Bitcoin already using too much power by 2020?

[GingerAle]

Ask yourself this - how much power does our current global financial policy use?

In the current financial system,  it makes "financial sense" to make something in china, put it on a boat, send it across an ocean, sell it to an idiot, the idiot then discards it, the item is put back on a boat, and then sent back to china for "recycling" .

How much energy did that use?

The financial policies of bitcoin, which use energy to verify our distributed ledger, is billions of times more efficient than the current financial policies of individual nation states manipulating currency values to make their indicators positive.

[pureclckr]

Bitcoin will always be powered

[MicroGuy]

Proof of Work (Pow) is not a sustainable reward system. It would be impossible for bitcoin to reach any sort of mainstream adoption with this severely flawed energy-gobbling incentivizing scheme.

If we look at nature, rainfall is not rewarded for nourishing plants. The sun is not rewarded for its life giving rays. I think the ultimate mining system will be one that's sustainable and more closely models nature.

~~

[pneumatic5]

Proof of Stake? It solves the problem of you breaking your computer/ASIC, and using all the electricity to hash away.

But this also comes with the downside of a "nothing at risk" attack, and how with this, the ASIC market will crash.

I’m an engaged environmental researcher and have recently become a bitcoin enthusiast.These are two possibly conflicting fascinations, as previously pointed out by Christopher Malmo here at Motherboard. That’s because bitcoin is incredibly energy intensive: at the time of Malmo’s piece, he calculated that a single bitcoin transaction requires as much electricity as the daily consumption of 1.6 American households, and that number has increased since then. “Adopting Bitcoin as a major currency anytime in the next few decades,” he wrote, “would just exacerbate anthropogenic climate change by needlessly increasing electricity consumption until it’s too late.”

[yenxz]

It's using power for mining. It's a crucial part of Bitcoin, without which it couldn't exist.

yes you might right,its crucial part of bitcoin,but its not mean bitcoin cannot spent power anymore,bitcoin can spent power from different material,if people still mining bitcoin with electricity from govrement,then in future they should change it into solar energy.

[totemITnow]

PoS maybe the way for solution but it has to be improved and with secure in mind.

[zimmah]

The amount of transactions doesn't increase the need of mining hardware.

1 smartphone could validate all transactions if necessary.

Only f its profitable for the miners they will mine, and if it's very profitable then they might end up using a lot of energy

[USB-S]

PoS maybe the way for solution but it has to be improved and with secure in mind.

There is no work involved in proof of stake. It's like a perpetual motion machine then(even more so than it is now), there is no work involved. We need work in order for bitcoin to be fungible and secure. Proof of stake isn't really as secure as you think. Hybrid pow/pos is as retarded.

[Cuidler]

I’m an engaged environmental researcher and have recently become a bitcoin enthusiast.These are two possibly conflicting fascinations, as previously pointed out by Christopher Malmo here at Motherboard. That’s because bitcoin is incredibly energy intensive: at the time of Malmo’s piece, he calculated that a single bitcoin transaction requires as much electricity as the daily consumption of 1.6 American households, and that number has increased since then. “Adopting Bitcoin as a major currency anytime in the next few decades,” he wrote, “would just exacerbate anthropogenic climate change by needlessly increasing electricity consumption until it’s too late.”

Currently one transaction cost slightly under 8 USD. The catastrophic scenarios for climate change by needlessly increasing electricity consumption is only if the Bitcoin price skyrockets (much more than doubling every 4 years) which I doubt can happen.

The good thing is we should just expect doubling price every 4 years, which is great return on investment if it can continue longterm - and the best of all, in this case energy consuption of miners remains the same longterm (about the same in 30 years as now). So basically the Bitcoin price defines energy consuption of Bitcoin network.

[Sandroxa]

The bad thing is that nobody will know what is going to happen with the Bitcoin and that is the problem because it is really hard to predict for what will happen in the future.
And as you can see now you see also that there are more people that is holding their coins for later.

[masewild]

The bad thing is that nobody will know what is going to happen with the Bitcoin and that is the problem because it is really hard to predict for what will happen in the future.
And as you can see now you see also that there are more people that is holding their coins for later.

If we all work hard, promote and develop the bitcoin, bitcoin will be used by many people, its price will rise.

[yayayo]

PoS maybe the way for solution but it has to be improved and with secure in mind.

