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    Author Topic: The Environmental Cost of Bitcoin - Youtube Video  (Read 2807 times)

    • benjamindees
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    November 11, 2012, 09:45:29 PM
     #21
    So instead of writing the same post I write every time the topic of Bitcoin energy usage comes up, I'll just link to all the others, in chronological order:

    https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/10411.msg149581#msg149581
    https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/10832.msg156457#msg156457
    https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/74356.msg855455#msg855455
    https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/106245.msg1166103#msg1166103

    And here's another one by Stephen Gornick, three weeks ago, pointing out the exact same thing:

    https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/117927.msg1278020#msg1278020

    Using the "4 MJ per banknote" figure in the presentation, and stats from the US Treasury, circulating one-dollar bills alone consumes 338 megawatts, or more than 50 times the entire Bitcoin network.  And that's even ignoring the fact (pointed out in the presentation but ignored in the figures) that the number of Bitcoin transactions can increase by a factor of 10 before hitting even the artificial transaction limits imposed by the protocol, which can be removed.  After that, you can read the wiki to see how easily Bitcoin can again scale by another factor of 300 with minimal increase in energy consumption.

    Altogether, that gets Bitcoin to a market cap of around $10 trillion, while still beating paper money in energy consumption with basically zero modification at all.

    Beyond that, if by some miracle Bitcoin ever comes remotely close to the stupid amount of waste generated by the traditional banking system (which it won't), proof of work can easily be replaced.

    So energy usage is, again, probably the single biggest non-issue in Bitcoin ever.
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  • giszmo
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    November 12, 2012, 03:07:54 AM
     #22
    Resources that go into mining ≊ reward. Simple as that.

    The talk over-complicates things and yes I do see an environmental issue if Bitcoin replaces the Dollar as a reserve currency tomorrow but not when we have time to react to actual problems.

    Proof of work provokes the reflex of "those that have are given more" but essentially that is not true. This reward could be essentially zero (yes, zero aka 0) as those with stakes in bitcoin don't need to get block reward in order to have an incentive to secure the network. Proof of stake "mining" could be an option in the client and as it would "only" cost anonymity, people would switch it on for some of their wallets.

    Unfortunately Satoshi promised there will be 21million coins and getting them into circulation based on stake will not be acceptable for the majority of worker-class miners.
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  • donking
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    November 12, 2012, 08:24:46 AM
     #23
    I watched the video, but it is all just bs really.
    I think one have to look at mining as a way to distribute coins and more as a market function than "cost per transactions" and "kw per transactions".
    When you strip away the incentive to get coins from mining, you could currently run the entire bitcoin on one low end PC, the database and transactions processing etc.
    So when you don't get any more new coins the mining, then the cost of transactions becomes apparent.

  • TraderTimm
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    November 12, 2012, 08:47:02 AM
     #24
    Don't worry, Facebook wastes a lot more power on complete trivia and drama every day.

    Don't even get me started on Instagram or Twitter.
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  • Red Emerald
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    November 12, 2012, 08:48:09 AM
     #25
    Quote from: benjamindees on November 11, 2012, 09:45:29 PM
    So instead of writing the same post I write every time the topic of Bitcoin energy usage comes up, I'll just link to all the others, in chronological order:

    https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/10411.msg149581#msg149581
    https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/10832.msg156457#msg156457
    https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/74356.msg855455#msg855455
    https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/106245.msg1166103#msg1166103

    And here's another one by Stephen Gornick, three weeks ago, pointing out the exact same thing:

    https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/117927.msg1278020#msg1278020

    Using the "4 MJ per banknote" figure in the presentation, and stats from the US Treasury, circulating one-dollar bills alone consumes 338 megawatts, or more than 50 times the entire Bitcoin network.  And that's even ignoring the fact (pointed out in the presentation but ignored in the figures) that the number of Bitcoin transactions can increase by a factor of 10 before hitting even the artificial transaction limits imposed by the protocol, which can be removed.  After that, you can read the wiki to see how easily Bitcoin can again scale by another factor of 300 with minimal increase in energy consumption.

    Altogether, that gets Bitcoin to a market cap of around $10 trillion, while still beating paper money in energy consumption with basically zero modification at all.

    Beyond that, if by some miracle Bitcoin ever comes remotely close to the stupid amount of waste generated by the traditional banking system (which it won't), proof of work can easily be replaced.

    So energy usage is, again, probably the single biggest non-issue in Bitcoin ever.
    I fully agree with you except for "proof of work can easily be replaced." what do you mean by this? I don't think it's trivial to remove the PoW from bitcoin at all.
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  • molecular
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    November 12, 2012, 12:20:15 PM
     #26
    Quote from: Red Emerald on November 12, 2012, 08:48:09 AM
    Quote from: benjamindees on November 11, 2012, 09:45:29 PM
    So instead of writing the same post I write every time the topic of Bitcoin energy usage comes up, I'll just link to all the others, in chronological order:

    https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/10411.msg149581#msg149581
    https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/10832.msg156457#msg156457
    https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/74356.msg855455#msg855455
    https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/106245.msg1166103#msg1166103

    And here's another one by Stephen Gornick, three weeks ago, pointing out the exact same thing:

    https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/117927.msg1278020#msg1278020

    Using the "4 MJ per banknote" figure in the presentation, and stats from the US Treasury, circulating one-dollar bills alone consumes 338 megawatts, or more than 50 times the entire Bitcoin network.  And that's even ignoring the fact (pointed out in the presentation but ignored in the figures) that the number of Bitcoin transactions can increase by a factor of 10 before hitting even the artificial transaction limits imposed by the protocol, which can be removed.  After that, you can read the wiki to see how easily Bitcoin can again scale by another factor of 300 with minimal increase in energy consumption.

    Altogether, that gets Bitcoin to a market cap of around $10 trillion, while still beating paper money in energy consumption with basically zero modification at all.

    Beyond that, if by some miracle Bitcoin ever comes remotely close to the stupid amount of waste generated by the traditional banking system (which it won't), proof of work can easily be replaced.

    So energy usage is, again, probably the single biggest non-issue in Bitcoin ever.
    I fully agree with you except for "proof of work can easily be replaced." what do you mean by this? I don't think it's trivial to remove the PoW from bitcoin at all.

    I agree it's not easy. The only viable solution so far is the mentioned "proof of stake". A migration to that would be quite painful, though, I guess. But if it's tested enough and the pressure to remove PoW is great enough, it could probably be done.
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