Elon Musk calls crypto “quite energy intensive”

[franky1]

A clear picture on the electricity consumption of bitcoin to maintain the network is provided in the article.

a false picture on the electricity consumption of bitcoin is provided in the article

ok.. some maths.(same math as infographic. but basing it on more logical/acceptable ASICS of the period)
hashrates peaked at around 60exa in 2018
in 2018 s9's were the main ASIC

60,000,000thash / 14thash = 4,285,714 asics
at 1.3kwh=5,571,428kwh

*24*365=48,805,709,280kwh a year
=48.8Twh a year.. not 70

and thats a number doing like the article done by assuming to *24*365
foolish thing with he 70twh and the 48twh is that its a dumb multiple
the network did not actually USE 70, nor 48
as that just wrongly suggesting when the hashrate got to 60exa. it had always been using 60exa 24 hours a day 365 a year

so lets take the daily hashrates and get the daily energy consumption,, then add up each day. instead of just multiplying a peak time by 365
1st october 2017-1st october2018 (oct18 being the peak electric utility): 22.656twh actually used for the year
1st january 2019-1st january 2019(full 2018 year): 29.592twh used for the year

anyway. it takes more  to power all the refrigerators to keep bottles of pepsi chilled around the world, than it does to scure bitcoin.

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[qwertyup23]

That is the reason on why ethical considerations regarding environmental concerns are starting to rise due to the by-product of mining- which is pollution and energy. Maybe another alternative is to find techniques to introduce 'energy saving methods' by considering the geographical location or by considering the use of renewable energy.

A clear picture on the electricity consumption of bitcoin to maintain the network is provided in the article. Elon musk being a legendary person who has shifted from fueled engines to electric car production to reduce pollution and increase the efficiency has got known better about the value of electricity. When his thinks an alternate to fuel to ignite the car, same is possible with bitcoin as well. Continued search for it will give way for decreasing power consumption on running the network. If electricity consumption and the pollution generated through bitcoin network is to cause global warming, tesla products too isn't exceptional. Because higher percentage of pollution happens while making a lithium ion battery. Maybe it's a one time process, but this too is contributing.

I think he is already thinking of alternatives about shifting the consumption of electricity by inculcating their design used on Tesla. Mining definitely uses huge consumption of energy and it is starting to cause pollution in some locations. Given its popularity steadily increasing, I see this as a problem when not addressed in the future.

[Monetran]

“One of the downsides of crypto is it's quite energy intensive,” said Musk.

It's a shame that such a smart guy could make such an ignorant statement.

Now, if he had said “One of the downsides of crypto mining is it's quite energy intensive,” he would have been spot on.

Unfortunately, Musk probably has no idea that consensus methods that don't require mining - like Stellar's federated Byzantine agreement - even exist.

Perhaps he should stick to worrying about how much energy his cars use and leave the energy requirements of cryptographic transactions to others.

[mu_enrico]

He mentioned that one of the biggest downsides is the energy consumption. “One of the downsides of crypto is it's quite energy intensive,” said Musk.

But POW cryptocurrencies are also work intensive, so?
And with ASIC we could argue that the energy to work conversion is considered efficient, not like any of his e-car products.

[Kakmakr]

Someone should really send him this, https://hackernoon.com/the-reports-of-bitcoin-environmental-damage-are-garbage-5a93d32c2d7

Elon Musk should actually embrace this technology, because it is one way for him to actually push for more sales of his "Power Wall" technology. Imagine if people could utilize cheaper electricity for mining with the "Power Wall" technology, then he would be selling more of those products. 

When people realize the truth behind Bitcoin mining and how energy efficient the technology is, then they are not brainwashed by uniformed shills that are pushing hidden agendas with FUD like Bitcoin being energy intensive. 

