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by TomSwirly 1946 days ago
> I have yet to hear anyone make an analysis of the environmental cost of the banking system

I immediately found this: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-26/is-bit...

"One Bitcoin transaction would generate the CO2 equivalent to 706,765 swipes of a Visa credit card,"

Another way to look at it:

Bitcoin uses over 0.5% of the world's electricity: https://interestingengineering.com/why-bitcoin-mining-consum...

With that, Bitcoin does about 300,000 transactions a day. https://www.statista.com/statistics/730806/daily-number-of-b...

But there are over a billion daily credit card transactions alone - 3000 times as much.

So if each credit card transaction were replaced by a Bitcoin transaction, we'd use 30 times as much electricity as the entire planet produces.

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These numbers are so grossly lopsided and so widely bandied about that when I hear someone say, "I have yet to hear anyone make an analysis of the environmental cost" I think, "Perhaps you don't want to hear it."