Comment by jgeerts | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jgeerts | Hacker News Reader

To put this in perspective, YouTube (243.6 tw/h) uses about double of Bitcoin's (124 tw/h) energy consumption, but there is no outrage about that. People care about the environment if it doesn't take away their comfort, airconditioning use is about 2000 tw/h globally, expected to triple in the next 30 years, some of the outrage on Bitcoin is being written in airconditioned rooms by people that drive combustion engine cars.

If you compare Bitcoin's environmental footprint to the whole financial system with air cooled offices around the world, with equipment, server rooms it doesn't come close.

A positive side of Bitcoin mining is that it's geographically independent and it can move to where they have too much energy which cannot be stored. In some cases the abundance of energy would be wasted through gas flaring which puts more CO2 into the atmosphere. Now they can get rid of their excessive energy and store it in the form of Bitcoin.

* https://thefactsource.com/how-much-electricity-does-youtube-... * https://research.arcane.no/news/equinor-partners-with-bitcoi...

That's because this is a coordinated smear campaign that started shortly after US finance started signalling that they don't like BTC. I don't remember who it was. There was an official conference. Ever since then those BTC caused global warming are popping up every other day.

I guess the terrorists and drug cartels angle is dead since Elon has now btc.

I've noticed this too, it's like a switch flipped.

more like a greyhounds had been released by the masters :)

yapping and biting at the ankles

How many people use YouTube and how many people currently own bitcoin? The difference is probably currently several orders of magnitude.

If Bitcoin truly does become the new money to which everyone benefits from, the price will probably go up by several orders of magnitude and so will the hashing power.

Private jets have less impact than rice farming. But if I had to choose, I would prefer we stop using private jets.

What matters for me is how I, as an individual, can use information to change my behavior.

From this standpoint, I have a lot more environmental impact by contributing to bitcoin than by watching a YT video.

That's a straw man argument, you can't change the discussion of YouTube vs Bitcoin to rice fields vs private jets. If you have the freedom to view Bitcoin as an unnecessary luxury I can view YouTube in the same way. Why is no one talking about banning YouTube to save the environment? The price of Bitcoin is suggesting that people see merit in it's use and the hashing power is being used to keep the network safe. It can only be viewed as waste if the argument stands that Bitcoin is unnecessary and I would argue that it's very necessary and more efficient than the current financial system.

THANK YOU !

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