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Actually, for your first point, you have to compare the carbon footprint of bitcoin to the carbon footprint of the alternative. What is the carbon footprint of

by hendzen 13y ago

Actually, for your first point, you have to compare the carbon footprint of bitcoin to the carbon footprint of the alternative. What is the carbon footprint of all the different transaction processing systems run by Mastercard, Visa, Amex, etc? What about if you add in the cost of the massive mainframes that handle ACH transfers? The cost of printing millions of archaic paper checks? I'm not saying bitcoin replaces all those things (it certainly doesn't), but it aims to.

seiji 13y ago
The other systems aren't based around grinding CPUs at 100% power utilization for days/weeks/months doing worthless busy work. Unless your power comes from a zero-carbon-footprint renewable resource, it's pretty ugly.
- hendzen 13y ago
  High hardware utilization is a good thing for efficiency because that enables ASICs to be produced that are growing increasingly more efficient. Right now one of the main metrics people use when evaluating the profitability mining hardware is Ghash/Watt, so the market is naturally incentivizing low OpEx and therefore less power usage (per transaction processed not the nominal amount of power used). Also, it's actually more efficient to have a smaller number of machines running at full utilization 24x7 than the typical massive datacenter that averages around 20-30% utilization [0]. That's because modern servers consume nearly as much power at 20-30% utilization as they do at 100%. [0] - http://bnrg.eecs.berkeley.edu/~randy/Courses/CS294.F09/wharehousesizedcomputers.pdf http://bnrg.eecs.berkeley.edu/~randy/Courses/CS294.F09/whare... (page 55)
- asciimo 13y ago
  The Bitcoin network doesn't require CEOs to burn jet fuel to visit their associates for catered meals; it doesn't require metal to be pressed into little discs, or trees to be pressed into little rectangles, and then distributed via combustion engine; it doesn't require receipts to be printed, duplicated, stored, and finally destroyed; it doesn't require millions of humans to commute to HVAC supported cubes to keep the system running.
  - seiji 13y ago
    So we're all back to hoarding money under our mattresses? There will always be central banking infrastructure controlled by billionaires who are more socially important than you. We can't just "go decentralized." An average person is too busy to even remember their password to gmail is "password456" and not "password123."
- shawnz 13y ago
  It cant be "worthless" and simultaneously have the whole system based around it. If you want to use bitcoin and the "worthless" work is what allows bitcoin to exist, then it has worth.
bdcravens 13y ago
I'd argue that value / footprint (edit: had this backward) generated is higher for legacy systems than Bitcoin. (Unless you can totally eliminate CPU and GPU mining)
- hendzen 13y ago
  I see an assertion, but no actual argument.
nhaehnle 13y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if the Bitcoin network already costs more than those mainframes in terms of carbon footprint - after all, the Bitcoin network is basically the world's largest supercomputer [0]. On top of that, you have to consider that those systems offer much more value than just a barebones ledger as the core of Bitcoin does. If you add in all those companies building stuff on top of Bitcoin, the comparison starts to become less favorable. [0] Purely monetary terms are obviously different. The vendors of those systems inflate prices ridiculously because they can - banks have traditionally not been under much pressure to operate efficiently in this arena.

by hendzen 13y ago

seiji 13y ago

The other systems aren't based around grinding CPUs at 100% power utilization for days/weeks/months doing worthless busy work. Unless your power comes from a zero-carbon-footprint renewable resource, it's pretty ugly.

hendzen 13y ago
High hardware utilization is a good thing for efficiency because that enables ASICs to be produced that are growing increasingly more efficient. Right now one of the main metrics people use when evaluating the profitability mining hardware is Ghash/Watt, so the market is naturally incentivizing low OpEx and therefore less power usage (per transaction processed not the nominal amount of power used). Also, it's actually more efficient to have a smaller number of machines running at full utilization 24x7 than the typical massive datacenter that averages around 20-30% utilization [0]. That's because modern servers consume nearly as much power at 20-30% utilization as they do at 100%. [0] - http://bnrg.eecs.berkeley.edu/~randy/Courses/CS294.F09/wharehousesizedcomputers.pdf http://bnrg.eecs.berkeley.edu/~randy/Courses/CS294.F09/whare... (page 55)
asciimo 13y ago
The Bitcoin network doesn't require CEOs to burn jet fuel to visit their associates for catered meals; it doesn't require metal to be pressed into little discs, or trees to be pressed into little rectangles, and then distributed via combustion engine; it doesn't require receipts to be printed, duplicated, stored, and finally destroyed; it doesn't require millions of humans to commute to HVAC supported cubes to keep the system running.
- seiji 13y ago
  So we're all back to hoarding money under our mattresses? There will always be central banking infrastructure controlled by billionaires who are more socially important than you. We can't just "go decentralized." An average person is too busy to even remember their password to gmail is "password456" and not "password123."
shawnz 13y ago
It cant be "worthless" and simultaneously have the whole system based around it. If you want to use bitcoin and the "worthless" work is what allows bitcoin to exist, then it has worth.

bdcravens 13y ago

I'd argue that value / footprint (edit: had this backward) generated is higher for legacy systems than Bitcoin. (Unless you can totally eliminate CPU and GPU mining)

hendzen 13y ago
I see an assertion, but no actual argument.

nhaehnle 13y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if the Bitcoin network already costs more than those mainframes in terms of carbon footprint - after all, the Bitcoin network is basically the world's largest supercomputer [0]. On top of that, you have to consider that those systems offer much more value than just a barebones ledger as the core of Bitcoin does. If you add in all those companies building stuff on top of Bitcoin, the comparison starts to become less favorable. [0] Purely monetary terms are obviously different. The vendors of those systems inflate prices ridiculously because they can - banks have traditionally not been under much pressure to operate efficiently in this arena.