Posted on 03/26/2021 7:34:50 AM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
By using energy to validate transactions in a way that is independent of any existing grid or source, Bitcoin mining will save the climate.
It’s in vogue to think that Bitcoin is accelerating the climate crisis.
The common argument is that Bitcoin uses lots of energy, which must mean more carbon emissions, so as a result, it’s ruining the climate. Of course, critics also seem enraged at Bitcoin itself, believing it doesn’t do anything useful beyond facilitating a casino for Reddit memelords and “libertarian nerds” to get rich in. To these critics, Bitcoin is a totally useless, degenerate system that will end up consuming all energy on the planet in 18 months if we don’t stop it right now.
While this fatalist prediction might succeed in earning clout on Twitter, it is fortunately far from the truth. Incredibly far. In fact, if I may do some clout chasing of my own: the prediction that Bitcoin will destroy the climate is the literal opposite of what Bitcoin is likely to do.
Bitcoin will save our Earth.
By the end of this read, you will understand how Bitcoin uses energy to validate transactions, and how this is driving more efficient energy usage and lower emissions for the entire global energy grid, not just the Bitcoin system. Why Does Bitcoin Need Energy?
This is the first part that confuses many people, because Bitcoin is a novel type of monetary technology which has no analogue. Importantly, Bitcoin is not Visa or PayPal — and it uses energy for different purposes.
Bitcoin requires energy in order to secure the history of transactions. A recipient of bitcoin can reasonably trust that the bitcoin they’ve received is really theirs because miners expended energy, and therefore incurred an unavoidable real-world cost, in order to fit that transaction into a block of transactions and hitch it onto the “blockchain.” We call this strong assurance that a transaction is completed “finality.”
If you take out that energy expenditure, there is no cost associated with changing a transaction. The original sender could decide later to change their transaction so it points to another one of their wallets instead of your wallet. Poof! Now you never got paid, or maybe the money is in two places at once. That just won’t fly in a monetary or payments system. This little copy-paste problem is known in nerd circles as the “double-spend problem.” Bitcoin is the only system which solves this problem at scale without a trusted third party, and energy usage is the key component of that solution.
The more energy that Bitcoin consumes, the more cost is incurred in securing the chain. More security means an “attack” on the history of transactions is more expensive — so expensive that double spending is uneconomical or downright impossible. The more cost incurred to secure the chain after your transaction, the more “final” that transaction is.
> More energy consumption = more security.
Many critics argue that the Bitcoin energy consumption per transaction compared to a Visa payment proves the horrible inefficiency of the Bitcoin network. This plays on our assumption that a “transaction” is always something small — like buying a cup of coffee. However, a “transaction” can also be a group of these smaller transactions — a “batch” — so that one “transaction” on a payment system like Bitcoin or Fedwire can actually represent millions of coffee purchases.
Critics of Bitcoin’s energy use also miss the key point of why Bitcoin uses energy. Bitcoin is not just a payments system — it is also an entirely new form of scarce, divisible, portable commodity — aka, money.
> Bitcoin consumes energy primarily to ensure the scarcity of Bitcoins and finality of transactions without a trusted third party.
Other monetary systems, like the U.S. dollar, achieve scarcity and finality — key properties of money — through trust. You and I need to trust politicians and bankers to be good stewards of the monetary system. We entrust with them the power to literally create currency out of thin air, and they have the power to reverse or block transactions. Most of these gatekeepers are not elected officials either — they are the chairmen and employees of central banks and commercial banks. And they create new money and allocate it as they see fit, fiendishly. New money is created every time a government sells bonds to its central bank or banks extend loans — which is often. Especially in 2020.
[EXCERPT - MORE AT LINK AND WORTH FINISHING ARTICLE]
you might look at the articles on this website. A lot of people find them readable:
https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia
I do not remember. Try some search engine.
To these critics, Bitcoin is a totally useless, degenerate system that will end up consuming all energy on the planet in 18 months if we don’t stop it right now.
He posits an absurdist example of what a critic would say pretending that it's an authentic criticism. Obama would do this all the time:
Republican say it's best if we just let these children starve to death because that's what the Founders wanted
Or some equally ridiculous characterization of what his critics believe.
