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The same sort of reasoning applies to Bitcoin. Someone has to secure all that Bitcoin mining hardware, and as the effort that goes into mining grows, the energ

The same sort of reasoning applies to Bitcoin. Someone has to secure all that Bitcoin mining hardware, and as the effort that goes into mining grows, the energy spent on securing mining hardware will grow. I would also include the cost of producing ever-faster mining hardware; honest miners have to continuously upgrade their equipment just to keep pace with attackers. Really though, the fact that every single transaction is broadcast and that every single transaction must be verified by the entire network (in theory) is what kills Bitcoin's energy efficiency. Whenever a new mining rig is brought online, the energy efficiency of Bitcoin decreases -- and Bitcoin is designed to incentivize bringing more mining equipment online.

runeks 13y ago
> Really though, the fact that every single transaction is broadcast and that every single transaction must be verified by the entire network (in theory) is what kills Bitcoin's energy efficiency. It is also the fact that ensures it's distributed nature, and the purpose of its very existence in the first place (we have plenty of centralized digital currencies). > Whenever a new mining rig is brought online, the energy efficiency of Bitcoin decreases -- and Bitcoin is designed to incentivize bringing more mining equipment online. This is not necessarily true. The efficiency (number of SHA256 operations per joule expanded) will increase over time. It has already increased by a factor of 1000 compared to CPU mining. So it's definitely possible for both the security and the energy efficiency to increase simultaneously.