Power consumption propaganda?

[Powerloader]

Would be interested to hear what the point of view is on a recent increase in press statements as follows: ‘Bitcoin may soon consume more power than Australia’— almost 10 times more than Google, Microsoft and Facebook combined.
Is there anything behind this or is it just another angle of attack against bitcoin prompted by remarks by Bill Gates?.....is it even possible to calculate consumption in this way?

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[mk4]

I think it's just either propaganda, or just mere ignorance/narrow-mindedness — whereas the latter is a bit more likely in my opinion.

Not only Bill Gates or journalists, but people in general, love hating on Bitcoin because they missed out or they currently don't see the point of it. Crap like Netflix, TikTok, and gaming consoles, which are mostly just entertainment platforms to start with, use a crap ton of energy as well and no almost one complains about them. And yet here we are with Bitcoin, where we are giving a monetary tool for people to use worldwide, and yet they think that it's a total waste of energy. It's just stupid.

[shahzadafzal]

Would be interested to hear what the point of view is on a recent increase in press statements as follows: ‘Bitcoin may soon consume more power than Australia’— almost 10 times more than Google, Microsoft and Facebook combined.
Is there anything behind this or is it just another angle of attack against bitcoin prompted by remarks by Bill Gates?.....is it even possible to calculate consumption in this way?

This argument is pretty lame in a sense that if I say "Electric bulbs" are consuming more power than Australia, Argentina, Uganda, Ethiopia or name any country. Sounds stupid right? That's what it is,  if you combine the power consumption of all the electric bulbs in the world and you will be shocked how much energy "Electric bulbs" alone are consuming.  But this is not a valid comparison.

Now same thing applies to Bitcoin mining you can't compare the power consumption of world's bitcoin mining to the power consumed by one country.  and for the matter of fact consuming a lots on energy" does not make any thing bad by default. World is already changing we are moving to renewable energy sources, only thing which can be argued is how much fossil fuels being used or what is the carbon footprint of Bitcoin mining. Yes currently it's estimated that 61% mining currently powered by fossil fuels (thanks to China).

Sixty-one per cent of Bitcoin mining last year was estimated to have been powered by fossil fuels, according to Cambridge University's Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.

But this is decreasing day by day and alternative and renewable energy are getting cheaper day by day. I think you are referring to this article https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-18/bitcoin-has-a-climate-problem/13210376, and answer to the your question is also there.

"The unique thing about energy-hungry things that use electricity is that those are the easiest things to decarbonize"

More I would say It's very stupid to compare Google or Microsoft to Bitcoin mining. Microsoft is consuming 9TWh because they only counted their owned resources only. I can argue that all the computers, servers and laptop those are running Windows or any of Microsoft software should be counted to Microsoft energy consumption then tell me how much energy Microsoft is consuming.

By the way energy consumption is actually a sing of a advancement in civilization. It has been theorized that human civilizations will constantly increase their demand for energy and there would come a time when its demand will be same as the total energy output of the Sun and we will be building Dyson sphere so one would argue Bitcoin mining consuming more energy :p

[pooya87]

Suffice it to say that each time a bitcoin bull market is starting to begin and price rises high, the media brings out the old "topics" such as "bitcoin consumes more power than blank", "blank [country] is banning bitcoin", "bitcoin is only used for blank [something illegal]", ... they dust them off and print a new article for the hundredth time.

Bitcoin power consumption criticism is like criticizing a plane for using hundreds of times more fuel than a small motor cycle!

[Darker45]

I think it's just either propaganda, or just mere ignorance — whereas the latter is a bit more likely in my opinion.

I don't think it is simply either one of them and not the other. The issue is extremely contaminated. To me, part of it is propaganda, a bit of ignorance, a bit of exaggeration, and, of course, some truth as well.

Bitcoin is running on energy 24/7. That is a fact, right? So there's emission every second of the day. That, we cannot deny. But that's just what it is. That's true to almost all facets of human life. Every single day, every single one of us contributes to the overall carbon footprint. You are enjoying a song from your phone while riding on a taxi going to your unconditioned office; all of it leaves a footprint.

It's just that Bitcoin adversaries seemingly overemphasize the immense amount of carbon footprint attributed to Bitcoin, but then Bitcoin supporters claim the estimates are overstated. "Bitcoin uses more electricity per transaction than any other method known to mankind," Bill Gates says. On the other hand, pro Bitcoin claims around 3/4th of Bitcoin's energy is coming from renewable sources. Bitcoin fans say Bitcoin's energy consumption is a lot more efficient than fiat's while Bitcoin critics describe it as wasteful. This goes on and on.

[crwth]

This won't be a problem if the energy used in powering the Bitcoin mining farm is from renewable energy resources. The best approach for this is to go the renewable energy route entirely so there wouldn't be any more energy demand problems. It should be known that almost most of the power came from renewable energy as well.

As of this report, it is said that over 74% were using renewable energy back in 2019. I can't find any update for last year's consumption, but you can see that the majority is renewable.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/study-over-74-of-bitcoin-mining-is-powered-by-renewable-energy

I hope that there are more advances and developments for the energy sector to make renewable energy collection and storage efficient and cheaper for everyone.

[yazher]

Would be interested to hear what the point of view is on a recent increase in press statements as follows: ‘Bitcoin may soon consume more power than Australia’— almost 10 times more than Google, Microsoft and Facebook combined.
Is there anything behind this or is it just another angle of attack against bitcoin prompted by remarks by Bill Gates?.....is it even possible to calculate consumption in this way?

