Let's make mining sustainable

[Nadziratel]

Hey
We all know how the year had been , unfortunately we have seen worst case of bush fire in Amazon , in Australia , environment is changing drastically , not so long enough we used to have snow here and now it's already January , no sign of snow ...
In certain places where it was supposed to be winter , it's raining there tremendously and it's something that am seeing from my own eyes.
I think this 2020 we should focus on reducing the carbon footprint of bitcoins , reduce the energy minning takes ND the pollution it generates .
Hopefully the community will come forward and the creators will also look out for this .
If you are in the IT sector please spare some time and brains for this problem and try finding a way out .

P.S. people please understand that I do not mean they cause bush fires !! It's all about environment change

Something everyone would want. But I don't think it's easily achievable. For this to happen, we must first experience an extraordinary improvement in mining equipment. ASICs, GPUs ... Better and less energy consuming. But more importantly, more people are supporting Bitcoin.
This has nothing to do with the bushfire in Australia. But of course it would be great to protect nature.

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[carlzec]

GPU prices are very expensive. When Bitcoin or Ethereum mining is popular, hardware prices rise immediately. If there isn't any difficulty, there will be loss of value. Gold is very difficult to reach and very costly, even if there is plenty of similar thing available in it.

[Artemis3]

You are only watching the last leg, until it becomes unprofitable to mine at any electricity price.

If that becomes the case, then bitcoin's future existence is at risk. Even once the block reward is zero, we still need miners to be operating and sustained by transaction fees, or else the hashrate falls to zero, no new blocks are found, and therefore transactions aren't possible. Of course, that would never happen because the difficulty would readjust and so it would again become profitable to mine with less powerful hardware using less electricity.

I also think that Mining for Bitcoin will not last long it has an end after the last block had been mine all mining procedures will also come to a halt

There is no "last block", or at least if there is, it's because bitcoin is no more.

Last block no, last coin yes.

You say (now) its at risk, but this has always been Bitcoin's design. Take a look at some of the altcoins that people don't care mining anymore, then you can have an educated guess to what will happen.

Fact is Bitcoin miners will greatly diminish, but not disappear. It might go back to what it used to be in the first few years, this time only people that want to do it out of their own pocket. If you think (now) that this is a mistake, you never learned Bitcoin's design.

Since the beginning, Bitcoin (network) doesn't care if 10 or a million miners exist. The blockchain is still safe, and the nodes work and ensure things for everyone. And yes, expect the number of nodes to be higher than the number of miners, when it becomes completely unprofitable to mine in the future.

If you have free electricity, for example because you invested in renewable generation, it would be technically profitable, or perhaps if there is some market for the so called "virgin" coins, which are rapidly diminishing in production.

After 10 years you never saw this coming? What have you been doing? This is NOT a problem, it is doing as intended. Less miners do NOT put Bitcoin at risk, and there is never going to be a complete stop in mining, there is always enthusiasts that don't care.

Now you might remember Cannan's idea of putting asic miners inside household appliances, this is probably something that will be revisited. Canaan simply acted a bit too soon, but Asic miners inside TVs, Wifi routers or even simple heat spreaders will cater to these people, that will want to keep Bitcoin's network running, or the merchants that have already embrace it and are running nodes too.

The hashrate will reduce, but not as much as you think. Because the more efficient asics compensate the situation. However, later it won't be that profitable to manufacture those asics, and much less devote so much money in r&d to improve them as much as with the market in 2016. Even Bitmain will have to reconsider their core business if they want to remain around.

This could take the next halving or two, but it is coming, like it or not. The theory is that at the end Bitcoin transaction fee provide the incentive, i guess so but LN threatens those fees to be negligible anyway so it will be mostly enthusiasts many in from this forum (i expect the large Chinese, etc. miners to leave).

[o_e_l_e_o]

Fact is Bitcoin miners will greatly diminish, but not disappear.

This is the point I was making. If mining is unprofitable and miners leave, then the difficulty readjusts until mining again becomes profitable.

The only point I was disagreeing on was that I don't think we will reach a point where mining is unprofitable at any electricity price. Blocks currently have fees of somewhere around 0.02 - 0.2 BTC, meaning in about 20 years' time we are going to hit the crossover point between fees and block reward (provided these fees stay constant, which is a big assumption to make on a 20 year timeline). What will the price per coin be in 20 years? How popular will bitcoin be? How many on-chain and off-chain transactions will there be? There are too many unknowns to make a reasonable prediction. But given that the world is moving towards electricity which is free to produce after the initial set up cost, I struggle to see a future where both bitcoin is successful but mining is unprofitable.

Since the beginning, Bitcoin (network) doesn't care if 10 or a million miners exist. The blockchain is still safe, and the nodes work and ensure things for everyone.

Sure, but the lower the hashrate the higher the risk of a 51% attack. The network maybe doesn't care if there are only 10 miners, but the users certainly will.

and there is never going to be a complete stop in mining

Again, this is the point I was making. Perhaps I didn't express myself clearly enough in my previous post.