[Bitcoindigger02]

We also know that POW has a lot of problems in the waste of computing resources. At the same time, it should be too demanding for the calculation of mining machines. So the algorithm we are going to talk about today, called POS, may be familiar to many people. His full name is Proof of Stake. In translation, it is actually called stock certification. What does this mean? Simple. In fact, if you deposit your assets in the bank, you will get the corresponding interest every month. In the digital world of block chain, that is to say, the time you deposit your digital currency and the time you deposit it in the digital currency will determine the interest you receive.

[bitfocus]

hahaha, musk is building Electric Cars, lol

[tunapa]

It’s really energy intensive which is because of the way it’s built. This is one what important factor that every miner must consider and take note as it cuts across all cryptocurrency. Also it’s a major factor that keeps many people from going into mining because it requires a lot of funds to maintain. But it’s good to know that there are other projects that requires more energy usage than crypto like money printing. If we look very into this , we will see that cryptocurrencies are really the future for any good project that survives.

[aoluain]

we all know that energy consumption through fossil fuels has
to be drastically reduced in order to meet some targets to keep
the planet from warming by something like 1 or 2 degrees over
the next number of years but Bitcoin is just a very, very small
part of the story.

As franky1 eludes to the idea of stopping drinking soft drinks from
refrigerators we should if we listen to the experts stop flying,
stop driving petrol/diesel cars, stop farming meat, stop mining, stop
producing plastics, stop owning pets the truth is we cannot regress
as a society. Commercialism and capitalism still wants to continue,
industry still wants to make money, everyone wants to make money.

The challenge is big but it has to be acted on by everyone.

[Autumn_Rain]

But it's only a PoW consensus which is energy consuming, isn't it?

[suzanne5223]

Mining is not limited to bitcoin only so I would rather say, crypto mining can be seen as energy intensive. However, it sounds true when you don't have benchmark to compare with. But if you compare the energy consumption of minting presses with cryptos, it would look so tiny that you would not think much about it in the future.

I would encourage you to read the below article which provides a very good overview of this matter and it shows that global money printing presses consume energy worth 28 billion usd annually whereas bitcoin consumes 0.79 billion usd. It's 2.8% of global money printing consumption. Does it look so big now??

Although, i dont know the worth of global money printing energy consumption but we can't blame Elon Musk because most people believe believe Bitcoin consume enormous amounts of electricity and with my own research the total energy consumption of Bitcoin mining per annum was US$ 0.76billion.

[Artemis3]

Someone should really send him this, https://hackernoon.com/the-reports-of-bitcoin-environmental-damage-are-garbage-5a93d32c2d7

Elon Musk should actually embrace this technology, because it is one way for him to actually push for more sales of his "Power Wall" technology. Imagine if people could utilize cheaper electricity for mining with the "Power Wall" technology, then he would be selling more of those products.  

When people realize the truth behind Bitcoin mining and how energy efficient the technology is, then they are not brainwashed by uniformed shills that are pushing hidden agendas with FUD like Bitcoin being energy intensive.  

Actually Tesla (which Acquired Solarcity) can provide the very panels, and if you want to use Li-ion batteries to store power you can combine it with the powerwall as well.

They have projects that power entire islands and could easily provide the means for miners which just like small countries are just another customer.

Elon doesn't really need to worry, because in time the only miners that remain will be those with "free" (ie. Solar) energy. Everyday mining becomes less and less profitable until there are no countries left on Earth where its profitable to do it on the grid. Then you will observe an important reduction in hashrate, but that doesn't matter because Bitcoin adjusts difficulty automatically (every 2016 blocks) so it always finds a block every 10 minutes no matter what.

This process has been delayed a few times by the rise of bitcoin price, but I foresee the mining will become less profitable faster than bitcoin deflationary process. And that is GOOD, Bitcoin already IS environmentally friendly, thanks to free market.

Those miners unable to see ahead will stop mining, and that is fine. Bitcoin will go on.

