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Comment by pawsed | Hacker News Reader

This isn't exactly an rebuttal to your argument, but 74% of energy that Bitcoin used to power it's network was renewable energy [1], that's more than you can say for most countries. While the network itself is inefficient, I think the philosophy of "why bitcoin", is always amiss in these arguments. Everything can be made more efficient.

Edit: 39% of energy used is renewable, not really sure how that doesn't matter.

[1] https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/36672/renewable-energy-....

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That article actually states the opposite: 74% of miners use some renewable energy. Only 39% of energy used comes from renewable sources, and most of it is hydroelectric, which is limited so miners demand for it is likely crowding out other users from it. The remainder mostly consists of coal and natural gas (there's a popular idea that miners use or can use the excess energy usage which occasionally comes from wind or solar, but the cost of the hardware they use prevents it: they will run the hardware 100% of the time to pay for it, so they represent a strong base load on the system, not a convenient energy sink for excess renewable generation).

Read two paragraphs below what in your own link.

>However, the CCAF’s report specifies that the 76% refers to the share of hashers who use renewable energy at any point. It estimates that only 39% of hashing’s total energy consumption comes from renewables.

> Behind hydroelectricity, coal (38%) and natural gas (36%) are the energy sources hashers favour most.

Yes, but only because electricity from those sources is cheaper. Green up the grid (pls nuclear) and no problems.

Bitcoin people keep trying to score points and if they can't they move the goal post. You tried to get the green energy point but when you can't get it its like "yeah... duh nobody else can either". The what are you good for and why do people constantly bring up this false stat.

Not moving any goal posts here, I just meant to say that some part of the energy usage is renewable, and we as mankind have been moving towards more energy consumption each year anyway. In the coming years, we'll start using more renewable energy.

As far as the question what are you good for is concerned, we've been printing money at an alarming rate ever since 2008 crisis, if the new stimulus is passed, the us will have printed 40% of all dollars in existence in the past year alone, I don't know how you think that won't cause inflation/it's acceptable that the cost of printing is borne by other countries because the us dollar is the international reserve currency. Bitcoin has been adopting a store of value narrative and is synonymous with digital gold at this point, so in effect a hedge against inflation.

Two, I'm not sure if you relate with it or not, but maybe we just believe in decentralization of financial institutions just a little bit more than you do, everyone who got burned because of banks in the past decade has developed a deep distrust of the modern financial system.

This has to be the most disingenuous comment on this whole website. You not only moved the goal post about green energy, you moved the goal post into an entire different stadium by mentioning inflation. Dude, you are defending bitcoin. That thing is less stable than a monkey on ice skates. You think that will combat inflation?

You are being extremely rude by calling my comment disingenuous, it's your parochial thinking which seeks perfection from an asset from the onset and cannot comprehend that asset classes can mature, if you cannot hold a conversation properly do not reply at all. All emerging technologies undergo Gartner cycles. Perhaps, you haven't heard what happens when a financial system continuously prints money, does the Venezuelan Bolivar ring a bell? I did not say it will combat inflation, I said it's a hedge against inflation, perhaps you could take a look at the charts of dollar index and Bitcoin and contemplate on the exact counter reflection that they are.

Doesn't matter, really. Bitcoin is secured by waste. Maybe the money is burned in coal-fired power plants, maybe it's burned buying "mining" equipment, maybe it's burned building wind turbines. All of those things are polluting and all of them use manpower and natural resources.

If Bitcoin transitions to 100% renewable energy, then it will just use more of it to achieve the same amount of money-burning. The economics stay the same.

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