Transaction cost in kWh

[waxwing]

You can't conflate seignorage with transaction costs.

When the Fed prints $50 billion in 1 month (which it was doing recently), nobody counts those dollars as a transaction cost on every dollar transaction.

And even if you don't buy that argument, there is a much stronger one: unlike dollar printing, Bitcoin printing was defined *in advance* for its entire future history, at the start. The market knows these 'costs'.

Are ounces of gold mined in 2014 counted as part of the transaction cost of gold transactions?

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[amaclin]

When the Fed prints $50 billion in 1 month (which it was doing recently), nobody counts those dollars as a transaction cost on every dollar transaction.

Why nobody counts? You should do it.
Total price = price of paper + price of printing + price of printer + salary of FEDs
You can estimate this value in kWh

[inBitweTrust]

Why nobody counts? You should do it.
Total price = price of paper + price of printing + price of printer + salary of FEDs
You can estimate this value in kWh

You are missing a few variables there...

Price of Fiat = price of paper + price of printing + price of printer + salary of FEDs + price of regulators + price of FBI who investigate counterfeiting + Price of Banking infrastructure  + Price of armored vehicles + Price of security guards + price of banking employees + price of military and police which enforce the value of Fiat ..... ect..... how much time do you have?

Bitcoin eliminates most of the need for physical, human, and regulatory security with efficient mathematics, cryptography, and ASICs. Go ahead and add up all the human time, electricity and resources used by those humans to keep Fiat currency running and see how that compares to Bitcoin.

Sure there are plenty of profits made with Fiat, but despite what some believe, breaking windows with bricks isn't good for society even if the glass company profits as a middleman with the inefficient act of destruction.

[amaclin]

You are missing a few variables there...

Of course. It was only an example

Price of Fiat = price of paper + price of printing + price of printer + salary of FEDs + price of regulators + price of FBI who investigate counterfeiting + Price of Banking infrastructure  + Price of armored vehicles + Price of security guards + price of banking employees + price of military and police which enforce the value of Fiat ..... ect..... how much time do you have?

This is yours democracy. Not mine.
If you think that the price is too high - why do you elect these people to your government? Vote for another persons who would reduce the cost which society pays. Anyway, the cost in centralised system will be lower than in decentralized

[inBitweTrust]

This is yours democracy. Not mine.
If you think that the price is too high - why do you elect these people to your government? Vote for another persons who would reduce the cost which society pays.

I don't vote for politicians, that would be a waste of time and be undignified. I vote by doing actions directly whether it be charity, building something or using bitcoin.

Anyway, the cost in centralised system will be lower than in decentralized

The greater costs to tyrants and sociopaths don't concern me. What I am concerned with are the opportunity costs lost from an unfree market where business is stiffed by monopolies supported by fascistic governments . I am also concerned about the social and ethical implications of having a centralized and corrupt system.

These costs are monumental compared to the costs of ASICs and a bit of electricity.

[amaclin]

I don't vote for politicians, that would be a waste of time and be undignified. I vote by doing actions directly whether it be charity, building something or using bitcoin.

But the other people vote for them? So they think that everything is quite OK?
How can I check - where is the truth? On your side or on their side?

[inBitweTrust]

I don't vote for politicians, that would be a waste of time and be undignified. I vote by doing actions directly whether it be charity, building something or using bitcoin.

But the other people vote for them? So they think that everything is quite OK?
How can I check - where is the truth? On your side or on their side?

You can find the truth by investigating epistemology, philosophy and critical reasoning.

Here are some questions to ponder while you discover these answers for yourself:

Do you own yourself and the effects of your labor?
Do you believe in the Non - Aggression principle?
Why is theft wrong for an individual but right when a state government is involved(or group of people)?
Why is murder wrong for an individual but acceptable when a state government is involved(or group of people)?
Why is kidnapping wrong for an individual but just when a state government is involved(or group of people)?
Why is torture wrong for an individual but needed when a state government is involved(or group of people)?
Is it possible for governments to exist without centralized monopolies on the use of violence?

