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by unmasked_poker
1951 days ago
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The bitcoin network will take exactly the same amount of energy mining an empty or full block. So a transaction does not use much energy (except for propagating it etc).
By holding bitcoin, you reduce the supply, thus increasing the price of bitcoin. By increasing the price, you increase the value of the block reward, thus making it more attractive to mine bitcoin. So actually holding it, not transacting, will increase energy consumption. |
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Your take is 100% correct, but we still opted to use Ethereum Gas units as our "emissions factor" because it represents useage of and relative benefit from the Ethereum network.
We are interested in raising money for carbon offsets, so if we ask the question of "who pays?" it wouldn't be fair to place the burden on miners when all users benefit from the security and stability that comes from mining.
I'd eventually like to develop a model that allocates emissions based on "unit of time held" which is a more accurate allegory for 'benefit' for speculative assets like Bitcoin (if we are honest about Bitcoin's purpose), and because of the macroeconomic reasons you mentioned.
It's an interesting problem and discussion because unlike driving a car or eating meat, simply reducing consumption won't fix the problem, and yet we would all agree heavy users or benefactors of the network should bear more of the burden.