Luckily electricity is non-fungible so that the green electricity used by bitcoin does not create increased demand for fossil-fuel generated electricity elsewhere.
nope, electricity is absolutely fungible. not only in some places consuming excess renewable energy help to stabilize the grid, it also helps producers financially and drives up the demand.
bitcoin literally pushes for increased renewable energy production, which helped fighting climate change more than any political bickering did in the past half a century.
Your link is press-release like article. It cites a self-reporting based survey published by the Bitcoin Mining Council, a "voluntary global forum of Bitcoin mining companies and other companies in the Bitcoin industry", that goes so far as to claim Bitcoin is "one of the most sustainable industries globally".
This hardly seems like an objective, reputable source whose claims should be accepted at face value.
> The very point of that council, which is brand new, is to give transparency and insight into the energy mix used to mine Bitcoin.
No, it isn't. Per the website:
> The mandate of the Bitcoin Mining Council is to promote transparency, share best practices, and educate the public on the benefits of Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining.
So group that says it exists to promote Bitcoin mining and educate the public on the supposed benefits of Bitcoin mining publishes a study claiming that Bitcoin mining is super sustainable at a time when one of the biggest criticisms of Bitcoin is its energy use. Shocking!
> You should never take any claim at face value, but it's quite lazy to dismiss their data without backing it up.
It's the other way around. Groups making claims are responsible for backing them up, and there's arguably a higher standard for special interest groups who are conflicted and make claims that just happen to support their interests. Claims like Bitcoin is "one of the most sustainable industries globally" and "the network remains as strong as ever, it simply shrugs off adversity and moves forward".
Based on the press release and YouTube slides, this survey relied on self-reported data from parties who volunteered to answer 3 questions, with no independent verification that any of them responded accurately or truthfully. The responses (supposedly) cover (only) "32 percent of the current global Bitcoin network".
You already made up your mind and reason from bad faith. You can't even quote them correctly.
The group doesn't exist to promote Bitcoin mining as if to encourage more companies to start mining. The group is there to explain why Bitcoin uses so much energy, encourages miners to give insights into this (which is sorely lacking, everybody is largely guessing right now) and shares best practices between miners to go for sustainable energy, and even better: stranded surplus sustainable energy, such as flaring.
Nowhere do their reports say they are "super sustainable", it's you fabricating these lazy labels.
Whilst mainstream media focuses on some rogue abandoned coal factory mining Bitcoin, in reality the conversion towards renewables for Bitcoin mining is moving ahead at a spectacular pace.
> Based on this data it is estimated that the global
mining industry’s sustainable electricity mix had grown to approximately 56 percent, during Q2
2021, making it one of the most sustainable industries globally.
> “Despite China shutting down over 60 percent of the global Bitcoin network, the Bitcoin network experienced zero downtime, no bailouts, has registered no bankruptcies and simply adapted by redeploying its infrastructure into regions that have greater freedoms,” Mr. Feinstein said. “The network remains as strong as ever, it simply shrugs off adversity and moves forward.”
Accusing me of "fabricating" what anyone can verify for themselves in the link on the Bitcoin Mining Council website linked to above is absurd.
You didn't invalidate either of those two quotes with anything of substance, other than assuming they are wrong. That's bad faith reasoning.
You fabricated the term "super sustainable", which is claimed nowhere. The claim instead refers to the relatively high percentage of renewables compared to several other industries, whom often score in the 10-20% renewables range only. As to whether 56% is accurate, I don't know. Yet if you don't know, you can't be confident in it being wrong. You simply don't know.
The second quote isn't even a claim, it's what factually has happened. China shut down almost all Bitcoin mining overnight yet it did nothing to Bitcoin. The network self heals by means of a difficulty adjustment and miners moving elsewhere. A super power shut down the entire thing and months later the hash rate is right back where it was. That's extreme resiliency.
> As to whether 56% is accurate, I don't know. Yet if you don't know, you can't be confident in it being wrong. You simply don't know.
And this, in a nutshell, is my entire point: the person making a claim is responsible for establishing its validity. A person questioning its validity isn't. If I claimed that 75% of all HN posters were on the autism spectrum, it would be my responsibility to support my claim, not your responsibility to prove that it's wrong.
Claims made by an interest group that align to the interests of the interest group deserve extra scrutiny, especially when those claims are based on "data" that is self-reported by members of the group with no independent substantiation. It is therefore entirely reasonable to not accept these claims at face value, which gets us back to my purpose in responding to the other poster: the 56% figure is not a credible one.
Welcome to climate change in the 21st century, where we'll be outraged/distracted by everything but how ~100 companies are responsible for 70% of global emissions[1]. Today we’ll be talking about evil terrorism enabling cryptocurrencies. Tomorrow we’ll be talking about individual choice and SUVs.
I keep seeing this argument that companies are responsible for pollution. While yes it's true, why do you think those companies are polluting? It's not because they get up in the morning and say "better go pollute a bit more today!" They are creating products/services for people.