The theory is that at the end Bitcoin transaction fee provide the incentive, i guess so but LN threatens those fees to be negligible anyway so it will be mostly enthusiasts many in from this forum (i expect the large Chinese, etc. miners to leave).

See above. If in the future LN takes the majority of transactions off-chain and makes transaction fees per block negligible, and the block reward has halved enough to also be small enough so that mining truly is unprofitable and is only done by a small number of enthusiasts, then what protects us from one of the large mining companies booting up all their ASICs again and 51% attacking the network?

[hatshepsut93]

See above. If in the future LN takes the majority of transactions off-chain and makes transaction fees per block negligible, and the block reward has halved enough to also be small enough so that mining truly is unprofitable and is only done by a small number of enthusiasts, then what protects us from one of the large mining companies booting up all their ASICs again and 51% attacking the network?

I really doubt LN transactions will fully replace onchain transactions, since onchain transactions will always be viewed as more secure and simple. If Bitcoin in general will be popular enough, mining will be sustained with onchain fees, but in case it won't, we'll have no choice but to introduce inflation.

[AmoreJaz]

Too much electricity is consumed to produce Bitcoin. I agree with this situation. But is the production of other swap vehicles very cheap? Bitcoin is a result of the current economy. The economic impasse led people to Bitcoin. A solution based on solar energy will be developed.

this is the reason why using renewable energy sources is one of the best solutions to attack this situation. solar or wind energy for those areas that have plenty of it. and fortunately, a lot of areas can offer this source of energy. around the globe, you can use both of these sources.
but unfortunately, those blockchain projects that were introduced to explore solar energy seemed not to prosper with their objectives.  but if you are a solo miner, you can start by investing on solar panels or combi of wind turbines and solar panels. this combi is getting cheap already. and in the long run, you can earn a decent profit out of it...

[dimastegar]

In certain places where it was supposed to be winter , it's raining there tremendously and it's something that am seeing from my own eyes.
I think this 2020 we should focus on reducing the carbon footprint of bitcoins , reduce the energy minning takes ND the pollution it generates .

I think mining activities will continue even if there is a great forest fire. We know that Bitcoin has several large mines, but all of that is electric power which I feel will have very little pollution.
The biggest pollution at this time is still caused by transportation activities. Therefore sometimes it would be wise if we reduce the use of transportation in our daily activities.
For example by moving from gasoline-powered transportation to electricity-powered transportation. All to reduce dirty exhaust emissions. Start with yourself first.

[diahsw]

if it really affects nature, then it must be done, we must move together to prevent greater disasters from happening, I think it's our job, not just the work of people who mine bitcoin .. !!

[Rengga Jati]

I think mining activities have been greatly reduced since 2018. So this should not be the main issue about the cause of the problem. And besides, why does it have to be Bitcoin? Though not only bitcoin can be mined.
And one more thing, maybe you say that you don't blame BTC for the problem. However, you only underline the carbon footprint of BTC.

When in fact the most basic problem is not this, but more complex. In fact, it was not a forest fire but the burning of the forest by an irresponsible person. For the sake of what? The fire was carried out for the sake of widening their business.

[Getmon]

I think there have already been several steps taken to promote green energy as compared to the use of traditional non-renewable energy. Mining must have also taken steps albeit little by little to start converting into the renewable energy utilization. And others, I only know ETH to be exact, are also shifting to PoS. That must be saving a lot of future emission.

[Wysi]

Currently, mining is not profitable in most of the countries except few regions where electricity is cheap and anyway most of the miners have stopped it due to huge loss incurred and I am one of them as we had set up a small mining farm with around 60 GPU but ended up with huge loss which is yet to be recovered. We need some innovative machines for mining as you have described but this is not the reason for climate change.

[aomakun]

sometimes when talking about the environment then this industry is one of the places that require a lot of energy that should think about the impact of the use of energy with the surrounding environment. may require renewable technology so that the impact on the environment also continues to circulate properly, because excessive use of technology will worsen our environment.

[Wintersoldier]

Currently, mining is not profitable in most of the countries except few regions where electricity is cheap and anyway most of the miners have stopped it due to huge loss incurred and I am one of them as we had set up a small mining farm with around 60 GPU but ended up with huge loss which is yet to be recovered. We need some innovative machines for mining as you have described but this is not the reason for climate change.

This was in fact one of the reason why they are discouraged to continue mining business these years, because of the excessive amount of electricity needed for them operate and from my own opinion, requiring mining facilities to have their source of electricity is quite necessary. Especially, to have reserve not specifically to rely all the energy requirements but to help reduce the burning of fossil fuels and carbon by huge electricity companies. In addition, our system could probably adjust in its codes and structures to use different consensus in verifying transactions.

[meanwords]

I don't know man. As far as my research goes, the environmental impact of Bitcoin is basically nothing compared to the environmental impact of the cash system. There's already an increasing and improving way for Bitcoin to be mined without causing much to the environment so it won't really matter.