There is no work involved in proof of stake. It's like a perpetual motion machine then(even more so than it is now), there is no work involved. We need work in order for bitcoin to be fungible and secure. Proof of stake isn't really as secure as you think. Hybrid pow/pos is as retarded.

POW makes the most sense. POS is the same retard concept we have with central banks today. Earning interest, just because you already own something? That doesn't make sense at all, since owning is no productive activity. Proof-of-Resources might be an alternative that at least has some logical merit.

I don't share the concerns that Bitcoin POW might consume too much power. Even if Bitcoin will consume the electricity equivalent of an entire nation it is not necessarily "too much" if you put it into perspective. Bitcoin is both a source of secure monetary units and a transaction system. If you consider the joint energy that is used to provide both functions today (putting physical currency into circulation, maintaining networks of ATM's and transaction servers), Bitcoin will still have a smaller energy footprint.

ya.ya.yo!

[clopoterian]

POW makes the most sense. POS is the same retard concept we have with central banks today. Earning interest, just because you already own something? That doesn't make sense at all, since owning is no productive activity.

Don't most bitcoiners hodl bitcoins, hoping to get rich "just because [they] already own something"?

[FabioDelcatto]

Nobody will know what is going to happen with the Bitcoin in that year and you see that Bitcoin was stable for a long time so it works not that much power and it has to rise also in the future.
And that is only nice if the halving is also going to be good but the bad thing is that we cant control it and that is bad.

[quentincole32]

Nobody will know what is going to happen with the Bitcoin in that year and you see that Bitcoin was stable for a long time so it works not that much power and it has to rise also in the future.
And that is only nice if the halving is also going to be good but the bad thing is that we cant control it and that is bad.

Great,i never think about that,we allnever know until when bitcoin will stay,and might in 2020 bitcoin goes down,or bitcoin can't mine again,its why people so greedy nowdays,they try to collect bitcoin as much as they can,and never care about how much power consumed because of their selfish.

[pereira4]

The Bitcoin network will keep self adapting to any scenario. If there is not a profit to be made anymore by x miners in y location, those will simply stop mining and get out of the business, this lowers the difficulty, which means other people will fill incentive to start a mining business.

No thing as too much power, just the required one, as long as its profitable.

[quintiilieo]

I think there is no such thing as over power, As long miners can mine bitcoin it is good to go. But when they can't mine they will stop and they will have another player to develop and mine it. Bitcoin adopt on every technology we create so what will we do on bitcoin is in our hands. Not us will follow bitcoin but bitcoin will follow us.

[Qunenin]

Minning will be very very difficult by 2020 .  As the difficulty increases, the Cost of doing mining also increases. It will require more powerful machines and more electricity to run that machines and perform the mining. still People who have infrastructure for that we do mining but it will be beyond the scope of a common man. Maybe it will be limited to big companies who shall invest high for this purpose.

[Akupuniard]

I think yes, many miners will quit after halving this summer cause it will be hard for them, in 2020 it will be much harder than now, that's why minrers moving to China.

[BurtW]

This thread is full of misconceptions about power consumption.

1) The source of the power (coal, nuclear, solar, natural gas) does not matter when calculating the total power consumed by the system.  What matters is the cost of the power.  If solar power ever cost less than coal - taking all costs into consideration - then people would use it.  It is that simple.  The reason people do not use solar power it that it currently costs more.

2) Efficiency of mining does not matter.  If mining equipment becomes more efficient then people will just use more mining equipment.

3) This is all by design.  The amount of power used is exactly what makes it difficult/impossible for someone rewrite transactions.

The power consumption of the Bitcoin network can be estimated by my previously derived formula:

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]

Just plug in your favorite guesses for the year 2020:

How much do you think BTC will be worth in 2020?  $100? $1,000?  $10,000?
Which era do you want to estimate for?  (We are currently in era 1, almost in era 2, 2020 could be era 2 or 3)
What do you think the average fees per hour are going to be in 2020?  1 BTC/hr?  10 BTC/hr?  100 BTC/hr?
Do you think the cost of electricity is going to go down, be the same, or go up by 2020?  $0.01/kWh, $0.03/kWh, $0.10/kWh?
What is the average gross profit margin of the miners (portion of all income not spent on electricity costs: equipment, salaries, rents, accounting, ROI, etc.)?  You can use this number to approximate amortized equipment costs.  0.10? 0.25? 0.5?

Have fun.