That is possible cause these guys have been putting the word "Bitcoin" to gather some readers about their baseless theories. Since everyone is curious about cryptocurrencies now and the main category is Bitcoin, they wanted some share about it and this is why they creating such propaganda to lure people with some strange belief. There's no way Bitcoin mining will be the cause of some power shortage this is all hoax and the one that made this claim might be some sort of person who doesn't have enough knowledge to conclude some research such as this one.

[Lorence.xD]

Well with the increase traffic of bitcoin in the long run, I think that we can expect that it will need more power, the solution here is either to make infrastructure to reduce the power consumption or alleviate it at least or make more renewable energy plants like hydro-electric or better yet a nuclear power plant.

[Lorence.xD]

~

It's semms to be bitcoin will consume of more power for the mining. After the increase in bitcoin price, huge new investors came into role.While comparing to the electricity consumed by the bank and fiat printing, the electricity used for the bitcoin mining is very low.May be in future, the consumption may vary.

Well, it should happen, as more bitcoin is getting mined, blocks get a little bit harder to mine and that means that it will take more power to get those blocks. I agree that the power consumption is small but we have to continuously prove that bitcoin can have the least carbon footprint out of every other financial institution out there.

[mk4]

*snip*

I agree, it could most definitely be a mix of a lot of things. But I almost forgot one thing — the same reasons why most "news sites" frequently publish "articles" concerning bitcoin's price, it's because it's likely that price and FUD articles are what gets a lot of engagement on social media.

[Kittygalore]

How about we worry where we get those power instead of focusing on the power consumption, the power consumption for bitcoin will only go up as the adoption grows a bigger day by day, we need to make a more green energy sources. The only reason for this is just to make bitcoin look bad and make the prices go down.

[Wind_FURY]

OP, welcome to the forum!

It’s actually GOOD that Bitcoin is being secured by higher and higher hashing power, unlike nascent altcoins that are insecure, and open to 51% attacks, or flawed POS coins. It makes Bitcoin the BEST cryptocurrency investment because it “consumes” more energy than a small country.

[hatshepsut93]

There might be some groups that are interested in painting Bitcoin in bad light, a few years ago the Polish government was caught in spending money on hiring bloggers to criticize Bitcoin. But the media could also be doing it on their own, "Bitcoin consumes more electricity than country X" is a pretty clickbaity title that can generate a lot of traffic.

I don't like the theories that every bank and government out there wants to stop Bitcoin, if it was a reality, Bitcoin ecosystem wouldn't look as it is looks now.

[Yurkov]

PoW is fully secure and this security comes at cost of huge electricity, we have to accept this fact it’s not a propaganda. There are other consensus algorithms like PoC which don’t require huge electricity but are not secure. In order to keep btc blockchain secure we have to burn more and more electricity.

[btc_angela]

We've heard this kind of argument in 2017, when we are in a bull run, suddenly died down because obviously the price tanks and we are in the bearish trend for the next three years. And now that the price is not on the $60'ish, then you have to think why is this kind of argument (which is flawed to begin with), started to pop up again.

The answer is simple, they want to bring bitcoin again by creating the old and rehearse topic.

[Spack17]

Would be interested to hear what the point of view is on a recent increase in press statements as follows: ‘Bitcoin may soon consume more power than Australia’— almost 10 times more than Google, Microsoft and Facebook combined.
Is there anything behind this or is it just another angle of attack against bitcoin prompted by remarks by Bill Gates?.....is it even possible to calculate consumption in this way?

We have been hearing this kind of propagandas for a very long time. Especially after Bitcoin has reached great levels, the number of haters has increased also. It is true that there is a huge power consumption. But it is not a thing that you can't find a solution. Besides, I'd also like to see this kind of people speaking up for many other things that are threatening the environment.

[dkbit98]

CoinShares research showed that 78% of Bitcoin mining uses renewable energy and earlier study from 2019 showed that percent was 74%, so we can say there is increase of renewable energy.
Sichuan region of China has around 48% global mining share and that is 43% share of renewable mining, as you can see below from Deutsche Bank research data.
All this propaganda bs is just a part of some bigger agenda and it all started with wrong data coming from Cambridge University and their CBECI Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index,
and I think governments will try to use this as excuse for offering their centralized 'green' coins for masses.
It is good idea to follow @danheld on twitter for more information about this topic that should be eye opener for many people, and not watching mainstream media + using your head also helps.

[posi]

First, we need to understand that some article writers are only good in spreading FUD just to get their paycheck or be more popular and the fast means for people to get popular these days is to talk about Bitcoin.
Second, we should expect something positive from everybody because some human mind will still be ignorant and also do series of attack on Bitcoin because Bitcoin has somehow affected their means of income through the ease and liberation it provides to people.

[aysg76]

Would be interested to hear what the point of view is on a recent increase in press statements as follows: ‘Bitcoin may soon consume more power than Australia’— almost 10 times more than Google, Microsoft and Facebook combined.
Is there anything behind this or is it just another angle of attack against bitcoin prompted by remarks by Bill Gates?.....is it even possible to calculate consumption in this way?

Bitcoin electricity consumption has always been an issue to the ones who hates it and whenever prices goes up in the Market then the argument is again raised with respect to its electricity consumption to various countries.But is the government not using high volume of electricity to power up their projects also and moreover banks combined cost is more than that of Bitcoin.If we need to secure the Bitcoin network we need miners to validate and secure network which will consume high voltage of electricity as POW concesus.Moreover the miners are moving towards new use of electricity like renewables resources which further reduces the cost so stay away from such FUD's and focus on your goals.

[shahzadafzal]

Look who's talking about Bitcoin's power consumption...

"Bitcoin uses more energy than American Airlines and each $1 billion in inflows is equal to owning 1.2 million cars, Bank of America says"

So apparently they accepted that Bank of America is doing some research on Bitcoin