Bitcoin Forum

The year is 2018. After a rough Greek exit from the eurozone, economic malaise has spread to Italy, Portugal, Spain, and France. Nervous citizens across Europe look for a way to get their money out as currency traders hammer the weakening euro, banks impose withdrawal limits, and their purchasing power plummets.

Enter Bitcoin.

Compared to the euro, the peer-to-peer decentralized electronic currency has now become a relatively stable digital asset. Fiendish buyers trade their euros en masse online for Bitcoin, and soon, depositors worldwide join them. The price of Bitcoin rises, prompting more user adoption by spenders and speculators, and recognition from governments and populations alike.

The above scenario sounds like a nice piece of prepper-bait from conspiracy site infowars.com. But could (or should) Bitcoin actually take over? Some of the more enthusiastic Bitcoin advocates argue that the currency is ready for prime time—in other words, ready to replace national currencies, or perhaps replace global banking’s creaking clearinghouses. Would this be good for the world?

From an environmental point of view, it certainly wouldn’t be good news. Unfortunately for Bitcoin advocates, the currency uses too much electricity right now—way too much: According to my calculation, a single Bitcoin transaction uses roughly enough electricity to power 1.57 American households for a day.

All that energy expenditure has an important purpose: it secures Bitcoin from attacks by speculators, criminals, and other evil-doers by raising the price of the computer power needed to gain control of all transactions on the network. The computers that make up the Bitcoin economy’s backbone are constantly ensuring security and verifiability for the network by solving cryptographic puzzles. This process is called “mining.” Those who participate in this network maintenance are rewarded in Bitcoin, incentivizing them to bulk up their machines so they can mine more efficiently.

There is potential for Bitcoin to become more efficient by stuffing more transactions into the mining process. But at the end of the day, if Bitcoin sees increased adoption and price and many more useful transactions, power consumption is almost guaranteed to grow.

Motherboard has previously covered how big Bitcoin mining operations can get. So how much electricity are we talking about?

Let’s take this Bitcoin mine in China as an example of the scale of today’s operations. It is supposedly running at 6 PH (quadrillion hashes) per second, according to a Chinese Bitcoin company CEO posting in a Bitcoin forum, with the aim to scale up to 12 PH per second. That would give it about 3.3 percent of the total power on the Bitcoin network. Because the Bitcoin network is set up to dole out around 3,600 BTC per day to miners, this mine would rake in about 118.8 BTC per day, or more than $30,000USD at the time of writing. That’s not a bad haul when your electricity costs are among the lowest in the world at 3 to 6 cents per kw/h, about a third of US prices.

Bitcoin’s power usage per transaction isn’t remotely sustainable as a wholesale replacement for the conventional financial system

Computer cooling firm Allied Control estimates the total power consumption of the Bitcoin network at 250 to 500 Megawatts. Looking at the total hashrate, which is the number of calculations the network can perform per second, and applying a generous miner efficiency of 0.6 watts per gigahash, we can estimate our own back-of-the-envelope Bitcoin network constant power draw at just under 215 MW, although this figure is always in flux (it’s important to note that many of the variables in my calculation are constantly changing slightly). That’s around enough zap to power 173,000 average American households’ daily electricity usage.

With about 110,000 transactions per day, that works out to 1.57 households daily usage of electricity per Bitcoin transaction. Yes, every time you buy something in Bitcoin, you could be using as much electricity as 1.57 American families do in a day.

“The actual figure is likely worse, given that a large number of transactions are exchanges and miners moving bitcoins around and other low-value ‘dust’ transactions,” said Matthew Green, a cryptography expert at Johns Hopkins University. “So each transaction where there’s an exchange of goods or services happening is really representing even more electricity.”

As climate change becomes a more pressing concern for humanity every day, this huge level of energy use is difficult to justify for a currency wanting to improve on the current arrangement.

“It appears there are significant challenges to ensuring that Bitcoin’s growth minimizes environmental impacts,” offered Jeremy McDaniels, a financial system sustainability expert with the UNEP. “Energy footprints could be an issue of major scale-up is achieved.”

There is hope that Bitcoin may be able to reduce its footprint, however.

