Re:Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power
by ben_w on Friday February 09, 2024 @12:10PM
(#39317274)
> 1. There is no comparison made to the energy consumption of the traditional banking industry
Sure, but 2.7% of USA's electricity is almost certainly more than all of traditional banking. Now, I've just tried googling that, but the results are clearly being distorted by the exact things you're complaining about here, with estimates varying from 15.8 GW to 558 GW worldwide and that higher value being about 20% of global electrical demand which is obviously wrong as it's a bit more than the entire commercial/public sector of the global economy combined.
> which I am sure is not a particularly energy-efficient industry.
Compared to what it could be, perhaps. But it would be surprising if it was as bad as a system which specifically regards using as much computational power as possible to be a security measure.
> The point is the amount of crypto being mined.
But that's designed to be independent of the energy use?
Also, mining isn't the value proposition of a currency, transactions are. One of the arguments that I often hear that's supposed[0] to be in support of bitcoin, is that it prevents inflation. But mining is inflation. Unfortunately, Bitcoin specifically has a transaction limit too small for just interbank balancing, let alone for direct personal use — for that, the system-wide limit would only barely cover Berliners taking cash out of ATMs once per week.
> If Bitcoin mining ends up using a higher proportion of renewable energy than, say, traditional banking, it could be seen as a net good for crypto use to rise.
No. To find out why, let's take it to absurd levels: build a Dyson swarm, cover the sun, use all that to mine crypto. What changes, economically or environmentally?
Nothing. Literally nothing.
The rest of the economy doesn't get greener, there isn't any more cryptocurrency than there would have been, the transaction rate hasn't changed.
[0] it doesn't actually support Bitcoin, but why is out of scope for this comment
Sure, but 2.7% of USA's electricity is almost certainly more than all of traditional banking. Now, I've just tried googling that, but the results are clearly being distorted by the exact things you're complaining about here, with estimates varying from 15.8 GW to 558 GW worldwide and that higher value being about 20% of global electrical demand which is obviously wrong as it's a bit more than the entire commercial/public sector of the global economy combined.
> which I am sure is not a particularly energy-efficient industry.
Compared to what it could be, perhaps. But it would be surprising if it was as bad as a system which specifically regards using as much computational power as possible to be a security measure.
> The point is the amount of crypto being mined.
But that's designed to be independent of the energy use?
Also, mining isn't the value proposition of a currency, transactions are. One of the arguments that I often hear that's supposed[0] to be in support of bitcoin, is that it prevents inflation. But mining is inflation. Unfortunately, Bitcoin specifically has a transaction limit too small for just interbank balancing, let alone for direct personal use — for that, the system-wide limit would only barely cover Berliners taking cash out of ATMs once per week.
> If Bitcoin mining ends up using a higher proportion of renewable energy than, say, traditional banking, it could be seen as a net good for crypto use to rise.
No. To find out why, let's take it to absurd levels: build a Dyson swarm, cover the sun, use all that to mine crypto. What changes, economically or environmentally?
Nothing. Literally nothing.
The rest of the economy doesn't get greener, there isn't any more cryptocurrency than there would have been, the transaction rate hasn't changed.
[0] it doesn't actually support Bitcoin, but why is out of scope for this comment