Bitcoin uses too much energy?

[jamesblue1]

This is alarming ,it may not be that dangerous because we can't see the larger picture of the situation. Energy consumption in this year is continuing to rise up regardless of the price of BTC. 0.5% of world ENERGY is expected to be consume only by bitcoin. But the ideology of many people is "it is worth it as long as we get profit out of it" Yes it is correct that we get money out of it, but, will the environment be in danger for these? Well, Bitcoin mining can double a country’s electricity consumption and putting pressure on its infrastructure.

But how do we limit the damage to environment while still earning money?
-limit the impact of such energy consumption
There should be restrictions of using so much power on these mining equipment to every country to avoid energy shortage

[1715472077]

1715472077

[1715472077]

1715472077

[1715472077]

1715472077

[Juggy777]

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xmvbq/bitcoin-energy-science-world-electricity-demand

Now Motherboard is not the best source for news, but let's consider the implications of this...

Consuming immense amounts of energy is actually somewhat counterproductive if we consider the vision of Bitcoin giving us tools for independence. And it's somewhat unethical because we should not be using more than we need on this earth.

However, we don't really know how much energy it is consuming at this stage, so this could just be another reporter trying to find a story.

Hey there is no way to determine that Bitcoins is consuming a huge amount of electricity, for all I know this is another attempt by the media to deter bitcoin miners. They're playing psychological game with their minds, and are you telling me that Banks do not consume more energy, if it's put to test I'll wager you to the fact that banks are consuming more energy than bitcoins. Also the article mentions energy used is equivalent to 9 millions Austrians using it, this is absurd as all miners are mining from different operations, there's not even one ounce of merit in this story.

[Harlot]

This is alarming ,it may not be that dangerous because we can't see the larger picture of the situation. Energy consumption in this year is continuing to rise up regardless of the price of BTC. 0.5% of world ENERGY is expected to be consume only by bitcoin. But the ideology of many people is "it is worth it as long as we get profit out of it" Yes it is correct that we get money out of it, but, will the environment be in danger for these? Well, Bitcoin mining can double a country’s electricity consumption and putting pressure on its infrastructure.

.5% is really not that big they just compared it to the whole power needs of Austria to make it look bigger or much more important, but if you look at other power hungry things such as factories of multinational corporations or fleets of cars they have you know that they are consuming more just to earn billions, compared to individual miners who some of them just wants to get out from poverty. The article is really targeting a minor group compared to what is really depleting our resources, which of course is the top 1% of the Earth.

[Dukjila]

By consuming energy to produce and maintain Bitcoin, one can not judge its quality, it is a cost price, but rather vice versa, if Bitcoin is a popular crypto currency, this is justified, as well as the production of any branded gadget or space rocket.

[KonstantinosM]

Andreas Antonopoulos has talked on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T0OUIW89II


I want to add that if you were going to heat a space anyway, bitcoin miners are more efficient at that than most heating systems.

If we relied on crypto rather than banks and central currencies we'd polute a lot less. Think of the money trucks that go into every supermarket and bank and all the other businesses. Think of the commute to work of these people and of the bankers and of the bank tellers.

Think of all the carbon those magnificent huge bank buildings have released.

It's also relatively easy for a big mining farm to go solar or wind.


Then there is the electricity used in making the fiat currencies themselves. Many of which inflate like crazy. How much pollution did making a (now worthless) wheelbarrow of cash in Zimbabwe cause?

Probably a lot more than the mining equivalent per value of money.

[dohh]

No matter how much energy is used for Bitcoin miners, the electricity bill will still be paid by the miners to the state, and there is nothing wrong with this. this news is really exaggerated by some people, because if compared to factories, Bitcoin mining is not comparable, factories use more energy but people never realize that, I think some people want to make Bitcoin look bad.

You are dead wrong. It does matter a lot. Doesnt matter, who pays it - in production cost is too high, its pointless to produce it (once pump&dump is over) and it will be abandoned.

[pebakova]

If we assume that the entire Internet spends 2 % of the world's pool, bitcoin has a little bit but in the future I heard that it will spend energy as a whole country.

[jjacob]

No matter how much energy is used for Bitcoin miners, the electricity bill will still be paid by the miners to the state, and there is nothing wrong with this. this news is really exaggerated by some people, because if compared to factories, Bitcoin mining is not comparable, factories use more energy but people never realize that, I think some people want to make Bitcoin look bad.

You are dead wrong. It does matter a lot. Doesnt matter, who pays it - in production cost is too high, its pointless to produce it (once pump&dump is over) and it will be abandoned.