One important thing to understand is that the electricity demands of Bitcoin mining won’t scale up linearly with increased usage or transactions. Bitcoin miners use special hardware to guess over and over at solutions to computational problems for each “block,” which records transactions into a permanent ledger. The first problem-solver “wins” the block and the reward: brand new bitcoins.

Bitcoin can currently handle up to 360,000 transactions per day given current limitations built into the technology, according to Jorge Stolfi, a computer science professor from Campinas University in Brazil, so there’s some headroom left before things bog down.

It would be possible to bring down the average power cost of each transaction by modifying the underlying Bitcoin protocol, but that’s no easy feat. The Bitcoin community is currently debating a big change that would mean the network could theoretically handle about 7.2 million transactions a day on a comparable level of electricity consumption, according to Stolfi. That would require a majority of the people mining Bitcoin to agree to the change, however.

Keeping power consumption high in general also makes the network more secure by making it harder for any one entity to gain control. “The right way to think about this is that the energy expenditure provides a level of protection against attacks—it establishes a price floor, currently in the many millions, to launch a 34 percent or 51 percent attack [where an attacker can block transactions and double spend bitcoins as they please],” Emin Gun Sirer, a Cornell professor and blogger at Hacking Distributed, explained in an email.

However, that same level of security could be maintained while allowing for more transactions, he said, shrinking the cost per transaction.

All that needs to happen, then, is to expand the userbase so we have more transactions, right?

Unfortunately for Bitcoin, if user adoption spikes, so will price—and so must power consumption. Bitcoin mining leads to an arms race among miners to grab a slice of the fixed rewards doled out by the network, Stolfi said. The higher the financial rewards, the more miners will invest in powerful equipment to keep up with the competition. The Bitcoin protocol will continue to increase the difficulty of the cryptopuzzles to keep rewards constant, continuing the arms race until the last block is mined.

That makes Bitcoin about 5,033 times more energy intensive, per transaction, than VISA

The bottom line? Price = energy. “The total revenue of the mining industry is Bitcoin price times BTC revenue in USD/day, independently of anything else; and the electricity consumption, also in USD/day, is some large fraction of that,” concludes Stolfi.

Green agrees: “Almost everything in Bitcoin is flexible, but that dynamic isn’t. Miners always have the incentive to throw as many hashes [requiring power] at the job as the price dictates.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be fair to knock Bitcoin’s electricity consumption without comparing it to payment systems most people use today. Let’s take VISA as an example.

According to Network Computing, the VISA network can process more than 80 billion transactions per year or 2,537 transactions per second, using two mirrored data centers, each capable of running the entire network. The larger data center is currently pulling enough power for 25,000 households’ daily electricity, so we’ll double that to account for VISA’s total draw. In 2013, VISA’s investor reports say the company processed 58.5 billion transactions.

Working off these (admittedly imperfect) figures, each VISA transaction consumes around 0.0003 household’s daily electricity use. That makes Bitcoin about 5,033 times more energy intensive, per transaction, than VISA, at current usage levels.



Both networks use a lot of houses worth of daily juice, but one of them processes millions more transactions. Image: Motherboard
Of course, VISA runs call centers, offices, and a whole lot else on electricity as well, which isn’t counted in this comparison. But those hardly matter due to the extreme difference between the two figures.

In a rosy 2014 Bitcoin sustainability study, Bitcoin analyst Hass McCook concluded that “Bitcoin has 99.8% fewer [carbon] emissions than the banking system,” which we can treat as a rough proxy for energy use. The study neglects to account for the vast size difference between the Bitcoin economy and the conventional money system, however—the world banking system’s market capitalization in 2010 alone was over 1,989 times bigger than today’s total Bitcoin valuation.

In light of the above analysis, Bitcoin’s power usage per transaction isn’t remotely sustainable as a wholesale replacement for the conventional financial system. In the future, Bitcoin could massively gain popularity, pile on millions more transactions, and still be unsustainable due to the arms race between miners.

In an email, Bitcoin expert Piotr Piasecki added some context to the comparison: “With the increase of the block size, there will be more transactions included in the block, so the cost per transaction should go down. While it might not reach such low levels as Visa, we are talking about two somewhat different systems. One is a database entry in a single system, another one is an immutable record of history in a decentralized ledger.”

