[inshadows]

Bitcoin does not consume energy. Miners do. Before presenting your views on Bitcoin, you should have some knowledge about how the network works, in particular how mining difficulty is regulated. Bitcoin would do just fine if its energy consumption dropped to 2008 levels.

[masklinn]

Bitcoin is set up to incentivise exactly the behaviour we're seeing right now, it's built into the structure of bitcoin combined with human psychology.

So yes bitcoin absolutely consumes energy, it goes hand it hand with bitcoin being a popular speculation vehicle.

[rspeele]

Um, if it was at 2008 levels, wouldn't somebody do a 51% attack?

[inshadows]

Then it wouldn't be at 2008 levels anymore. The problem is that miners have so much power today.

[rspeele]

So when you said "Bitcoin would do just fine if its energy consumption dropped to 2008 levels.", the phrase "do just fine" means "rapidly grow its energy consumption back to present levels"?

[inshadows]

Go on. Suppress the truth. :-D

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty