✨✨✨ Are we wasting resources to make digital currencies? ✨✨✨

[ShortCoins]

It appears that mining costs and the creation of crypto currencies consumes a lot of resources

We have very little resources remaining in the world for each other and future generations. Does it make sense to waste resources like this? Could we do this in a cheaper and more economically friendly manner? And does the value of bitcoin directly correlate to the amount of resources and man hours that are destroyed in order to create it?

[ShortCoins]

The biggest problems I see with mining is that it is a waste of computing power, energy, and labor. We could be using this computing power for AI, exploring space, or solving world problems. Instead we are using up a ton of resources like electricity and producing nothing tangible in return. On the other hand our current banking system does use up a lot of resources to produce and maintain currency. I just wish there was a way to be more planet friendly when producing a digital currency.

[hodlftw]

There is no problem here with cryptos it is what the media would have you believe. This article below shows your concern but another on their website shows that yes crypto consume a lot of energy but in relation to the general population it is nothing. Idle phones, machines, plug in devices everywhere consume much more electricity but yet this isn't a concern. Basically the media will run with anything that gets a rise out of people and this electricity problem is one of their favorites with cryptos.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-24/will-bitcoin-mining-consume-all-worlds-current-electricity-production-feb-2020

[shursight]

When are you going to get tired of always posting this crap? I Sent you a private message to you a few days ago because i wanted to ask you why are you creating this crap in here.

I sent "do you have some privileged information? because you are posting that kind of fud that is very sensitive"
 
And you did not even replied to me, it seems that you are trying to post as much fud as possible in order to make people lose their money.

You said "came on! Short all your coins in order to leave this system!" when bitcoin was $13,000 each one.

Now it is $17,200, and i haven't seen you posting in those threads anymore.

On the other hand our current banking system does use up a lot of resources to produce and maintain currency. I just wish there was a way to be more planet friendly when producing a digital currency.

Came on fucking newbie, if you are jealous because you did not buy bitcoin when it was $1000, then it is your fault.

I have made enough money to retire myself before my 25 years old because of cryptos, so i dont think that they are a "ponzi" just like you are saying.

GTFO

[ShortCoins]

I have made enough money to retire myself before my 25 years old

Maybe you can spend some of that money on an education now

[odolvlobo]

We need to ban TV. Do you realize how much energy is wasted by people watching TV? Surely, it is orders of magnitude more than the energy spent on securing Bitcoin.

[salihno71]

We are wasting resources, period. It has nothing to do with a single specific technology like bitcoin or fiat or whatever, this is just the way how the economy is in (at least) the past 40 years. Such approach is slowly but surely destroying the earth. In order to change this, fundamental change would be required which is unfortunately still not happening and is unlikely to happen any time soon since too much money would be gone from 1%.

[ShortCoins]

TV provides a tangible asset. So that doesn't at all fit the criteria laid out in the first post. TV provides entertainment, enjoyment etc.

The consumption of energy for the production of assets is perfectly okay.

My problem is that we are wasting tons of electricity, resources, energy, and time to produce nothing. Bitcoin is not tangible


Here's a great article posted today on how much energy we are actually wasting
http://theweek.com/articles/742253/bitcoin-worth-energy

[Hydrogen]

The energy consumption criticism of bitcoin reminds me of vegans criticisms against the meat industry. Even if most people converted to a vegan lifestyle, the same number of animals might be slaughtered every year to meet demand. This argument could apply to btc and crypto. Even if bitcoin and all crypto were banned and illegalized across the globe, it wouldn't necessarily imply electrical energy consumption would decline significantly enough to make a difference.

Miners typically target the cheapest supplies of electricity which is usually defined by industrial use rather than consumer usage. This implies that things like hydroelectric plants may be tapped, rather than electricity generated by coal or other sources which have a net negative effect on climate as is often mistakenly claimed.

Some of the main driving force behind energy generation are things like solar panels mounted on homes by residents. There are states like california which generate such a massive surplus of power they have to pay neighboring states to accept the additional energy to avoid damaging their electrical grid. In some regions the generation of electricity already far exceeds demand and due to many factors including the adoption of renewable energy sources, generation may exceed demand for well into the forseeable future.

Power consumption isn't the most critical topic. Power generation may be far more important as eliminating bitcoin and crypto from the equation wouldn't necessarily have an affect on the way we generate power, nor the quantity of power generated.

