Is energy consumption going to hold bitcoin back?

[aoluain]

With Ethereum most likely moving over to POS and the fact that POS
Is less energy reliant does it mean that going forward bitcoins POW
and high energy consumption will be a factor and a concern in the
efficiency to mine coins?

[dothebeats]

I don't see bitcoin going PoS within the next couple of years, but the possibility of that happening is still high considering that most people are already advocating for greener energy sources and eyes bitcoin for its power consumption. Right now, PoW ensures that no one could alter the integrity of the whole network since the hashing power is distributed around the world, though the downside is its huge energy consumption. On the other hand, PoS, though greener, tends to favor those who have huge wallet balances on creating new coins, thus centralizing the power of the network. Either of the two has its own pros and cons, and PoW IMO wins the tale of the tape by a slight edge. The future development regarding bitcoin's features and whatnot could hopefully solve this question regarding the switch of algorithms.

[BitMaxz]

Energy consumption to mine bitcoin is the one biggest factor and concern because bitcoin mining is eating a huge amount of power and it could affect our climate change that can cause global warming.

I heard that this coming 2020 bitcoins will use all power to mine bitcoin that I think it is bad for our climate and possibility that power can be exhausted in the future.

However, maybe after all bitcoin mined bitcoin will switch to PoS algo in the future.

[pooya87]

PoS is not as good as you think, there are better algorithms out there. and just because some altcoin is talking about switching to it, that  doesn't mean it is good. you have to see what their reasons are for making such a switch. and in case of ethereum is for a bigger control and a lot more earning since they are already controlling at least 70% of the supply.

[aoluain]

Thanks for the replies, i suppose the topic is more about energy consumption
rather than POS, i used Ethereum as an example but as posted above their
move may be about control.

My concern is will bitcoin mining become its biggest negative going forward?
There is an interesting article in the link below which points possibly to green
energy as a means to solve bitcoins huge energy consumption.

https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/05/21/will-bitcoin-solve-energy-consumption-problem/

[qiwoman2]

There is not much Bitcoin left to mine now, so with more and more bigger asics coming and there are places where cheap electricity and solar energy and clean energy is used, people are turning to greener mining solutions nowadays for Bitcoin, which might improve the over all environmental side of things where Bitcoin mining is concerned. I want to see a greener and cleaner Bitcoin for the years to come and I think we can accomplish this over time because of cleaner energy.

[Zin-Zang]

With Ethereum most likely moving over to POS and the fact that POS
Is less energy reliant does it mean that going forward bitcoins POW
and high energy consumption will be a factor and a concern in the
efficiency to mine coins?

It is already a concern as the location directly defines what the miners profit margin is?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=487814.msg38164588#msg38164588

The hidden damage of Bitcoin Transaction Processing is the insane Energy consumption :
https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
Electricity consumed per transaction (KWh)    941
Number of U.S. households powered for 1 day by the electricity consumed for a single transaction: 31.81
This is driving up the costs that people pay for electricity in their homes.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/munis-to-charge-bitcoin-miners-higher-power-prices-in-new-york/519275/

https://cointelegraph.com/news/cases-of-illegal-bitcoin-and-cryptocurrency-mining-chicken-farms-and-new-york
The Bottom Graph in the above link shows the cost of mining per country and location makes a huge difference in a Bitcoin Miner's Profit margin.

Ethereum is going hybrid running PoW & PoS for quite a while, until they drop the PoW completely , their energy efficiently won't improve enough to matter.

[Pursuer]

at first look, specially at the media with all their drama against bitcoin these days it may seem like bitcoin is wasting a lot of energy but the fact is that it doesn't matter how much electricity bitcoin is using because it is providing us with a valuable utility that we are using and need it.

it is like saying the fossil fuel you burn in your car whenever you go out with it is a waste of energy and the energy consumption is holding "cars" back!

[player514]

With Ethereum most likely moving over to POS and the fact that POS
Is less energy reliant does it mean that going forward bitcoins POW
and high energy consumption will be a factor and a concern in the
efficiency to mine coins?

I think energy consumption is a factor that has blown up recently because people never kept it in mind. The energy consumption of mining bitcoin might go up, but it won't surpass larger issues that the world has to deal with. For example, think about the huge number of cars being driven every day. That uses a lot of power too and outputs negative chemicals into Earth. With that in mind, the energy consumption of mining bitcoin is definitely high, but doesn't really have many negative consequences. Heat is the only major one. Furthermore, as the push for a greener Earth continues, there will likely better ways to harvest solar energy as well as other forms of energy. We may not depend on fossil fuels anymore soon.

[20_JeRRy_20]

If energy consumption grows at the same rate, in a few years we will run into the limitations of the energy that we can afford to produce. This does not mean that cryptocurrencies will be covered with a copper basin. They are already trying to make cryptocurrencies less dependent on electricity, for example, Ethereum . But still 35 HDTV, as many say, it's too much to start with.

[lizardbtc]

With Ethereum most likely moving over to POS and the fact that POS
Is less energy reliant does it mean that going forward bitcoins POW
and high energy consumption will be a factor and a concern in the
efficiency to mine coins?

POS is not perfect consensus algorythm nor is POW. POS might really be the better if we are talking about the energy consumption but it is also prone to network attacks. Energy to my mind should not be huge issue if we are ready to exchange it for the security of the network. Given in mind how many energy in the world is being wasted to my mind I see this as some negative side people can talk about. Off course it would be better to have more efficient way to have the network secured but honestly I do not believe that devs will be looking to change POW anytime soon with bitcoin, you could try with some proposal but it is hard to pull of from this point now.

