Comment by andrewstuart2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by andrewstuart2 | Hacker News Reader

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> If you really want to talk shit about Bitcoin

I don't. And I don't think many people do (perhaps those buying put options might). That said, it's not hard to see the cost in power usage, and thus waste heat, that is/will be spent computing hashes that match ever-growing computational requirements.

You're right that I could spend a month of my time learning more about this tech that does obviously have solid implications in the form of distributed untrusted consensus.

That said, it took me maybe 30 minutes researching to understand the huge global power requirements, and in years of observing the tech, nobody has been able to quickly and easily dispel this concern. If it takes a month of in-depth research to make people feel better about bitcoin and dispel years of observing the currency and its ever-growing requirements, then maybe something is wrong. It could be that after a month of very hard work, you have an unconscious cognitive bias because nobody likes to waste a month of work learning something they decide to throw away.

I'd be glad to find an article that, in less than 30 minutes, can change my mind about the waste that bitcoin generates. It's happened plenty of times with other tech (not necessarily waste, but other misjudgments), and often in closer to 5-10 minutes. I don't expect Bitcoin would be any different, because I have no horse in this game. In fact, I'd be really excited to be proven wrong, because of the potential benefits that the tech has to offer.

I'm not sure I understand. Proof of Work is not the only game in town anymore. It shouldn't take you more than 30 minutes to find that out. Look at the state of bitcoin, it's dying and the alts are finally seeing the light of day (Over the past two months).

Please name one of the alternatives which is secure as the "Proof of work", needs less energy for mining and doesn't have high transaction costs.

Sure, take a look at Raiblocks, NEO, Lisk.

Have you factored in the energy costs of running the thousands of financial institutions and associated infrastructure required to maintain them? I personally don't have time to run an energy audit of the entire financial industry, but I can tell you theres a lot more infrastructure required. factor in the engery required to: - construct giant buildings for financial offices - maintain financial offices - commute to and from offices - construct, deploy, and maintain ATMs - construct and maintain physical bank locations - server infrastructure how much of the energy required to build and maintain all of this infrastructure is from a renewable source? Proof of Work miners are at least incentivized to find the cheapest possible source of energy. Renewables! Almost free, unlimited energy!

Everyone is pretty equally incentivized to migrate to the cheapest possible energy source, I would think. The problem is that the CapEx cost of migrating is nonzero, and usually prohibitive unless you have high confidence you can make it up in lower OpEx over a long period of time. I can say pretty confidently that banks and financial institutions are much more likely to stick around long enough to realize the full financial benefits of renewables than miners are. It's just too risky that you'll eat your renewable investment if bitcoin loses too much value, particularly given the recent huge swings in the market, and the added uncertainty of so many people forecasting doom.

I'm not in a position to estimate the waste energy of a financial institution either, but you're right that it probably is quite large, but it's hard to say which is more wasteful.

How easy is it for a financial institution, who probably doesn't even control their own datacenter or buildings, to opt into using renewable energy sources? Seems like a big decision for an institution to make and a lot of beurocracy and political obstacles. For an individual who wishes to mine, they have a simple choice to make based on electricity prices. Is it profitable or not based on their current rate. Most miners will naturally exist where energy is cheap, renewable, and abundant. I'm making a hell of a lot of assumptions, though.

>Have you factored in the energy costs of running the thousands of financial institutions and associated infrastructure required to maintain them?

I don't like this argument. It's garbage. Bitcoin does not replace the functions of the entire financial system. I can't take out a loan using the blockchain. Banks do far more then act as a ledger. Bitcoin's utility today is a little more than P2P value transfer. A centralized solution - something like Transferwise - does not use as much energy as Bitcoin.

> A centralized solution - something like Transferwise - does not use as much energy as Bitcoin.

Then your choice comes down to this: Use a centralized system for less energy consuming transaction but greater centralization of wealth -- or -- Use a distributed system that requires more energy but distributes wealth amongst network participants. Personally, I would choose the system that distributes wealth at the expense of additional energy cost. Ideally, I would choose the system that distribute wealth and has the least environmental impact.

This feels like a false choice. Why should I buy that the "decentralized system" distributes wealth at all? After all the top 1000 wallets hold 35% of bitcoin, and the top miners are factories that keep the best mining hardware to themselves. All of which compounds the fact that the participants in bitcoin were already wealthy enough from the "centralized" solution to buy into it.

Bitcoin obviously has flaws, but Bitcoin is still doing a better job at distributing wealth than the banks are, thats for sure. Bitcoin may not be doing it efficiently or as well as it could be, but its doing it. Also... there are other cryptocurrecies with different intents and purposes. If you are unhappy with bitcoin, build an alternative. Ethereum proves that its possible. Our financial system, laws, and government are all malleable, and from the looks of it could use some serious change.

You are comparing oranges and apples.

But let us assume that all those thousands of financial institutions and their associated infrastructure are just there to handle transactions.

Bitcoin is doing about 20 tx/s and Bitcoin mining uses as much energy as the nation of Denmark.

Visa is doing about 1700 tx/s.

> Renewables! Almost free, unlimited energy!

Oh man, I should have been reading your last sentence a bit better. With all those cryptomaniacs my sarcasm detector is a bit confused.

> Bitcoin is doing about 20 tx/s > Visa is doing about 1700 tx/s

combine the tx/s of all the cryptocurrencies out there right now and I assure you it exceeds Visa's 1700 tx/s. NOT ALL TRANSACTIONS HAVE TO HAPPEN ON THE BITCOIN NETWORK! There are thousands of coins!

When I combine all tx/s of all the cryptocurrencies I need even more energy.

Also Visa is only just one company, there are also Master, American Express, Paypal, SEPA transactions and a lot more.

So I don't understand what you try to tell me and how screaming improves your argumentation.

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