Exactly… the projection that datacenters' demand for computing power won't be offset by silicon efficiency improvements is somewhat speculative; the projection that Bitcoin's demand for computing power won't be offset by silicon efficiency improvements is obvious and is by design of the fucking system.
bitcoin mining provides an opportunity for anyone, anywhere to convert their computing resources into value. the competitive pressure is to have more efficient energy usage than your competitors
so in reality, bitcoin provides an direct incentive for more efficient computing (the kind that can't be handle with by building smaller, more efficient processors). it might do more to boost computational efficiency (and reduce emissions) than all the millions of pages of blogger platitude-ing flooding the internet
I'm sorry, what? Bitcoin mining has spawned an entire new industry focused solely on converting a scarce shared resource (electrical energy) into perceived personal profits. It is wasteful pollution on a global scale: a single bitcoin transaction consumes as much power as an average U.S. household does in 77 days (https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption)
It's a perfect example of the tragedy of the commons. The energy already wasted on bitcoin mining will never be recuperated by the efficiency gains you so eagerly (and without merit) ascribe to bitcoin.
So when bitcoin hits it's schedule max limit and can't be mined anymore, is the point moot?
I guess the question is: how much of a total energy bill will it have racked up before we get to that point, and should we consider the likely improvements to computing efficiency when we start speculating about the long term impact
"converting a scarce shared resource (electrical energy) into perceived personal profits" (1) is this entirely new?, and (2) it doesn't just exist for increasing profits, it provides a service: a digital cash infrastructure
Absolute bullshit. Bitcoin does not even use processors for mining, it uses massively specialised hardware that is absolutely useless for anything else. No advances in bitcoin mining will translate to gain in anything else.
It also massively increases emissions and does nothing to decrease them. The difficulty adjustment algorithm of bitcoin will ensure that you always have to keep wasting more resources to mine, and will cancel out any gains you ever make. By design. Bitcoin is explicitly built to waste resources.
by specialized hardware, you mean GPUs? which are extremely useful for graphics, machine learning, and large-scale mathematical calculations? the gains to society that GPUs brought can't be understated. how do you think they run the climate-projection models? [1]
and my argument is about second-order effects. even if bitcoin mining remains inefficient, the technological gains of directly incentivising lower energy usage than your competitors carries over to other markets / enterprises
plus, bitcoin is scheduled to run out. so eventually the mining issue is moot
a second-order prediction is obviously more noisy and holds less weight without any direct evidence, but 'lack of direct evidence' characterizes much of this debate
Harping on about how individuals can reduce energy usage in computing but not talking about Bitcoin is directly comparable to pushing lame individual recycling efforts but ignoring coal power plants and industrial scale methane leaks.
The good thing about Bitcoin is that we can just ban it, since nobody actually uses it for anything important. It could be turned off tomorrow and nothing of value would be lost.
except all the goods and services that it currently stands in as a reference for (given people had to buy it with their own money, which they provided some service to obtain)
but hey,
just because bitcoin wasn't directly involved in a transaction doesn't mean it isn't standing in for economic value
if I steal an ancient coin worth $10,000 dollars from you, and you're upset about it, am I making a good rebuttal by saying: "it's not like you could buy anything at the grocery store with it anyways"
except all the goods and services that it currently stands in as a reference for (given people had to buy it with their own money, which they provided some service to obtain)