[ShortCoins]

Here is a great article on Bitcoin:

http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2017/10/20/bitcoin-energy-wasting-ponzi-scheme/ideas/essay/

(Source: Energy Wasting Ponzi Scheme, 2017)

[Hydrogen]

Here is a great article on Bitcoin:

http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2017/10/20/bitcoin-energy-wasting-ponzi-scheme/ideas/essay/

(Source: Energy Wasting Ponzi Scheme, 2017)

By the way, ShortCoins. If you read my post above, I made a few counterpoints to the articles you're posting.

On the surface issues like energy consumption might appear simplistic and easy to quantify. But lurking beneath the surface there may be several principles which are counter intuitive and go against the grain in terms of public perception. To say that bitcoin consumes energy and energy consumption contributes towards negative precedents like climate change is a bit of an oversimplification. Power plants will not spontaneously shut down if bitcoin mining comes to an end. Every year electrical energy consumption increases, whatever surplus exists would be utilized as a hedge against future energy consumption growth and bitcoin mining versus no bitcoin mining likely would not have an impact.

There are many facets to this topic which are not being acknowledged by authors of some of the articles being posted.

I think there are two sides to this debate. If anyone cares to address the topic, I would be glad to respond.

[odolvlobo]

TV provides a tangible asset. So that doesn't at all fit the criteria laid out in the first post. TV provides entertainment, enjoyment etc.
The consumption of energy for the production of assets is perfectly okay.

Entertainment and enjoyment are certainly not tangible assets.

The purpose of Bitcoin's energy usage is to secure it and ensure its integrity. That is not nothing. Do you feel that the money spent on a nation's defense is nothing?

Anyway, the idea is that as wasteful as Bitcoin mining may seem, it is more efficient than the current banking system, and thus we would save energy by switching the financial system to Bitcoin.

[bill gator]

It appears that mining costs and the creation of crypto currencies consumes a lot of resources

We have very little resources remaining in the world for each other and future generations. Does it make sense to waste resources like this? Could we do this in a cheaper and more economically friendly manner? And does the value of bitcoin directly correlate to the amount of resources and man hours that are destroyed in order to create it?

Our species, and those like us are not a conservative group. We are wasteful, we are destructive, we are hungry and want to take whatever we can, as much of it as possible, all at once. We have a greedy nature and we can't help but be over-indulgent and "ambitious". We may be using more than we should or "need" to, but does that define "waste"? We are investing into the future and innovation, investment is only possibly with excess and with excess comes waste. I'd argue that wasting resources for digital currencies is still a net-positive compared to the alternative of the same old system forever.

We are wasting resources everyday in various areas, programs and inventions because that's what it takes to invest in the future. It hurts to think about our waste when it is quantified in terms we can understand, in terms of how many people could have been supplied X for Y days, instead of this. The question must always be "Is it worth it?" It is a tough question, but if our excess were not spent as we choose then our situation would be unsustainable and without progress. This represents our freedom, basic freedom to do as you wish with what is yours. One man's waste is another man's future.

[jtipt]

We need to ban TV. Do you realize how much energy is wasted by people watching TV? Surely, it is orders of magnitude more than the energy spent on securing Bitcoin.

Yeah to argue the power consumption there are plenty of other things that consume a lot more power than bitcoin mining, but the point being bitcoin mining consumes too much giving too little. A simple Google search points out that 1 transaction consumes 215 KWh of power, that's a lot.

[ShortCoins]

How much $ USD has been spent on mining crypto and bitcoin?

[thomassaba]

It appears that mining costs and the creation of crypto currencies consumes a lot of resources

We have very little resources remaining in the world for each other and future generations. Does it make sense to waste resources like this? Could we do this in a cheaper and more economically friendly manner? And does the value of bitcoin directly correlate to the amount of resources and man hours that are destroyed in order to create it?

why you say that the resources to make 17,000$ is less than to mining 1BTC.

also you mining using tools not pc

[Kprawn]

How much $ USD has been spent on mining crypto and bitcoin?

Let's answer your question with a counter question. How much money is spend to create cash & coins?

The penny might be more trouble than it's worth. The cost to produce the one-cent coin increased to 1.5 cents during 2016,

the Wall Street Journal reported. In 2015, the penny cost 1.43 cents to make, while in 2014, its production value was 1.66

cents.