So if it bothers you that much then stop using those products/services. Not possible? Then vote to change laws. Not possible? Revolution
I get that putting the onus on consumers isn't going to fix the problem, but pointing to a factory that pollutes because you buy their products and want their product cheaply is equally inane
> It's not because they get up in the morning and say "better go pollute a bit more today!"
Of course not, but they do actively make decisions based on profit over sustainability.
> So if it bothers you that much then stop using those products/services. Not possible? Then vote to change laws. Not possible? Revolution
One voter voting on an issue doesn't change anything. These kinds of arguments must be made to convince others to vote with you on the issue. The same could be said of a revolution: a one person revolt doesn't go anywhere, we need more folks to embrace the revolution.
There's also been a concerted effort by corporations over the past few decades to shift blame from corporations & manufacturers responsible for pollution onto the consumers, which makes arguments like these necessary (because otherwise the only argument on the market is that we consumers are just buying plastics to spite the environment, to be hyperbolic about it).
> Of course not, but they do actively make decisions based on profit over sustainability.
and that's what they're supposed to do. Make the most profits while abiding by the law. As consumers start caring more about sustainable supply chains so will producers. When their profits get hurt because consumers choose a more sustainable product, then you'll see change. As long as consumers don't care and just want the cheapest thing (which unfortunately has been the great majority of people for the past 100 years) the producers won't care either
Exactly. People are always quick to call for a ban on any externality they can blame whilst not spending a single thought cycle on their own behavior.
As soon as principles are really tested, it's crickets.
People have large TVs, ACs, high-end gaming PCs, a ton of devices, huge cars, eat lots of meat, use air travel, and drown themselves in cheap packages from China.
All of this life-style is our natural birth right, and none of its should be banned or taxed. Also, it doesn't contribute to the climate problem at all. It's all Bitcoin's fault. Or, the "industry".
> but pointing to a factory that pollutes because you buy their products and want their product cheaply is equally inane
Agreed, but I'm not pointing at the factories. Consumers _can't_ lobby congress or control the media narrative. Factories don't lobby congress nor spin a media narrative designed to distract attention from those profiting off dumping the externalities of the business models onto the world.
I'm pointing at the corporations (the sum actions of their boards & C-suites taken as a single entity) that own the factories and reap the rewards. I'm pointing at the people that have effectively "won" capitalism and then took it way too far by changing the law and controlling the narrative to make sure they stay in power no matter the costs.
I hope there's some resolution that doesn't require a revolution, though I suspect we'll just do _nothing_... then it'll be a mega-clusterfuck the likes of which we can barely imagine... and maybe after the first 10M-100M deaths due to famine/heat/fires/storms we may figure out that we need to do something... and it'll be too late and/or that something will be another major war.
But before that western society gets to decide how to handle storms/crop failures/droughts driving the largest human mass-migration EVER (Central America => USA, Africa/Middle East => Europe) during a period when resources are constraining.
But to be fair fossil fuels are used to produce the food you eat, the computer you're typing on, and probably the electricity/gas you use to keep yourself cold/warm.
Meanwhile, bitcoin is used to produce... what? A speculative asset some people can invest/gamble on?
Xi is making a lot of good decisions lately. Put a mouthy billionaire in his place--great. Make school equity more advantageous to the poor kids--good. Put some breaks on gambling--fine.
I do wish he would keep this citizens wealth in China. I'm tired of seeing his wealthy people buying up our realestate, along with every other nation. We only have so much land. It should be set aside for American citizens.
(Lately people. I don't need a lecture of the bad things he has done. I know them, and don't like them.)
Why? This is not a free market, nor a market price that reflects externalities of generating that energy. I'm not okay with 0.5% of the earth's energy being consumed to produce sha sums for the sole purpose of mining speculative assets.
market is definitely not free at this point because of how much subsidy fossil producers receive from corrupt politicians.
doubly funny your worries about externalities, when bitcoin actually meaningfully drives renewable production that is going to be essential in reducing those externalities.
> not okay with 0.5% of the earth's energy being consumed to produce sha sums for the sole purpose of mining speculative assets
packed as much manipulation and misinformation as you could into that one, didn't you?
i'm more than ok with significant chunk of energy's energy going into ensuring security of a global decentralized settlement layer and currency with predictable issuance policy that can't be fucked up by politicians that suddenly realize they need to print a couple trillions to cover up how much they stole.
> when bitcoin actually meaningfully drives renewable production that is going to be essential in reducing those externalities.
I am so sick of this bs argument from bitcoin apologists. Cryptocurrencies drive renewable energy in the same way lung cancer drives chemotherapy drugs.
It doesn’t matter if renewable energy is built if that new energy is being wasted on cryptocurrency instead of replacing fossil fuel energy for something else.
> It doesn’t matter if renewable energy is built if that new energy is being wasted on cryptocurrency instead of replacing fossil fuel energy for something else.
yes it absolutely matters, because expanding the market of energy with renewable energy is unquestionably better than expanding it with fossil producers. bitcoin difficulty fluctuates with uncertainty in politics, demand for security and demand for the asset itself. when difficulty goes down - freed up energy can be used by other market participants and that will hurt profitability of fossil producers.
this is not bs argument, it's reality.
also, "energy is being wasted" is your subjective understanding.
