[blencdr]

You are right on this one, bitcoin is a large an noneffective resource waste. Our world need to have ideas to make an energy transition, and bitcoin is based on energy waste, mainly produced by carbon resources.

Our future world need energy, and we cannot afford burning real material to create a virtual money with no practical value, this is a nonsense.

[mrb]

"mainly produced by carbon resources"

No, many/most miners use hydropower. See next-to-last paragraph in section 1.

[mikeyouse]

As hydropower is clearly the cleanest and cheapest source of electricity and would be used first in any location, bitcoin miners are essentially shifting other power consumers to carbon-based sources.

[mrb]

I don't think they are shifting other consumers. More and more often we have seen that large miners either build their own mini-power plant[1] or use excess hydro power in remote areas that would otherwise be unused[2].

[1] http://thenodepole.com/2015/06/04/kncminer-to-build-new-20mw...

[2] https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/the-unknown-giant-a-fir...