[Nimblecrown]

The amount of energy BTC mining consumes is insane at this point and will definitely be its biggest flaw for a while. There are figures that mining BTC currently consumes more power than 159 countries around the world. There is no way that figures like that are sustainable unless BTC miners have some plan to move to greener forms of mining or more power efficient mining farms or BTC as a whole has a plan to switch to another consensus algorithm other than Proof of Work but that is hypothetical. This is one of factors that makes people believe that BTC has an expiration date.



https://powercompare.co.uk/bitcoin/

[Mpamaegbu]

My concern is will bitcoin mining become its biggest negative going forward?

You already expressed the answer to the question you asked. Perhaps in a different dimension. Of course energy consumption is the hurdle (if you may use that word) any mining outfit tangles with. This informs the reason most miners migrate to Norway or other countries with cheap energy sources. Again, this also says a lot about Africa lagging behind in cryptocurrency issues because of its perennial energy problem and epileptic supply.

[ymnhg980]

Energy consumption will definitely affect the return of Bitcoin, but it is not easy to say how much the degree is, and it takes time to verify that Bitcoin needs to make technical changes, otherwise bitcoin will be more difficult to carry on.

[tranphuong]

This informs the reason most miners migrate to Norway or other countries with cheap energy sources.

[jseverson]

How exactly is it going to be held back by its energy consumption? Is the massive amount of consumption even a problem in the first place? It's not like we're under an energy crisis or anything. The gradual rise of renewable energy technology should also help curb any long term concerns -- I believe that we're bound for a breakthrough and it will invalidate any so called problems.

Pollution is a potentially big issue, but I imagine it would be hard to map out precise numbers to mining.

As for miner profitability, well, I would say it's best to let the system and its difficulty adjustments fend for itself. I personally don't see any red flags that would require any intervention.

[aoluain]

My concern was high energy consumption with smaller rewards and the POS
mining getting popular but with all the comments here its clear that energy
is not going to be a concern in bitcoins future. As in general terms energy
generation is moving slowly away from fossil to renewable the energy bitcoin
uses will be from green sources. I guess the issue has been blown out of
proportion in the media.
Thanks for the replies.

[Zin-Zang]

My concern was high energy consumption with smaller rewards and the POS
mining getting popular but with all the comments here its clear that energy
is not going to be a concern in bitcoins future. As in general terms energy
generation is moving slowly away from fossil to renewable the energy bitcoin
uses will be from green sources. I guess the issue has been blown out of
proportion in the media.
Thanks for the replies.

The comments here ignoring the insane energy waste by bitcoin, well lets just say are naive instead of a harsher word.

I think you fail to understand the major problem.

Bitcoin problem is the fact that it's Energy Wasting is Growing Exponentially!


https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-12-20/bitcoins-sky-rocketing-energy-use-viral-story-we-checked-math

Eric Holthaus wrote for Grist that “by July 2019, the bitcoin network will require more electricity than the entire United States currently uses.
 By February 2020, it will use as much electricity as the entire world does today.”

The Modern Fiat system of Banks and visa card payment do use electricity ,
but it has taken decades to reach it's current energy footprint and its growth rate is Not Exponential,
Never have we heard of a bank being refused permission to operate because they used so much electricity they increase the rates for everyone else.

In Crypto , we already have coins that don't use proof of work and have more transactions capacity than bitcoin and their energy consumption is so small, it won't even be noticed.

Trying to cover up a major bitcoin problem by saying well just because Bitcoin is destroying the planet , but the other guy is worse , is pure bullshit.

When your parents or grandparent or friends can't afford to heat or cool their homes because the bitcoin miner down the road is raising their electric rates.
Then you realize all that money bitcoin is worth is coming at the direct expense of the poor and elderly.

[wantjokull]

PoS is not as good as you think, there are better algorithms out there. and just because some altcoin is talking about switching to it, that  doesn't mean it is good. you have to see what their reasons are for making such a switch. and in case of ethereum is for a bigger control and a lot more earning since they are already controlling at least 70% of the supply.

Its true. First of all there shouldn't be any comparison between the BTC and ETH or basically any altcoin against the BTC should not be compared as that means nothing in realty. All of them have their own work models and development strategies. Right from the use to the operations everything differs basically. So for us it shouldn't matter that ETH going PoS means something big step which can take down the BTC. Most of the crowd here doesn't even understand that and they just make investment for getting money, they will do it into the coin from which they are getting the most, whether it is BTC or ETH.



Edit : People hardly care about the energy consumption here. Just they way they never cared about their fuel consumptions since last thousand years may be. 

[Pursuer]

My concern was high energy consumption with smaller rewards and the POS
mining getting popular but with all the comments here its clear that energy
is not going to be a concern in bitcoins future. As in general terms energy
generation is moving slowly away from fossil to renewable the energy bitcoin
uses will be from green sources. I guess the issue has been blown out of
proportion in the media.
Thanks for the replies.

it is not always about the energy source you can also reduce the usage of energy aka power consumption of the equipment by improving them.
and I do believe that in near future, maybe 2-3 years we will see much better ASIC machines that are a lot more efficient so that they consume less energy and produce a higher hash rate. it is starting now with other big companies entering mining space. I have even heard NVidia make some comments. there are Japanese also working on new ASICs. with competition entering the market things will always improve.