Doesn't seem insane to me at all. When you think of the size of the organization and the tasks it does. We're talking several million people, infrastructure and logistics, and a plethora of hightech vehicles.
Can you send me some of these random hashes? Since they're worthless?
Bitcoin secures over a trillion USD. 1 in 6 Americans own Bitcoin and user growth is faster than the rise of the internet and Facebook combined. Companies/Wallstreet are in, VCs are in, the first country has used it as a legal currency.
And yet you're still on this 12 year old narrative that it's worth zero?
Admittedly, the stats are not fully consistent. This is due to the fact that it's hard to conclude on actual human users based on the amount of wallets. I've seen reports saying 1 in 6, 11%, and there's this report:
...which states 22% of US adults. If you select for a somewhat younger population (non-boomers), it's even 33%.
So I think the point stands, whether you pick the lowest or highest number amidst these studies. Bitcoin/crypto is far more widespread than some people think.
I'm not paying Bitcoin's energy bill. Bitcoin is paying its own bill, but the electric grid is a marketplace with a finite supply. So the people who own those companies are raising the rates (supply and demand).
Electricity, much like housing, should not be a place where regular folks can get priced out of the market by corporations.
You just want me to be mad at bitcoin so I don't notice that the system itself is sadistic.
> You just want me to be mad at bitcoin so I don't notice that the system itself is sadistic.
More charitably: it’s easier and intellectually lazier to point at a bogeyman than to understand and explain structural issues
Same happens in housing wrt furor over gentrification and luxury housing. Blame the rich foreign investors and tech bros instead of the structure of the marketplace and enforced scarcity of the zoning system!
Since the electric grid has a finite supply, you have to eliminate usage somehow. If usage isn’t being eliminated via higher prices maybe we should just get rid of the “currency” that consumes the power of a small country and serves no purpose outside crime and speculation.
>Cheap electricity in places such as Texas is expected to make the US a leading refuge for crypto miners.
It's a good thing I don't live in Texas, because otherwise I might be worried considering how shitty and unreliable ERCOT is already without widespread mining.
I think crypto mining is dumb, but it might actually help the ERCOT situation when combined with demand-response electricity pricing. Miners are gonna throttle back mining if electricity costs more than the mining output and they’ll mine when electricity cheap, supporting the price which helps the fiscal solvency of electricity producers.
Bitcoin miners may actually make ERCOT more reliable, since they pre-buy a steady stream of electricity and can sell it back (or be paid to use less) during crises like their snow storm[1].
I still think the negative externalities of Bitcoin mining outweigh the positive ones, though. (Full disclosure, I'm short a company mentioned in that article)
It's a good question without an obvious answer. Best reasons to think it might be.
1) It's not evenly distributed over 330M residents. It's concentrated in certain areas, and we don't have a single nationwide electricity market where supply and demand operate. So it is concentrated in places like Upstate New York and Texas. Spread over few people.
2) It's priced into a daily necessity for people. The poor are the ones with difficulty paying electricity bills, so while $5 or $20 or $50 on an energy bill may not sound like a lot to some people, it depends on your economic situation. So, it's regressive.
3) Crypto mining is a growth sector. The figure is $1B now. Crypto is still growing and we still haven't seen the full effect of bans in China, which are fairly new. True, US power infrastructure is growing... but so is uptake of electric vehicles. (Another keen interest of the professional class.)
So we have a question of whether supply can keep up with demand, with the solvency of working class families hanging in the balance while that supply/demand problem works itself out. Maybe it'll be fine. Or maybe crypto warms the planet and hurts poor people in service of a neat intellectual toy and speculative asset for the Silicon Valley / Wall Street set.
Would anyone who downvoted this comment please write why you did? It seems well-reasoned, factually correct, and does not violate any of the HN guidelines.
While I understand that you don't like the way that's phrased, those are definitely two of the main groups currently involved in cryptocurrency. The only other group I can think of that has seen significant uptake of cryptocurrencies (and the only group actually using it as a currency) are people engaged in criminal activities (whether that's evading capital controls, money laundering, drug dealing, or ransomware).
To be clear: I upvoted the post for the rest of the content, and I actually agree with sentiment, but I believe a large number of readers would have a gut reaction to immediately downvote when using that sort of inflammatory phrasing. That's the reason HN guidelines say to eschew flamebait: when you use dismissive or charged language, it incites an emotional reaction that is not related to the content of the post, which often results in mass downvoting or derailed discussions
What I probably should have said: "maybe it will be fine, resolving itself with more clean energy and more electric grid capacity in mining-heavy areas, or more clever crypto tech. Or maybe we have a persistent incentives problem where the group that reaps the benefit (Silicon Valley inventors, Wall Street speculators) are distinct from the groups that bear the costs (including people near the welfare line in mining-heavy areas). A persistent incentive problem that isn't solved in relatively short order by general material abundance would be a case for regulation.
