If the government is allowed to dictate how my car must be built in order to make it more environmentally friendly, I don't see why it shouldn't be able to dictate how my blockchain must be built in order to make it environmentally sustainable.
This wouldn't mean banning blockchain altogether. It would entail banning only those forms of distributed consensus that are not energy efficient.
Proof of work (POW) is by definition inefficient from an energy perspective. You have to prove to have spent a lot of resources to be trusted. There's no excuse for this from an environment point of view, even if, admittedly, from a technological perspective is quite a marvel.
I wouldn't be surprised to know that those defending bitcoin on this front are biased because they hold some quantity of crypto based on POW.
So save your regulations for the power plants and let the market figure out how to spend the electricity. If you wouldn't be in favor of the government regulating how much money can be spent on beef, or how much money can be spent on TVs, you shouldn't be in favor of the government regulating how much can be spent on Bitcoin's electricity bills.
The bigger issue with GP's comment is that, even if every major country on earth requires PoW systems to use renewable electricity (which won't happen any time soon in the first place) and can't run on the regular mixed grid, then after switching to countries without such laws (until there are none left), the renewable energy will be bought up at the source and the coal and gas plants will continue to supply everyone else. Nothing changes.
We need to change everything else to renewable before this starts to be effective. It would make a much bigger impact if some countries, where users want to use cryptocurrency, make it illegal to use proof-of-work-based goods or currencies (whatever it's classified as). Suddenly a coin with PoS or something else becomes much more popular and we might, perhaps, shift over to a digital coin that is not a climate disaster.
There's no need for mental gymnastics of blaming energy. Just one powerful guy says "no" and poof, its illegal. Now laws or logic required.
There was an exception for collector coins and jewelry
I liked the idea of bitcoin when it came out, but as per usual things have just gotten out of hand from there.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in...
fair (and I think gold as a "beautiful" metal is dumb), but the other half of the usage (on your claim) is for an array of productive things. I don't see wires, heat reflectors, etc being made out of bitcoin.
It's far less than that. Only 7.48% is definitely useful (under "technology").
Is there no way to slim down the resource requirements to cut electrical use? (without breaking everything Bitcoin of course)
-
[1] He played a major role in developing leaded gasoline (Tetraethyllead) and some of the first chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
[2] Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history"
To put it bluntly (not meant to sound blunt, I just can't think of a better example without reiterating a technical explanation of how bitcoin works), that's like asking if people living in the Sahara can't simply drink less water to solve the unavailability of fresh water. And even that's a bad comparison because the human body actually can actually make due with less water. Perhaps it's like an electric heater (not heat pump, just a plain old heater), if you know how these things work: if you make it use fewer Watts, you get less heat, because there is no "waste heat" because heat is what you want in the first place. So fewer Watts is always less heat no matter how you spin it.
Similarly, putting more power into Bitcoin makes you earn more money (as a miner). If we make the hashing algorithm more efficient, then the hash rate will just raise proportionally to meet the new supply (supply being the block reward + transaction fees, both in bitcoin (or whatever proof-of-work currency you're mining) that you receive when finding a block as a miner).
No, the alternative is moving away from proof of work. I've been hearing stuff about proof of stake for years now, and afaik there are some currencies already using it. Not sure why Bitcoin doesn't switch to it, I'm not keeping up. Lost interest back when it became clear what a disaster it is and that it won't be able to fulfill its original purpose anyway. I'm very surprised the price is still soaring, shouldn't the best currency win? I guess people just don't give a fuck about their non-direct impact and see it as a way to get rich quick.
Cheers for the reply
If I wanted to neutralize it, I would do something like Bait&Switch. Support banks running own cryptos until point where general public will see no difference between BTC and private cryptocurrencies and leave BTC users with their wallets and even when it will remain legal and everything, the "crypto revolution" would be taken by usual suspects (the establishment).
However, I wouldn't like to see it. I prefer world currency to be run by nerds over bankers and politicians.
The fact that Bitcoin now uses half the power of Youtube (from a terribly unreliable estimate) should not be such a distraction from the real problem IMHO.
Terribly unreliable estimate:
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+total+power+cons...
The answer: they might try, but good luck with that.
It's not as simple as calling out the top energy users and saying we should start there.
Ah yes, the old trope that people use the US dollar because they are forced to.
Meanwhile, back in reality, people around the world are desperate to get their hands on USD for commerce, because it's easily transacted, accepted and valued anywhere. You know, kinda like Bitcoin purports to be, but way more common.
A currency having value abroad is arguably a side effect, not the main goal.
Dollars are not meant to be an "investment". The fact that the supply can be increased on demand is a feature, not a bug.
The same pattern repeats itself in history: those with the biggest army popularize their culture, language and coin. The Roman Empire is a good example.
The whole point of Bitcoin is resistance to adversity. Bitcoin value is directly correlated to its resistance against governments/agencies/bankers/regulation or anything else that wants to shut it down. If you can wrap your head around that, you'll understand why making bitcoin more eco-friendly from a centralized government or organization will suddenly make it less valuable.
I sincerely wish more people had your ability for introspection!
On the surface it seems the value of Bitcoin is directly tied to its energy consumption and thus environmental harm.
I get that Bitcoin itself is decentralised and cannot be banned outright. But could it be neutered in such a way that renders it more and more worth / useless?