BTC less efficient than Visa

[huadylmate]

Visa's underlying currency (fiat) uses *zero* energy (paper notes).

False, quite some energy and other ressources are required for minting/printing and distribution.

Childish pedantry.  How much energy do you think is used to print a hundred dollar bill?  You think the FED is doing J/$ calculations before they fire up their printing presses?

Why care when you can make as big debt as you like - it would be childish not spending as much as you can get away with

[crumbs]

Visa's underlying currency (fiat) uses *zero* energy (paper notes).

False, quite some energy and other ressources are required for minting/printing and distribution.

Childish pedantry.  How much energy do you think is used to print a hundred dollar bill?  You think the FED is doing J/$ calculations before they fire up their printing presses?
Hint:  BTC miners *do*

[Probably they would be better off doing some calculations, in several countries the smallest coins are more expensive to produce than their face value.]

Do you really think printing them is all you need?
E.g. You need to distribute them, offer the possibility to replace old banknotes after their life span and you need very high security in every single step.
It doesn't end there, just think about all the cash transports from companies to banks. Okey, that's fuel and working time instead of electricity, but those are valuable ressources, too.

See above, tell me i'm wrong

[Birdy]

See above, tell me i'm wrong

Alright. You are wrong.
There did it.

An extremely profitable business.  Bitcoin miners will continue mining until it costs .99 BTC to mine one, until they waste as much energy as the value of the bitcoin they mine.  Hilarious, no?

That's a deliberate plan, it's supposed that miners just gain enough to keep on mining.

[crumbs]

Visa's underlying currency (fiat) uses *zero* energy (paper notes).

False, quite some energy and other ressources are required for minting/printing and distribution.

Childish pedantry.  How much energy do you think is used to print a hundred dollar bill?  You think the FED is doing J/$ calculations before they fire up their printing presses?

Why care when you can make as big debt as you like - it would be childish not spending as much as you can get away with

If printing money was proportionately as costly as mining BTC, the presses would not stop 'til it costs more than a dollar to print a dollar.

[crumbs]

waste as much energy

 

[crumbs]

How much energy do you think is used to print a hundred dollar bill?

Quite a lot. Start from placing a cotton seed in fertile soil.

Err... More than $100 worth?

[ferda2mx]

What is the power consuption of all ATM ?

An irrelevant number -- there are no bitcoin atms.  Fiat worked just fine without them, they're just a convenience. Think ATMs are a waste of energy?  Don't use them, live like it's 1970.

You cant be serious - there wouldnt be Visa without ATM and POS.

And Visa is not money

[ferda2mx]

How much energy do you think is used to print a hundred dollar bill?

Quite a lot. Start from placing a cotton seed in fertile soil.

Err... More than $100 worth?

Not. Only the coins cost more to make than the value they represent - pretty effective, right?

[Birdy]

If printing money was proportionately as costly as mining BTC, the presses would not stop 'til it costs more than a dollar to print a dollar.

Welcome to the problem of inflation.
It's not like you create value by printing a bill, so you will dillute other peoples value.

Miners also process transactions while "printing" the Bitcoin. Sure the new Bitcoin will also dilute the value of the others, but this is capped.

[imamanandyou]

If printing money was proportionately as costly as mining BTC, the presses would not stop 'til it costs more than a dollar to print a dollar.

Welcome to the problem of inflation.

Because mining BTC is proportionately harder as time goes on, it only tell us Bitcoin is more and more successfull.

[crumbs]

What is the power consuption of all ATM ?

An irrelevant number -- there are no bitcoin atms.  Fiat worked just fine without them, they're just a convenience. Think ATMs are a waste of energy?  Don't use them, live like it's 1970.

You cant be serious - there wouldnt be Visa without ATM and POS.

And Visa is not money

I have a Visa CC.  Never stuck it in an ATM other than by accident.  I also use it to shop online, so when i buy a miner from an ASIC company that vanishes with my money?  Chargeback!  Try that with bitcoin
And no, Visa ain't money, but we're talking about trading in $$$ with Visa.  See topic of thread^^.

[crumbs]

If printing money was proportionately as costly as mining BTC, the presses would not stop 'til it costs more than a dollar to print a dollar.

Welcome to the problem of inflation.

Because mining BTC is proportionately harder as time goes on, it only tell us Bitcoin is more and more successfull.

No, rising difficulty only tells you the hashrate has risen, nothing about success.  Just that people spent all their bitcoins on racy new ASIC miners, so they could mine more bitcoins to buy the next racy miner.  Enjoy the hamster treadmill

[crumbs]

How much energy do you think is used to print a hundred dollar bill?