The Silicon Valley / Wall Street part is highly inaccurate, and I'd dare to say plain wrong as it comes to the specific crypto we're talking about: Bitcoin.
Bitcoin's invention and surrounding culture comes from cyberpunks. Whom are anti-government, anti-regulation, encourage civil disobedience, and so on. Unsurprisingly, culturally Bitcoin is highly popular with libertarians, which in the US you could qualify as a sub culture of the right wing. As such, it's an almost opposite of SC culture, which is liberal all the way to left wing (largely in name only).
As for Wallstreet, they only got in late 2020, and barely so, so it's quite a stretch to state that Bitcoin is a toy for Wallstreet.
In reality, these supposed hard lines uniquely found in US politics are soft as butter. Bitcoin isn't made for any group in particular, it is for everyone. It can be used by a greedy hyper capitalist day trader as well as a refugee looking to protect the little they have from inflation or confiscation. Bitcoin doesn't care.
$10 per household for every household in the US? It may not sound like much, but when it's something the vast majority never asked for, that's entirely happening to line the pockets of the few, and is damaging the environment at the same time? Sounds like those households should get a say in it.
When chain letters (e.g. the Send a Time pyramid scheme) caused impact to the postal system beyond what the system was designed to handle, to the detriment of the intended users of the system, chain letters were banned. Now, Bitcoin serves as a similar, though obfuscated, pyramid scheme that is detrimental to intended usage of the power system for productiviry or enjoyment. I see no reason not to apply the same solution.
I don't think it's reasonable to compare cryptocurrencies to chain letters.
Chain letters' sole purpose is to enrich early adopters at the expense of later participants.
While early adopters of cryptocurrencies frequently do reap windfall gains, it is not necessarily at the expense of later users as it is with chain letters. The early adopter benefits for cryptocurrencies are no different than early investors in a business that goes on to produce a popular and successful product.
Unlike chain letters cryptocurrencies provide a useful utility of a medium of exchange coupled with consensus based algorithmic scarcity. This is an attractive alternative to centrally planned fiat currencies that are persistently and intentionally debased over time.
Whether the power usage is worth the utilitarian benefits to societey is certainly a valid debate and hopefully will lead to more efficient protocols.
Crypto is not being used in any meaningful quantity for anything except speculation and crime.
While some crypto may be at some point in the future a decent medium of exchange, at this point they're all deflationary and inefficient, leading only to uses in marketing stunts (Tesla, El Salvador, etc.)
> Unlike chain letters cryptocurrencies provide a useful utility of a medium of exchange coupled with consensus based algorithmic scarcity. This is an attractive alternative to centrally planned fiat currencies that are persistently and intentionally debased over time
Your argument is essentially circular, that crypto isn't a pyramid scheme because it's not a pyramid scheme.
I'm not trying to claim a side here, but some would say that crypto is a pyramid scheme masquerading as a legitimate tool, and that the primary function is for speculative investment. Similarly, imagine a chain letter pyramid scheme that happens to also implement a social network, and claims to not be a pyramid scheme but a networking mailing list where the early contributors happen to receive windfalls.
Whether you agree that crypto is as bad as chain mail is obviously dependent on your view if crypto implements a useful product, or if it primarily exists for speculative mania and the "product" is a masquerade to build legitimacy.
> In Upstate New York, where a quarter of US crypto mining takes place, the researchers find that electricity rates have gone up in response to rising demand. Their study demonstrates that because of bitcoin mining’s power usage, households paid an additional $165 million a year in energy costs, while businesses paid an extra $79 million. In China, where more than two-thirds of the world’s crypto mining took place over the past decade, electricity rates are set by the government and inflexible to demand. Crypto miners there were crowding other industries out of the market and forcing electricity to be rationed, the research suggests.
So correlation implies causation?
I'm not sure if the study is just flawed or the article is doing an especially bad job of explaining it.
I won't be reading the paper because of this:
> Benetton and Compiani received financial support from Ripple’s University Blockchain Research Initiative. Ripple Labs supports the cryptocurrency XRP.
XRP is a scam run by Ripple labs. The company routinely mis-states the utility of XRP.
Well, would you argue that people started mining bitcoins because energy became more expensive? The other direction looks more plausible, especially if you consider basic economic theory: as demand goes up, prices also go up.
Not knowing which direction of the causation what “correlation does not mean causation” means. It means there are possible confounders. A simple one here being a policy change at the federal level like reduced subsidies. So all the states that had cheap power (and hence attracted mining) had to raise prices. Of course, the supply-demand mechanism is a pretty strong argument though.
Ironic that you identify (but don't evaluate) a possible flaw in mixing up correlation and causation, then turn around and refuse to even read something because of a bias that you simply assume.
Your first quote appears after the part about XRP, so you did keep reading after that. Seems like you just tacked on some commentary on XRP for no reason then.
Why are you posting your opinions on something you claim you never read?
It's interesting that now that there are proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies the "cryptocurrencies are polluting the planet" is now becoming "Bitcoin is polluting the planet".
