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

[mrkubanftw]

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.

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[jonald_fyookball]

does using proof of work to secure a decentralized currency seem responsible, even if it costs a lot of energy?

I say yes.

Besides, it's a free market.  Who are you to tell others where and how to spend their money?

[jertsy]

I hadn't considered government action due to the adverse ecological effect of mining. However, Bitcoin was designed so no government could easily shut it down. If the US and Chinese governments made both owning and mining Bitcoin illegal it would probably be enough to severely damage or destroy Bitcoin. But I doubt they would do that soon because the US already debated making it illegal in 2013 and decided not to, plus the US regulated it in New York with the Bit License. They wouldn't have done that if they were considering making it illegal. Chinese industry causes so much polution they have terrible smogs, so I doubt the Chinese government has time to worry about the environmental effect of Bitcoin mining.

[mrkubanftw]

does using proof of work to secure a decentralized currency seem responsible, even if it costs a lot of energy?

I say yes.

Besides, it's a free market.  Who are you to tell others where and how to spend their money?

Okay I myself mine. So just hush. I'm not here telling anyone what they should or shouldn't be doing. I'm just saying think about it. Be mindful. Instead of not giving shits like you clearly do.




To the gentleman who cited a Nimitz class aircraft carrier traveling at full speed....

You do realize that's a nuclear ship right? And nuclear carbon footprint is non-existent until it goes boom?


Most of the world is running oil or coal for power buddy. Even the nuclear reactors we've put in america we realized were a huge mistake. Try apples to apples.


You would have to be a complete moron to assume that monetary freedom isn't worth a lot. But even a moron can tell you there's a limitation to whats acceptable. I love bitcoin. I love mining. Again i'm not putting bitcoin in the spotlight. I'm putting all of our competitive mining in the spotlight. Mining farms. People driving the net-hash beyond where it needs to be in the act of greed. Don't even try to tell me KNC is in it for the monetary freedom. They are located in one of the most private countries in the world... They are in it for the $$$. Do you think they are paying there power bill with BTC? No. Its being converted into fiat to cover overhead probably along with their salaries. I'm sure they are banking lots of btc. But they aren't in it for the love of btc. A fool could tell you this.

[Amph]

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?

Efficiency will keep increasing and we can hope that the wattage used goes down but when more people get involved and bitcoin use increase there will probably be an increase of miners but that's just standard growth to use.

if the wattage will go down because of a better efficiency, then more miners will be added = the same result as today(with more hashpower, but same consumption), you can't escape from that equation

the only thing to reduce it would be that bitcoin will remain at current price(after the halving), therefore miners need to shut down 50% of the total hash, unless they manage to double their efficiency in 1 year

so there is a percentage of possibility that nothing will change with the reward(besides the difficulty), highly unlikely though

[DooMAD]

In terms of environmental impact, Bitcoin does have a few benefits to consider over traditional banking.  It doesn't require petroleum or diesel fuelled secure/armoured vans to transport cash or gold to and from bank vaults because everything is sent digitally.  No need to use sea or air transport to move gold reserves abroad.  We aren't wasting masses of paper by sending out monthly account statements.  Investment banking tends to involve market manipulation in sectors like agriculture and the housing market which can potentially impact the environment in a negative way.  Bitcoin may have its issues when it comes to the environment, but it certainly isn't all bad.

[Slark]

Here we go again. In fact bitcoin mining is no more harmful than the wastefulness of mining gold out of the ground, creating gold bars from in, and then putting it back in banks again.
Not to mention the building cities or creating other things is the waste of energy as well. Printing and minting all the various fiat currencies, guarding it with people who could do something else etc.
I would say that as far as mediums of exchange go, bitcoin is actually quite economical of resources, compared to others.

[mrkubanftw]

So you are telling me that the entire Bitcoin network doesn't even use a much power as a single Nimitz class aircraft carrier traveling at full speed.

And for that we get monetary freedom?

What a bargain.

Hey.. HEY OP

W
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You're an idiot. Everyone else's reply was a contribution. You just look dumb.



I just want to clarify, in no way do i think the way our economies work today is sensible. Everyone plays a middle man part and tacks on their percentage to make it worth while which only drives up overall cost and work through-put.

This is not an argument of gold vs bitcoin. Please don't turn it into that. I created this thread for real-future-speculation.

The miners' motives do not matter. As long as they aren't using hash rate to attack the network, they are using hash rate to secure the network. Bitcoin's design turns greed into security.

I'm glad you know where the network hash rate "needs" to be in order to keep it secure. Sounds like you could design a competitive, environmentally friendly altcoin and take the cryptocurrency throne from Bitcoin!