Quite a lot. Start from placing a cotton seed in fertile soil.

Err... More than $100 worth?

I don't know, email me one and I'll have the lab check it out.

First, you have to promise me an ASIC   And make it quick, 'cos that scam's just about burnt down.

[gadman2]

Bitcoin is to USD as the confirmations is to Visa. Change every word of "bitcoin" in op to "confirmations"  and it will all make sense then.

[vendetahome]

crumbs - your my hero!

[crumbs]

If printing money was proportionately as costly as mining BTC, the presses would not stop 'til it costs more than a dollar to print a dollar.

Welcome to the problem of inflation.
It's not like you create value by printing a bill, so you will dillute other peoples value.

It's not like you create value by mining a bitcoin, either.  At least the monyz smells nice.  And what's wrong with inflation?  Who told you it was a *bad* thing?

[millsdmb]

Last week somebody was saying they thought bitcoin is the "most efficient" way to pay, so I crunched some numbers to find out. Summary: it is not.

Currently 262 Terahash/s=262E12 hash/s
Most efficient bitfury hardware gets 705E6 hash/J, or 1.42E-9 J/hash ==>Note I'm being as conservative as possible here, in BTC's favor

So total network power consumption is at least (1.42E-9 J/hash)*(262E12 hash/s)=372040 J/s = 372 kW. Like I said, this is the most efficient scenario, with little room to improve with new mining hardware in the future. A year ago it was far, far worse.

36944 bitcoins change hands/hour, on average.
(3600 seconds * 372040 J/s)/($100/btc*36944 btc/hour)=362 J/$ processed.

Now let's compare to Visa. Visa processes avg $6.7T/year= 6.7E12 $/y = 212456 $/second. If Visa consumed as much power as bitcoin, that would be (362 J/$)*(212456 $/s)= 76.9 MW of power.

Visa has 2 datacenters in N America, consuming about 25MW each. And that includes stuff like AC, that I didn't even consider for bitcoin. So Visa actually uses far less energy/$ than bitcoin. And bitcoin is getting less efficient every day as the hash rate grows.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-03-25/visa-data-center/53774904/1

Discuss.

Last night I was daydreaming and wondered, how do the amount of TX compare? If BTC were to exceed all the major credit card co's in TX-- that'd be an accomplishment.

Unless it's already been accomplished.

[Birdy]

If printing money was proportionately as costly as mining BTC, the presses would not stop 'til it costs more than a dollar to print a dollar.

Welcome to the problem of inflation.
It's not like you create value by printing a bill, so you will dillute other peoples value.

It's not like you create value by mining a bitcoin, either.  At least the monyz smells nice.  And what's wrong with inflation?  Who told you it was a *bad* thing?

You do create some value as you process transaction (the same value we were debating the whole thread about, yes that what Visa does....).

Inflation is not bad for everyone, people with debt (like our states) love inflation. But it certainly is bad for me as my money buys me less stuff.
It's merely a redistribution of wealth, inflation doesn't destroy any value (the effetcs of high inflation can do that though).

[crumbs]

If printing money was proportionately as costly as mining BTC, the presses would not stop 'til it costs more than a dollar to print a dollar.

Welcome to the problem of inflation.
It's not like you create value by printing a bill, so you will dillute other peoples value.

It's not like you create value by mining a bitcoin, either.  At least the monyz smells nice.  And what's wrong with inflation?  Who told you it was a *bad* thing?

You do create some value as you process transaction (the same value we were debating the whole thread about, yes that what Visa does....).

Inflation is not bad for everyone, people with debt (like our states) love inflation. But it certainly is bad for me as my money buys me less stuff.
It's merely a redistribution of wealth, inflation doesn't destroy any value (the effetcs of high inflation can do that though).

It makes you spend your monyz instead of scroogeing  it under a mattress, thus fueling our awesome economy.  Mony's meant to be spent!  And if miners create value by processing transactions, so does Visa
Edit:  Which you have already mentioned, i can't read

[Birdy]

It makes you spend your monyz instead of scroogeing  it under a mattress, thus fueling our awesome economy.  Mony's meant to be spent!  And if miners create value by processing transactions, so does Visa

I disagree, I think this consuming pressure isn't good for our society. It is way better we buy stuff, because we want it and not because we fear our money will buy us less otherwise.


Yes, Visa does create a form of value just like the miners. The value of a service, in this case the processing of transactions.