At what point do we stop kidding ourselves? Bye Bye mining farms.

[jonald_fyookball]

Bitcoin can add another PoW algorithm which is difficult to implement in ASIC and can be mined by most people but not botnet. This will help solve the cetralisation problem.

PoW algo isn't going to change anytime soon.

Regardless, your post doesn't make sense.
The whole point of a botnet is taking over PCs, not ASICS.

[Eastwind]

Bitcoin can add another PoW algorithm which is difficult to implement in ASIC and can be mined by most people but not botnet. This will help solve the cetralisation problem.

PoW algo isn't going to change anytime soon.

Regardless, your post doesn't make sense.
The whole point of a botnet is taking over PCs, not ASICS.

The algorithm has to be GPU friendly, not CPU friendly to discourage botnet.

[Lauda]

PS4 or XONE consumes ~100W when playing games. Also casual gamer PC consumes same amount of power (not to mention enthusiast PC). In every second there is at least 10M players worldwide (propably alot more). That equals to 1GW of power wasted just for fun. You say Bitcoin network is wasting power?

Well your numbers aren't really correct. For the PS4 vs XONE it is 112 watts versus 137 watts. What's stabbing me in the eye is that you're saying that the average consumption of power for PC gamers is 100W.
What are they playing, emulated Super Mario? If we look at modern games, even playing with the minimum required specifications you need a PSU capable of 400-500W at least.
Enthusiast PCs are probably using over 1kW of power. I myself am using around 800W when doing some hardware heavy work.
Actually numbers suggest that there are about 1-1.7B people that are playing video games.

Anyhow, the point is that you can't say that the power is really wasted since it is being used for something. Currently the network isn't really spending that much energy.

[Amph]

Bitcoin can add another PoW algorithm which is difficult to implement in ASIC and can be mined by most people but not botnet. This will help solve the cetralisation problem.

PoW algo isn't going to change anytime soon.

Regardless, your post doesn't make sense.
The whole point of a botnet is taking over PCs, not ASICS.

The algorithm has to be GPU friendly, not CPU friendly to discourage botnet.

then they can only go with cryptonigh, because even there gpu has no advantage over cpu, so it is a fair play for everyone

because there is no any other algo, where gpu are good but asic not

[spazzdla]

Bitcoin can add another PoW algorithm which is difficult to implement in ASIC and can be mined by most people but not botnet. This will help solve the cetralisation problem.

ASIC's make the network EVEN more secure.. if we use coins that are on GPU a super computer could dummy them..

The idea we don't want to move into ASIC's is a silly idea.

THE PROBLEM IS EVERYONE IS SEXUALLY OBBSESSED WITH PROFIT AND NOT ACTUALLY DENCETRLIZING THE NETWORK OR YOU'D ALREADY OWN AN ASIC AND BE MINING...

But you only care about profit. Don't give me this it is expensive shit either, you can buy a U3 or an S3 off of Amazon/kijiji for cheap.  It just won't turn you a massive profit so you won't get it.

[mrkubanftw]

Bitcoin can add another PoW algorithm which is difficult to implement in ASIC and can be mined by most people but not botnet. This will help solve the cetralisation problem.

ASIC's make the network EVEN more secure.. if we use coins that are on GPU a super computer could dummy them..

The idea we don't want to move into ASIC's is a silly idea.

THE PROBLEM IS EVERYONE IS SEXUALLY OBBSESSED WITH PROFIT AND NOT ACTUALLY DENCETRLIZING THE NETWORK OR YOU'D ALREADY OWN AN ASIC AND BE MINING...

But you only care about profit. Don't give me this it is expensive shit either, you can buy a U3 or an S3 off of Amazon/kijiji for cheap.  It just won't turn you a massive profit so you won't get it.

No they don't you need to read this topic in its entirety. And anyone who mines is doing it with some form of asic tech. Check your facts man. wtf.

[jonnybravo0311]

I rarely see discussion on the impact of bitcoin. No, not financially, not from an economic standpoint.

How about the eco-system?

Our network hashrate for bitcoin alone (there are also many alts out there) is 177,943,954.

Now lets assume that everyone mining right now is rocking the best of the best hardware (they aren't) grabbing 0.5w/ghs. FYI electricity cost in washington is cheap. REALLY CHEAP. Due to all the hydroelectric power. That been said its about .04$ on an industrial tier. Which means they can run really inefficient hardware by our standards and still be profitable so this is a lot worse than iv'e calculated. I should note EVERYONE is flocking to washington right now with their miners. That means with bitcoins total hash-rate of 177,943,954 GH/s that its energy consumption would be around 88,971,977 Watts or 88.9 Megawatts of power.

Again these numbers are likely far below actual. I would tack on an additional 30% even for people running older hardware.


88.9 MEGAWATTS OF POWER PEOPLE

We can only assume that with the reward drop coming up that either hashrate will double or the price of bitcoin will have to rise. Maybe a bit of both as im speculating but regardless.

Does this seem responsible? We are basically polluting on a massive scale to make pennies on the dollar.

You have to assume at some point governments will come together to put this to an end?


EDIT****


WE ARE NOT COMPARING CURRENT BANKING SYSTEMS TO BITCOIN. FOR THE FOURTH TIME. READ COMMENTS IF YOU PLAN ON CONTRIBUTING TO THIS DISCUSSION.

