Posted on 06/14/2018 7:42:24 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Bitcoin could be the money of the future — unless it continues to operate in the same way that it currently does.
A new study authored by economist and data consultant Alex de Vries has painted a horrifying picture of a few months from now with the cryptocurrency growing as rapidly as it does at the moment.
As per the research, keeping the Bitcoin business up and running by the end of this year would mean using 7.67 gigawatts of power, which is one two-hundredth of all the electricity used on the planet.
In its current form, the Bitcoin network consumes 2.55 gigawatts of electricity, which is almost as much power used in the entire country of Ireland, which is at 3.1 gigawatts.
This is expected to almost triple by the end of 2018, during which its electric consumption would grow enough to power Austria, which is currently at 8.2 gigawatts.
"With the Bitcoin network processing just 200,000 transactions per day, this means that the average electricity consumed per transaction equals at least 300 kWh, and could exceed 900 kWh per transaction by the end of 2018," as noted in the research.
As Futurism further visualizes, Bitcoin mining might soon have the same effect on the environment as 38 million people who use the same amount of energy have.
To take it a step further, Eric Holthaus of Grist, who wrote about the Bitcoin's energy consumption in the past, predicted that if something is not done to curb this, the industry will take up the entire world's electricity in less than three years from now.
Futurism points out that while there are flaws in the new study, this does not change the fact that the industry still poses a serious threat to the planet.
Bitcoin miners, who truly believe that it is the path to the future, know what the whole process entails and they are doing something about it. Otherwise, it is just a ticking time bomb.
"The Bitcoin development community is experimenting with solutions such as the Lightning Network to improve the throughput of the network, which may alleviate the situation," the research noted.
Unfortunately, nothing on this front is concrete yet. The only thing that's certain is that more power will be needed as this industry evolves.
If anything, PC Gamer says that the ridiculous amount of power consumption it will require to continue the Bitcoin mining will be the industry's own undoing.
The site says that the 2021 projection by Holthaus, while very real, is unlikely to happen simply because the governments of the world are expected to intervene.
Not that they would need to, as Bitcoin would not afford growing its power consumption in the long run. The publication explains that by 2020, its estimated world energy production per year will be at 175,000 TWh.
At $0.10 per kWh, this would amount to $17.5 trillion per year. In that year, block reward of Bitcoin will drop to 6.25 BTC or around 328,500 BTC per year.
For the mining to break even, Bitcoin would have to be worth over $50 million per coin, something the publication doubts will be achieved.
Bitcoin is deemed "a big problem" that is "growing fast" in the research. Media outlets believe that if people do not find ways to mine it efficiently, Bitcoin's days will not only be numbered, it will prove deadly to the planet as it counts its days down.
As Dave Ramsey recommends - Don’t get into anything you don’t understand.
We could change it to waving your hands in the air.
That is the same net effect of ‘mining’ bitcoins.
That is the thing that always bugged me. You are giving value to people sitting on a stationary bicycle expending effort, producing nothing except sweat.
Bitcoin is a silly concept. Nothing to contain a numeric value requires that much computational power. Nothing. It’s overkill beyond belief.
It’s like getting change at a fast food restaurant that computing the result takes a super computer.
...with the cryptocurrency growing as rapidly as it does at the moment.
It’s not growing. It’s lost a lot of value.
For perspective, replace “Bitcoin” with “Internet” and replace the amount of energy as a percentage with the 2% of the total worlds energy production because that is the amount of electricity consumed by data centers.
Much hand wringing over nothing.
The FUD in this article is strong. Nothing ever grows exponentially over long time periods. The energy expended secures the network from human corruption/interference. This is the cost of eliminating corruption. Context is also needed. What is the equivalent energy expenditure and other costs needed to run the global financial infrastructure? Include buildings, transportation, electricity, fuel, salaries, legal costs....
Yes, that's true. For example, sometimes things suffer a catastrophic collapse. Other times, they may just slowly fade into irrelevancy.
Regards.
Sometimes they reach an equilibrium and stabilize.
Or they crash like tulips did in the 1600s. lol
Unless the ‘miners’ find a way to produce the electricity needed to run their operation.
This may be one way to do this:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-shatner-bitcoin-solar-panels-illinois-20180613-story.html
For bitcoin, I think the energy consumption will level off as the block reward declines, with the block reward eventually going to zero. The miners are then paid by transaction fees only. Only the most efficient miners will survive in this environment and these factors will ultimately limit the energy consumption. The projections of this author are stupid.
Bitcoin is a better money, whether people want to admit this or not or realize this or not. People won’t have a choice in the matter, just like gold displaced seashells and notched sticks as money. The market will force bitcoin on people. It won’t happen right away. It will take awhile. But it will happen.
If I had a bitcoin for every time I’ve read or heard the tulip analogy I’d be a billionaire.
“We could change it to waving your hands in the air.”
that would certainly save lots of electricity, as well as having a minor exercise benefit to boot ...
“For perspective, replace “Bitcoin” with “Internet” and replace the amount of energy as a percentage with the 2% of the total worlds energy production because that is the amount of electricity consumed by data centers.”
that’s actually a very good analogy because everyone knows that the Internet is as useless as Bitcoin ...
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