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Comment by torpfactory | Hacker News Reader

Seriously everyone, please stop using bitcoin. The environmental impact of energy generation for mining and proof-of-work is totally untenable. I understand this is key to why Bitcoin works, but we absolutely should not be scaling a technology which so inefficiently uses energy. This is not an argument about the profitability of mining or other technical merits of Bitcoin. Even if all cryptocurrency mining were to use zero-carbon energy generation, we still should not use it: that energy ought to be used for more practical pursuits.

A few links about the insane amount of energy used for each transaction: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywbbpm/bitcoin-mi...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/27/bitcoin-m...

Anyone know of cryptocurrencies which will not blow up our planet's carbon or energy budgets? I've heard of proof-of-stake algorithms, but don't understand that approach very well.

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Bitcoin has the potential to serve as a subsidy to green energy. A significant amount of wind energy in China, for instance, is simply burned off as waste heat. Over 30% in some cases. This waste happens when there's no demand for the excess energy and no where to store it.

With Bitcoin, such excess energy can be devoted to mining. The bitcoin generated by that mining can then be sold and serve as a subsidy to the green energy producer. This subsidy changes the numbers around green energy and makes it even more profitable, encouraging more such green energy projects to be started.

It's easy to point at proof of work and claim it's a waste. I encourage you to dig deeper, however. Proof of work enables us to radically change the financial system we have today and to potentially make it more efficient.

How do you suggest we get there? Ban unregulated mining farms, only allow them to exist if they have a deal with their local energy producer? It would also require most countries to adopt some sort of treaty.

No one is mining only when demand for energy is low. They're mining 24/7, even probably during peak hours. Even with variable energy pricing, it's still more profitable to keep mining than to let equipment lose value idle. Bitcoin users/miners are externalizing their environmental impact.

Otherwise, perhaps things such as Lighting can help reduce mining requirements, but it's definitely up to cryptocurrencies to find better solutions, not wait for countries to adopt legislation.

I did not say this was a widely adopted use case yet. I'm just pointing out that every green energy producer in the world right now currently burns off excess energy as waste heat. If they move to mining bitcoin instead, they'll actually earn money from that waste electricity.

I agree, but the argument sounds like greenwashing. Sure, it's possible that PoW could be run from green energy, but what's the likelihood of that happening? how do we get there?

I offered some suggestions (ban unregulated large-scale mining, connect farms to specific green grids), but I doubt Bitcoin fans will like them. :)

> that energy ought to be used for more practical pursuits.

I don't think you or anyone else should get to decide what amounts to practicality of energy consumption. Lots of people burn hydrocarbons all day long so they can live in the burbs and have their own driveway and nice big walk-in closets and not have to take an elevator or stairs up to their apartment.

> Anyone know of cryptocurrencies which will not blow up our planet's carbon or energy budgets? I've heard of proof-of-stake algorithms, but don't understand that approach very well.

They're not trustless, but they are a very interesting approach to the problem. If they indeed are superior, they might supersede bitcoin and other PoW friends at some point. But it's really hard to move past the fact that bitcoin is already "this hard" for folks to understand. Moving beyond it to new coin designs will be an interesting challenge.

Proof-of-stake is discussed in the peercoin whitepaper [1] in plain, understandable language. Best to start there IMO.

[1] https://peercoin.net/assets/paper/peercoin-paper.pdf

We should be actively trying to discourage pointless energy and resource consumption, including people living in the burbs and having huge homes. I’d agree with the idea we shouldn’t be making decisions about how people spend energy if and only if we could price in all externalities related to energy production adequately. This task, I believe, is more or less impossible.

I like how some people support net neutrality for the same reason - I can use my bandwidth for whatever purpose I want. Then how about paying/using my energy for whatever I want? Compared to people who would drive 1 hour per day to work, mining bitcoin isn't remotely comparable. You're just more comfortable with one thing, not the other.

Seriously everyone, please stop using bitcoin

If only it were so easy. Environmental concerns will not kill Bitcoin even if they should. Most people will not choose against their own immediate interests in favor of the distant future collective.

Bitcoin may fail, but it won’t be stopped.

Have you calculated how much resources, energy, and wasting peoples time goes into banks and printing fiat money?

Would be a nice comparison.

PoW is the cheapest way to have secure transactions compared to alternatives. It's not energy wasted - this energy ensures the safety of the global financial system, which is a net positive.

http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest

I expected some graphics comparing various alternatives, but instead, it's 20 pages of ramblings, poorly edited.

I'm sorry that people are making free (as in beer) content in their free time (which ain't free) that you do not consider aesthetically pleasing.

I think he meant he expected you to link to something more explicit and objective, such as a scientific survey of the various options, and not that the author of that link should have done better.

1. Renewable energy

2. https://twitter.com/ponli137/status/939523905039097856

1. Most of the world does not have fully renewable energy, and wasting energy just makes it harder to go full renewable.

2. Gold is used throughout the world for a variety of uses, and has been used as a store of value for years pretty much everywhere. Bitcoin is used to get a few people rich, and is actually used as a store of value pretty much nowhere. They aren't comparable.

1. I can think of a hundred things more useful than bitcoin that renewable energy could be used for.

2. Gold has uses other than propping up speculative markets. This is a false equivalence.

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