Bitcoin mining used more water than New York City last year
wsj.com
wsj.com
Unsurprising to see the WSJ deliberatly suggesting both are comparable.
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-sustainability/fulltext/S2...
While I’m certainly no fan of the environmental impact Bitcoin had in its last bull run, I like Lyn Alden’s point that having access to a stable banking system and a currency that isn’t subject to massive devaluation at the whims of your government is a luxury that many of us enjoy, but that many in the rest of the world do not. Many are stuck saving in currencies that could have their values wrecked at almost any time, in bank accounts that could realistically be frozen or drained by their governments unilaterally with little recourse, especially if they’re a suspected dissident. Obviously, BTC’s value is far from stable, but its future value is at least not certain to be much lower, and it gives people an escape hatch from almost certain financial repression, basically being forced by their government to fall back the financial ladder that they’ve been working for a large portion of their lives to climb up.
In practice, BTC value is more volatile than currencies in advanced economies, no?
If they can get dollars, that’s maybe a reasonable substitute, and I’ve heard that USD stablecoins are popular in those places as well.
I do love that your response to a fairly mild objection was "oh no, we don't allow critical thought unless you already agree with us". That attitude sure seems like a microcosm of the ecosystem, hence why it's so filled with naked scams and people running with the money.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2jAZ0x9H0bQFY6wIbQfn...
I said nothing about it being a viable currency.
But why compare bitcoin to fiat and not to other cryptocurrencies? There are many that don't need such enormous amounts of energy to work. Why not use them in stead of bitcoin?
I know that this statement is bold and makes people angry especially in the first world, but using the financial system as reference there are many reports out there of funds explaining why Bitcoin is the only “crypto” that will outlive, and that Proof Of Stake is basically and oligarchy scam system. So using a slang, this is not anymore a “trust me bro” argumentation.
- light validator nodes, more than 50ks around the world - no foundations, CEOs, companies behind - proposals based on BIP - miners don’t own the chain since rules are based on nodes (except some quick activations in the past for segwit and taproot) - no premining - the only one truly censorship resistant (stratum v2) - I could go on and on and on
But yes, I agree with you on the mining pools topic.
Unfortunately, the whole industry has turned into get rich quick schemes and investment toys for rich kids.
> Iran’s high reliance on natural gas for electricity production lowers the water footprint of its mining activities in comparison to countries like Canada and Norway where water-intensive energy sources like hydropower have a more significant role than Iran.
Depending on the source, using hydroelectric power is not really a waste of water. For instance, another WSJ article linked from TFA [0] talks about using hydroelectric power from the Niagra river. At night, there is often surplus energy generated by hydroelectric power plants along the river. Both Canada and New York have pumped storage hydroelectric plants to handle the excess power generated at night from both hydroelectric plants like the ones along the Niagra river as well as nuclear power plants. And still there is excess power at night. You're actually doing the state of New York a favor if you can put excess night time electricity to use.
Bitcoin miners don't stop mining as soon as literally anybody else needs the electricity – they stop mining as soon as local electricity prices make it uneconomical for them.
In the end, they'll accordingly always contribute to raising prices from the demand side and will at least sometimes be pricing some other consumers out or, worse, raising the electricity price enough for gas turbines to have an economic incentive to start producing. (Renewables have an effectively free marginal cost per joule but are inflexible/unpredictable; gas turbines are expensive but flexible.)
Additionally, some types of hydroelectric plants support variable flow – they can just increase storage levels instead of running their turbines at maximum capacity.
There’s not really anything to “buy” here. I just described how the New York Power Authority generates power. Here’s a press release from last August announcing a new facility for 20 MW of storage with a target goal of 6000 MW of storage by 2030 [0]. This is just battery storage and doesn't include other storage like pumped hydro. It’s just a fact that NY has excess electricity from hydroelectric power plants.
0: https://www.nypa.gov/news/press-releases/2023/20230825-utili...
They don't pay for the CO2.
It's the most stupid thing to assume Bitcoin is a net positive for energy when it's clearly not.
It arbitrage energy against a independent market. This leads to ridiculous stupid results.
Electric power generators are the largest source of U.S. water withdrawals and account for about 40% of total water withdrawals in the United States. Water withdrawals by U.S. thermoelectric power plants reached 52.8 trillion gallons in 2017: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37453
I guess its not sufficient that we waste trillions of gallons of water on fossil fuels, we must find new ways to waste water.
How much water per user served did the banking industry use? It makes sense that banking uses a lot of resources in total because it is a huge industry, serving hundreds of millions of people worldwide, if not billions. Bitcoin serves what, at most a few tens of thousands of users?
I heard people talk about the electricity usage of the banking industry in comparison to bitcoin and its the same thing. Yeah it takes a lot of energy to heat and cool every bank in the world, but it is serving several orders of magnitude more people than bitcoin and offering way more services. Can I walk in to a bitcoin building and get a loan for a new car? Nope.
And that's literally one service, from one bank.
60 million real people. People that forget a password, lose their wallet, encounter fraud, need to walk into banks occasionally, use debit cards/deal with cash/ATMs, credit cards that are also accepted everywhere, and as you point out financing products people can actually use (not some crazy smart contract DEX who knows what), need help, have questions, etc, etc, etc.
Safety deposit boxes to notary services the list just never ends. This is just retail.
Plus little things like at least trying to comply with the law, customer protections, regulation, oversight, fraud departments, etc.
People that even bring up comparison to the banking or financial system in discussion of bitcoin power usage instantly have zero credibility.
Although the same could be said for almost any comparison between bitcoin and the banking system. It has total users measured in the 7-8 figures tops after 16 years for many valid reason.
The idea that 11 people bidding up 10 houses is going to radically change if you have Bitcoin or a narrow bank is ridiculous. If people borrow Bitcoin for the loan, they will still have to outbid everyone else at exactly the same price measured in dollars, because eleven people are bidding up 10 houses.
I am honestly quite tired of nonsense like your comment. If the economy is in general equilibrium, then there is no meaningful difference between Bitcoin and the dollar. If there is no general equilibrium, I would expect Bitcoin to be further away from it than dollars.
hmm these seem to be usecases that are almost impossible for bitcoin/blockchains that say "cheap transaction fees / trust in the system" due to no-person-in-the-loop...
Yes, it's "not a problem" because all transactions are final and if you lose the key to your virtual wallet with all your savings, then you're fucked, but that's part of the point?
Banks provide these essential services that people need. Bitcoin doesn't, and it still consumes massively more energy.
I just noticed you were listing vital features of a financial system, and yet wasn't using them as your foremost argument.
New technologies that require massive amounts of bandwidth and CPU/GPU power are expensive. And those will not became cheaper overtime.
That's what you implied.
) New technologies are expensive *at the beginning*