[amaclin]

Do you own yourself and the effects of your labor?

As far as I can fight for them with the somebody who has another point of view

Do you believe in the Non - Aggression principle?

Please, give me more concretic. Does the wolf something wrong when it catches and eats the rabbit?
Is non-aggression involves also against eating of tomatoes?

Why is theft wrong for an individual but right when a state government is involved(or group of people)?

It depends on consensuns rules. In our countries societes the consensuns is that thefts are doing "wrong"
And there are no such things as "thefts", "stealing", "punishment" in bitcoin community/protocol

Why is murder wrong for an individual but acceptable when a state government is involved(or group of people)?

Because the majority is always right. It can not be wrong.

Why is kidnapping wrong for an individual but just when a state government is involved(or group of people)?

Same answer

Why is torture wrong for an individual but needed when a state government is involved(or group of people)?

Same

Is it possible for governments to exist without centralized monopolies on the use of violence?

It depends of the majority opinion. I think, it is possible. But I can not give you good example. May be I am wrong.

[inBitweTrust]

Do you own yourself and the effects of your labor?

As far as I can fight for them with the somebody who has another point of view

Do you believe in the Non - Aggression principle?

Please, give me more concretic. Does the wolf something wrong when it catches and eats the rabbit?
Is non-aggression involves also against eating of tomatoes?

Why is theft wrong for an individual but right when a state government is involved(or group of people)?

It depends on consensuns rules. In our countries societes the consensuns is that thefts are doing "wrong"
And there are no such things as "thefts", "stealing", "punishment" in bitcoin community/protocol

Why is murder wrong for an individual but acceptable when a state government is involved(or group of people)?

Because the majority is always right. It can not be wrong.

Why is kidnapping wrong for an individual but just when a state government is involved(or group of people)?

Same answer

Why is torture wrong for an individual but needed when a state government is involved(or group of people)?

Same

Is it possible for governments to exist without centralized monopolies on the use of violence?

It depends of the majority opinion.

Yes, bitcoin does have ethical and political implications. Yes, with the above set of inconsistent and relativistic morals you should fear and hate bitcoin.

You have a disturbing system of morality and it is no wonder why you hate and attack bitcoin. I don't wish harm upon you, but hope you will reconsider
why you believe it moral and just to kill, torture, kidnap, and steal when its a group effort. To me those actions are immoral for an individual or group.
Goodbye.

[World]

If you missed these articles
http://www.coindesk.com/author/hass-mccook/

[amaclin]

If you missed these articles
http://www.coindesk.com/author/hass-mccook/

Great!
But these articles were written in July. Bitcoin hashrate doubles since.
I think we should double the numbers in "bitcoin" rows, shouldn't we?

[franky1]

amaclin is missing the whole point of bitcoin
amaclin is missing the whole point of economy
amaclin is missing the whole point of deflation
amaclin is missing the whole point of many things

and thus, im bored.. moving on. you cant teach some. all you can do is leave them to figure it out for themselves

[C. Bergmann]

Who pays?

Holder
Miner who mine with loss
People who bought shares of mining companies

You are right, the hashrate has gone far to far. There is no alternative that this bad constellation will have no good end for the miners. They think the more the hashrate grows the higher the price will be, but currently the opposite matches. Maybe you look for more sustainable cryptocurrencies.
 
But on the other side mining has been not profitable for a long time. So miners have always paid the bill in expectation of a future rise of the price. The new thing is that they have to buy asics first to do this.

[jbreher]

This is yours democracy. Not mine.
If you think that the price is too high - why do you elect these people to your government?

Somewhat dismayed that some have fallen for the original poster's shallow tactic of replacing one lost argument for one of a completely different construction.

[amaclin]

If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry.

[minor-transgression]

@amaclin

I completely understand your thesis, and I have carried this view for some time.

You might receive a better reception on the "Economics" board.

At least part of the problem is that ASICs themselves were sold as part of a "ponzi" scheme,
hence anyone buying a miner was donating future mining profits to the hardware companies.

