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A comment on What Bitcoin’s White Paper Got Right, Wrong and What We Still Don’t Know (2018). Parent comment

Re:What Bitcoin’s White Paper Got Right, Wrong and What We S... by gruez on Saturday October 31, 2020 @10:36PM (#24956822)
>but it’s much better for the environment.

Why? If OPEX is reduced (lower electricity costs), it's logical to assume that it will be replaced with CAPEX, given how competitive mining operations are. If that's the case, that will mean electricity being used to power ASICs being replaced with chemicals required to fab semiconductors (along with electricity for those fabs). It might be better in terms of GHG emissions, it would be a wash for overall environmental impact.

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Re:What Bitcoin’s White Paper Got Right, Wrong and What We S... by Retric on Sunday November 01, 2020 @06:37AM (#24958799)
Thinking about environmental issues abstractly aka energy vs chemicals doesn’t give you a basis for comparison. You need to dig into the details. In a green world you’re comparing X square feet of solar panels + Batteries with building RAM and environmentally building more RAM is less damaging.
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