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Comment by spookthesunset | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoin is absolutely wasteful to the vast majority of the population on earth. It provides no benefit to them, and makes their energy bill (and video card bill) go up.

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But the same could be applied to almost any consumer product. My kids want to buy these crappy plastic toys at the supermarket, wastefully packaged and shipped from China, of no-use to anyone yet energy is expended to design, make and ship them internationally. And this is just one consumer product from China. Have you seen Alibaba offerings of late?

There isn't a person on earth mining bitcoin with GPUs.

Tons are mining alt coins with them. These stories never include the rather sizable market for alt-coins, almost all of which use the same energy-sucking design that bitcoin does.

I’ve never seen an article like this for the entire crypto space as a whole but I imagine it is much, much worse.

No, energy expenditure for bitcoin mining is larger than that of all altcoins combined. Despite the considerable technical innovations of some altcoins, bitcoin remains king in this world for now.

The energy consumption of the next closest altcoin is almost an order of magnitude less even with ASICs. After that, you'll find the security model of almost every altcoin to be total garbage (low energy consumption).

The increased electricity demand may drive research funding resulting in more efficient energy production.

LOL. Sure, but that is only being done because bitcoin gobbled up all the electricity that could have been used doing useful things like running data centers, smelting aluminum, air conditioning homes, etc.

Bitcoin is a drain on the electrical system. You are basically arguing that it is okay to litter because it will create jobs and spawn new anti-litter technology.

Doesn’t work that way, sorry.

I'll shutdown my bitcoin mining operation if you shutdown your AC. I find 21c living to be incredibly wasteful and a luxury only offered to those blessed to be born in the first world.

This type of argument goes nowhere fast.

Of course I can see. People’s sense of entitlement means we are all doomed. Mass extinction is always someone else’s fault, not my problem.

Please turn off your computer. You're wasting watts shaming first world folk. Go convince the 3rd world to stop burning trash and making babies. Oh, right - they'll stop by themselves when they reach your level of wealth.

That electricity could not always have been used to smelt aluminium or whatever else you suggest. Some of that power is hydro based and cannot travel a significant distance. You can move bitcoin mining equipment closer to power sources much more easily than you can move an aluminium furnace and supporting infrastructure.

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