Bitcoin and Greenpeace

[jsmithers]

I don't know the current power usage by miners but I did a rough caculation about a year ago and estimated something in the range of 10 MW (mega watt) world-wide for mining.

According to one wikipedia source [1] there are 2,2 million ATM cash machines running 24/7 word wide. Assuming each of those consumes about 100 Watts with display we are at 220 MW just for ATMs. This doesn't include printing fiat money and securely distributing it in trucks etc. Just like the Internet at large it's futile to argue Bitcoin is polluting the environment - there's always other costs that can be avoided by utilizing a new techology. It's more about how the energy is produced and what steps are taken to make it more efficient - i.e. ASIC is a step in the right direction!

Power consumption has not been a deterrent for BUND Berlin e.V.  (chapter of Friends of the Earth Germany) in my discussion with them (they are about to launch Bitcoin donations) - utility outweighs cost to nature - just like the offices of any NGO will have electric lighting and Internet access - obviously from renewable sources where possible

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_teller_machine

Edit: typo fix, added source

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[hashman]

Greenpeace lie, deceive, spread misinformation and routinely recruit vulnerable, malleable youth who don't know better to break the law. Why would anybody want to associate with them these days is beyond me.

By 'break the law', Are you referring to Natural Law or State Law?

Mostly the body of Common Law surrounding the sanctity of private property; you know like breaking and entering, defacing buildings, vandalism, denying right of entry ... have you not noticed Greenpeace was doing these things?

Ok, you've sold me already.  Where do I send the coins? 

[Vitalik Buterin]

There is actually quite a good environmental argument to be made for Bitcoin - compare it to gold.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/08/28/18688943.php

[jsmithers]

Ok, you've sold me already.  Where do I send the coins? 

If you want to donat for environmental causes not to Greenpeace because they don't offer Bitcoin donations yet but to BUND Berlin http://www.bund-berlin.de/bund_berlinde/spenden/bitcoin_spenden/bitcoin_english.html

[jsmithers]

2. Bitcoin is more energy efficient than cash, vaults and armored cars driving around everywhere.

Show math supporting your claim. Currently, bitcoin is orders of magnitude more wasteful than other payment technologies. Here is a reference:

blockchain.info/stats assumes 650 Watt per Gigahash on current hardware (GPU including host computer) - at 25 TH this would be roughly 17 MW of power and it's probably less because ~10 TH may well be FPGA already at this time. One source in the Wikipedia article on ATMs cites 2,2 million ATM cash machines around the world, at 100 Watt per ATM that's 220 MW just for the ATMs - without the manufacturing and distribution of the cash itself. I'd appreciate feedback on this because I'm trying to get the facts right for an article.

[cunicula]

2. Bitcoin is more energy efficient than cash, vaults and armored cars driving around everywhere.

Show math supporting your claim. Currently, bitcoin is orders of magnitude more wasteful than other payment technologies. Here is a reference:

blockchain.info/stats assumes 650 Watt per Gigahash on current hardware (GPU including host computer) - at 25 TH this would be roughly 17 MW of power and it's probably less because ~10 TH may well be FPGA already at this time. One source in the Wikipedia article on ATMs cites 2,2 million ATM cash machines around the world, at 100 Watt per ATM that's 220 MW just for the ATMs - without the manufacturing and distribution of the cash itself. I'd appreciate feedback on this because I'm trying to get the facts right for an article.

You are comparing watermelons to an ameoba. The bitcoin network supplies very very few people. You can't just total the MWs, you need to calculate a ratio such as MW per user. (Unless of course you are trying to come up with some bitcoin propoganda)

[jsmithers]

You are comparing watermelons to an ameoba. The bitcoin network supplies very very few people. You can't just total the MWs, you need to calculate a ratio such as MW per user. (Unless of course you are trying to come up with some bitcoin propoganda)

I certainly am trying to argue in Bitcoins favor, so please do help

Fair point about Watt/User - thank you. At least the hashrate is independent of the number of users - so the footprint could roughly stay the same no matter how many users are using the network. Bitcoinmagazine #2 cites ~1 million bitcoin users in 2012. That'd be 15 Watt per user. No small figure, but not dramatic either and there's a good chance it'll decrease with the growth of the userbase.

[cunicula]

You are comparing watermelons to an ameoba. The bitcoin network supplies very very few people. You can't just total the MWs, you need to calculate a ratio such as MW per user. (Unless of course you are trying to come up with some bitcoin propoganda)

I certainly am trying to argue in Bitcoins favor, so please do help

Fair point about Watt/User - thank you. At least the hashrate is independent of the number of users - so the footprint could roughly stay the same no matter how many users are using the network. Bitcoinmagazine #2 cites ~1 million bitcoin users in 2012. That'd be 15 Watt per user. No small figure, but not dramatic either and there's a good chance it'll decrease with the growth of the userbase.

