consumer products is now "invested" into the atmosphere, and the disposable consumer products themselves are now "invested" into landfills and leaching into the groundwater for centuries to come.
  - rollcat 3y ago
    Waste is waste, but there's only one kind technology built on proof of waste.
    - ephbit 3y ago
      Ferrari, Lamborghini, superyacht and so on. They're all 9x % proof of waste ... to prove wealth/"social" status.
    - npoc 3y ago
      Any resource usage appears to be waste if you don't appreciate the reward
- ephbit 3y ago
  Bitcoin currently uses ~ 131 TWh electricty per year. [1] The world used ~ 176000 TWh of energy in 2021, now it's likely more. [2] Now let's say all the Bitcoin mining equipment (ASICS, ..) require another 50 % of the continuous electricity consumption of mining to be produced (random guess, no source), that'd be another: 65.5 TWh/a So according to this, Bitcoin uses less than: 196.5 / 176000 = 0.11 % of total worldwide energy consumption. According to this graph [3] the energy sector makes up 73 % of global greenhouse gas emissions. The three sectors beneath "energy" there being: a industry (coal/oil/gas), b transport (gasoline/diesel) and c buildings (heating oil/gas). All of these three mostly use fossil fuels as their energy inputs: coal, oil, gas, whereas bitcoin uses an electricity mix which has a non-negligible proportion of renewables in them. So Bitcoin's climate footprint should be significantly smaller than 0.08 % of global emissions. That's less than 1/1200. Now compare that to any of the stupid consumerism behavior we have in the rich parts of the world, where someone buys 100s of kgs of useless plastic crap each year, buys a stupidly over motorized pile of metal to drive around the block and show off, boosting their ego blowing exhaust into their fellow citizens' lungs and has a weekly barbecue session at their AC cooled suburban 1000s of sqft home. These uses of energy add up to 100s more emissions than Bitcoin. Sure, not everyone thinks Bitcoin is useful. But do I think all these stupid plastic collectors figures and all other plastic crap is useful? Hell no. And do I think that a Hummer or Landrover Defender or your standard US pickup truck is a useful/reasonable vehicle? Hell no. While Bitcoin makes just a tiny dent in global emissions, this other useless stuff makes not a tiny but a huge dent in emissions. You can criticise Bitcoin all you want for this and that, but if you're honestly trying to make a point and suggest where emissions can be reduced to help the climate and you then point to Bitcoin .. then you're obviously either falling for anti Bitcoin narratives or your thinking doesn't work all that well. [1] https://ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci https://ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitution https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitutio... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
    0.11% or even 0.08% of total worldwide energy consumption is a fucking shit ton of energy. You could also compare it to the sun's energy output to make the percentage even smaller looking, but the energy size is still huge. The metric to compare bitcoin to is energy per transaction compared with EXISTING forms of digital finance with which it is competing. The argument that "bitcoin may be bad energy-wise but are other things are too, so therefore don't worry about" it is a bad one. It's like saying, "sure child abuse is bad, but war causes way more suffering and there are still wars so no need to do anything about child abuse, at least until all war everywhere stops first. Oh and if you do try and stop child abuse while war exists then you are a hypocrite.". Bad premise, bad logic.

rollcat 3y ago

> [...] the vast majority of the funds isn't even moved much. It sits in cold storage as digital gold. It's mainly an investment these days. So you're saying, all of that CO2 has been "invested" into our atmosphere, where it will continue getting the planet hotter (can we call it "hot storage"?) until somehow removed (someone else's problem!); in order to enable continued speculation, while the ridiculously overprovisioned infrastructure is not even doing much anymore, in terms of processing actual transactions? Future of finance.

panarky 3y ago
Sure, just like all the CO2 from diesel engines manufacturing and transporting last year's useless, disposable consumer products is now "invested" into the atmosphere, and the disposable consumer products themselves are now "invested" into landfills and leaching into the groundwater for centuries to come.
- rollcat 3y ago
  Waste is waste, but there's only one kind technology built on proof of waste.
  - ephbit 3y ago
    Ferrari, Lamborghini, superyacht and so on. They're all 9x % proof of waste ... to prove wealth/"social" status.
  - npoc 3y ago
    Any resource usage appears to be waste if you don't appreciate the reward
ephbit 3y ago
Bitcoin currently uses ~ 131 TWh electricty per year. [1] The world used ~ 176000 TWh of energy in 2021, now it's likely more. [2] Now let's say all the Bitcoin mining equipment (ASICS, ..) require another 50 % of the continuous electricity consumption of mining to be produced (random guess, no source), that'd be another: 65.5 TWh/a So according to this, Bitcoin uses less than: 196.5 / 176000 = 0.11 % of total worldwide energy consumption. According to this graph [3] the energy sector makes up 73 % of global greenhouse gas emissions. The three sectors beneath "energy" there being: a industry (coal/oil/gas), b transport (gasoline/diesel) and c buildings (heating oil/gas). All of these three mostly use fossil fuels as their energy inputs: coal, oil, gas, whereas bitcoin uses an electricity mix which has a non-negligible proportion of renewables in them. So Bitcoin's climate footprint should be significantly smaller than 0.08 % of global emissions. That's less than 1/1200. Now compare that to any of the stupid consumerism behavior we have in the rich parts of the world, where someone buys 100s of kgs of useless plastic crap each year, buys a stupidly over motorized pile of metal to drive around the block and show off, boosting their ego blowing exhaust into their fellow citizens' lungs and has a weekly barbecue session at their AC cooled suburban 1000s of sqft home. These uses of energy add up to 100s more emissions than Bitcoin. Sure, not everyone thinks Bitcoin is useful. But do I think all these stupid plastic collectors figures and all other plastic crap is useful? Hell no. And do I think that a Hummer or Landrover Defender or your standard US pickup truck is a useful/reasonable vehicle? Hell no. While Bitcoin makes just a tiny dent in global emissions, this other useless stuff makes not a tiny but a huge dent in emissions. You can criticise Bitcoin all you want for this and that, but if you're honestly trying to make a point and suggest where emissions can be reduced to help the climate and you then point to Bitcoin .. then you're obviously either falling for anti Bitcoin narratives or your thinking doesn't work all that well. [1] https://ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci https://ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitution https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitutio... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
  0.11% or even 0.08% of total worldwide energy consumption is a fucking shit ton of energy. You could also compare it to the sun's energy output to make the percentage even smaller looking, but the energy size is still huge. The metric to compare bitcoin to is energy per transaction compared with EXISTING forms of digital finance with which it is competing. The argument that "bitcoin may be bad energy-wise but are other things are too, so therefore don't worry about" it is a bad one. It's like saying, "sure child abuse is bad, but war causes way more suffering and there are still wars so no need to do anything about child abuse, at least until all war everywhere stops first. Oh and if you do try and stop child abuse while war exists then you are a hypocrite.". Bad premise, bad logic.