The best outcome is for mining to once again become a retail activity hence only the marginal
cost between fossil fuel heating and electrical heating gets added to the cost of transactions.

Until something changes, the flow of bitcoin from the miners has to balance the increase in the
rate of transactions. Changes to that, of course, will move the price of bitcoin up or down.

[bee7]

Is there a chart which shows estimated transaction cost in kWh?
How much bitcoin network at all (miners, nodes, lite clients) takes energy for transaction proceeding?

My calculations are too weak:
Current bitcoin difficulty hashrate is 250 000 000 GH/s
Modern asic miners do 1000 GH/s for 600 W
So, the whole network runs as 250 000 such devices
(In fact the current miners take more energy)
In an hour bitcoin network takes 150 000 kWh power and produces 3000 transactions
So, one transaction costs today at least 50 kWh (this is low estimate)

Are there more correct estimations and time-graph?
Thank you. Sorry, English is not my native language.

According to the ATM Industry Association there are about 3 million ATMs installed worldwide. Unfortunately I can't find the article at their site where I saw this number approximately a year ago, but there is another one that predicts the number of ATMs installed to be 3.5million by the 2017: https://www.atmia.com/clientuploads/b_newsletters/apr13/withdrawals.html

Let's say that we have 3 million ATMs, half of which is switched off for any reason (malfunction/whatever), so let it be 1.5 million.
I would not make a mistake if I assume that each ATM draws at least 100W from the wall while it just waits for the customer (but I suspect it is more than 100W), so 1.5 million  ATMs consume 150.000 kWh. This is not including expenses to maintain the rest of the infrastructure. Who does pay these expenses? You. The cost is hidden in the prices for goods and services: every merchant pays fees to the service provider, who in turn pays fees to the network.
Don't tell me that the number of transactions the Visa/MC/e.t.c. network process times bigger than the bitcoin network handling to the moment. The hashing power that maintains bitcoin network security does not depend on the number of transactions included into the blocks.

Using bitcoin and not contributing a single cent to its network security you may send a transaction with zero fees if the time to process is not important and it will be processed sooner or later. For tiny 0.0005BTC you get your transaction processed reasonable fast (anyway faster than SWIFT transfer)

Who pays for this? Geeks, enthusiasts of different kind, investors who believe the potential of the Bitcoin.

[desired_username]

Is there a chart which shows estimated transaction cost in kWh?
How much bitcoin network at all (miners, nodes, lite clients) takes energy for transaction proceeding?

My calculations are too weak:
Current bitcoin difficulty hashrate is 250 000 000 GH/s
Modern asic miners do 1000 GH/s for 600 W
So, the whole network runs as 250 000 such devices
(In fact the current miners take more energy)
In an hour bitcoin network takes 150 000 kWh power and produces 3000 transactions
So, one transaction costs today at least 50 kWh (this is low estimate)

Are there more correct estimations and time-graph?
Thank you. Sorry, English is not my native language.

According to the ATM Industry Association there are about 3 million ATMs installed worldwide. Unfortunately I can't find the article at their site where I saw this number approximately a year ago, but there is another one that predicts the number of ATMs installed to be 3.5million by the 2017: https://www.atmia.com/clientuploads/b_newsletters/apr13/withdrawals.html

Let's say that we have 3 million ATMs, half of which is switched off for any reason (malfunction/whatever), so let it be 1.5 million.
I would not make a mistake if I assume that each ATM draws at least 100W from the wall while it just waits for the customer (but I suspect it is more than 100W), so 1.5 million  ATMs consume 150.000 kWh. This is not including expenses to maintain the rest of the infrastructure. Who does pay these expenses? You. The cost is hidden in the prices for goods and services: every merchant pays fees to the service provider, who in turn pays fees to the network.
Don't tell me that the number of transactions the Visa/MC/e.t.c. network process times bigger than the bitcoin network handling to the moment. The hashing power that maintains bitcoin network security does not depend on the number of transactions included into the blocks.

