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> First, in terms of raw energy, I'm pretty sure finance has bitcoin beat. This is a painfully disingenuous response. It's obvious that the system servicing b

> First, in terms of raw energy, I'm pretty sure finance has bitcoin beat. This is a painfully disingenuous response. It's obvious that the system servicing billions of people and businesses around the world would dwarf the energy tab of a system that services a relative handful of niche users. Why even bother with such a clearly flawed comparison? > The cost of all the energy used will tend towards the price of the subsidy+fees, and the subsidy is being phased out. In a few decades the subsidy will be almost gone. Yes, the subsidy will drop but the energy costs will continue to rise and the fees will obviously have to rise to compensate for the absence of subsidies (otherwise the miners will be losing money). > If bitcoin completely replaced finance, would it really use more energy than saved by finance stopping? Finance will never "stop". Demand for consumer financial services (like banks, loans, credit & debit cards, etc) would remain pretty much the same, even with bitcoin at the core of finance. The cost of "mining" dollars is negligible compared to the ancillary financial services that people actually care about, so replacing dollars with bitcoin simply adds the extra energy of bitcoin mining into the mix. If bitcoin were cheaper than the legacy system, then why is it that all bitcoin companies prefer to use "offchain transactions" (aka non-bitcoin transactions) whenever possible? The answer is that the blockchain is incredibly inefficient compared to the legacy financial system. Payment gateways like bitpay that have no choice but to interact with the blockchain have spent lots of money building trusted node networks in order to roll their own double-spend detection heuristics because relying on bitcoin's inherent security is too slow for the needs of an actual business. The only problem bitcoin solves is "decentralized" which isn't a problem for most people.

ikeboy 11y ago
1. The energy "wastage" being complained about is not dependant on bitcoin usage, it's dependant on the subsidy and fees. If bitcoin would be used worldwide, the energy used wouldn't increase linearly with usage. You seem to be assuming it would. 2. Why will energy costs continue to rise? If it becomes less profitable to mine, less mining happens, and less energy is used. This has happened in the past, when the price dropped. 3. Why are companies using off-chain transactions? It's faster for same-company transfers. In a sense, many banks are using "off dollar" transactions as well, not actual dollars. Sending bitcoin is still faster than sending money. There are plenty of problems bitcoin solves. Just look at all the big-name companies using it, like NASDAQ, for example.

ikeboy 11y ago

1. The energy "wastage" being complained about is not dependant on bitcoin usage, it's dependant on the subsidy and fees. If bitcoin would be used worldwide, the energy used wouldn't increase linearly with usage. You seem to be assuming it would. 2. Why will energy costs continue to rise? If it becomes less profitable to mine, less mining happens, and less energy is used. This has happened in the past, when the price dropped. 3. Why are companies using off-chain transactions? It's faster for same-company transfers. In a sense, many banks are using "off dollar" transactions as well, not actual dollars. Sending bitcoin is still faster than sending money. There are plenty of problems bitcoin solves. Just look at all the big-name companies using it, like NASDAQ, for example.