Why Bitcoin is so bad for the planet – video explainer [video] | Hacker News Reader

Why Bitcoin is so bad for the planet – video explainer [video]

theguardian.com

19 pointsGupie11 comments

I used to follow Bitcoin quite closely right up until the age of ASIC mining took over so I'm not in the loop. What's the long term solution for this?

Moving consensus away from proof of work, proof of stake is currently the promising solution but there will be a lot of pushback from the miners as their hardware would become obsolete and they may decide to just continue mining like they currently are.

The market would then decide which is the real Bitcoin and the mining would only stop once it’s no longer economically viable to mine Bitcoin due to the price dropping.

If it makes tha author happy, Bitcoin doesn't use as much energy as it will in the future.

I would like to see a chart that predicts the price of bitcoin and multiplies the predicted price with the block reward. The dollar value of the block reward is the profit motive of miners. If it goes down over time then Bitcoin will consume less and less power.

However, it's entirely possible that block reward halving will also accelerate the deflation of Bitcoin as more and more Bitcoin get lost irreversibly.

We are the point where things can get better or worse but nobody knows yet.

For me things are getting better, as I prefer Bitcoin to use more energy (although I hope that the share of renewable energy usage will go up).

If Bitcoin will be successful, the price can go up 100x while energy usage goes up by 10-20x.

Why do you prefer Bitcoin to use more energy?

Its security against nation state level attacks depends on the amount of energy used.

There were many previous attempts to create private money independent of cental banks, but all failed due to national states clamping down on them. Bitcoin was the first private money that succeeded.

> Its security against nation state level attacks depends on the amount of energy used.

I don't understand how more energy used makes bitcoin harder to shut down. It would seem the opposite to me as energy usage could be used to find illicit mining.

Have you read the original Bitcoin whitepaper?

No. Enlighten me.

Do it, it's worth it. It will be the best ROI of your time in your life, it's just 9 pages.

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