With about 110,000 transactions per day, that works out to 1.57 households daily usage of electricity per Bitcoin transaction. Yes, every time you buy something in Bitcoin, you could be using as much electricity as 1.57 American families do in a day.

“With the increase of the block size, there will be more transactions included in the block, so the cost per transaction should go down. While it might not reach such low levels as Visa, we are talking about two somewhat different systems. One is a database entry in a single system, another one is an immutable record of history in a decentralized ledger.”

Comparing the Bitcoin energy use to VISA's is comparing apples to oranges. The energy used by Bitcoin miners is used to secure Bitcoin itself. Networks like VISA, by contrast are secured not only by the energy used in its data centers, but by the banks themselves.

This includes the energy used by the bank CEOs to take airline flights, the energy used in all bank branches, etc. I.e. there is a lot more energy securing the VISA network than just that used in their network and data centers.

The emphasis on efficiency makes this argument more complicated. The simple fact is that the Bitcoin network is designed to pay miners a total payment that today is 3600 BTC + transaction fees per day. Every student of economics know that when the payment is fixed, the market will automatically adjust to the most efficient use. This means that the energy and other resources used will be automatically equal to something around 3700 BTC per day. (The transaction fees are part of this, and will become a bigger part after each halving.)

mostly FUD.

...
I prefer an open network.
Bankster network is not open AT ALL !

What does "transparency" mean, when I don't know IRL identities behind BTC addys?

It's so much greener to put a check in the mail so that it can be driven to the recipient. The recipient can then drive it to the bank and the bank can fire up their computer and enter the data.  ::) 

transparency is trusted network.

i can't sell my car in the actual (FIAT) system ... even the bankster network don't verify the FIAT account before i receive the payment !!! (Eurozone, Wire can be "delete" after 3-5 days ... on your account if sum is corrupt)

in Bitcoin network, this can't append after 2 hours.
if i receive a payment, it's real and usable money ... trusted and verified 6 times (!).

i don't want the identity of the bidder ... i want money !  ;D
that's why bitcoin is better over all solution ... because it don't NEED KYC ...

Speed/irreversibility of transactions is transparency?

If the amount of electricity used to maintain the Bitcoin network is a concern, why doesn't the energy sector invest more in "green" renewable energy sources that don't rely on fossil fuels?

they quote 110,000 tx per day..??(764 a block??)
um try triple that
which then makes the transactions per household 4.71 per household

and so a world wide currency that uses the equivalent electric of just 170,000 houses...... thats actually good,
seeing as there are 94,725 (https://bitcointalk.org/story/money/business/2014/10/05/24-7-wall-st-banks-with-most-branches/16648133/) FIAT bank branches, which have equivelent floor plan of ATLEAST 4 houses (680,000 houses)
lets not forget the skyscapers and private office buildings of wall street.

lets not forget how many ATM's there are..

in short there are far more fiat buildings, using far more electric then the measly 170,000 household electric consumption.. yet fiat funds are not inflation protected not circulation controlled. not protected by as much security..

yes, you have money or not.  ;D
in FIAT system, it's ... perhaps ... eventually ... wait a little week to be sure.  ::)

>world wide currency
I can send a BTCeanie anywhere in the world. Does it make Beanie Babies a "world wide currency"? If not, what is it that makes BTC a world-wide currency?

>bank branches, ATMs
Do you go to your bank's branch office to send VISA transactions? Most people don't, either. Because they don't have to.

Bitcoin businesses have brick & mortar buildings too, or, rather, they should. Maybe that way they wouldn't constantly get haxx0red for millions of dollars, usually belonging to other people.

You clearly don't understand the word "transparency."  Understanding the words you use is important :)

Actually yeah, by far.  Let me break it down for you:
An average block contains 2.7 * (takes 600 seconds to mine a block) = 1620 transactions. At most (some blocks are mined empty, as in "no* transactions).
For this, miners receive 25 BTC, which, at current rate, is roughly 12,000 dollars.
Meaning ~$7.40 PER TX.
Assuming that 1/3 of that is electrical cost (let's be generous), that's about $2.50 in energy cost, PER TRANSACTION.

Unless you think US Post Office is spending $2.50 in gas alone to deliver a check...