I think the point is simply that since bitcoin mining takes energy, the search is on to pursue lower cost electricity. It obviously takes energy, like many other industries.
Plus the general internet electricity which bitcoin can’t function without. There’s no way it uses less electric than the other forms of digital money (debit cards, EFT, etc). So at best it’s a net zero.
Not sure. There is a whole infrastructure to support the fiat money system - Fed, Reserve banks, banking, etc.
That's it... bitcoin doesn't need change. It is divisible to 8 digits. It is paid exactly. Or do I misunderstand your point??
Unless bitcoin can be held and transacted easily by billions of people before a currency implosion, a person with bitcoin “wealth” has nowhere to transact very easily.
Not sure you would need billions of people.
In fact, the energy needed to transact might not be available in the place where the currency imploded.
If there is no longer power, we will have bigger problems and will be bartering ammo, beans and toilet paper.
I'm betting the electricity will come on again.
fair enough....but on Twitter, I’ve seen many comments like that that are as ridiculous as the straw man he sets up.
there is a LOT of alarmism over BTC’s energy consumption...a LOT...which shouldn’t surprise us, because as we all know, climate alarmists are hysterical jihadists
Bitcoms are commodities from what I understand, not currencies, with unstable values that fluxuate with tax consequences when sold or converted. However I am not familiar with bitcom transactions either as investment or as used in commerce.
But this is what I am referring to:
“Don’t look now but the world is racing down a path that has been interlaid with landmines of control and surveillance and yet almost no Western politician of any party seems concerned enough to even talk about the impact this will have on personal privacy. “
And a whole infrastructure to support bitcoin. If it becomes the general currency the banks are involved, all the banking system of the stores. It won’t be different. Only thing it avoid is the physical production and distribution, which is such a small fraction of the money running around in the world it barely rates.
I recently read the Biden/Harris administration is hiring private contractors to go through everyone's digital file (Twitter, FB, emails, etc) in order to compile a list of those who may pose possible threats to their new order.
Biden is about to issue gun control E.O.s - guess who they're going to visit first with those orders in hand.
I've been warning we haven't seen nuttin' yet. Get what you need now to hold out for as long as you can, even if you have to go into debt to do it.
Can you believe it's only been a year since COVID? This craziness is getting worse, and worse.
“ Only thing it avoid is the physical production and distribution, which is such a small fraction of the money running around in the world it barely rates.
We might add that Bitcoin replaces the vast hoard of banking employees with technology too
“craziness is getting worse, and worse.”
Well I can see you are about as optimistic of the Biden future as I am !!!
Well, if you believe all of the worst parts of the bible are about to be fulfilled, then I’d say we’re pretty much the same, optimistically.
“if you believe all of the worst parts of the bible are about to be fulfilled then I’d say we’re pretty much the same, optimistically”
Yes in that case I would say it is a meeting of the minds.
Matthew 24 NLT
32 Now learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branches bud and its leaves begin to sprout, you know that summer is near. 33 In the same way, when you see all these things, you can know his return is very near, right at the door. 34 I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass from the scene until all these things take place. 35 Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear.
Mining is a euphemism for the expending of energy to secure the ledger described in the post. The term comes from the reward for the work in the form of bitcoin.
Yes I know where the term comes from. I also know how bitcoin mining blew up the GPU market and years ago crossed the line where you spent more on electricity mining the coin than the value of the coin.
No it doesn’t. Not if it became the major currency. Because people will STILL have bank accounts, they will STILL take out loans, they will STILL have issues. The banking industry works that way because of HOW money works, not what money is.
Hmmm. Given the fact that the post talks extensively about electricity use for mining in an attempt to justify it, I concluded you didn’t understand what mining was.
As for GPU mining, that hasn’t been cost effective for Bitcoin since 2012 or so. The blow up in GPUs in the last few years is not due to Bitcoin mining.
No the blow up is still related entirely to bitcoin and its ilk. Mining is still going on for the hundreds of OTHER cryptos out there. I know everybody likes to pretend it’s just bitcoin, but it ain’t.
Not arguing about the continued existence of banks. Of course they will exist.
I’m referring to the energy footprint of all those buildings and employees.
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