How Bitcoin is eating the Earth: Computers creating 'worthless' cryptocurrency drive global warming as they use vastly more electricity than all the internet giants combined

Daily Mail UK ^ | 13 Mar 2021 | Chris Jewers

[blueplum]

Powerful computers 'mining' for the cryptocurrency Bitcoin are driving global warming as data shows they use vastly more electricity than all the internet tech giants combined.

Bitcoin passed the $60,000 mark for the first time on Saturday, but its rocketing value again raises questions over the vast energy resources required to run machines that mine for the cryptocurrency, that some - including billionaire Warren Buffet - even consider to be worthless.

On March 2, Bitcoin's estimated energy consumption reached its highest ever rate, hitting a staggering 130.90 terawatt hours (TWh) annualised. The following week...

...March 3 was at a rate of 130.9 terawatt hours (TWh), roughly the same as New Zealand and Argentina ...

[Keyhopper]

Picked up a few eagles from the mint. Sealed containers certified mint, uncirculated, never been touched by human hands. Those are hard to come by. I have others that aren’t collectables, but do hold their value. I also picked up scrap coins and buy them by the bag.

[roadcat]

I thought it was ridiculous but maybe they wanted to make sure people working in cash were paying taxes on it.

I have nothing against people working in cash. Too much taxation without representation. If people can make money under the table, then more power to them.

[Oatka]

Great minds think alike. But with silver, its a no brainer.

Agree. Wish I had gotten in back in early 2020. Think time is running out. Summer should prove interesting.

[zeugma]

Can I help with your electric bill?

Looks like I may need it. Still crunching along after 480 cpu minutes on this. Unfortunately, the 'factor' program is kinda dumb. It's single threaded, so I'm basically maxing out one of 16 cores to run this test. If it were multi-threaded, it would be quite a bit faster. Obviously, the programs designed to crunch bitcoin are massively parallel, and make extensive use of that. In fact, they tend to not really be very cpu-intensive at all, as most of the real math is offloaded to the video cards. This is why it's almost impossible to by buy high-end vid cards right now. Even a decidedly mid-range card like mine could do do this a hell of a lot faster than the i9 cpu installed.

[zeugma]

You do not want a silver boat anchor? Oh My!

Not really my thing. I look at silver as ultimately a fractional device that carries wealth. A 100 ounce bar is not nearly as convertible as other forms. Granted, if someone were giving me a 100 oz bar, I'd not object to it, but it's not my preferred form.

[Candor7]

May is the month in which the annual silver price is usually at its annual low.

[Lurker]

“The fact that it says “one dollar” and was used to purchase $1 worth of goods a hundred years ago is totally meaningless.”

Not really. That $1 worth of goods a hundred years ago would now run you about $30.

60 years ago an ounce of gold would buy you a nice handmade suit. Today an ounce of gold will buy you a nice handmade suit.

Gold and silver aren’t investments, per se, but they are a damned good store of value.

L

[Dick Vomer]

I mean that “money” is defined by certain characteristics. It is an object that is accepted for goods and services. It must have value that each participant in the transaction agrees on, portable in that it can be used ubiquitously and retain it’s value in order to make it a stable method to trade goods and services.

BTC fills that void of squashing inflation. There is only a fixed amount that will be made and that is what the central bankers are afraid of. BTC is a disruptor of enormous size to the bankers and governments that enslave us in debt.

It will be made “illegal” but it won’t be. It can’t be traced if a cold wallet is used or a hard copy is used.

I am not being snarky or mean, but I really think that you should read up on it and decide if you think it’s a scam based on what you’ve read. It was 1% of my portfolio 4 year ago and returned about 5000% or about 275% annually.....

It could go to zero, but it was only 1% of my portfolio, so I am good with the risk benefit ratio.

[enumerated]

I agree with everything you said - a $1 silver coin from 100 years ago could buy $30 worth of goods now.

I was making a different point - that the $1 designation on the 100 year-old silver coin doesn’t affect its value today. The value is determined by the silver content, not by anything written on the coin.

[Cboldt]

I have no opposition to bitcoin. I was just riffing from your remark about “what ‘money’ is.” At least in 1950, federal reserve notes were not, on their face, “lawful money.”

What has value in a transaction is quite circumstance dependent ;-)

[Dick Vomer]

How about a nice tattoo? 666 may be a good way to do it. The chip idea is also cool. Nothing could go wrong there.

no need for a tattoo.... That's so "old school"...

Want to see something that will flip on the paranoia alarm? I was asked by a patient to find and remove something that he "thought" was on or in him.....

he said he had this on him and wanted us to scan or find it and deactivate or remove it. He showed me this photo from the internet and said it's an RFID chip.

Welllllllll can't scan for it and since I don't have the scanning reader or the code, I couldn't tell him anything except, "you're in the wrong place. I'd check to ask the people that put it in you or made it.

It is a Hitachi RFID passive chip. that's a front and back view of it.

Nice huh?

[Dick Vomer]

by the way, that’s a finger tip.