Hmmm. That is interesting. I would have thought actual delivery would be much more inefficient. But $2.50 per Tx is a lot. I wonder how miners can be profitable charging only pennies per Tx?

you cant buy a pizza, computer, furniture, vehicles with beanie babies.. but you can with bitcoin.. so bitcoin is a currency
also if bitcoin is not world wide. then tell me what country bitcoin is limited/restricted to?

is bitcoin only accepted in shops in just one country? or can you buy a computer in any country, from different merchants.
can you walk into a pizza place in america and use bitcoin over the counter face to face,, yes
can you walk into a pizza place in canada and use bitcoin over the counter face to face,, yes
can you walk into a pizza place in asia and use bitcoin over the counter face to face,, yes
can you walk into a pizza place in europe and use bitcoin over the counter face to face,, yes

do i go to bitfury office to use bitcoin? most people dont because they dont have to.
QR codes are your friend

fiat businesses have brick & mortar retail buildings too. maybe FIAT brick and mortar businesses should have less buildings, as it would lessen the risk of identify theft by not having to spread your personal details to so many stores. :D

Hmmm. That is interesting. I would have thought actual delivery would be much more inefficient. But $2.50 per Tx is a lot. I wonder how miners can be profitable charging only pennies per Tx?

??
What does BitFury have to do with your analogy?

???
Again, what are you talking about? If I haven't made myself clear, I'll spell it out:
Bank offices = Offices of Bitcoin exchanges, Bitcoin payment processors, Bitcoin Foundation -- that sort of thing.

Actually yeah, by far.  Let me break it down for you:
An average block contains 2.7 * (takes 600 seconds to mine a block) = 1620 transactions. At most (some blocks are mined empty, as in "no* transactions).
For this, miners receive 25 BTC, which, at current rate, is roughly 12,000 dollars.
Meaning ~$7.40 PER TX.
Assuming that 1/3 of that is electrical cost (let's be generous), that's about $2.50 in energy cost, PER TRANSACTION.

Unless you think US Post Office is spending $2.50 in gas alone to deliver a check...

bitfury. = bank
because bitfury is to do with mining.. (the settling of transactions)

  but now Bitcoin enthusiasts have also given up on the idea of Bitcoin becoming A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. 

You're only considering the part of transacting coins when you're calculating, whereas you should also include the fact that there is another point in generating blocks,
which is generating supply. Now calculate how much entire world is spending on generating their fiat and putting it in circulation.

only certain misguided smallblockers have.

The rest of us are as excited as ever about Bitcoin.

only certain misguided smallblockers have.

The rest of us are as excited as ever about Bitcoin.

It won't happen. The recent dev drama is nothing new -- was always there.  Bitcoin depends on consensus. Consensus is hard to reach, and, as it became painfully clear, even agreeing on what "consensus" means can't be agreed on.
The Hitchhiker's Guide tells us that flying is simple: it involves learning to throw yourself at the ground and missing.
"Clearly, it is this second part, the missing reaching consensus, that presents the difficulties."

Actually yeah, by far.  Let me break it down for you:
An average block contains 2.7 * (takes 600 seconds to mine a block) = 1620 transactions. At most (some blocks are mined empty, as in "no* transactions).
For this, miners receive 25 BTC, which, at current rate, is roughly 12,000 dollars.
Meaning ~$7.40 PER TX.
Assuming that 1/3 of that is electrical cost (let's be generous), that's about $2.50 in energy cost, PER TRANSACTION.

Unless you think US Post Office is spending $2.50 in gas alone to deliver a check...

You clearly don't understand what banks do.
"... raise capital from investors or lenders, and then use that money to make loans, buy securities and provide other financial services to customers. These loans are then used by people and businesses to buy goods or expand business operations ..."
Also see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwriting
When you buy your first house, you go to a bank.
Does BitFury lend money? Can it help me refinance my house? Doe it engage in underwriting? No? Then it's not a bank.
Now you know.

waffly troll about CuntChocula's fascination of beanie babies that has not relevance to bitcoin

I don't like the idea of forecasts based on power usage per transaction, or cost per transaction because nothing's fixed. Computers may become much more efficient in the future. When Intel launched its latest microprocessor for laptops, it was saying exactly that, giving users more autonomy when running on battery.

Coming increase in block size will also change a lot of things.

http://motherboard.vice.com/pt_br/read/bitcoin-insustentavel







What do you guys thing? is this barrier being solved by the improvements in the blockchain technology?