I totally considered this. Until i found this...

http://solarcoin.org/en/front-page/


I haven't looked into it much but it appears you are rewarded coins for mining using solar energy exclusively.

[MCHouston]

The government will not shutdown a company for polluting, they just regulate it.  I have worked with oil/chemical companies for many years.  The government allows so much pollution and if you have a spill or go over that it is usually just a small fine.  Of course disaster like Exxon Valdez are a different story, but the extra pollution on a day to day is easily allowed.

I can tell you 1 chemical plant can easily use well over 88.9MW of power just 1, some of the large data centers have 100MW.

88.9MW for an entire planet of BTC mining is nothing in comparison to other industries or even a single facility.  I would say by your math you just proved BTC is more eco friendly then stuff we use everyday.

Edit: I found this after the fact. Chemical Companies alone back in 2002 use 3.7 Quadriillion BTUs of energy or converted 1,172,284,280 MW. http://www.eia.gov/consumption/manufacturing/briefs/chemical/

[odolvlobo]

1. Regardless of the efficiency of the mining equipment and the cost of electricity, the total value of the energy used will be around the value of the bitcoins mined. If mining equipment becomes more efficient, the amount of energy used won't go down, the amount of mining equipment will go up.

2. Halving the block reward subsidy will halve the value of energy spent on mining (assuming that the price stays the same). It will not increase it as you claim.

[spazzdla]

You've assumed that the creation of electricity will create polution, there is zero need for me to have a logical argument.   All of the power supplied to my city is from a massive waterfall.

[Eastwind]

if the wattage will go down because of a better efficiency, then more miners will be added = the same result as today(with more hashpower, but same consumption), you can't escape from that equation

the only thing to reduce it would be that bitcoin will remain at current price(after the halving), therefore miners need to shut down 50% of the total hash, unless they manage to double their efficiency in 1 year

so there is a percentage of possibility that nothing will change with the reward(besides the difficulty), highly unlikely though

The total cost of mining is usually similar to the block rewards.

It is still cheaper than cost of maintaining today's banking system, many many folds.

[Coinshot]

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?

I think you meant the hashrate will HALVE or the price will rise. If you have more hashrate, then will be harder to mine bitcoins.

And the total power generated by the US alone is about 4,093 billion kilowatthours of electricity, so I think the bitcoin effected on wasted energy is insignificant.

And the banking system also use computers and ATM and stuffs that use electricity, how much power they consume, for comparation?
 

[jonald_fyookball]

does using proof of work to secure a decentralized currency seem responsible, even if it costs a lot of energy?

I say yes.

Besides, it's a free market.  Who are you to tell others where and how to spend their money?

Okay I myself mine. So just hush. I'm not here telling anyone what they should or shouldn't be doing. I'm just saying think about it. Be mindful. Instead of not giving shits like you clearly do.




To the gentleman who cited a Nimitz class aircraft carrier traveling at full speed....

You do realize that's a nuclear ship right? And nuclear carbon footprint is non-existent until it goes boom?


Most of the world is running oil or coal for power buddy. Even the nuclear reactors we've put in america we realized were a huge mistake. Try apples to apples.


You would have to be a complete moron to assume that monetary freedom isn't worth a lot. But even a moron can tell you there's a limitation to whats acceptable. I love bitcoin. I love mining. Again i'm not putting bitcoin in the spotlight. I'm putting all of our competitive mining in the spotlight. Mining farms. People driving the net-hash beyond where it needs to be in the act of greed. Don't even try to tell me KNC is in it for the monetary freedom. They are located in one of the most private countries in the world... They are in it for the $$$. Do you think they are paying there power bill with BTC? No. Its being converted into fiat to cover overhead probably along with their salaries. I'm sure they are banking lots of btc. But they aren't in it for the love of btc. A fool could tell you this.

I'm a believer in the free market.  I don't think we need any central planners telling us there's limits to what's "acceptable". 
If people want to spend money/energy on Bitcoin mining instead of something else, I don't see anything wrong with that.

[Lauda]

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.
-snip-

Where did you get this number from?


This might seem like a lot of power to you, but it actually isn't. Couldn't you say the same for everyone wasting power playing games or contributing to projects online?
There are a lot of projects out there that work similarly to Bitcoin (e.g. you can donate processing power). Can you really say that energy is being wasted when it is used for operating the network?

At least hardware is becoming more and more efficient, especially compared to the first ASICs.

[mrkubanftw]

The government will not shutdown a company for polluting, they just regulate it.  I have worked with oil/chemical companies for many years.  The government allows so much pollution and if you have a spill or go over that it is usually just a small fine.  Of course disaster like Exxon Valdez are a different story, but the extra pollution on a day to day is easily allowed.

