Right, but what if you consider it a bad thing to introduce an economic incentive for other people to burn the planet down?
This is beyond a matter of personal choice, until and unless we all get our own personal planets.
I don't really use Ethereum, but I commend the devs for recognizing the problem years ago (before I was even aware of it) and taking steps to remedy the situation.
In the short-term, yes, it is incredibly wasteful (though recent changes have disincentivized mining somewhat, even with a bit of protest) and there are many other cryptocurrencies which are already proof of stake available. This year, hopefully, Ethereum will finally move to PoS.
Hybrid systems like Ethereum, bootstrapping with PoW and then switching to a PoS system afterwards seemingly solve this problem, but such a switch implies that the social structure around the blockchain is centralized: Ethereum is technologically decentralized, but politically very centralized (you can also see in their way of handling the DAO “hack”, violating the Ethereum protocol and rolling back the blockchain) and that's why the developers can just go “screw the miners and their hardware, we're moving to PoS now”.
You couldn't do this kind of switch for bitcoin, because it's really decentralized, with stakeholders having deeply unaligned interests.
Ethereum has many problems, which prevent it ever competing with bitcoin as money. It can do NFTs and games, sure. However, there are many competitors who do these better, like BSC and Solana, and other more centralized blockchains. So, in the end there is really no place for Ethereum to be competitive in.
These assertions that it is clean are not based on anything more than wishful thinking.
I like(d) everything else about bitcoin even though it's dated technology now, but proof of work is unjustifiable, the incentives create an extremely negative externality that aren't offset by its potential as borderless, uncensorable money. Especially when other blockchains avoid this issue entirely.
I just don’t agree that it can be dismissed as easily as the article does there, by saying that you can choose not to use it.
We only have one planet we share and other people’s choices are also important.
In a system centred around the premise that money is the only thing that motivates, for thing A to beat thing B, there has to be more money to be made from doing thing A. I don't think the case has been made here (though perhaps it has elsewhere) that PoS can beat PoW on these grounds -- are there sufficient incentives to make that shift?
I have the feeling that if you inject money in any cryptocurrency, you inject money in the "cypto market" which eventually mean that the price of PoW money also increase. And the energy usage follow the price of the PoW money.
The best way to push the energy usage of PoW money down is to get back fiat money under control and stop incentivizing reckless gambling, like the FED finally seems to be doing.
Eventually I think Bitcoin will lose out to PoS cryptocurrencies (probably Ethereum), and many people such as myself are specifically rallying behind this narrative, which is why we see bitcoin dominance at near historic lows, and I suspect it's unlikely to recover to >70% and perhaps not even >60%.
Wow, glad to know you have the global carbon emissions problem in hand!
Back in the real world, until we have actually got that problem in hand, PoW cryptocurrencies are a huge extra amount of consumption, where we already have more consumption than green energy producers can keep up with. And now crypto miners are bringing decommissioned fossil fuel plants back on line in some places, purely to service PoW.
The planet burners are the buyers. Sorry.
Green and crypto are quite different things, supply and demand — green is about production, the only important part. How we generate energy in a clean and sustainable way.
Crypto is about consumption, and you have no business telling others how they should spend energy. You can however incentivize the consumers to do it cleanly. You can be green and also pro-energy usage.
Being green doesn’t mean being a bully and telling people what they can and can’t do.
2. Banks provide orders or magnitude more services than cryptocurrency ever will
Why is it considered OK to generate massive amounts of pollution and expend tremendous energy flying beef from Japan to New York for people's consumption, when there are perfectly edible cuts of beef which require at most a short train ride?
What if the crypto is mined in part or full by renewable energy, which many crypto miners do (it's economically to their advantage in certain areas/climates)?
If the goal is saving the planet, there are plenty of activities like flying internationally for pleasure, or eating meat that do far more environmental damage than cryptocurrency mining.
Secondly, many of us don’t think that beef example is really “OK” either.
Third, the idea that Bitcoin or crypto in general runs predominantly on green power is bullshit.
Fourth, BTC now consumes more power and has more associated carbon output than many mid sized countries, it is not some piddling little thing that we can safely ignore.
Fifth, and last - My point that you replied to was about the article writing the problem off as personal choice. While we only have one planet it is not just personal choice.
Because gamers, graphics designers, porn watchers and TVs don't use piles of thousands GPUs kept at 100% load 24/7. The spike in power demand and consumption after cryptocurrencies became popular speaks for itself.
> Why is it considered OK to generate massive amounts of pollution and expend tremendous energy flying beef from Japan to New York for people's consumption, when there are perfectly edible cuts of beef which require at most a short train ride?
Totally unrelated issue that the absence of cryptocurrencies didn't create and that cryptocurrencies can't solve.
> What if the crypto is mined in part or full by renewable energy, which many crypto miners do (it's economically to their advantage in certain areas/climates)?
Because they still pump heat in the atmosphere. Also, most places where renewables such as solar can be convenient, aren't the best places to generate more heat, and they would need even more energy to cool down the electronics.
> If the goal is saving the planet, there are plenty of activities like flying internationally for pleasure, or eating meat that do far more environmental damage than cryptocurrency mining.
Completely unrelated as well. See point #2.
Many blockchains already use or are transitioning to proof of stake cryptocurrencies. Not to mention gamers, porn watchers, and graphic designers in aggregate utilize far more energy than cryptocurrency and also do not use green sources. It seems you just have a personal dislike of crypto and are letting it preclude you from objectivity.
Regardless there are 1.5+ billion gamers which does make it comparable. Video streaming in aggregate consumes an incredible amount of energy, as does non-essential plane travel. But people seem to not mind that. It's fine if people want to enjoy their movies or fly around the world for pleasure but it's a bit of cognitive dissonance.