Re:Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index
by noch on Wednesday February 10, 2021 @01:32PM
(#26092996)
> No it just always always goes up regardless of transaction volume as the block-difficulty increases infinitely.
[sigh] The difficulty adjustment is so a block is issued on average every 10 minutes. It therefore does not increase infinitely but both increases and decreases depending on the amount of hashpower in the network.
Re:Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index
by ForHackernews on Wednesday February 10, 2021 @01:45PM
(#26093131)
Has it ever decreased?
> What is the maximum difficulty?
> There is no minimum target. The maximum difficulty is roughly: maximum_target / 1 (since 0 would result in infinity), which is a ridiculously huge number (about 2^224).
Re:Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index
by noch on Wednesday February 10, 2021 @02:19PM
(#26093469)
> Has it ever decreased?
Obviously.
https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-mining-difficulty-large-dro...
No it just always always goes up regardless of transaction volume as the block-difficulty increases infinitely. You've built a system that by design can literally only become less efficient.
It's actually even worse and stupider than if it were a per-transaction energy usage.