[0]: https://simon.medium.com/bitcoin-and-pollution-the-definitiv...
As is your reference on that article - "Most bitcoin mining is using energy at the source that was uneconomical to use for other purposes, because of the loss experienced in transporting the energy to economic centers", which just links to one of your own comments on HN!
The rest appears to be handwaving - "Gold is worse!" or "It'll move to proof of stake!"
(edit: the link to the comment is not the OPs own, but it is an HN comment which just contains an assertion about green energy use)
> just links to one of your own comments on HN!
No, the comment that I reference on HN is not mine, it's by someone else. BTW, I quite agree with it.
> The rest appears to be handwaving
I don't see why. We have used, and are still using, Gold as store of value. Each year gold pollutes tens of times more than Bitcoin. The ones criticizing Bitcoin should have been criticizing Gold all along; and they should criticize Gold way more than Bitcoin even now.
There is a bigger problem, however. If a gold miner finds a more energy-efficient mining process, they will use it because it is more profitable. No technological improvements make Bitcoin mining more energy efficient (miners are incentivized to expand their operation rather than to mine at the same rate using less power), because the whole point of Bitcoin mining is to prove that electricity was utilized. That means that there is no real solution to Bitcoin's pollution problem, other than scrapping Bitcoin entirely and replacing it with something more energy-efficient (like a distributed ledger operated by a consortium of banks).
I've seen this claim made a few times now: that most Bitcoin is mined using renewables, at source. Where's the actual evidence for it?
a) not the same as the original claim
b) not evidence
Ok, misread that. Either way it's just an HN comment, it's not proof of anything much. Gold mining is terribly polluting, yep, but your attitude to it is pretty much the definition of whataboutery.
I found this bit hilarious. I guess he's banking on people not actually clicking the source links? Medium journalism at its finest.
(Mostly playing devil's advocate here. I would personally be for strong carbon taxes on electricity.)
Well, a purely electronic financial instrument that pretty much by definition cannot produce anything, and provides little but an arena for speculation, would seem to me to be a bad thing to introduce to a world that's trying to reduce energy use.
If you want to get into "well people clearly value it", the evidence being the money they pump in, well then any energy expenditure is justified if it is profitable, and this conversation is pointless.
> How much energy has and is being expended during the mining of all the gold
This is just whataboutery. Gold can be a problem as well.
I would suggest that is not an effective way of starting a conversation.
I think that comparing Bitcoin energy consumption with a country (it used to be Chile, now Argentina), while technically correct, misses the big picture.
I also avoided a discussion on the true cost of having a global currency like the US$, which one might argue pollutes far more (military, etc).
I think a comparison like that actually is the big picture.
Maybe your arguments point though to more nuance.
The whole shift of calling it a store of value as opposed to currency that Bitcoin supporters have started over the past couple of years is very clearly a post hoc justification for its existence.
The problem, however, is that BTC isn’t even a very good store of value. Golds pricing has never collapsed 10x over the matter of months and nor has it risen 5-10x over the matter of months. As a result BTC isn’t even a very good store of value.
It’s currently, at best, a pure speculative asset. It’s like the GME trading from a week ago taken to its logical extreme. A speculative asset that has no relationship to its underlying fundamentals. Much like how GME’s price was completely divorced from any fundamentals of the company, BTC is like saying let’s do that thing, but why even bother with tethering GME the stock to an underlying company. Let it just exist on its own.
That’s what BTC is at the moment. GME if GameStop didn’t exist.
Your comparison to VISA links to a source that says that better comparison is Fedwire and that it only settles 1% of the money that FedWire does. So Bitcoin significantly loses to VISA in transaction count and FedWire in value settled. So I'm not convinced by your argument. And how much energy does Fedwire use? Presumably much less than VISA.
Gold is however undoubtedly a good comparison pick for Bitcoin; it's something with a few natural pros on it's side that's been hideously overvalued for largely irrational reasons. Like... this metal is advertised as the "right" basis to back currency but I also have some of it in nearly every gadget I own? Then how rare can it possibly be if a small amount comes in a $15 audio decoder for goodness sakes!?
Impressed. I didn't know Bitcoin transactions accounted for such huge volume almost as large as MasterCard. I use MC almost every day for almost everything. Is there people like, entirely living with BTC?
To help put the difference more in scope, Visa and MasterCard each did over 100 billion payment transactions (nearly 300B combined) in 2019[0], yet Bitcoin still is over 3 orders of magnitude lower at around ~130 million (350k daily average x 365 days). The key distinction is the fact that the average Bitcoin transaction (currently ~$100k) is far higher than the average credit card transaction.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/261327/number-of-per-car...
Is Bitcoin mining comparable to gold mining? It should rather be compared to the logistics and trading of gold maybe?