HN Explorer

(Opinion) Crypto mining is nonessential and is killing our climate

18 points by kixxauth ↗ HN
Don't get me wrong, block chain has some wonderful applications. But at some point, crypto currencies veered off the idealistic track.

Let's spare ourselves the analogies of crypto mining consuming amounts of energy comparable to small nations, and realize the fact that it consumes a tremendous amount of electricity. This, as we all sit here in the sweltering heat, should make us angry.

I propose that, in theory, we have mined all the crypto we need. Further mining will only empower those with the means to continue mining, which is contrary to the objectives of a distributed block chain, particularly a zero-trust currency. Look no further than the large donations being made by Andreessen and Horowitz to their politician of choice (Donald Trump), mostly because they believe his administration will give them more power with crypto.

Mining crypto is really just a gamified incentive structure intended to motivate sys admins to run nodes on the network. These nodes have become so expensive to operate, the power over the network has collapsed onto a few nodes ... the network effect.

One possible solution is to bundle small transactions into a settlement period, similar to trading markets in the classical financial system. Then these transactions can be settled at the end of the settlement period (24 hours, for example). The problem is that we would need some central authority to collect and bundle transactions, which would require some level of trust.

Is there a centralization/trust tradeoff to be made here against centralization of power and climate damage?

28 comments

[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 83.8 ms ] thread
aurareturn
>Don't get me wrong, block chain has some wonderful applications

Like what?

I used to work in crypto. The only use case I found was an extremely easy way to create and trade unregistered securities and trade them in unregulated exchanges.

kixxauth
Ha, yeah. So, maybe a stretch here.

I'm thinking of use cases like distributed domain name lookup systems, identification systems, social networks.

kixxauth
Additionally, a question for you: I don't have experience in finance. Do you think this idea of having a settlement period for crypto transactions could work?
silverquiet
There was a comment here years ago that if an alien civilization wanted to wipe us out, there was perhaps no easier way for them to accomplish it than to send a crypto-currency whitepaper with anonymous authorship. I have to say it stuck with me.
kixxauth
Ha. That's cynically hilarious.
hackernudes
I love the comment even though I disagree. It reminded me of a Charles Stross novel Singularity Sky. A civilization called The Festival gives advanced technology in exchange for "entertainment" (stories). Many worlds that come into contact with them are ruined overnight due to the sudden technological singularity.

His book Neptune's Brood revolves around cryptocurrency.

is_true
Maybe oil companies, to ensure demand.
streptomycin
Proof of stake uses a lot less energy.

And if you're worried about the energy usage of crypto, wait until you hear about this AI thing...

Yawrehto
>And if you're worried about the energy usage of crypto, wait until you hear about this AI thing...

Both of them are stupid energy/water sucking machines. I'm kind of curious how much emissions would fall if we just outlawed crypto, AI, and private jets, because those seem like three large things that don't particularly matter to normal people.

kixxauth
Yeah, it's appropriately ironic that these things were supposed to give power to the people (excluding the private jets), but power has become consolidated to those who have the means to consolidate it ... and the climate pays.
ativzzz
> three large things that don't particularly matter to normal people.

According to google searches, chatGPT has something 100-200 million people using it monthly. IDK how accurate that is, but even if it's off by a magnitude, that is something that is clearly useful to normal people

zikduruqe
> wait until you hear about this AI thing

What about this AWS thing, Netflix thing, Google Datacenter thing, ... aren't all these things chewing up electrons also?

codingdave
Yes, we would have better energy management if people unplugged. Good suggestion. But even with that being true, AI is a whole new level of scaling up when it comes to burning energy to drive apps.
solardev
Is this still an issue? I thought crypto is pretty much dead now and the speculators have moved onto AI?

Also, didn't the big coins (ethereum) move to proof of stake anyway?

kixxauth
It's no longer a boom (and yes, AI is probably far worse at this point)

And proof of stake consumes less energy, but still significant.

fl0id
Things like bitcoin still exist, which still use PoW afaik
kibwen
The energy consumption of proof of stake is inherently less of an issue because, unlike proof of work, it does not itself incentivize waste in an escalating vicious feedback loop. In other words, an industry where energy expenditure is an input is categorically different than an industry where energy expenditure is an output, which is the real existential crisis of proof of work.
b20000
I disagree, I think crypto is extremely important, much more important than social media for example, which has been shown to be toxic and to destroy people's health, on top of also requiring a lot of data center resources and thus being bad for the climate.
kixxauth
What aspects or use cases of crypto do you find important?
b20000
wait until the CBDC is implemented
agumonkey
There's a slight chance that the blockchain trend represents a global underlying open networked computation for the whole planet. Another point is that the greed seems to make people invest into energy research (unless it's rumors). Otherwise yeah it's an expensive casino.
Daviey
Research PoA and PoS and you'll see what you have suggested has been done.
tromp
Neither provides a fair distribution of coins.

Admittedly, neither does Bitcoin, what with every next generation getting to mine 32x less than the previous one. But PoW with a fixed block reward would come as close as possible.

hackernudes
Is it possible Bitcoin mining could help incentivize green energy? Bitcoin miners will pay for almost unlimited energy as long as it is cheap. Miners can turn on and off almost instantly. The grid can be improved by having lots of extra power that can be shifted to different needs at any moment. There is also stranded energy, like solar not yet connected to the grid or flared methane gas (at wells or landfills).

I don't think Ethereum uses excessive amounts of energy unless you also think data centers are bad in general. The consensus algorithms are more complicated than Bitcoin. Ethereum validators will lose part of their stake if caught cheating.

duped
This is like arguing over the thermostat setting while your house is on fire. Crypto is a pittance of the global energy demand. The fundamental problem is that we are using fossil fuels to generate heat and electricity. Efforts to reduce demand for energy are not even worth talking about in my opinion, we need to stop the energy production that we know is killing the planet at the source.