If the price decreases, it won't become pointless to mine. All miners have a different cost base. Miners whose cost of electricity is very high will stop mining. The difficulty of finding blocks will adjust (decrease) and life will go on. Variations in price will definitely not decide the future of Bitcoin as a currency and as a network.

[mmo4me.2016]

Bitcoin and altcoin are using a large amount of power to maintain their own network, This increase will greatly affect the value and volatility of Crypto!

[MarioV]

The use of all that energy is what gives value to the bitcoin, if it were not its Proof Of Work, what would actually be bitcoin? Nothingness.

[dohh]

No matter how much energy is used for Bitcoin miners, the electricity bill will still be paid by the miners to the state, and there is nothing wrong with this. this news is really exaggerated by some people, because if compared to factories, Bitcoin mining is not comparable, factories use more energy but people never realize that, I think some people want to make Bitcoin look bad.

You are dead wrong. It does matter a lot. Doesnt matter, who pays it - in production cost is too high, its pointless to produce it (once pump&dump is over) and it will be abandoned.

If the price decreases, it won't become pointless to mine. All miners have a different cost base. Miners whose cost of electricity is very high will stop mining. The difficulty of finding blocks will adjust (decrease) and life will go on. Variations in price will definitely not decide the future of Bitcoin as a currency and as a network.

You dont get it, because You think in short term. Halvening lessens reason to do mining exponentially. After 2 halvenings from now on, mining would become pointless EVERYWHERE in world. They also cant hide the cost of mining into transaction fees any further, which are already about 5 times higher, than average stock exchange rates.

By the way: if BTC really became a money, it would happen even faster. But dont worry, it wont... so You from technical point of view You have few years of pump and dumping left. I doubt it goes for economical point of view too tho.

[KonstantinosM]

No matter how much energy is used for Bitcoin miners, the electricity bill will still be paid by the miners to the state, and there is nothing wrong with this. this news is really exaggerated by some people, because if compared to factories, Bitcoin mining is not comparable, factories use more energy but people never realize that, I think some people want to make Bitcoin look bad.

You are dead wrong. It does matter a lot. Doesnt matter, who pays it - in production cost is too high, its pointless to produce it (once pump&dump is over) and it will be abandoned.

If the price decreases, it won't become pointless to mine. All miners have a different cost base. Miners whose cost of electricity is very high will stop mining. The difficulty of finding blocks will adjust (decrease) and life will go on. Variations in price will definitely not decide the future of Bitcoin as a currency and as a network.

You dont get it, because You think in short term. Halvening lessens reason to do mining exponentially. After 2 halvenings from now on, mining would become pointless EVERYWHERE in world. They also cant hide the cost of mining into transaction fees any further, which are already about 5 times higher, than average stock exchange rates.

By the way: if BTC really became a money, it would happen even faster. But dont worry, it wont... so You from technical point of view You have few years of pump and dumping left. I doubt it goes for economical point of view too tho.

Well, none of you are quite right.


While it matters how much electricity is used, bitcoin is a net positive for our electrical grid, using energy that would largely be wasted.

If the electricity is produced by conventional and dirty means (coal and gas fired plants, nuclear) then we're always overproducing (because we can't just open up a half factory, and we always have to overbuild for population and energy usage growth)

The electricity will most likely be generated anyway, so we might as well use it.

If a lot of people start using a lot of electricity, prices are going to go up, bitcoin mining farms are not essential so they will shut off and people around the world, with cheap electricity are going to ramp up their hashrate.



If the electricity is green, bitcoin is actually subsidizing green energy (an argument Andreas Antonopoulos has made). The infrastructure to either store or transport the electricity away is usually beyond the budget of alternative energy.

The solar panel is going to produce anyway, whether you can store it or transfer it away or not. And if you can't store it or sell it, bitcoin gives you another option to make money with it.


This also applies to homeowners who aren't allowed to sell their electricity.


Therefore bitcoin subsidizes green electricity.

As Andreas Antonopoulos put it "So you're telling me we've been running a green-coin all along?"



Finally there are plenty of reasons to mine after the mining reward from new coins falls to practically 0, the mining fees and also just to keep the network secure. We are all stakeholders after all.

The less mining pools, the more you get out of those transaction fees. If bitcoin becomes huge, the reward may be even bigger than it now is (in terms of real world value rather than bitcoin (purchase power)).

[dohh]

No matter how much energy is used for Bitcoin miners, the electricity bill will still be paid by the miners to the state, and there is nothing wrong with this. this news is really exaggerated by some people, because if compared to factories, Bitcoin mining is not comparable, factories use more energy but people never realize that, I think some people want to make Bitcoin look bad.

You are dead wrong. It does matter a lot. Doesnt matter, who pays it - in production cost is too high, its pointless to produce it (once pump&dump is over) and it will be abandoned.

