[mathlover2]

The amount of energy required to rescue a single princess does not increase exponentially over time. In fact it pretty much stays constant. Furthermore, gaming energy expenditures are probably minor compared to the amount spent on Bitcoin these days (last I heard it had an energy footprint equivalent to the Netherlands.) There are also other cryptocurrencies that don't have the same problem as Bitcoin with being increasingly energy intensive to produce over time.

[Dma54rhs]

75twh/year only PC gaming and that was year 2015! And PC gaming is smaller market. Now add the whole industry or creating them and the servers running the online parts. And add consoles. And creating all the hardware, mining minerals for them, transportation.

The industry is growing like crazy as well.

Bitcoin was 122 twh/year I believe.

Both gaming and bitcoin kill the planet and are not necessary until global warming under control.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285396475_Taming_th...

[rspeele]

I didn't downvote you, but I suspect the reason people did is that for gaming, energy usage is a cost and for bitcoin energy usage is the point. They are completely different systems. Bitcoin's energy usage expands more and more as Bitcoin gets more valuable and/or energy gets cheaper.

If game consoles/PCs get more efficient, they use less power for the entertainment value delivered to the world. Or, if renewable tech makes energy cheaper, the fixed amount of energy gaming uses becomes less of a big deal.

If ASIC miners get more efficient, difficulty and hashrate goes up, and they use the same amount of power for the same amount of security delivered to the blockchain. Or, if renewable tech makes energy cheaper, miners will use more of it.

The "W" in PoW means work but it could equally mean "waste". The whole reason it's secure is that you look at the total hashrate of the network and go "wow, that is so expensive, nobody would ever burn so much energy just to double-spend some bitcoin". No matter how good hardware gets or how freely available energy gets, it must always be incredibly costly to operate the network, because that's the premise its security is built on.

[Dma54rhs]

Yeah I'm well aware. Despite not being a fan of bitcoin I'm sure many can claim entertainment value from it as well. Either tech or gambling. So I guess its a matter of taste and for me they are both useless industries.

[_huayra_]

I think the carbon footprint of one btc transaction is probably enough to power all the gameboys in the world for a few weeks at least!