Well, $1 and $2 bills cost 4.9 cents per note to make, while $5 cost 10.9 cents, $10 cost 10.3 cents, both $20 and $50 bills

cost 10.5 cents, and $100 bills cost 12.3 cents. In other words, the more it's worth, the more it costs to produce.

https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/money-finance/how-many-dollar-bill-circulated/ {Take note : of the

limited lifespan of these notes and coins}

Now, How environment friendly is the whole process to manufacture these coins/bills?

A 2009 analysis found that Western copper mines use 35.7 gigajoules of energy per ton of copper produced, with zinc and

lead mines fairly more efficient, using only 6.6 to 6.8 gigajoules of energy per ton. The report also found that greenhouse gas

emissions for copper mining operations in 2007 averaged 2.45 tons of carbon dioxide emitted for every ton of copper

produced, compared with .58 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of zinc.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/penny-environmental-disaster-180959032/

Let's not even add the cost of electricity to run ATM's and Banks for 24 hours a day.  

There is no doubt that Bitcoin is more environment friendly and much cheaper to create than Fiat money {Coins & Bills}

[stompix]

The energy consumption criticism of bitcoin reminds me of vegans criticisms against the meat industry. Even if most people converted to a vegan lifestyle, the same number of animals might be slaughtered every year to meet demand. This argument could apply to btc and crypto. Even if bitcoin and all crypto were banned and illegalized across the globe, it wouldn't necessarily imply electrical energy consumption would decline significantly enough to make a difference.

This makes no sense.
If people would stop eating meat there would be no demand so no more energy spent on growing livestock.

If cryptos would get banned across the world (and we consider an all out ban with prison terms) the value would drop back to the closure of SR levels and mining will not be profitable until 90% of them quit, resulting in a drop of energy consumption.
I don't know where you get your logic...change the supplier.

Miners typically target the cheapest supplies of electricity which is usually defined by industrial use rather than consumer usage. This implies that things like hydroelectric plants may be tapped, rather than electricity generated by coal or other sources which have a net negative effect on climate as is often mistakenly claimed.

Some of the main driving force behind energy generation are things like solar panels mounted on homes by residents. There are states like california which generate such a massive surplus of power they have to pay neighboring states to accept the additional energy to avoid damaging their electrical grid. In some regions the generation of electricity already far exceeds demand and due to many factors including the adoption of renewable energy sources, generation may exceed demand for well into the forseeable future.

Energy production and consumption is a zero-sum game.
If those miners would not consume green energy, that energy would be consumed by others and coal generated energy would drop.
And California is importing energy , close to 33% of their entire demand.

There is no doubt that Bitcoin is more environment friendly and much cheaper to create than Fiat money {Coins & Bills}

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2465881.msg25254881#msg25254881

At current prices it CAN end up consuming 60 TWh of energy.
Since we spoke about California, a state with 30 millions and ranked above a lot of countries by GDP is consuming 300 TWh.
You can start commenting on this.....

The only thing preventing a boom in energy consumption is that we can't produce enough ASICs right now

[frowsiter]

Im not being too scientific here but they always said energy can not be created and nor it can be destroyed. So the question is why we should be worrying about that. We are already warming up the global atmosphere with what we do today and if bitcoin is doing the same then what the problem? Why we should stop bitcoin at the first glance? Why we can’t stop using the cars, industries, private companies, IT worlds, air-travels etc etc? They are also using the highest resources of the earth and are more costlier than the bitcoin in first place.

The thing is we can’t stop using them, because we now rely on them completely, we are used to them and they are our daily life needs.

In the similar ways, bitcoin is into our hearts now, it gives us financial income which we in turn use for carving our daily life needs. So I think we are clear here on the topic that why digital currency can’t be stopped. Because its a need :-)

[Aura]

TV provides a tangible asset. So that doesn't at all fit the criteria laid out in the first post. TV provides entertainment, enjoyment etc.

The consumption of energy for the production of assets is perfectly okay.

My problem is that we are wasting tons of electricity, resources, energy, and time to produce nothing. Bitcoin is not tangible


Here's a great article posted today on how much energy we are actually wasting
http://theweek.com/articles/742253/bitcoin-worth-energy

The energy used to mine blocks is not wasted, it's used to keep the currency decentralized. I don't think that the energy that is used to power a TV is much more justified than the energy to mine blocks. TV is just for entertainment purposes like you mentioned but mining really adds something to the society, because it makes payments possible without a central authority.