Instead of asking those mining enthusiast to come up a way or a solution to the problem (which I think they are doing already), why don't you do something yourself? Maybe plant a tree or something. Maybe donate to those environmental charities. Because no matter how many rants you make here in the forum but as long there is money, miners will mine they want even if the cost is a slight change in the environment.

Maybe make a movement yourself about helping the environment. I'm sure some of the members here in the forum will be willing to help you.

[o_e_l_e_o]

For example by moving from gasoline-powered transportation to electricity-powered transportation. All to reduce dirty exhaust emissions. Start with yourself first.

Electric vehicles are only greener than gasoline if your country has the infrastructure to support them with green energy. Charging an electric vehicle from an electricity grid which is in turned powered by burning coal only shifts the emissions from your car to the power station. For electric vehicles to be really beneficial, you need to be buying your electricity from renewable sources or generating it yourself.

As far as my research goes, the environmental impact of Bitcoin is basically nothing compared to the environmental impact of the cash system.

Exactly. Think of all the cash being printed and reprinted, all the metal being mined for all the coins to be minted, all the armored vehicles moving it around, all the electricity for all banks, the computers, the servers, the ATMs, and so on. Bitcoin is orders of magnitude less than that.

Instead of asking those mining enthusiast to come up a way or a solution to the problem (which I think they are doing already), why don't you do something yourself?

Because it's easier to just complain than actually do something. Bitcoin is a poor target for their anger, though. As I said above, online porn generates over 30 times as much CO₂ as bitcoin, but no one is rallying against PornHub. Dogs have bigger carbon footprints than SUVs, but no one is suggesting we should make dog ownership illegal.

[ice098]

Currently, mining is not profitable in most of the countries except few regions where electricity is cheap and anyway most of the miners have stopped it due to huge loss incurred and I am one of them as we had set up a small mining farm with around 60 GPU but ended up with huge loss which is yet to be recovered. We need some innovative machines for mining as you have described but this is not the reason for climate change.

This was in fact one of the reason why they are discouraged to continue mining business these years, because of the excessive amount of electricity needed for them operate and from my own opinion, requiring mining facilities to have their source of electricity is quite necessary. Especially, to have reserve not specifically to rely all the energy requirements but to help reduce the burning of fossil fuels and carbon by huge electricity companies. In addition, our system could probably adjust in its codes and structures to use different consensus in verifying transactions.

I am really agree to this. I am suggesting that the crypto team should put a certain schedule for mining because if some of the members here will continously mining over and over for the longest time with no limit,  as what you have said it will give us hazardous effects. We should be balance in using electricity to avoid casulaties.

[CarnagexD]

Too much electricity is consumed to produce Bitcoin. I agree with this situation. But is the production of other swap vehicles very cheap? Bitcoin is a result of the current economy. The economic impasse led people to Bitcoin. A solution based on solar energy will be developed.

this is the reason why using renewable energy sources is one of the best solutions to attack this situation. solar or wind energy for those areas that have plenty of it. and fortunately, a lot of areas can offer this source of energy. around the globe, you can use both of these sources.
but unfortunately, those blockchain projects that were introduced to explore solar energy seemed not to prosper with their objectives.  but if you are a solo miner, you can start by investing on solar panels or combi of wind turbines and solar panels. this combi is getting cheap already. and in the long run, you can earn a decent profit out of it...

Indeed, if only renewable energy is a bit more accessible and rampant then we won't have to worry about mining and the bad implications it brings. hopefully the future at the very least bring good news to cryptocurrency mining as it is one of the most potent cryptoccurency earning methods out there.

[darewaller]

I think there have already been several steps taken to promote green energy as compared to the use of traditional non-renewable energy. Mining must have also taken steps albeit little by little to start converting into the renewable energy utilization. And others, I only know ETH to be exact, are also shifting to PoS. That must be saving a lot of future emission.

Changing onto PoS will not itself solve this problem. There should be huge projects supporting renewable energy which might include thermal plants, solar panels, windmills, etc in order to create a stable source of energy to run the miners and generate the hashes. This might not cause any global harm to the community no matter how large miners we run on our farm.

This would even be profitable for the individuals running such mining farms as the electricity charges would be 0 in this case. Only they need to manage investing some capital to start using and setting up the renewable sources. We could use the renewable sources continuously without any interaction so why not do so?

[ChrisPop]

The means for making mining sustainable are there. Small and large mining facilities can purchase solar, eolian and hydro based energy systems that could save up both on their energy cost and efficiency. The only downside is the initial investment which could maybe ROI faster using that money to buy more equipment.

You cannot just implement a system where the miners who use green energy receive higher rewards or incentives... especially on a decentralised network.

[doomistake]

I commend you being concern on what is happening here in our planet, Climate Change, but you, roasting mining bitcoin is the reason of what happened in Amazon and in Australia is so ridiculous. Climate Change is a very alarming matter that we should all focus to solve, yet the Government seems to ignore this matter and still continuing building stuffs that make climate change even worst.

The ice in the antartic is also a very good example that we should not ignore what is happening in our planet, we are the one who are destroying our own kind slowly.