[dothebeats]

If a visionary like Elon Musk, who provides clean energy for a lot of residence and commercial spaces, actually built something that the miners might utilize, this wouldn't be a problem. Perhaps it could even be a huge market for him and his companies, considering that there are already a lot of miners operating worldwide who are already complaining about profitability declination since the bear market began. Needless to say, this is not a serious matter, and most reports of bitcoin's 'environmental damage' are exaggerated, and can easily be found a solution if we really want to.

[squatter]

“One of the downsides of crypto is it's quite energy intensive,” said Musk.

It's a shame that such a smart guy could make such an ignorant statement.

Now, if he had said “One of the downsides of crypto mining is it's quite energy intensive,” he would have been spot on.

Unfortunately, Musk probably has no idea that consensus methods that don't require mining - like Stellar's federated Byzantine agreement - even exist.

I'm sure he's not ignorant of alternative consensus methods. There just don't exist any yet that can come close to providing the security that proof-of-work does.

Federated consensus may have uses but it doesn't solve the Byzantine Generals' Problem and it requires a lot of trust. The point of Bitcoin was to eliminate trust, not to trust an elite group of validators to do the right thing.

[solarcrypto]

It is energy intensive. Just thinking out loud, but I feel this could open the door for Tesla to be involved with sustainable mining.

[rosmerius]

They only see that bitcoin does need a lot of electricity, even though many other mines use electricity. The global money printing machine also uses electricity but this is not what he thinks. That is his opinion, what is certain is that electrical energy itself provides an opportunity for us to continue to be able to appreciate ourselves in order to mine and produce.

[figmentofmyass]

But it's only a PoW consensus which is energy consuming, isn't it?

Correct, algorithms such as Proof of Stake are Energy Efficient.  

While PoW is energy wasted. But the bitcoin shrills will never admit it.
They confuse waste with security.  

cost is related to security, not waste.

proof of work achieves security through incentive because it costs more to attack the system than to mine honestly. therefore it's only rational to mine honestly.

with proof of stake, it could be much more profitable to attack the system than to mint honestly. why? because there is zero cost for stakers to attack the chain. if they can make more money by double spending than by minting honestly, they'll do it.

[expertofexperts]

Then please ask Elon to buy btc worth billions so it can rise high and we can sell ours 

[Digitalbitcoin]

So he will invent a bitcoin mining rig that can be more energy efficient, hopefully yes.
Well, this is still a great thought from a great man, now bitcoin is being hype my bang big businesses and its time now to see a bull run. Let’s see who’s next in line to say good thoughts about bitcoin.

Yup. It's just beginning.

Will see many more entities with statements relate to Bitcoin and other altcoins in coming years, which will make little more favor and literacy about cryptocurrencies to the non-related audience, this will skyrocket the price of Bitcoin for sure. Blockchain technology implementation will make businesses more lucrative in many aspects.

And then the actual digital/token economy will be formed globally.

The world is on the way towards digital/token economy, which will change the complete traditional system of businesses. Along with Finance, decentralized technology will impact on may other industries such as logistic, real estate, health, governance, many corporate, private, and public sectors.

[Jating]

Here is a good read for everyone:

https://phys.org/news/2018-08-energy-bitcoin.html

Counting consumption

Unlocking a bitcoin requires an intense amount of computational power. Think of bitcoin as sort of a hidden currency code, where its value is derived by solving a programmable puzzle. Getting through this puzzle requires computer brainpower.

Electricity is 90 percent of the cost to mine bitcoin. As such, bitcoin mining uses an exorbitant amount of power: somewhere between an estimated 30 terrawatt hours alone in 2017 alone. That's as much electricity as it takes to power the entire nation of Ireland in one year.

Indeed, this is a lot, but not exorbitant. Banking consumes an estimated 100 terrawatts of power annually. If bitcoin technology were to mature by more than 100 times its current market size, it would still equal only 2 percent of all energy consumption.

So it pretty much says everything, banking consumes more energy, but why we haven't heard anyone attacking it? And pretty much the mining in China is being set up and coal is being used.