[Slyfox]

As Dave Ramsey recommends - Don’t get into anything you don’t understand.

[C210N]

I'm a strict AGW denier, but if not addressed in one way or another, bitcoin *will* be the driver of man-made glowBull warming.

The Hard Math Behind Bitcoin's Global Warming Problem

[Mr. K]

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.

[DoodleBob]

[CodeToad]

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.

[Ciaphas Cain]

[robroys woman]

...with the cryptocurrency growing as rapidly as it does at the moment.

---

It’s not growing. It’s lost a lot of value.

[taxcontrol]

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.

[bkopto]

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....

[SelmaLee]

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

[Boogieman]

Bitcoin yesterday's news! YapCoin wave of future!

[Koracan]

This article is pseudo science, improper / incomplete use of engineering units and values making easy comparison impossible.
Typical for Propaganda, misinformation and nontransparenty.

......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.....


Ireland consumption -- 23 billion (giga) kWh of electric energy per year

USA Internet consumption -- 70 billion kWh per year ... 1.8% of total Electricity used

Bitcoin Trades -- 0.00255 billion kWh ???

[backwoods-engineer]

They are conflating the mining of bitcoin, and the processing of transactions (e.g., purchases) on the blockchain. Therefore, such estimates are useless. The power consumption of the mining of Bitcoin will be self-limiting as it becomes less than cost-effective to do so.

[Koracan]

....since the percent of services that are offered over the internet are increasingly being paid for with crypto-currencies ....

This reminds me of a very old story

The Theft of Smell
Ahh," the poor man said to himself after taking a whiff, "I may have no money, but at least I can enjoy the delicious banquet of aromas of baking breads and cinnamon cookies."
The greedy baker, still angry, started shouting to the Judge: he smells the aromas of my cooking without paying for them.
The judge took a bag of silver coins and shook it vigorously, "Do you hear that sound?" to the Baker.
Yes!, "Then, the Sound is your payment for the theft of Smell!

[elbook]

in a few years the Quantum Computers being developed will make it irrelevant (one of the few classes that new technology is capable handling of is quickly doing the kind of calculations the crypto-currencies are based on)

[segmenten]

This forecast did not come true! By the end of 2020 and now, Bitcoin has strengthened even more!