Using bitcoin and not contributing a single cent to its network security you may send a transaction with zero fees if the time to process is not important and it will be processed sooner or later. For tiny 0.0005BTC you get your transaction processed reasonable fast (anyway faster than SWIFT transfer)

Who pays for this? Geeks, enthusiasts of different kind, investors who believe the potential of the Bitcoin.

more like 300W+/ATM

All the ATMs use very old hardware (5+ years). As windows XP became EOL, there was some publicity about this but afaik ms extended the support for clients operating atms.

[bee7]

Is there a chart which shows estimated transaction cost in kWh?
How much bitcoin network at all (miners, nodes, lite clients) takes energy for transaction proceeding?

My calculations are too weak:
Current bitcoin difficulty hashrate is 250 000 000 GH/s
Modern asic miners do 1000 GH/s for 600 W
So, the whole network runs as 250 000 such devices
(In fact the current miners take more energy)
In an hour bitcoin network takes 150 000 kWh power and produces 3000 transactions
So, one transaction costs today at least 50 kWh (this is low estimate)

Are there more correct estimations and time-graph?
Thank you. Sorry, English is not my native language.

According to the ATM Industry Association there are about 3 million ATMs installed worldwide. Unfortunately I can't find the article at their site where I saw this number approximately a year ago, but there is another one that predicts the number of ATMs installed to be 3.5million by the 2017: https://www.atmia.com/clientuploads/b_newsletters/apr13/withdrawals.html

Let's say that we have 3 million ATMs, half of which is switched off for any reason (malfunction/whatever), so let it be 1.5 million.
I would not make a mistake if I assume that each ATM draws at least 100W from the wall while it just waits for the customer (but I suspect it is more than 100W), so 1.5 million  ATMs consume 150.000 kWh. This is not including expenses to maintain the rest of the infrastructure. Who does pay these expenses? You. The cost is hidden in the prices for goods and services: every merchant pays fees to the service provider, who in turn pays fees to the network.
Don't tell me that the number of transactions the Visa/MC/e.t.c. network process times bigger than the bitcoin network handling to the moment. The hashing power that maintains bitcoin network security does not depend on the number of transactions included into the blocks.

Using bitcoin and not contributing a single cent to its network security you may send a transaction with zero fees if the time to process is not important and it will be processed sooner or later. For tiny 0.0005BTC you get your transaction processed reasonable fast (anyway faster than SWIFT transfer)

Who pays for this? Geeks, enthusiasts of different kind, investors who believe the potential of the Bitcoin.

more like 300W+/ATM

All the ATMs use very old hardware (5+ years). As windows XP became EOL, there was some publicity about this but afaik ms extended the support for clients operating atms.

I intentionally took the lower numbers.

[kokojie]

This is a FACT, and since it's a fact, therefore it will be true even when Bitcoin has no inflation (ie. when coin supply run out, the PoW expense will still exist). Therefore, YOU are the one that is confusing inflation with this perpetual PoW expense. I have no problem with Bitcoin inflation, at all.

If heat is a product instead of something thrown away and ASIC costs are amortized with block rewards and transaction fees than what is the problem?

Are you suggesting future mass ASIC manufacturing/shipping costs will be higher than campaign political costs? Bitshares would be more interesting if Daniel stuck with TaPoS instead of settling on DPoS.
There are security and future political costs with campaigning and lobbying that will need to be considered when you introduce more human involvement into securing the blockchain.

I suppose there are limits with how many things we need to heat on earth though.... but this isn't a pressing dilemma.

What are you talking about? there's no proof the heat can be utilized efficiently, other than heating the facility in winter, all the big mining farms do not try to utilize the heat at all. Also even if the heat is 100% efficiently utilized, that only balance out the electricity cost. The hardware cost is still there, and most likely higher because now you want to use the heat, which means additional hardware components.

There's also no proof there's political expense associated with DPoS. I'm a delegate in btsx, and I didn't spend anything to get voted in. Also, even if there is expense, as long as it stays within the eco-system, I don't see any problem with that. Unlike Bitcoin PoW, which transfers wealth out of the eco-system, into the pockets of hardware vendor and electric company.