Bitcoin - The World's Most Sustainable Monetary System! (Research Paper)

[bit-by-bit]

Dearest Bitcointalk community,

The other day I published a detailed research paper on the relative sustainability of the bitcoin network, when compared with the impacts of the gold mining/recycling industry, the physical currency printing-&-minting industry, as well as the broader banking system (although this is probably unfair to compare with bitcoin, many people were interested to know what the carbon footprint of legacy banking was, and this has now been quantified).

The research was well received on reddit, but despite receiving a lot of upvotes and replies, was buried all the way down to the 12th page within a few hours of publication. I would like to share this research with you all here, as it is a more serious and friendly community than r/bitcoin.



Link to research: http://bitscan.com/articles/is-the-bitcoin-network-sustainable

Link to original reddit thread, which contains community feedback and questions, along with my answers to said feedback and questions: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/27d793/research_is_the_bitcoin_network_sustainable/




I hope you all enjoy the read (even if you only read the TL;DR executive summary), and I hope that this research is valuable to you all in your BTC promotion and evangelical efforts.

Thank you all in advance

Hass




TL;DR of the Research

Comparison of Annual Economic Costs:
- Gold Mining:            USD$105 billion
- Gold Recycling:           USD$40 billion
- Paper Currency & Minting:   USD$28 billion
- Banking System Electricity Use:   USD$63.8 billion
- Bitcoin Mining:           USD$0.66 billion

Comparison of Annual Environmental Costs (Tonnes CO₂ produced):
- Gold Mining:      54 million
- Gold Recycling:           4 million
- Paper Currency & Minting:   6.7 million
- Banking System:   390 million
- Bitcoin Mining:           0.55 million

Comparison of Annual Socioeconomic Costs:
See the exec summary of the PDF - I couldn't figure out how to create a multi row/column table! :p

[Swordsoffreedom]

Thank you all in advance

No, thank you! I haven't had time to read this paper yet, but I am looking forward to it.

Same sentiment, I like the summary page but thanks for sharing this looks like an interesting read.
Quite the big difference compared to the cost of mining versus all the services we use now.

[Ron~Popeil]

Dearest Bitcointalk community,

The other day I published a detailed research paper on the relative sustainability of the bitcoin network, when compared with the impacts of the gold mining/recycling industry, the physical currency printing-&-minting industry, as well as the broader banking system (although this is probably unfair to compare with bitcoin, many people were interested to know what the carbon footprint of legacy banking was, and this has now been quantified).

The research was well received on reddit, but despite receiving a lot of upvotes and replies, was buried all the way down to the 12th page within a few hours of publication. I would like to share this research with you all here, as it is a more serious and friendly community than r/bitcoin.



Link to research: http://bitscan.com/articles/is-the-bitcoin-network-sustainable

Link to original reddit thread, which contains community feedback and questions, along with my answers to said feedback and questions: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/27d793/research_is_the_bitcoin_network_sustainable/




I hope you all enjoy the read (even if you only read the TL;DR executive summary), and I hope that this research is valuable to you all in your BTC promotion and evangelical efforts.

Thank you all in advance

Hass




TL;DR of the Research

Comparison of Annual Economic Costs:
- Gold Mining:            USD$105 billion
- Gold Recycling:           USD$40 billion
- Paper Currency & Minting:   USD$28 billion
- Banking System Electricity Use:   USD$63.8 billion
- Bitcoin Mining:           USD$0.66 billion

Comparison of Annual Environmental Costs (Tonnes CO₂ produced):
- Gold Mining:      54 million
- Gold Recycling:           4 million
- Paper Currency & Minting:   6.7 million
- Banking System:   390 million
- Bitcoin Mining:           0.55 million

Comparison of Annual Socioeconomic Costs:
See the exec summary of the PDF - I couldn't figure out how to create a multi row/column table! :p

This is quite interesting. I am more libertarian so sustainability is not something I focus on heavily but it is kind of amazing the way this currency has so much to offer to so many politically divergent groups. Thank you for sharing your work.