What I'm wondering is if Bitcoin itself could one day switch to proof-of-stake? Is this something the Bitcoin community may consider if proof-of-stakes turns out to work and be secure?
Long-term, Bitcoin is reducing everyone’s electric bill by smoothing out the bathtub curve and making it economical to overprovision energy sources.
Bitcoin mining can easily turn on and off as the price of energy fluctuates, so all of a sudden we have the ability to use energy sources like solar which need to be overprovisioned to ensure that e.g. bad weather doesn’t reduce grid capacity too much. Bitcoin mining just turns off if it’s cloudy.
We also all of a sudden have the ability to economically use energy sources which can’t be spun up and down rapidly, like geothermal. You just leave the turbines running all the time and if you have a surplus you fire up the Bitcoin miners.
Would it make it cheaper? I understood that the initial investment is the main cost factor for renewable energy sources. The full load hours for on-shore wind in Germany are about 40% of the total hours per year. You would then need 2.5x the amount of windmills to reach 100% This does not count for the fact that thier production is somewhat related (i.e. low wind speeds on all Europ) so you would need an even higher factor. And of course the investment to get to 100% renewables in the energy mix. To compensate for that the electricity would need to rise I think?
Medium term, I’m assuming that environmentalists are more or less correct that fossil fuels, coal, etc. have large uninternalized externalities. Increased electricity demand from any source will almost certainly increase the dollar price of electricity, at least until R&D allocation effects kick in. However, if environmentalists are correct, even if electricity is a little bit more expensive from increased demand, the type of power generation incentivized by Bitcoin will be less costly for society when externalities are included.
Long term, increased reliable electrical demand will hopefully lead to R&D that drives the dollar cost of power down as well.
This is my own analysis. I used to do some work in power markets (FTRs) so I’m reasonably familiar with the domain. I have heard other people say similar things so I’m sure there’s some content out there.
I expect this to take place over quite a long time - on the scale of decades. Power is super capital intensive and super regulated so it takes forever for things like this to work. If you ever see a nuclear power plant being built with a Bitcoin mine being constructed alongside it, you can be confident that the effect is in full force.
"While the residential and small business rates are among the five most expensive in the country, the industrial rate is much lower, ranking right in the middle among the states."
There's an obvious solution here. Residential rates went up 10% because the local utility has a simplistic demand pricing program that allows cheap industrial demand to drive up expensive residential rates.
Yes, there's a surprising number of people commenting on this thread who are really upset at marshallian scissors - it's funniest thing I've read this week.
> As more of the tokens are mined, the puzzles get harder
Difficulty doesn't automatically increase over time.
Rather, it has tended to increase for two major reasons:
1) bitcoin price going up, increasing miner competition chasing the higher reward. The reward halvings every 4 years have done little to counter this uptrend.
2) mining efficiency going up. after transitioning from CPUs through GPUs and FPGAs to ASICs, efficiencies have started to level off now.
A lot of the comments are whataboutism and strawman arguments (big corporations, fossil fuel, military). To de-emotionalise the discussion, it makes sense to separate the two aspects:
1. Is the argument from the linked article factually (and semantically) true?
2. If that is the case, what are the moral and political implications?
Regarding Upstate NY, the externalities to consider from mining are a lot more than the very narrow take this article provides (electricity costs go up!).
I get that the article is about electricity, and not the industry's general impact on a region when it comes in.
That said, who has been to the North Country lately, i.e. really deep up there where these mines are? For those unaware, the jobs are basically:
- Dannemora prison
- One or two small colleges
- light tourism: the seasonal jobs around Lake Placid, niche interest in the 1,000 islands,
- some logging, but most of that area is a state park
- Closer, but not in commuting distance: Ft Drum, a dying dairy industry closer to Utica
It remains to be seen how many jobs come from an industry growing up there. But reading this, from Booth of all places, is sort of like saying electric costs have gone up in the Rust Belt because the first new industry in decades is moved there. NY fought tooth and nail to get Ft. Drum into Watertown/North Country in the 80's for a very good reason - that area is dying.
This is also putting aside that these mines are in dilapidated power plants (fighting the extensive rural (?) blight up there) and pulling ~green energy from the St. Lawrence.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 154 ms ] threadhttps://www.govtech.com/news/bitcoin-mining-in-upstate-new-y...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2021/07/06/bi...
bitcoin literally pushes for increased renewable energy production, which helped fighting climate change more than any political bickering did in the past half a century.
This hardly seems like an objective, reputable source whose claims should be accepted at face value.
You should never take any claim at face value, but it's quite lazy to dismiss their data without backing it up.
No, it isn't. Per the website:
> The mandate of the Bitcoin Mining Council is to promote transparency, share best practices, and educate the public on the benefits of Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining.
So group that says it exists to promote Bitcoin mining and educate the public on the supposed benefits of Bitcoin mining publishes a study claiming that Bitcoin mining is super sustainable at a time when one of the biggest criticisms of Bitcoin is its energy use. Shocking!
> You should never take any claim at face value, but it's quite lazy to dismiss their data without backing it up.
