[PragmaticPulp]

Cryptocurrency isn’t going away, but it’s dishonest to pretend that it’s not without major problems such as the energy consumption issues. The popular narrative has also become almost indistinguishable from a pump scheme, where we’re all supposed to buy and home (never sell) until we’re all rich.

If cryptocurrency becomes commonplace, it likely won’t look anything like our current crypto infrastructure. The problem is that this isn’t what all of the current holders want to hear, because they only want people to buy into whatever crypto they personally hold. This makes it difficult to have honest conversations because so many of the participants are biased toward convincing others to buy into their investment while ignoring anything else.

[trident5000]

I can name 10 other uses of energy that could be categorized as "wasteful" which is completely subjective. From large homes with the AC cranked, to rendering of pointless video on youtube and social apps, to destination aeroplane travel, idle electronics, etc.

BTC for many is a way to stop central banks from eroding their lifetime savings which they paid for with their physical labor and time. Thats not a waste of energy in my opinion.

[PragmaticPulp]

Naming other wastes of electricity doesn’t make them all okay. Multiple wrongs don’t make them all write.

The narrative about central banks eroding life savings is greatly exaggerated by people who want us all to buy Bitcoin. Inflation raises the price of assets in general (virtually the definition of inflation), meaning virtually any non-cash investment will be buoyed by inflation. The idea that Bitcoin is the only way (or even a particular good way) to avoid inflation is a myth.

[trident5000]

Shaming electricity usage is just ass backwards. Future humans will take more electricity without question especially as AI ramps up (massive rendering). The key is to transform all energy to cater to that need. Neither one of us will determine what people use as a hedge, the market will.

[177tcca]

It's directly connected to lots of power usage today being from coal.

[trident5000]

So is all that crap you buy from China that you dont need which is manufactured using dirty power. BTC is mostly renewables and will transition completely as it becomes cheaper.

[mikosty]

>BTC is mostly renewables

Source for this?

[bluecalm]

If you want to defend against inflation buy stocks of major companies, land, real estate. Things that you know, are building blocks of our society wealth.

Buying into a token pool hoping you will be able to resell it for a bigger piece to people who want to enter as well is not something people should do in general.

BTC is terrible as currency fit many reasons. It has an advantage of skipping over regulations transactions in other currencies are subject to. How long it lasts is a speculation game. You can win at it but it's anything but "stopping central banks from eroding savings".

[G3rn0ti]

> major problems such as the energy consumption issues

You don’t seem to know much about crypto currencies to name energy usage as a real problem of crypto.

While Bitcoin will keep it’s “proof of work” approach to mining in the foreseeable future, there are now quite a few alternative crypto currencies in circulation employing “proof of stake” that do not suffer from large computer power usage e.g. Cardano, Solana or Algorand just to name a few. Furthermore, Ethereum, the second largest Crypto currency in circulation, plans to migrate to “proof of stake” by 2022. Stakes are already online.

So please inform yourself before stating that Crypto will destroy the planet. No one is forcing you to like Bitcoin but you need to keep in mind this project has been invented over 13 years ago. It would have been impossible for the creator to anticipate its popularity and fix all its technical issues including energy consumption.

[zucker42]

If you think that proof of stake will take over, do you think that Bitcoin will crash? When will Bitcoin stop having the insane environmental impact it has now? If proof of stake is the future, why is the market cap of BTC so high compared to other cryptocurrencies?

[G3rn0ti]

Well, Bitcoin was the first of its kind, it’s time and battle tested and technically it might still be the most reliable of all cryptos. Part of the reason for that is “Bitcoin script” not being Turing complete unlike Ethereum’s virtual machine and less prone to software bugs.

People, especially newbies trust it much more than other blockchains. That’s why everybody buys Bitcoin, currently.

I believe Bitcoin’s going to take on an important role in a value storage once it’s market value stabilizes. Essentially, it will become digital Gold. As the gold price didn’t “crash” to zero when it lost its utility as a currency, I believe we will never see a complete crash of the Bitcoin value. It will serve a niche application and, hence, keep having value. But it’s continued growth of its value will flatten over time in the future, I am sure. So I wouldn’t worry too much about its energy usage.

[zucker42]

So it seems like to me you are saying that PoW has energy issues but that's not a problem because of PoS, but at the same time PoW (BTC) will continue to exist and consume at least the same amount of energy as it currently does.

It's concerning to me that there's not even a "light at the end of the tunnel" as far as BTC's energy usage goes.

[G3rn0ti]

> but at the same time PoW (BTC) will continue to exist and consume at least the same amount of energy as it currently

No, I said that BTC is _currently_ more popular for the reasons I describe and _predicted_ it to become a niche crypto asset in the future. I might be proven wrong but this scenario I described should you make you sleep well at night, again. ;-)

[jjnoakes]

> People, especially newbies trust it much more than other blockchains. That’s why everybody buys Bitcoin, currently

How do you know this is the reason? Couldn't another reason (like bitcoin getting the most press/hype) be true instead?