Okay bitcoin propoganda, then. 1 million users is obviously made up. 100,000 seems like an overestimate to me. 30,000 would be my estimate (i.e. my best guess, not my generous guess). 30,000 works out to 566 Watts per user or 4950 KwH per user-year, or about US$742 per user-year in electricity expenditure. Not pretty. Not pretty at all.

Sorry can't help you with your article for Pravda.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Watts/user could only be a useless metric dreamed up by an economist ....

watts/unit-value is the only thing that would make sense for an apples/apples comparison.

[cunicula]

Watts/user could only be a useless metric dreamed up by an economist ....

watts/unit-value is the only thing that would make sense for an apples/apples comparison.

I agree with this, but unit-value is not going to be hard to enumerate on the fiat side. I suggest you go with the estimates in the original ppt linked to in this thread.

[jsmithers]

I agree with this, but unit-value is not going to be hard to enumerate on the fiat side. I suggest you go with the estimates in the original ppt linked to in this thread.

Are you referring to http://weis2012.econinfosec.org/presentation/Breuker_presentation_WEIS2012.pdf ?
I'd appreciate if you could explain the ppt / pdf linked earlier. It looks fairly strange to me. The assumption there is to use 0.3% of all USD payment transactions as budget in electricity for the PoW network. He arrives at ~17600 Petaflops of power, so around 1385 Terahash of SHA256 compute power (according to the ratio on bitcoinwatch.com). While all other arguments of the presentation stay valid with BFL ASIC technology rated at 1W/GH it should be possible to build this size of network at 1,4 MW, give it 2,8 MW for the hosts computers involved. He states himself that interest in PoW would trigger innovation - well it already has.

Which other conclusions does the paper arrive at that I'm missing or are we talking about another paper?

[cunicula]

I agree with this, but unit-value is not going to be hard to enumerate on the fiat side. I suggest you go with the estimates in the original ppt linked to in this thread.

Are you referring to http://weis2012.econinfosec.org/presentation/Breuker_presentation_WEIS2012.pdf ?
I'd appreciate if you could explain the ppt / pdf linked earlier. It looks fairly strange to me. The assumption there is to use 0.3% of all USD payment transactions as budget in electricity for the PoW network. He arrives at ~17600 Petaflops of power, so around 1385 Terahash of SHA256 compute power (according to the ratio on bitcoinwatch.com). While all other arguments of the presentation stay valid with BFL ASIC technology rated at 1W/GH it should be possible to build this size of network at 1,4 MW, give it 2,8 MW for the hosts computers involved. He states himself that interest in PoW would trigger innovation - well it already has.

Which other conclusions does the paper arrive at that I'm missing or are we talking about another paper?

There is the really important point that if you reduce electricity costs and replace them with hardware costs, you are just substituting one form of waste for another.

I think the most appropriate comparison is between bitcoin and electronic banking. After all, bitcoin is not a replacement for in person exchanges of cash. (Though we could print bitbills which would seem to be identical to cash and probably have the same electricity requirements)
If I swipe my debit card, how much electricity do I use?
If I use my smart phone to pay with bitcoin, how much electricity do I use?

[Rotsor]

Nevertheless, you are wrong to suggest that electricity savings are only short-term.

I don't think he's wrong. The hardware costs are only so high now because they have to offset the high development cost. As the competition becomes more fierce and the economies of scale kick in, the price of hardware is likely to plummet.

[cunicula]

Nevertheless, you are wrong to suggest that electricity savings are only short-term.

I don't think he's wrong. The hardware costs are only so high now because they have to offset the high development cost. As the competition becomes more fierce and the economies of scale kick in, the price of hardware is likely to plummet.

Yes, you are right but your conclusion depends on the market becoming increasingly competitive. Because of the economies of scale and high entry costs, I'm doubt that we will see a competitive market. Without a competitive market, we will continue to see low electricity costs and high hardware costs.

The number of market players is determined by the entry equation.
Say market size is y, then number of market players is n, and Entry Cost is some constant C.

Say there is a new entrant, should they enter and increase the number of players to n+1?

Expected Profit Conditional on Entering (y,n+1) - C >=0 (If so then they should enter)

Expected profit is going to be strictly increasing in y and strictly decreasing in n. For any fixed market size, there is some n where entry is no longer profitable. The larger entry costs are, the smaller the equilibrium n will be.

On a positive note, y may grow if bitcoin takes off. On a negative note, y will shrink as block reward falls. Therefore, if bitcoin fails to grow, then the market will become less and less competitive over time. My expectation is that we will end up with n=1.

[This is a gross oversimplification of course. A full model would have to specify a lot of other stuff (in particular an exit equation is important). The entry equation is just one piece. However, the general conclusion that high entry costs lead to monopoly or oligopoly would not be affected by adding in the other stuff.]

[Stemby]

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/

Please try to click on "Donate"

[Ente]

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/

Please try to click on "Donate"

Awesome! :-)

Is that new?

Ente

[Stemby]

Is that new?

Yes, it is.