It's the other way around. Groups making claims are responsible for backing them up, and there's arguably a higher standard for special interest groups who are conflicted and make claims that just happen to support their interests. Claims like Bitcoin is "one of the most sustainable industries globally" and "the network remains as strong as ever, it simply shrugs off adversity and moves forward".
Based on the press release and YouTube slides, this survey relied on self-reported data from parties who volunteered to answer 3 questions, with no independent verification that any of them responded accurately or truthfully. The responses (supposedly) cover (only) "32 percent of the current global Bitcoin network".
The group doesn't exist to promote Bitcoin mining as if to encourage more companies to start mining. The group is there to explain why Bitcoin uses so much energy, encourages miners to give insights into this (which is sorely lacking, everybody is largely guessing right now) and shares best practices between miners to go for sustainable energy, and even better: stranded surplus sustainable energy, such as flaring.
Nowhere do their reports say they are "super sustainable", it's you fabricating these lazy labels.
Whilst mainstream media focuses on some rogue abandoned coal factory mining Bitcoin, in reality the conversion towards renewables for Bitcoin mining is moving ahead at a spectacular pace.
> Based on this data it is estimated that the global mining industry’s sustainable electricity mix had grown to approximately 56 percent, during Q2 2021, making it one of the most sustainable industries globally.
> “Despite China shutting down over 60 percent of the global Bitcoin network, the Bitcoin network experienced zero downtime, no bailouts, has registered no bankruptcies and simply adapted by redeploying its infrastructure into regions that have greater freedoms,” Mr. Feinstein said. “The network remains as strong as ever, it simply shrugs off adversity and moves forward.”
Accusing me of "fabricating" what anyone can verify for themselves in the link on the Bitcoin Mining Council website linked to above is absurd.
You fabricated the term "super sustainable", which is claimed nowhere. The claim instead refers to the relatively high percentage of renewables compared to several other industries, whom often score in the 10-20% renewables range only. As to whether 56% is accurate, I don't know. Yet if you don't know, you can't be confident in it being wrong. You simply don't know.
The second quote isn't even a claim, it's what factually has happened. China shut down almost all Bitcoin mining overnight yet it did nothing to Bitcoin. The network self heals by means of a difficulty adjustment and miners moving elsewhere. A super power shut down the entire thing and months later the hash rate is right back where it was. That's extreme resiliency.
And this, in a nutshell, is my entire point: the person making a claim is responsible for establishing its validity. A person questioning its validity isn't. If I claimed that 75% of all HN posters were on the autism spectrum, it would be my responsibility to support my claim, not your responsibility to prove that it's wrong.
Claims made by an interest group that align to the interests of the interest group deserve extra scrutiny, especially when those claims are based on "data" that is self-reported by members of the group with no independent substantiation. It is therefore entirely reasonable to not accept these claims at face value, which gets us back to my purpose in responding to the other poster: the 56% figure is not a credible one.
[1]:https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...
So if it bothers you that much then stop using those products/services. Not possible? Then vote to change laws. Not possible? Revolution
I get that putting the onus on consumers isn't going to fix the problem, but pointing to a factory that pollutes because you buy their products and want their product cheaply is equally inane
Of course not, but they do actively make decisions based on profit over sustainability.
> So if it bothers you that much then stop using those products/services. Not possible? Then vote to change laws. Not possible? Revolution
One voter voting on an issue doesn't change anything. These kinds of arguments must be made to convince others to vote with you on the issue. The same could be said of a revolution: a one person revolt doesn't go anywhere, we need more folks to embrace the revolution.
There's also been a concerted effort by corporations over the past few decades to shift blame from corporations & manufacturers responsible for pollution onto the consumers, which makes arguments like these necessary (because otherwise the only argument on the market is that we consumers are just buying plastics to spite the environment, to be hyperbolic about it).
and that's what they're supposed to do. Make the most profits while abiding by the law. As consumers start caring more about sustainable supply chains so will producers. When their profits get hurt because consumers choose a more sustainable product, then you'll see change. As long as consumers don't care and just want the cheapest thing (which unfortunately has been the great majority of people for the past 100 years) the producers won't care either
As soon as principles are really tested, it's crickets.
People have large TVs, ACs, high-end gaming PCs, a ton of devices, huge cars, eat lots of meat, use air travel, and drown themselves in cheap packages from China.
All of this life-style is our natural birth right, and none of its should be banned or taxed. Also, it doesn't contribute to the climate problem at all. It's all Bitcoin's fault. Or, the "industry".
Agreed, but I'm not pointing at the factories. Consumers _can't_ lobby congress or control the media narrative. Factories don't lobby congress nor spin a media narrative designed to distract attention from those profiting off dumping the externalities of the business models onto the world.
I'm pointing at the corporations (the sum actions of their boards & C-suites taken as a single entity) that own the factories and reap the rewards. I'm pointing at the people that have effectively "won" capitalism and then took it way too far by changing the law and controlling the narrative to make sure they stay in power no matter the costs.
