Bitcoin & PoW is a waste of energy & destroys nature

[coinage]

At first this seems like a worrisome topic with no solution.

Expenses paid to secure the network, if unnecessary and unchecked, could raise bitcoin fees enough to let other currency designs overtake it.

However:

What happens long-term? Does the incentive for ever more mining gear wind up consuming all available electricity and all possible ASIC/quantum computing resources ?

Optimistically I think not.  Again, long-term:

> New clean energy sources (LENR, space-based solar, fusion, etc.) are likely to come on line, drastically cutting the cost of energy and the pollution load.

> Mining (if not redesigned) becomes ever more concentrated in several pools.

> Bitcoin price should eventually start to plateau, while mining rewards decrease. This raises the barrier to entry for new miners. No longer would mined coins increase in value so drastically: it may become permanently more cost effective to purchase coins than equipment.

> At that point, the remaining pools lose their incentive to keep growing. Art Forz (of GPU & FPRG mining fame) once commented (on IRC) that he discovered trying to control more than about 1/3 of the network leads to a situation in which one is essentially competing against oneself (diminishing returns are realized for additional investment).

[BlockChainLottery]

We humans exist in and are a part of nature.  Everything we do is governed by the laws of nature and is by definition natural.  We could no more destroy nature than a javascript app could kill javascript.

I think you are equating nature with pre-existing conditions.  Anyway, your argument doesn't interest me.  If you have a better way of building a cryptocurrency, just go do it.

It is insane to waste energy on mining bitcoin in the age of peak oil where greedy energy companies destroy nature for profit.

And only a king can destroy a monarchy? Of course not.

[Palmdetroit]

Bitcoin production is actually cheaper then printing fiat and moving that around, etc, so in this case it is superior. (energy efficient compared to fiat)

PoS even more so. Both are improvements over 'the old' system from a green perspective, and you should have both.

[Lauda]

Everytime you mine a satoshi, a baby polar bear drowns  

I'm not the one who is building coal and nuclear plants just because they generate more $/energy than solar and wind.

Their blood is on your hands.

Besides, if the US would massively employ wind/solar (80%) instead of nuclear/coal electricity would be so costly cryptos, at the very least, wouldn't exist.

It is only costly because they spend a ton of money in weapons instead of researching the solar cell efficiency (25+% now - 29.4% max on crystalline silicon devices).

[virtualmaster]

It is insane to waste energy on mining bitcoin in the age of peak oil where greedy energy companies destroy nature for profit.
Right now all bitcoin miners consume the amount of the energy produced by an average US nuclear power plant (30 million KwH/day), or the total oil production of Phillipines (12,000 barrels of oil per day)

The mining of bitcoin uses PoW (Proof of Work) to secure the network, which leads to an exponential growth of energy spent on mining.
All miners compete against each other and must increase mining power (energy usage) to increase their chance of being rewarded in the mining process.

But there are other models to secure a crypto currency without the need to waste energy: The security model of PoS (Proof of Stake) relies instead of the ownership of coins.
The reason is simple: the more coins you own, the less is the risk that you wish to damage the coin for short term profit, since you would lose the value of your current holdings.

So I hope Bitcoin evolves and starts to use PoS, or similar methods to save energy and save the nature.

Namecoin is the most energy-efficient cryptocurrency because it is reusing 99% of Bitcoin's hash-power with the most reliable POW.
POS is unfortunately not as safe as POW because they rely mostly on the centralized checkpoints.

[Brunic]

I feel so bad about wasting renewable energy  

Please, make me cry more.

[salsacz]

Nxt is the only PoS coin that doesn't use centralized checkpoints

[Lauda]

Nxt is the only PoS coin that doesn't use centralized checkpoints

NxT is bad, go away, into the altcoin section.

[virtualmaster]

NXT is premined.

[salsacz]

cryptocurrencies don't need mining

[Adrian-x]

cryptocurrencies don't need mining

no they need to be distributed in a meaner that is not disruptive the economy as a whole without giving favor to any one group.

mining just happens to be one of the keys that makes this cryptocurrency thing viable.

[salsacz]

it favors the geek tech guys

[bocobit]

I'm studying Environmental Engineering with a few semesters left and I'm enamored by bitcoin. love it.  I also believe that it's not wrong to study and question the growth of mining and the power consumption of the network.  It's easy to jump to conclusions like the op (whatever his motivations are) but the bigger picture of power consumption and where it's going takes some serious study because of all the factors that are involved.

It would be great if bitcoin was able to not only displace currencies world wide but also do it using renewable energy. That being said, bitcoin is the central bank killer.  It also challenges too big to fail banks.  Oil companies and too big to fail banks are dependent on each other because oil, natural gas, coal extraction is extremely capital intensive.  These banks give the oil companies HUGE loans and expect to get a return on that money.  

I participate in the bitcoin economy for a few reasons, one of which is its a way around giving consent to Wall Street's and big oil profiteering.  The more I spend on goods with bitcoin, the less I use USD. However small of an impact this has, I feel like its a start.


 
"Let me issue and control a Nation's money and I care not who makes its laws".

-Amsel Bauer Mayer Rothschild, 1838

[thedarklight]

OP is idiotic.

The current financial system uses around 10,000 times more energy then bitcoin.  

Think about how much oil you burn when you have brinks trucks driving around to fill up ATMs and move cash around.

Switching to Bitcoin would save the environment.

and Bitcoin uses around 3,000 times more energy then Nxt. That is what OP wanted to say

And Solarcoin is more efficient than Nxt.

Bitcoin wastes electricity in it's process while Solarcoin generates electricity in it's process. Asics are also terrible because it results in centralization which makes mining a losing activity for most of the people doing it.

Compare it to Bitcoin or Nxt https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=429119.0

[smoothie]

so is cutting down trees, making paper, and stamping them with dead presidents.


Also having computers and databases keeping tabs on "DIGITS" in system on how much "MONEY" a person has or doesn't etc.

Pretty wasteful having an oversize government and military to "BACK" the US dollar.

Bitcoin is much more efficient in terms of cost than any FIAT currency in existence.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Useless holywar thread. Better plant a tree instead of burning electricity on posting there. PoW is an obsolete technology, nuff said.

[virtualmaster]

And Solarcoin is more efficient than Nxt.

That is possible.
But it is still wasting more energy then Bitcoin because is scrypt based and all scrypt based currencies are using much more energy then ASIC-coins by the same security level.

SolarCoin is a Scrypt based alternative digital currency decendant of LiteCoin.

from https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=429119.0
Namecoin is protecting freedom, privacy and environment in the best possible way.

[grifferz]

"recicling"? "adwanced"?

I wouldn't normally call out the spelling abilities of someone who is probably not a native English speaker, but this appears to be some sort of product that you are peddling, so you really need to get it right.

[Adrian-x]

hey i figured out the secret.  PoW and PoS are *EXACTLY* the same.  in fact they both use cgminer.
so drown on all you want.  they are EXACTLY THE SAME>  in SHAPE AND FORM.

Look into NXT a little more I think you are confusing PoS with script.

[franky1]

it has been calculated that las vegas, with all its bright lights and stuff uses more electricity then bitcoin.... and all they trade is plastic tokens that can be replicated.

it has been calculated that new york financial district uses more electric then bitcoin... and all they trade is paper IOU's that can be reprinted.

... need i say anymore?