If the price decreases, it won't become pointless to mine. All miners have a different cost base. Miners whose cost of electricity is very high will stop mining. The difficulty of finding blocks will adjust (decrease) and life will go on. Variations in price will definitely not decide the future of Bitcoin as a currency and as a network.

You dont get it, because You think in short term. Halvening lessens reason to do mining exponentially. After 2 halvenings from now on, mining would become pointless EVERYWHERE in world. They also cant hide the cost of mining into transaction fees any further, which are already about 5 times higher, than average stock exchange rates.

By the way: if BTC really became a money, it would happen even faster. But dont worry, it wont... so You from technical point of view You have few years of pump and dumping left. I doubt it goes for economical point of view too tho.

Well, none of you are quite right.


While it matters how much electricity is used, bitcoin is a net positive for our electrical grid, using energy that would largely be wasted.

If the electricity is produced by conventional and dirty means (coal and gas fired plants, nuclear) then we're always overproducing (because we can't just open up a half factory, and we always have to overbuild for population and energy usage growth)

The electricity will most likely be generated anyway, so we might as well use it.

If a lot of people start using a lot of electricity, prices are going to go up, bitcoin mining farms are not essential so they will shut off and people around the world, with cheap electricity are going to ramp up their hashrate.



If the electricity is green, bitcoin is actually subsidizing green energy (an argument Andreas Antonopoulos has made). The infrastructure to either store or transport the electricity away is usually beyond the budget of alternative energy.

The solar panel is going to produce anyway, whether you can store it or transfer it away or not. And if you can't store it or sell it, bitcoin gives you another option to make money with it.


This also applies to homeowners who aren't allowed to sell their electricity.


Therefore bitcoin subsidizes green electricity.

As Andreas Antonopoulos put it "So you're telling me we've been running a green-coin all along?"



Finally there are plenty of reasons to mine after the mining reward from new coins falls to practically 0, the mining fees and also just to keep the network secure. We are all stakeholders after all.

The less mining pools, the more you get out of those transaction fees. If bitcoin becomes huge, the reward may be even bigger than it now is (in terms of real world value rather than bitcoin (purchase power)).

This is just epic. You call me of being wrong and then You come with an argument like these?

So what You say is, just because energy is produced in surplus, miners should buy it in negative ROI?

Transaction fees doesnt make any sense either, these are already MUCH higher than those of stock exchange. You are a stakeholder of a big empty promise.

[IndependentWild87]

Yes it is right that bitcoin  uses many energy but it is also right that bitcoin produces many benefits will is more valuable than the energy and we shouldn't overlook it.

[arienna23]

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xmvbq/bitcoin-energy-science-world-electricity-demand

Now Motherboard is not the best source for news, but let's consider the implications of this...

Consuming immense amounts of energy is actually somewhat counterproductive if we consider the vision of Bitcoin giving us tools for independence. And it's somewhat unethical because we should not be using more than we need on this earth.

However, we don't really know how much energy it is consuming at this stage, so this could just be another reporter trying to find a story.

The energy that the bank transactions use are greater than  bitcoin mining. The sad reality is that you only see the bad side of it and not the benefits of using it. But we cannot blame you because that is what the mainstream media feeding all of us.

[mempko]

The energy challenge is an interesting problem. What's great about reality is that there are clear physical restrictions like the speed of light. Has any coin exploited the idea of using the speed of light to slow down computation so it uses less energy?

[nsasuiteb]

If we do not use the energy to mine bitcoin we still use it for another thing to make more money though, and as long it's profitable no matter how much energy it uses there will be no problem at all right?

That might be, I don't know if I agree with you but if the bitcoin is new form of money and will be such world currency then it really worths mining btc.

[davhek]

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xmvbq/bitcoin-energy-science-world-electricity-demand

Now Motherboard is not the best source for news, but let's consider the implications of this...

Consuming immense amounts of energy is actually somewhat counterproductive if we consider the vision of Bitcoin giving us tools for independence. And it's somewhat unethical because we should not be using more than we need on this earth.

However, we don't really know how much energy it is consuming at this stage, so this could just be another reporter trying to find a story.

This is simply stupid. As long there is more benefit then costs it does not use too much of it.
Here is a chart...

[AGD]

Mining gold wastes a lot energy and ressources. Yet we accept it.
The entire banking system needs huge amounts of energy. Yet we accept it.
People are wasting energy in a large scale. Still we accept it.

What is different when Bitcoin uses energy to support a decentralized network?

[muncuss]

For me, bitcoin is valuable because it is hard to obtain it. Those money we spend on expensive hardware and electricity is a backup of bitcoin value.
Then if bitcoin mining consumes more energy, isn't it will be more valuable?