I hope there's some resolution that doesn't require a revolution, though I suspect we'll just do _nothing_... then it'll be a mega-clusterfuck the likes of which we can barely imagine... and maybe after the first 10M-100M deaths due to famine/heat/fires/storms we may figure out that we need to do something... and it'll be too late and/or that something will be another major war.
But before that western society gets to decide how to handle storms/crop failures/droughts driving the largest human mass-migration EVER (Central America => USA, Africa/Middle East => Europe) during a period when resources are constraining.
Meanwhile, bitcoin is used to produce... what? A speculative asset some people can invest/gamble on?
I do wish he would keep this citizens wealth in China. I'm tired of seeing his wealthy people buying up our realestate, along with every other nation. We only have so much land. It should be set aside for American citizens.
(Lately people. I don't need a lecture of the bad things he has done. I know them, and don't like them.)
doubly funny your worries about externalities, when bitcoin actually meaningfully drives renewable production that is going to be essential in reducing those externalities.
> not okay with 0.5% of the earth's energy being consumed to produce sha sums for the sole purpose of mining speculative assets
packed as much manipulation and misinformation as you could into that one, didn't you?
i'm more than ok with significant chunk of energy's energy going into ensuring security of a global decentralized settlement layer and currency with predictable issuance policy that can't be fucked up by politicians that suddenly realize they need to print a couple trillions to cover up how much they stole.
I am so sick of this bs argument from bitcoin apologists. Cryptocurrencies drive renewable energy in the same way lung cancer drives chemotherapy drugs.
It doesn’t matter if renewable energy is built if that new energy is being wasted on cryptocurrency instead of replacing fossil fuel energy for something else.
yes it absolutely matters, because expanding the market of energy with renewable energy is unquestionably better than expanding it with fossil producers. bitcoin difficulty fluctuates with uncertainty in politics, demand for security and demand for the asset itself. when difficulty goes down - freed up energy can be used by other market participants and that will hurt profitability of fossil producers.
this is not bs argument, it's reality.
also, "energy is being wasted" is your subjective understanding.
Bitcoin secures over a trillion USD. 1 in 6 Americans own Bitcoin and user growth is faster than the rise of the internet and Facebook combined. Companies/Wallstreet are in, VCs are in, the first country has used it as a legal currency.
And yet you're still on this 12 year old narrative that it's worth zero?
https://explodingtopics.com/blog/blockchain-stats
...which states 22% of US adults. If you select for a somewhat younger population (non-boomers), it's even 33%.
So I think the point stands, whether you pick the lowest or highest number amidst these studies. Bitcoin/crypto is far more widespread than some people think.
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Go wild
Electricity, much like housing, should not be a place where regular folks can get priced out of the market by corporations.
You just want me to be mad at bitcoin so I don't notice that the system itself is sadistic.
More charitably: it’s easier and intellectually lazier to point at a bogeyman than to understand and explain structural issues
Same happens in housing wrt furor over gentrification and luxury housing. Blame the rich foreign investors and tech bros instead of the structure of the marketplace and enforced scarcity of the zoning system!
It's a good thing I don't live in Texas, because otherwise I might be worried considering how shitty and unreliable ERCOT is already without widespread mining.
I still think the negative externalities of Bitcoin mining outweigh the positive ones, though. (Full disclosure, I'm short a company mentioned in that article)
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/07/08/bitcoin...
Is $1 billion a year across the whole country a significant number?
1) It's not evenly distributed over 330M residents. It's concentrated in certain areas, and we don't have a single nationwide electricity market where supply and demand operate. So it is concentrated in places like Upstate New York and Texas. Spread over few people.
2) It's priced into a daily necessity for people. The poor are the ones with difficulty paying electricity bills, so while $5 or $20 or $50 on an energy bill may not sound like a lot to some people, it depends on your economic situation. So, it's regressive.
3) Crypto mining is a growth sector. The figure is $1B now. Crypto is still growing and we still haven't seen the full effect of bans in China, which are fairly new. True, US power infrastructure is growing... but so is uptake of electric vehicles. (Another keen interest of the professional class.)
So we have a question of whether supply can keep up with demand, with the solvency of working class families hanging in the balance while that supply/demand problem works itself out. Maybe it'll be fine. Or maybe crypto warms the planet and hurts poor people in service of a neat intellectual toy and speculative asset for the Silicon Valley / Wall Street set.
> a neat intellectual toy and speculative asset for the Silicon Valley / Wall Street set.
For those in silicon valley or wall street this is probably a downvote. And for those who are fans of bitcoin it is definitely a downvote.
... better?
Bitcoin's invention and surrounding culture comes from cyberpunks. Whom are anti-government, anti-regulation, encourage civil disobedience, and so on. Unsurprisingly, culturally Bitcoin is highly popular with libertarians, which in the US you could qualify as a sub culture of the right wing. As such, it's an almost opposite of SC culture, which is liberal all the way to left wing (largely in name only).
As for Wallstreet, they only got in late 2020, and barely so, so it's quite a stretch to state that Bitcoin is a toy for Wallstreet.
