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> computer power is "wasted" almost everywhere. At least Bitcoin use this power to build a decentralized currency. Pinning a GPU or ASIC at 100% undeniably dra

> computer power is "wasted" almost everywhere. At least Bitcoin use this power to build a decentralized currency. Pinning a GPU or ASIC at 100% undeniably draws more power than an everyday user idling around Facebook on their Macbook Air (~21W MAXED, so likely 7W) Whether it's worth it is the question. A back-of-the-envelope calculation gives me $12Mn USD per day as the approximate global cost of electricity given the current global hashrate of 375Mn GH/s, for 0.05¢/kWh, assuming everyone is using reasonably modern, efficient (?) ASICs like a Spondoolies SP35 Yukon at 5.5TH/s for 3850W. If that's for a $300Mn USD daily market, that's not particularly efficient. Nor particularly inefficient either, admittedly. Democratic, for sure ;) EDIT: initially forgot to include some time units, thanks jsprogrammer!

jsprogrammer 11y ago
>$12Mn USD per what? This number is pretty meaningless without knowing what timeframe that amount of costs are incurred.
- scott_karana 11y ago
  Oops, good save. Thanks! It's per day. (I think. :P) Today's average hashrate is ~397Mn GH/s, and I used 375 instead, to be conservative/fair. https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    The spot price of BTC has been steadily rising. Someone must be getting more than $12,000,000 USD / day in value out of it.
pstrateman 11y ago
> A back-of-the-envelope calculation gives me $12Mn USD per day 3600.00 BTC or $1m is paid as subsidy per day. Are you saying that people are spending 12x that on power? I dont think so.
- scott_karana 11y ago
  Do your own calculation and see what you find, instead of think. This is HN after all. :) You have all the relevant numbers in my post after all: maybe I made a mistake? That certainly possible :P, since you seem to be right about the rewards paid per day. Or maybe people willingly factor in power costs as a price of speculating on a volatile, trending currency? Or maybe most power costs are actually carried in low-cost areas rather than North America and Europe, so my $0.05/kWh is an overestimate?

jsprogrammer 11y ago

>$12Mn USD per what? This number is pretty meaningless without knowing what timeframe that amount of costs are incurred.

scott_karana 11y ago
Oops, good save. Thanks! It's per day. (I think. :P) Today's average hashrate is ~397Mn GH/s, and I used 375 instead, to be conservative/fair. https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  The spot price of BTC has been steadily rising. Someone must be getting more than $12,000,000 USD / day in value out of it.

pstrateman 11y ago

> A back-of-the-envelope calculation gives me $12Mn USD per day 3600.00 BTC or $1m is paid as subsidy per day. Are you saying that people are spending 12x that on power? I dont think so.

scott_karana 11y ago
Do your own calculation and see what you find, instead of think. This is HN after all. :) You have all the relevant numbers in my post after all: maybe I made a mistake? That certainly possible :P, since you seem to be right about the rewards paid per day. Or maybe people willingly factor in power costs as a price of speculating on a volatile, trending currency? Or maybe most power costs are actually carried in low-cost areas rather than North America and Europe, so my $0.05/kWh is an overestimate?