Bitcoin network average energy consumption per transaction compared to VISA

Re:Bitcoin network average energy consumption per transactio... by spaced-out on Monday March 08, 2021 @01:50PM (#26389849)

The link doesn't state whether it's counting only the energy costs incurred by VISA, or if it includes the energy costs of making a transaction on the SWIFT payment network that VISA, Mastercard, banks, and other institutions run on top of. Obviously to do a fair comparison you have to take SWIFT into account, otherwise you're not capturing the true energy cost of making a VISA payment.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/05051...

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Re:Bitcoin network average energy consumption per transactio... by tmcw on Monday March 08, 2021 @01:58PM (#26389959)

If they factored in the other-bank transaction costs, there'd be something else to "what-about." What about the company's energy costs in its non-payment processing? How about all the plastic they use to make those credit cards? The silicon in the card swipe machine?

None of these things will bridge that gap, unveiling a missing data point that somehow makes VISA less efficient by six magnitudes that somehow researchers were missing all this time. But constantly asking for more detail is a good way to stay in denial about Bitcoin's terrible numbers.

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Re:Bitcoin network average energy consumption per transactio... by JumpCrisscross on Monday March 08, 2021 @01:52PM (#26389877)

> to do a fair comparison you have to take SWIFT into account

The difference is orders of magnitude. SWIFT won't cross the gap. Bitcoin has a lot of things going for it. Energy efficiency isn't one of them.

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Re:Bitcoin network average energy consumption per transactio... by djrogers on Monday March 08, 2021 @02:08PM (#26390092)

Perhaps you missed the fine print on the chart where it was comparing one BTC transaction to 100,000 visa transactions?

If the chart were anywhere close to 1:1 I could understand wanting to nitpick little details, but in this case go ahead and double/triple/quadruple the estimate, and it's still shocking.

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Re:Bitcoin network average energy consumption per transactio... by EthicalHacker03 on Monday March 08, 2021 @01:57PM (#26389940)

VISA (or Mastercard) do not 'run on top of' SWIFT. The net position of each VISA/MC institution will be transferred with SWIFT, but this is one payment with potentially millions of underlying card transactions.

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Re:Bitcoin network average energy consumption per transactio... by JumpCrisscross on Monday March 08, 2021 @01:59PM (#26389972)

> will be transferred with SWIFT

Nitpick: nothing gets transferred with SWIFT. SWIFT is a messaging service. Settlement happens on separate rails.

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Re:Bitcoin network average energy consumption per transactio... by 101008 on Monday March 08, 2021 @01:51PM (#26389862)

If you add every layer above or below you would end up consdering the own internet infrastructure, wouldn't you?

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