It already happened!  We already have a peer to peer currency.  Pretty amazing if you think about it.

And I believe that the economic majority will force us through the impasse on scalability should consensus prove to be illusive.

when you get a mortgage. you are not given funds from other peoples bank accounts..
money is created!! .. same as miners.. they create funds too (block reward)
here straight from the horses mouth
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q1prereleasemoneycreation.pdf
create money through loans

Learn more
please

Go argue with Investopedia (http://www.investopedia.com/university/banking-system/banking-system3.asp), from whence the quoted text was gleaned, irrelevant to my point.
Which I'll repeat:
"Does BitFury lend money? Can it help me refinance my house? Doe it engage in underwriting? No? Then it's not a bank."

banks create money
banks control the circulation of money
banks process and ensure transactions are settled.

why are you obsessed with talking about lending which has no relevance to bitcoins function..

The total amount of energy used for Bitcoin mining is independent of the efficiency of the mining equipment used.

There seems to be an awful rush to declare bitcoin dead/unsustainable/scary of late - even moreso than usual. And none of it's been particularly credible or convincing so far.

Why is that? For a given hashing power, total amount of energy used should decrease if the efficiency of the mining equipment used improves.

Maybe in the future, the power usage per transaction will be to high for what miners get paid. But not now.

Very true. Miners wouldn't mine if they weren't earning money. So the power to earning ratio is good.

Because their costs have nothing to do with the number of transactions they are processing but rather the blocks they solve.

Because they get paid 25BTC for each block they solve. The few pennies they charge per tx are almost irrelevant. Many miners chose to mine *empty blocks* -- blocks containing *no* transactions.
That's why Bitcoin has 10% yearly base money inflation :-\

...
The 25 BTC for each block is a fair way to distribute 21 million Bitcoins over time, and has nothing to do with cost of transaction.

BTW if miners are allowed to include more than about 1000 transactions into the block, these  pennies they charge per tx would definitively sum up, and as long as the tx fees are worth more than loses from orphan risk, it is win-win situation to include many more txs (both for user waiting for 1st confirmation  and miner getting more fees).

Also, with better ASIC for mining ... electricity usage for bitcoin transaction will be much more efficient that now.

There is a whole thread about it here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=694401.0

Basically, for a given price per BTC, a given era (BTC per block) and a given fee rate (BTC/hour) the miners together can "afford" and will spend most of the block reward + fees on energy.  This is by design.  If equipment gets more efficient then the miners will just buy more equipment until they are consuming as much energy as they can afford.

The formula I previously derived for the amount of power, P, consumed by the Bitcoin mining network is:

P = (6(50/2^e) + f)(x)(1 - g)/c [kW]

where:

x = exchange rate [USD/BTC]
e = era [0..32] (we are currently in era 1)
f = average fees per hour [BTC/hour]
c = cost of energy [USD/kWh]
g = average gross profit margin [unitless ratio]

Note that the total power consumption is not dependent on efficiency.

This article shows that we are still in the very very early stage of adoption. When people eventually realize that money without free entry of production and a production cost will worth nothing, they will not question bitcoin's production costs

In principle, anything without a production cost will worth nothing, so should fiat money. But why fiat money still have some value is totally a historical phenomenon that is inherited from the gold standard, where each piece of fiat money was a presentation of corresponding amount of gold. Now fiat money is backed by nothing so it should worth nothing

Or you can say like this, if the fiat money that costs almost nothing to produce can worth so much, then bitcoin which costs magnitudes higher than fiat money to produce will worth at least magnitudes more

philosophically i disagree. its not the cost of production that makes it valuable...its the scarcity and utility.

Gold didn't cost anything to mankind, it was already on the planet.
Whether it got here by nuclear fusion or from a magic genie is
irrelevant.

Fiat currency is created out of thin air but people use it (has utility)
and its (somewhat) scarce, therefore it has value.

However, a cryptocurrency that costs energy is perceived as more fair.
IF proof of stake currencies like NxT were widely used, perceived as
fair in distribution, and as secure as Bitcoin, they would be as valuable.

