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> the solution there is not to create an entire secondary financial system that burns down rain forests to execute transactions This complaint is out of date f

> the solution there is not to create an entire secondary financial system that burns down rain forests to execute transactions This complaint is out of date for ethereum, the cryptocurrency system under discussion. The carbon footprint of an ethereum transaction is now about the same as watching two hours of youtube according to https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption and that's for the L1 - say you use Argent on Zksync as an example L2, you're most likely saving even more energy.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago
And VISA handles 160,000 transactions for that same amount of energy. It's still catastrophically wasteful. You're still not even remotely in the realm where you can call it more or less efficient, one of these is efficient, and one of them is categorically, empirically not. And before you go to cite crypto using green energy sources: so fucking what? It's wasting energy that wasn't produced with fossil fuels, big fucking deal, now the people who could've used that energy might well need to use fossil fuel-based energy sources to make up what ethereum converted into heat in server rooms which was then cooled by air conditioning to play their monopoly money game. Great, terrific, awesome.
- kybernetikos 3y ago
  The page I linked says that visa do 22 transactions for the same carbon footprint. This is really not terribly inefficient - they both use very little energy per transaction and ethereum is much more advanced than visa and a much better platform to build a global financial system on - it can handle arbitrary transactions so I can make atomic transfers, it's credibly neutral to its transactions, its costs are borne by those using it rather than by a rent seeking corporation. Its not a back box - anyone with a good idea can suggest improvements. Besides that, rollups provide further energy savings to the extent that I expect my zksync transactions probably actually use a very similar amount of energy to visa transactions.
  - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
    The 22 figure is based on the post proof-of-stake energy cost. For the vast, vast majority of it's history, it used proof of work. And it's also worth noting that many, many, many cryptocurrencies still do. And, while 22/1 is infinitely better than 160,000/1, that's still 22 times more energy used to facilitate the transfer of funds, which we already have methods to do more efficiently.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago

And VISA handles 160,000 transactions for that same amount of energy. It's still catastrophically wasteful. You're still not even remotely in the realm where you can call it more or less efficient, one of these is efficient, and one of them is categorically, empirically not. And before you go to cite crypto using green energy sources: so fucking what? It's wasting energy that wasn't produced with fossil fuels, big fucking deal, now the people who could've used that energy might well need to use fossil fuel-based energy sources to make up what ethereum converted into heat in server rooms which was then cooled by air conditioning to play their monopoly money game. Great, terrific, awesome.

kybernetikos 3y ago
The page I linked says that visa do 22 transactions for the same carbon footprint. This is really not terribly inefficient - they both use very little energy per transaction and ethereum is much more advanced than visa and a much better platform to build a global financial system on - it can handle arbitrary transactions so I can make atomic transfers, it's credibly neutral to its transactions, its costs are borne by those using it rather than by a rent seeking corporation. Its not a back box - anyone with a good idea can suggest improvements. Besides that, rollups provide further energy savings to the extent that I expect my zksync transactions probably actually use a very similar amount of energy to visa transactions.
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago
  The 22 figure is based on the post proof-of-stake energy cost. For the vast, vast majority of it's history, it used proof of work. And it's also worth noting that many, many, many cryptocurrencies still do. And, while 22/1 is infinitely better than 160,000/1, that's still 22 times more energy used to facilitate the transfer of funds, which we already have methods to do more efficiently.