(I do not know the real reason, I'm just wondering why you think the one you stated is the real reason - care to elaborate?)

[ceilingcorner]

Probably a lot of that is simply branding and first mover advantage. Everyone knows what bitcoin is and the name is nice and simple. The second largest coin, to my understanding, is ethereum, which has to be the worst name I’ve ever heard.

[mindcandy]

Proof of Stake requires that what you are staking has value. The future I'm looking forward to is POS taking over by leveraging the existing Proof of Work already invested in Bitcoin and Ethereum. So, Bitcoin will slowly go away by being burned to transmute it into the foundational value of new POS coins. During that process, the total supply of unburned coins will decrease. Eventually the market cap will decrease. Less POW mining will be necessary. And, eventually it will drop off to effectively zero.

[Geee]

Proof-of-work is still the most secure way, and also the most fair way to distribute new currency, because it's just energy converted into currency.

If proof-of-stake or something else actually works, then bitcoin's algorithm can be changed to that.

[blacksmith_tb]

I don't see anything above like a statement that Bitcoin will "destroy the planet". But the claim that its comparatively large energy footprint contributes to that destruction seems perfectly reasonable - the common comparison is that Bitcoin currently "uses more electricity than Argentina"[1]. Not surprisingly lots of mining is colocated with hydropower or geothermal power generation, but mainly because that's cheaper - I could imagine the power demands for mining reaching a level where they'd underwrite solar or wind farms (apparently we aren't there yet...), or just become economically unfeasible altogether.

1: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952

[G3rn0ti]

> Not surprisingly lots of mining is colocated with hydropower

And, hence, miners’ energy use does not correlate to their carbon footprint directly. That’s often overlooked.

Furthermore, there is a strong economic incentive for Bitcoin miners to save energy to stay more competitive. Bitcoin mining is done on specialized hardware (ASICs), nowadays, and these devices will get more efficient since the market is still in its infancy.

BTW: What do you think is the carbon footprint of Netflix, YouTube or Pornhub? And what’s their economic utility? If we start critizing IT projects for their energy usage, I don’t think Bitcoin & Co are the biggest culprits.

[berenza]

bitcoin mining does not need grid power, just internet connection. you can set up a mine in the middle of the desert, or in antarctica, and it works just fine. if grid energy gets expensive enough, a lot of things will become unfeasible but bitcoin won't be one of them.

[jki275]

You still have to have a ton of power. You won't generate all that outside of a power grid unless you own your own hydro dams or something.

[akudha]

More than energy issues, what is sad is that Bitcoin is kinda becoming what it was started against - huge amounts of bitcoin is in the hands of whales. Most ordinary people have zero interest in practical usage of btc, their only interest is greed ("when moon?"). Companies are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into BTC, hoping to make huge profits. Just like an ordinary person can't afford to buy shares/houses, he can't afford to buy BTC either.

In other words, concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny group of people.

Crypto is here to stay, it will take a few years, but they will be useful in some form or another. Hopefully it is useful for everyone, not just the 1%

[gruez]

>More than energy issues, what is sad is that Bitcoin is kinda becoming what it was started against - huge amounts of bitcoin is in the hands of whales. Most

Was there ever an expectation that cryptocurrencies were going to solve the concentration of wealth and/or inequality? Bitcoin's whitepaper only talked about being able to transact without a trusted third party (banks) and the famous genesis block message of "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks" seems to be more against government interventionism (ie. "too big to fail") than inequality.

[G3rn0ti]

> In other words, concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny group of people.

Well, Bitcoin and Defi already serve the poor in countries where they are being denied access to financial services.

You also need to distinguish between the concentration of wealth and income. The reason for why the wealthy seemingly getting wealthier and the poor getting poorer is in fact the low interest rates payed to savings account holders. Rich people invest in equity or housing. Poor people have no safe means left in Europe and the US to save money and grow their wealth. Apart from the inflation tax the reason for this situation are indeed economic policies of our central banks that have lowered interest rates to almost zero for decades.

Using DeFi services like “Compound.finance” today you can earn significant interest on your Dollars (yes, Dollars not Bitcoin) and that’s exactly because these services are detached from the financial System governed by the Federal reserve or European Central Bank.

I would go so far and argue DeFi and Bitcoin are liberating the poor from economic suppression even in the wealthiest of nations.

[Geee]

The energy consumption issue is silly. It's like saying that Google won't be successful because they consume so much energy. It's not a major issue, it's just a silly talking point for those who oppose or don't understand cryptocurrencies.

Also, there is no such popular narrative. Your argument is like saying, "so we're supposed to buy stocks until we're all rich, that's a scam". Everyone makes their own investment decisions based on the available information. Brushing off good investment opportunities as a pump scheme is not very wise.

[paulryanrogers]

Google enhances the lives of billions by making information more accessible. So far cryptocurrency facilitates crime and gambling.

[reedjosh]

Making who's information accessible to whom? I'm pretty sure a lot of information on me is made available to parties I'd prefer privacy from.