Basically, for a given price per BTC and a given era (BTC per block) the miners together can "afford" and will spend most of the block reward + fees on energy.  This is by design.  If equipment gets more efficient then the miners will just buy more equipment until they are consuming as much energy as they can afford.

2. If "work" (turning electricity into heat, the Rube Goldberg way) is what makes BTC valuable, why would BTC value fluctuate?
If I spend days boiling water & then freezing it in my freezer (turning electricity into heat, the Rube Goldberg way), will my water become more valuable?

@franky1:
I'm glad you're discovering colors and stuff, but your drawing makes little sense.
If it did, BBQ coin would still be worth the electricity & math that went into it (assuming BBQ is worthless & dead, haven't checked).

speculation of BBQ dropped off first not completely, but it sent people into worry that they would not be secure as the price was dropping..and so the trust dropped off.. not completely, but very low... and then desire to mine dropped. leaving only a very small amount of price of math and speculation.. but that to eventually went to 0

Which leaves me wondering what your picture means, in terms of addressing "what gives BTC value."

You've clarified that it's not the sum total of electricity which was turned into heat by miners.
Still unsure what the "math" stripe means -- how is that quantified? Did it vanish along with trust?
And still not sure why "speculation of BBQ dropped" -- can this also happen to Bitcoin?

@johnyj:
1. Bitcoin is no more scarce than Beanies, and getting less scarce by the minute. Every ten minutes, actually. As in every ten minutes 25 more BTC mined out of thin air.

2. If "work" (turning electricity into heat, the Rube Goldberg way) is what makes BTC valuable, why would BTC value fluctuate?
If I spend days boiling water & then freezing it in my freezer (turning electricity into heat, the Rube Goldberg way), will my water become more valuable?

If Beanies can be send on internet anonymously, and have limited supply and have a mining cost, and free entry of production, e.g. anyone can make it, then I guess it will have some value just like any other alt-coins. But since bitcoin already occupied this market segment, the competition is hard

Fluctuation of the price is caused by speculative capital, but they also follow the fundamentals. When they anticipate a large increase of demand when they forecast the difficulty is going to rise (difficulty is a good measure for demand since mining is the lowest cost to acquire pure clean bitcoin), they will start to drive the market price to start a round of bubble

Bitcoin's major demand comes from 3 area: Secure and annoymous long term value store, anti-inflation, world-wide instant transaction. If your boiled ice block can do the same thing, I guess it will also become valuable

Math and electricity isn't literal on the graph.  Obviously "math" doesn't
"increase" over time... and electricity would be related to hash rate but wouldn't be linear.

It's just a style of demonstration.

...
its the TRUST in maths that increases over time.
EG
http://s29.postimg.org/dacmyloiv/huh.gif
im not even gonna bite into c*ntcholulas troll about beanie babies or BBQ coin.. as thats just meandering so far off topic that even he knows he is a lost cause seeking answers to that random crap

Not true.  The total power/energy consumption of the Bitcoin mining system is independent of miner efficiency.  You do have a point concerning the number of transactions.  Larger blocks with more transactions per block will lower the ratio of Total Energy per Transaction.

Now if I were a miner and electricity suddenly become cheaper [or I purchase a more efficient miner], maybe I would just be happy that my mining has become more profitable, and I'll look for other ways to invest my growing income.

Never thought about it, but in the case that there ends to be a very wide adoption, there will be lots of power compsumption and bandwith used just in updating the blockchain from a user to another. That is true.

More and more journalists trying to say something smart about bitcoin and they just have no luck!

1. I can't send Beanies through the internet, though your bitcoin isn't soft and cuddly. What does this have to do with scarcity?
2. My boiled ice hasn't lost 2/3rds of its value over the past couple of years, so it most certainly beats Bitcoin as "store of value."
Again, you haven't answered my question: Is my boiled ice more valuable now that I wasted a bunch of electricity and my time put work into it?

You inverted the cause and result: People spend energy to dig out gold because it has value, not because the digging action itself will generate value. Higher mining cost is a result of competition. You should ask why so many people crazily mine bitcoin even they pay more electricity than coin's exchange rate

If you plot the exchange rate performance of bitcoin for more than 4 years (which is a reward halving cycle), you get a risk/reward ratio which no investment can beat. It is a long term value storage, although it is disrupted by short term bubbles and crashes, similar to housing

You inverted the cause and result: People spend energy to dig out gold because it has value, not because the digging action itself will generate value. Higher mining cost is a result of competition. You should ask why so many people crazily mine bitcoin even they pay more electricity than coin's exchange rate

So it's not the work that gives gold value, but the fact that gold has value in the first place?! So much for work giving BTC its value :(
Folks put plenty of work into mining fool's gold too, because they thought it had value. It didn't. That's what made them fools.
Avoid mirrors.