You pose an interesting question here.  What are the environmental impacts of mining?  First, I think your numbers are a bit low.  The network hash rate is far closer to 350PH/s than the 177PH/s you quoted.  We certainly haven't seen a doubling of the hash power in the past 4 days since you wrote your initial post, so I'm not entirely sure where you got that value.  Assuming the vast majority of the network is between 0.75W and 1W per GH/s, the total power consumption on a daily basis is between 262.5 MW and 350 MW.

I don't know enough about energy production to speculate, but here's an example.  The smallest nuclear plant in the US (located in Nebraska) can produce 502MW per hour.  So, in a day, that's 12,048 MW of power.  Even if every single bitcoin miner on the planet was powered by this single facility, it would only consume 2.9% of the facility's capacity.

[odolvlobo]

I don't know enough about energy production to speculate, but here's an example.  The smallest nuclear plant in the US (located in Nebraska) can produce 502MW per hour.  So, in a day, that's 12,048 MWh of power energy.  Even if every single bitcoin miner on the planet was powered by this single facility, it would only consume 2.9% 70% of the facility's capacity.

You need to fix your units. There is confusion about the difference between power and energy, and the units used to represent them.

Power is the rate at which you can generate or expend energy. The units of power are watts (W). Units of energy are Watt-hour (Wh) and joules (J). 1 watt-hour is 1 watt for 1 hour (as well as ½ W for 2 hours or 2 W for ½ hour).

There is no such thing as 502 MW per hour, unless you are talking about changes to power. You meant to write just "502 MW" and "12,048 MWh of energy". A 502 MW power plant outputs 502 MWh each hour, or 12048 MWh per day.

Finally, 350 MW is 70% of 502 MW.

[jonnybravo0311]

I don't know enough about energy production to speculate, but here's an example.  The smallest nuclear plant in the US (located in Nebraska) can produce 502MW per hour.  So, in a day, that's 12,048 MWh of power energy.  Even if every single bitcoin miner on the planet was powered by this single facility, it would only consume 2.9% 70% of the facility's capacity.

You need to fix your units. There is confusion about the difference between power and energy, and the units used to represent them.

Power is the rate at which you can generate or expend energy. The units of power are watts (W). Units of energy are Watt-hour (Wh) and joules (J). 1 watt-hour is 1 watt for 1 hour (as well as ½ W for 2 hours or 2 W for ½ hour).

There is no such thing as 502 MW per hour, unless you are talking about changes to power. You meant to write just "502 MW" and "12,048 MWh of energy". A 502 MW power plant outputs 502 MWh each hour, or 12048 MWh per day.

Finally, 350 MW is 70% of 502 MW.

Thanks for the corrections!  Even given the corrected numbers, we're still talking about a rather minuscule amount of the total energy production the world over.  According to http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Current-and-Future-Generation/Nuclear-Power-in-the-World-Today/ there are currently 435 operational nuclear power facilities in the world with over 375,000 MWe of total capacity.  They provide just 11% of the world's total production.

So every single bitcoin miner on the planet would consume 69.72% of a facility that represents 0.13% of the 11% of total capacity the world over provided by nuclear plants.  This is assuming I didn't make another mistake in my math

[jimmothy]

How about the eco-system?

Now lets assume that everyone mining right now is rocking the best of the best hardware (they aren't) grabbing 0.5w/ghs. FYI electricity cost in washington is cheap. REALLY CHEAP. Due to all the hydroelectric power. That been said its about .04$ on an industrial tier. Which means they can run really inefficient hardware by our standards and still be profitable so this is a lot worse than iv'e calculated. I should note EVERYONE is flocking to washington right now with their miners. That means with bitcoins total hash-rate of 177,943,954 GH/s that its energy consumption would be around 88,971,977 Watts or 88.9 Megawatts of power.

Again these numbers are likely far below actual. I would tack on an additional 30% even for people running older hardware.

88.9 MEGAWATTS OF POWER PEOPLE

We can only assume that with the reward drop coming up that either hashrate will double or the price of bitcoin will have to rise. Maybe a bit of both as im speculating but regardless.

Does this seem responsible? We are basically polluting on a massive scale to make pennies on the dollar.

You have to assume at some point governments will come together to put this to an end?

If miners are flocking to places like Washington with dirt cheap hydro electric power, wouldn't that be a good thing? After all hydroelectric is one of the most environmentally friendly forms of power generation.

Your taking an entire community and comparing it to one company. A government can hold a company liable for pollution it creates. They have absolutely NO way of holding a community liable for the pollution it creates.

LOL. You think you can source several MW worth of power without paying taxes? Good luck with that.

I would for the second time state and agree that it creates less pollution than current systems. Again this argument is not about gold vs btc. Nor current banking vs btc. Its about solely the pollution created by mining. Lets stay OT.  

You've admitted bitcoin is more environmentally friendly than current banking systems, and "well it's not environmentally friendly enough" isn't really an argument so I think this thread can be concluded.

[BettingBlocks]

I rarely see discussion on the impact of bitcoin. No, not financially, not from an economic standpoint.

How about the eco-system?

. . . .

WE ARE NOT COMPARING CURRENT BANKING SYSTEMS TO BITCOIN. FOR THE FOURTH TIME. READ COMMENTS IF YOU PLAN ON CONTRIBUTING TO THIS DISCUSSION.

Well, you HAVE TO compare the current banking systems to bitcoin for this to be meaningful.  Because bitcoin is the service Bitcoin presumes to replace.