Also one could say cash dollars promote crime. Most terrorism is cash funded.

[ceilingcorner]

Lots of things have environmental problems. I don’t understand why Bitcoin mining gets singled out for it. If the benefits of using it outweigh the downsides, then I don’t see the issue.

[PragmaticPulp]

The other wastes of electricity are also problems we should address.

The difference is that while regulations and tech advancements are improving power efficiency everywhere else, proof of work systems incentive ever-increasing wastes of electricity.

What other system is designed to get increasingly less efficient over time, while paying people to be inefficient, as a core principle of how it operates? Cryptocurrency almost stands alone in this regard.

[ceilingcorner]

But if the sociopolitical benefits of cryptocurrency are so great, then the electric cost is worth it.

It just seems like groupthink to me. Where are the armies of people against air conditioning or disposable medical tools? Both are pretty wasteful yet clearly worth it.

[PragmaticPulp]

The armies against HVAC come in the form of ever-increasing insulation and efficiency requirements. Modern construction methods are far more energy efficient than even a few decades ago and they’re increasing all the time. New construction is remarkably efficient from a heating and cooling perspective.

Contrast with Bitcoin, where the inefficiency increases with each new miner that comes online, all without producing any more transactions per second. Ironically, the mining power only seems to become more centralized over time, which was the opposite of what was intended by going to proof of work.

[zucker42]

But the sociopolitical benefits of many current cryptocurrencies are not worth it, because they process pitifully few transactions, both in an absolute sense and relative to the energy they consume.

[shawnz]

Proof-of-work systems don't use ever-increasing amounts of electricity. For example the electricity consumption of Bitcoin is proportional to its price. It won't increase unless the market price of Bitcoin increases, or electricity gets cheaper.

More power consumption also doesn't mean the efficiency is reduced. You would have to quantify the value that users are getting from it to judge the efficiency. If the value goes up with increased power consumption, then the efficiency hasn't changed.

[zucker42]

Bitcoin fundamentally wastes energy and BTC proponents don't see it as a problem to be solved. There is a big push to alter other technologies with environmental problems to make sure they don't use more energy than necessary.

[hanniabu]

> I don’t understand why Bitcoin mining gets singled out

Because then he'd need to name an actual different reason to hate on bitcoin that hasn't been debunked

[tomlagier]

Here's mine: it doesn't seem socially useful if everyone holds a small amount of bitcoin and does nothing with it, particularly if all of those holdings are centralized on a small number of exchanges. I have no idea whether that is the true use for most BTC, but (mod exchanges vs private wallets) it's been the case for every single person I've talked to that owns some.

I just don't get it - we're all holding pieces of this stuff because it keeps going up in value because we're all holding pieces of it? And that's somehow worth the enormous computing cost to maintain the network?

Yeah, I'm sure that BTC is great if you're a Syrian refugee or a billionaire evading capital controls but it feels like the majority of the stuff is just... sitting there...

I'm actually really thankful that exchanges are in the picture because ledger-only transactions aren't nearly as wasteful as on-chain transactions, but still don't understand why people want it. A cryptocurrency seems useful to me, inflationary crypto-assets seem like their only use is to reward early adopters?

The value proposition of BTC seems more-or-less like "there is a limited supply and more people will want some in the future because it has made some people rich".

[rawtxapp]

> but it feels like the majority of the stuff is just... sitting there...

It gives you the ability to actually save your money for a future use. If you need liquidity, you can borrow against it to spend money in other endavors.

Nobody wants to bring their coins to their grave, but whatever you spend it on needs to bring more value than this just sitting there, which means you would expect a lot of unprofitable or very low profit investments to go away (ex: empty housing used as real estate investment in Vancouver).

[tomlagier]

Isn't that true of any asset? Why is BTC better than, say, a bunch of emeralds?

[rawtxapp]

Many people believe it to be the future global reserve currency. Whether you agree with that or not, there's a non-zero probability of that becoming true. And the scarcity means that a central entity can't dilute your holdings as they please, so you can actually save it.

Emeralds are not digital, they are not that fungible, you can't easily divide them, no guarantees on supply, etc, etc.

Also if you look at it historically, it has been the best performing asset in 10 years out of it's 12 year existence which kind of reinforces people's beliefs.

[hanniabu]

Portability. You can't carry emeralds, golds, etc with you. You also can't encrypt them to prevent theft.

[mr_woozy]

because it helps someone elses narrative!

[terhechte]

Most markets only work because people don't sell their share at the same time. If everybody would sell their house at the same time, the values would tumble. Same for the stock market, same for gold. I don't get why this is a criticism of cryptocurrencies.

[mastermojo]

I think I would agree that cryptocurrency is probably a less worthy allocation of energy than keeping homeless people warm or something. However, money/energy are finite resources allocated based on free market mechanics. People use energy/money how they want.

It's not a very constructive use of time to criticize how the free market allocates resources. People are going to buy and run basketball teams, Ferraris, bitcoin mining rigs whether you yell at them or not.