It is not cost decide bitcoin's value, but the cost is an indicator of how much it worth, it is the same for gold, no cost, no value. And you know, most of the fool guys are rich, so they can afford it  :D

http://frass.woodcoin.org/is-bitcoin-inefficient/

I have a different opinion on Bitcoin because always there are two side of a coin we can only guess the future but can't predict exactly

http://imagize[Suspicious link removed]ageshack.us/a/img537/5737/vxQvDa.gif

Bitcoin network is the most (and big) transparent thing in the world ... and the bankster system ? The right opposit ... it lies in every part of his number, it's black order book and DEBT against citizen.

I prefer an open network.
Bankster network is not open AT ALL !

Even being a negative feedback is good to keep bitcoin alive,soo being good or bad feedbacks wont affect in any way the bitcoin ,just need to keep being talking about it,its wizzard bitcoin is soo related to the ilegal that it is growing and well time will teacth who didnt enter early to think twice about inovation.

I don't think you need to worry about bad advertising. Bitcoin won't be affected just because some reporter tried to stir the waves a bit with his article.

I don't think you need to worry about bad advertising. Bitcoin won't be affected just because some reporter tried to stir the waves a bit with his article.

This specific article doesn't even add up! It's all a bunch of nonsensical comparations.

I think they're missing the spot: we are still at the mining era.
This era will last until the 21 million bitcoins come to exist, onwards the tx fees will dictate the market and the hashing power will most likely be way lower.
Blocksize, compression, light chains, whatever scalability solution will come, will handle the tx rate issues.

That's an easy one. We sure may wonder what will happen when this is over, that's a good question, but let's be honest, I don't care about the answer. Really. And nobody here should. We'll be gone when this happens.

That's an easy one. We sure may wonder what will happen when this is over, that's a good question, but let's be honest, I don't care about the answer. Really. And nobody here should. We'll be gone when this happens.

Unstable, yes. but what currency IS stable? This is a normal behavior.

You missed a few letters :)
unsustainable

I wrote exactly what I wanted. Please do check the context. Stable - unstable. Also, see the previous post to which I was responding.
But thank you for that, Grammar Nazi Man.

Unstable, yes. but what currency IS stable? This is a normal behavior. And seeing as how VICE is all about gossip I don't think it's the best place to get your advice for your investments.

This is a dumb article. Who really cares about the power consumption of Bitcoin ? I'm sure that Google consume more power than us. But is Google "unsustainable" ? No.

Dear Friend!
The Vice article in question addresses Bitcoin's unsustainability, not how hilariously unstable it is. The word "unstable," you might be amused to know, occurs exactly 0 (zero) times in the article.
Why, you ask?
Because that's not what the article is about.

In the future, consider familiarizing yourself with such seminal economics tomes as "Go, Dog. Go!" before offering us your learned, cromulent critiques.

Yes "dear friend" but as you can see "again" I was answering to the previous post put by another user, not the initial post.

If Google was used by a handful of people, and expanding that userbase was improbable (because all of its data centers, combined, allowed just 3 searches per second), you'd probably have a point.

Doesnt matter because only free market can decide whether something is worth the effort, in our example power consumption of Bitcoin mining. I could say cars are waste and dangerous for our planet as well, but free market sees it differently.

"Free market decides"? Free market decides by imposing draconian fucking regulations when shit gets bad. Price is not the only mechanism available to the invisible hand. Cars are regulated to death: emissions, safety, speed, must have license to drive -- EVERYTHING.
Nice choice of example :D

Well, most people have the opinion of most cryptocurrencies being rather unsustainable. It's an opinion that we should respect. We don't have to agree with it, but we surely do have to respect it.

Well, most people have the opinion of most cryptocurrencies being rather unsustainable. It's an opinion that we should respect. We don't have to agree with it, but we surely do have to respect it.