[juicejoyce]

If the launch, I will participate in.Keep up the good work.

[Swordsoffreedom]

I gave it a read and analysis and it is interesting
Oddly enough I can see this combined with a working paper I was reading as well that you may be interested in.
Combining economic theorem with environmental benefits.

From the charts I was able to assume a ratio scale and although the data had several presumptions I feel like it is accurate in its calculation.
Anyways thanks for sharing your work and I'm sure it will find utility in the community

Sent you a Mbtc as a token 

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2436823

[PolarPoint]

Thanks for the paper, will read it right after this post. From the summary, it seems bitcoin is the most environmentally friendly form of currency? It came to me as a surprise... I originally thought all the asics are wasting energy 

[trace666]

Thanks for writing this.
One question: On page 2, you assess the Black Market trading value in Bitcoin as "Negligible".
While certainly, most Black Market transactions are supported by fiat, making BTC smaller in absolute terms, I would assume that the share of Black Market transactions to total transactions is at least as large in BTC as it is in fiat.
This is not what your tabular comparison states.

[bit-by-bit]

I gave it a read and analysis and it is interesting
Oddly enough I can see this combined with a working paper I was reading as well that you may be interested in.
Combining economic theorem with environmental benefits.

From the charts I was able to assume a ratio scale and although the data had several presumptions I feel like it is accurate in its calculation.
Anyways thanks for sharing your work and I'm sure it will find utility in the community

Sent you a Mbtc as a token 

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2436823

Thank you for the tip!!

The paper you linked to is certainly an interesting read - I will incorporate some of its ideas into my 2nd edition.

[Swordsoffreedom]

Thank you for the tip!!

The paper you linked to is certainly an interesting read - I will incorporate some of its ideas into my 2nd edition.

Your welcome for me the ten points were what stood out most in their working paper in that Bitcoin was able to solve all these problems at one time.

1) Proof of Ownership (Obsoletes Notaries)
2) Dispute Resolution (Obsoletes Mediators)
3) Record Auditing (Obsoletes Accountants)
4) Smart Property (Obsoletes the Police)
5) Decentralized Stock Exchange (Obsoletes Centralized Stock Exchanges)
6) Highly Efficient Transfer of Assets (Obsoletes Banks, Debit Cards, Money Transmitters)
7) Full Control over one's own assets (Obsoletes Central Banks, Regulators of not only banks but other parts of the financial sector as well)
8 ) Conditional Transfer of Assets (Obsoletes Lawyers)
9) No Inflation
10) No Business Cycle

Point 6 applies to your paper in that the Highly Efficient Transfer of Assets applied through an economic lens can also be looked at from an environmental perspective.

The scale of energy usage between a typical fiat based payment system such as the SWIFT per country and a bitcoin based one such as 37coins using SMS and Android phones seemed like a neat tangent.
Simply put a low energy phone vs payment orders over the SWIFT Financial Network.

From your analysis you had lifecycle data and I was able to get a rough analysis of energy usage and environmental impact of Bitcoin versus Mining Gold or the current Fiat Payment system in aggregate.

If you were curious on the types of energy used to produce that electricity and want to update those numbers from approximates it would probably help to look at Daniel Yergin The Quest and Vaclav Smil Energy at the Crossroads Global Perspectives and Uncertainties to see the energy linkages to energy type whether coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear or intermittency based energy like Solar and Wind power.

It's a good read for energy analysts

http://www.bitcoinmicrofinance.org/37-coins-send-bitcoin-with-a-text/
http://howtoexportimport.com/Difference-between-Swift-and-wire-transfer--434.aspx

Its kind of a small case area to evaluate, but it has a big impact in terms of financial transactions and energy usage.

Just a blurb, and thanks for sharing and I look forward to your 2nd edition when it is completed.

[zimmah]

People complaining about all the energy wasted for mining but it's not even close to the energy wasted for banking and printing endless amounts of dollars.