[dvfjsdhgfv]

I read your arguments and unfortunately most don't hold water.

> 1. Miners currently use approximately only 0.0012% of the energy consumed by the world.

This doesn't change the fact that you're using energy. The second argument is basically the same, just extrapolating into the future.

> 3. Mining would be a waste if there was another more efficient way to implement a Bitcoin-like currency without proof-of-work.

This is a logical fallacy. Mining means wasting energy regardless if there are other ways of producing digital currencies or not.

Now, this one is actually interesting:

> 4. Bitcoin is already a net benefit to the economy. Venture capitalists invested more than $1 billion into at least 729 Bitcoin companies which created thousands of jobs. You may disregard the first three arguments, but the bottom line is that spending an estimated 150 megawatt in a system that so far created thousands of jobs is a valuable economic move, not a waste.

This example is a bit special because the jobs haven't been created by BCs themselves but by VCs spending their own money into BC-related companies. I just hope most of these aren't BC mines, otherwise we'd have a vicious circle here...

>5. The energy cost per transaction is currently declining thanks to the transaction rate increasing faster than the network's energy consumption.

Again: this kind of argument is of "it's not as bad as it sounds" type, and does nothing to refute the claim that mining is wasteful.

[shoo]

> 4. Bitcoin is already a net benefit to the economy. Venture capitalists invested more than $1 billion into at least 729 Bitcoin companies which created thousands of jobs. You may disregard the first three arguments, but the bottom line is that spending an estimated 150 megawatt in a system that so far created thousands of jobs is a valuable economic move, not a waste.

We cannot decide if an activity is valuable or not based solely on if it creates jobs.

e.g. suppose the government spends $1b on some entirely useless activity, such as employing people to dig holes and fill them in again. From the metrics of job creation and GDP this program can be regarded as a success. But there is a big opportunity cost in that resources and peoples' time has been spent on something utterly pointless when they could have been focused on a less useless or indeed a genuinely useful activity.

The world still has many genuine problems that still need to be solved. The time and resources could be directed to: maintain infrastructure, better educate people, roll out family planning programs, eradicate disease vectors, draft and enforce environmental regulation, build low cost housing, refit systems to improve energy efficiency, ...

[mrb]

"We cannot decide if an activity is valuable or not based solely on if it creates jobs."

You are right. However Bitcoin is not pointless and comparable to digging holes and filling them up. The simple fact that this financial network is censorship-resistant is a huge benefit to society, already positively impacting many people.

[MereInterest]

I'd see that as a negative, rather than a positive. Being resistant to censorship means that it is also resistant to correction. With Bitcoin, there is no way to reverse a fraudulent transaction. If a debt is owed, one could not put a lien on bitcoins to prevent them from being spent, as one could with regular currency.

[CyberDildonics]

It depends on your application. You are thinking about this from the view of someone who spends money on common every day items with a credit card. Money is used for much more than that. One example is the ability to go to another country and take money out of an ATM with bitcoin. Suddenly cash and available money is more ubiquitous and you can use your money without permission.

Many people don't realize the value of these things until they experience a hiccup in their current routine.

[MereInterest]

Ubiquity and the inability to correct the record are two different properties. As it is, I already can take money out of an ATM in a different country, with my ATM card. Yes, there is a fee applied. No, I don't consider that a large downside, as currency exchanges are the price a society pays in order to avoid getting into Greece's current situation, where the currency can't be adjusted to help the economy.

[CyberDildonics]

> I already can take money out of an ATM in a different country, with my ATM card

With a fee applied AND if your bank lets you.

> No, I don't consider that a large downside, as currency exchanges are the price a society pays in order to avoid getting into Greece's current situation, where the currency can't be adjusted to help the economy.

Greece's government spent more money than they took in by a large margin for many decades. Not being able to print money is not the fundamental cause of their problems and has nothing to do with crypto-currencies.

[a_imho]

1. Miners currently use approximately only 0.0012% of the energy consumed by the world.

Actually if that number is accurate, is quite shocking.

[notahacker]

As a back-of-the-envelope calculation, cryptocurrencies are [over]valued with a market cap of ~$70bn (from https://coinmarketcap.com/) of which BTC itself constitutes just under half.

World broad money supply is estimated around $80 trillion (not including many other stores of wealth and financial instruments which are not money). So the first conclusion one could draw is that cryptocurrency is also a surprisingly high proportion of currencies in circulation, at around 0.1% (treating cryptocurrencies as equivalent to broad money and exchange values as accurate)

A second would be that cryptocurrencies which apparently use 1% of their capital value in energy per annum to function even at low transaction volumes are unlikely to be a viable long term solution to the problem of exchange.

[horusthecat]

My off-the-cuff response is that cryptocoins behave more like a commodity more than a currency, so their value is always relative to cash, not part of global cash reserves.

[Sholmesy]

Agreed. This is a non-trival amount of energy. Given the infancy of the technology, it is likely to grow.

Edit: non-significant -> non-trivial

[Joeboy]

> This is a non significant amount of energy.

Maybe you meant "non trivial" or just "significant"?

[Sholmesy]

Thanks, didn't have my morning coffee!

[aerique]

I assume you mean shockingly high?

[a_imho]

Indeed, though I have to admit I do not really pay attention to crypto currencies.

[mrb]

1. See last paragraph in my post's argument 1. The point I raise is that it makes no sense for people to be so outraged and vocal about miner's energy use and apparently don't care about much bigger energy users/wasters by multiple orders of magnitude... At the very least this makes critics hypocrites as they themselves waste energy and don't to care about it (eg. driving a car with low fuel efficiency.)

3. It's not a fallacy. If X is worthwhile to society, and if the only one way to obtain X is to spend energy doing Y, and if alternative uses of this energy are not clearly superior (for example doing Z), then Y is not an energy waste. X = permission-less censorship-resistant decentralized financial network. Y = mining. Z = for example building desalination plants to provide clean water to third-world countries.

4. You seem to recognize the validity of this argument :) See the reference I give in the post: https://venturescannerinsights.wordpress.com/2015/09/04/the-... these are not mining companies.

5. This argument shows that even if you are unconvinced by arguments 1-4 and holds the view that mining is wasteful, you should at least recognize that it is becoming less and less wasteful over time.