In reality, these supposed hard lines uniquely found in US politics are soft as butter. Bitcoin isn't made for any group in particular, it is for everyone. It can be used by a greedy hyper capitalist day trader as well as a refugee looking to protect the little they have from inflation or confiscation. Bitcoin doesn't care.
And they shadow ban people who disagree.
Chain letters' sole purpose is to enrich early adopters at the expense of later participants.
While early adopters of cryptocurrencies frequently do reap windfall gains, it is not necessarily at the expense of later users as it is with chain letters. The early adopter benefits for cryptocurrencies are no different than early investors in a business that goes on to produce a popular and successful product.
Unlike chain letters cryptocurrencies provide a useful utility of a medium of exchange coupled with consensus based algorithmic scarcity. This is an attractive alternative to centrally planned fiat currencies that are persistently and intentionally debased over time.
Whether the power usage is worth the utilitarian benefits to societey is certainly a valid debate and hopefully will lead to more efficient protocols.
While some crypto may be at some point in the future a decent medium of exchange, at this point they're all deflationary and inefficient, leading only to uses in marketing stunts (Tesla, El Salvador, etc.)
Your argument is essentially circular, that crypto isn't a pyramid scheme because it's not a pyramid scheme.
I'm not trying to claim a side here, but some would say that crypto is a pyramid scheme masquerading as a legitimate tool, and that the primary function is for speculative investment. Similarly, imagine a chain letter pyramid scheme that happens to also implement a social network, and claims to not be a pyramid scheme but a networking mailing list where the early contributors happen to receive windfalls.
Whether you agree that crypto is as bad as chain mail is obviously dependent on your view if crypto implements a useful product, or if it primarily exists for speculative mania and the "product" is a masquerade to build legitimacy.
So correlation implies causation?
I'm not sure if the study is just flawed or the article is doing an especially bad job of explaining it.
I won't be reading the paper because of this:
> Benetton and Compiani received financial support from Ripple’s University Blockchain Research Initiative. Ripple Labs supports the cryptocurrency XRP.
XRP is a scam run by Ripple labs. The company routinely mis-states the utility of XRP.
Well, would you argue that people started mining bitcoins because energy became more expensive? The other direction looks more plausible, especially if you consider basic economic theory: as demand goes up, prices also go up.
I mean it can't be pirates cause global warming, they use wind energy after all.
So we conclude global warming cause pirates
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/de/Pi...
Edit: it's the other way around, global warming eliminates pirates
Why are you posting your opinions on something you claim you never read?
What I'm wondering is if Bitcoin itself could one day switch to proof-of-stake? Is this something the Bitcoin community may consider if proof-of-stakes turns out to work and be secure?
Is this something that is even remotely possible?
Bitcoin mining can easily turn on and off as the price of energy fluctuates, so all of a sudden we have the ability to use energy sources like solar which need to be overprovisioned to ensure that e.g. bad weather doesn’t reduce grid capacity too much. Bitcoin mining just turns off if it’s cloudy.
We also all of a sudden have the ability to economically use energy sources which can’t be spun up and down rapidly, like geothermal. You just leave the turbines running all the time and if you have a surplus you fire up the Bitcoin miners.
Long term, increased reliable electrical demand will hopefully lead to R&D that drives the dollar cost of power down as well.
I expect this to take place over quite a long time - on the scale of decades. Power is super capital intensive and super regulated so it takes forever for things like this to work. If you ever see a nuclear power plant being built with a Bitcoin mine being constructed alongside it, you can be confident that the effect is in full force.
Price of electricity goes up: Bitcoin's fault?
There's an obvious solution here. Residential rates went up 10% because the local utility has a simplistic demand pricing program that allows cheap industrial demand to drive up expensive residential rates.
Difficulty doesn't automatically increase over time. Rather, it has tended to increase for two major reasons:
1) bitcoin price going up, increasing miner competition chasing the higher reward. The reward halvings every 4 years have done little to counter this uptrend.
2) mining efficiency going up. after transitioning from CPUs through GPUs and FPGAs to ASICs, efficiencies have started to level off now.
1. Is the argument from the linked article factually (and semantically) true? 2. If that is the case, what are the moral and political implications?
if you want population to pay less for energy - vote for a government that will subsidize that.
I get that the article is about electricity, and not the industry's general impact on a region when it comes in.
That said, who has been to the North Country lately, i.e. really deep up there where these mines are? For those unaware, the jobs are basically:
- Dannemora prison
- One or two small colleges
- light tourism: the seasonal jobs around Lake Placid, niche interest in the 1,000 islands,
- some logging, but most of that area is a state park
- Closer, but not in commuting distance: Ft Drum, a dying dairy industry closer to Utica
It remains to be seen how many jobs come from an industry growing up there. But reading this, from Booth of all places, is sort of like saying electric costs have gone up in the Rust Belt because the first new industry in decades is moved there. NY fought tooth and nail to get Ft. Drum into Watertown/North Country in the 80's for a very good reason - that area is dying.
This is also putting aside that these mines are in dilapidated power plants (fighting the extensive rural (?) blight up there) and pulling ~green energy from the St. Lawrence.