I can tell you 1 chemical plant can easily use well over 88.9MW of power just 1, some of the large data centers have 100MW.

88.9MW for an entire planet of BTC mining is nothing in comparison to other industries or even a single facility.  I would say by your math you just proved BTC is more eco friendly then stuff we use everyday.

Edit: I found this after the fact. Chemical Companies alone back in 2002 use 3.7 Quadriillion BTUs of energy or converted 1,172,284,280 MW. http://www.eia.gov/consumption/manufacturing/briefs/chemical/

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.

All of your rational is very logical but its applied in the wrong way.

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.  That been said I think we could all agree that bitcoin is not nearly evolved enough to maintain an entire world of banking systems. Its ready to make an appearance but its not owning the show any time soon.


People just like with bitcoin, make lots of money on international banking. Like petrol.. don't expect it to go anywhere anytime soon. Not until bitcoin is a MASSIVE competitor and even then probably not.

There is the 16nm 3D chip KNC claims to have developed. Don't expect to get your hands on one without a group buy. They plan on self-mining the shit out of that hardware. The claims for that are 1/10th the power usage. Maybe. Probably not. That would revolutionize computation in general much less bitcoin.

[mrkubanftw]

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

[mrkubanftw]

Again you are all making a classical mistake under the assumption that added hashrate equals more network security. It DOES NOT. Individual nodes do. You know the individual miners that started this whole thing with GPU's.

Consider Farms will expand until they can no longer. Large mining farms start buying out other mining farms (Free market you keep raving about). A monopoly is possible. Don't you dare say its not. The second its not profitable some people wont mine at all. Others will for fun but their hashrate will be outweighed by the large farms that will consolidate over time.

What happens when the majority of network hashrate is owned by one farm? Your security is fucking gone and the largest farm really is the central bank now isn't it? They can manipulate the network at will REGARDLESS of overall hashrate. What matters is who owns what % of OVERALL hashrate. More hashrate does not equal more security. It means nothing.

How are you guys blind to this.

[MCHouston]

The government will not shutdown a company for polluting, they just regulate it.  I have worked with oil/chemical companies for many years.  The government allows so much pollution and if you have a spill or go over that it is usually just a small fine.  Of course disaster like Exxon Valdez are a different story, but the extra pollution on a day to day is easily allowed.

I can tell you 1 chemical plant can easily use well over 88.9MW of power just 1, some of the large data centers have 100MW.

88.9MW for an entire planet of BTC mining is nothing in comparison to other industries or even a single facility.  I would say by your math you just proved BTC is more eco friendly then stuff we use everyday.

Edit: I found this after the fact. Chemical Companies alone back in 2002 use 3.7 Quadriillion BTUs of energy or converted 1,172,284,280 MW. http://www.eia.gov/consumption/manufacturing/briefs/chemical/

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.

All of your rational is very logical but its applied in the wrong way.

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.  That been said I think we could all agree that bitcoin is not nearly evolved enough to maintain an entire world of banking systems. Its ready to make an appearance but its not owning the show any time soon.


People just like with bitcoin, make lots of money on international banking. Like petrol.. don't expect it to go anywhere anytime soon. Not until bitcoin is a MASSIVE competitor and even then probably not.

There is the 16nm 3D chip KNC claims to have developed. Don't expect to get your hands on one without a group buy. They plan on self-mining the shit out of that hardware. The claims for that are 1/10th the power usage. Maybe. Probably not. That would revolutionize computation in general much less bitcoin.

My whole point was that the entire bitcoin system uses less power then a single building in other industries. If you look at all other industries regardless of their product bitcoin is just a drop in a very big lake, and it much more eco friendly then other industries.

AND.... I am not even sure where banking came into this conversation.

[jonald_fyookball]

Again you are all making a classical mistake under the assumption that added hashrate equals more network security. It DOES NOT. Individual nodes do. You know the individual miners that started this whole thing with GPU's.

Consider Farms will expand until they can no longer. Large mining farms start buying out other mining farms (Free market you keep raving about). A monopoly is possible. Don't you dare say its not. The second its not profitable some people wont mine at all. Others will for fun but their hashrate will be outweighed by the large farms that will consolidate over time.

What happens when the majority of network hashrate is owned by one farm? Your security is fucking gone and the largest farm really is the central bank now isn't it? They can manipulate the network at will REGARDLESS of overall hashrate. What matters is who owns what % of OVERALL hashrate. More hashrate does not equal more security. It means nothing.

How are you guys blind to this.

It's called a 51% attack.  Yes, its possible.

What's your proposal?  Mine less?? huh?