[ea550ff70a]

If we end cryptos today, in the grand scheme of things, we are going to see no real difference proportional to the global energy consumption of everything else as, while enormous quantity wise, consumption is still below 0.5% or so (so really not that big of a deal percentage wise). How did the predictions and articles from a few years ago on how Bitcoin was going to take, by 2020, the global energy share of consumption pan out? Obviously they were wrong, as consumption of everything else grew as fast or faster than it.

The drama against cryptos and their energy consumption is unproductive and is imho going to yield no change (in the grand scheme of things), as the field can't really be tamed the same way other industries can due to its decentralized approach of doing things. Instead of wasting time with this approach, we should be pushing for and incentivizing cheap green energy sources, as that is where the real issue comes for every industry.

As long as the source is green, which it already is fo a huge chunk of the energy behind cryptos, and as long as it is not messing with the availability for the demand in the grid for other industries/consumers, then who cares how much it consumes?

[Uehreka]

My issue with takes like this is that Bitcoin is currently barely used by anyone (many people are holding, almost no one uses it as their primary medium of exchange), and yet it’s responsible for about 0.5% of the world’s power usage. If Bitcoin remains a niche hobby and doesn’t grow, then yeah, that’s not a big deal. But the people saying “It’s only 0.5%!” are also the people advocating for it to overthrow the world financial system and bring about a global decentralized digital monetary system.

And if that happens, if Bitcoin goes from being used by ~0% of the world population (for everyday exchange) to being the main way people transact goods and services, then we can expect the demand for miners to skyrocket, possibly leading to an energy draw that is a multiple of the world’s current non-blockchain usage.

If/when that will happen is unclear, and I’d agree that “this much by 2030” forecasts that just extrapolate the current trend will likely be inaccurate. But if we’re debating whether Bitcoin/crypto should be more used or less, I think it’s only fair to reckon with the effects that future crypto growth would have on its energy draw. We can’t argue about tomorrow’s revolution with yesterday’s numbers.

[ea550ff70a]

I don't disagree but at the end of the day how do you really plan to tame it if it's still a "niche" hobby in 10 year? Which I doubt a lot as Wall Street and other industries are starting to get quite involved in it now investment-wise. The practical approach from a government pov would be to regulate the hell out of mining businesses but nothing prevents me as a user to set up a mining rig at home and join a pool somewhere around the world. Look at China as an example. They still have 20% of their previous mining activity happening (after the ban) and they have the "best" surveillance system in the world. That's why I think fighting it is less productive than guiding it to use clean sources.

[Uehreka]

If it remains a niche hobby in 10 years then that means we’ve succeeded in preventing Bitcoin from becoming mainstream for another 10 years, which would be good. We might even make progress on clean energy sources in that time. It will still be wasting energy for little societal benefit, but that’s not the scenario folks are most worried about, we’re worried about what happens to the environment if it becomes more popular or becomes the dominant world currency (which is what many Bitcoin proponents are pushing for).

[ea550ff70a]

> still be wasting energy for little societal benefit

I don't think you are paying attention to developments in the Global South with it. Use of it is increasing at an insane pace in Latin America (where I'm from) and I don't see it stopping any time soon. Similar trend is happening in Africa. Does it make sense to use it if you live in a developed country? Probably not. You already have all the infrastructure and financial privilege you can have. Plus your organizations are the ones setting the rules for the rest of the world. Good for you. But not all people using it are gambling my friend. As of now, there are 2 countries that have adopted BTC as legal tender. I'm willing to bet that by the next (or around) the next halving, we are going to have more countries in that list, specially from the Global South.

[moron4hire]

The problem is, cryptocurrencies as an aggregate industry, see "success" as replacing all of the global monetary system as a whole. So even though this weird hobby that some people have is not currently, today, a major percentage of total climate-harming CO2 emissions, if the end-game comes to pass it will be a disaster.

Similarly, F1 or NASCAR racing are incredibly inefficient uses of fossil fuels. But there is no threat of performance racing becoming how everyone's cars work. So it can stay as just some weird hobby of rich people and not represent an existential threat to life as we currently know it.

The point of continuing to advertise the climate cost of cryptocurrency is to help keep consumers informed. If people care about the climate, are thinking about getting into crypto, and they learn ahead of time that crypto is bad for the environment, then they might skip getting involved in the first place. In this way, we can hopefully cut off the supply of Greater Fools that are necessary to keep the cryptocurrency-cum-hyper-speculative-asset-investment pyramid scheme from growing.

[labrador]

> The drama against cryptos and their energy consumption is unproductive

Why is it "drama" to put forth arguments against crypto and why is assessing pros and cons less productive than any other argument on Hacker News? Making a statement like that marks you, at least in my mind, as a true believer.

[ea550ff70a]

Because it has being going on since it's inception and nothing has changed because the dynamics of how it operate are not the same as other industries. Hence drama, because the approach of trying to take down mining has not worked and is unproductive at the end of the day if the goal is to reduce carbon emissions. And yes I am also a crypto enthusiast so put me in the believer camp.

[labrador]

Every true faith welcomes doubts and questions as a way of either strengthening faith or finding out the one's faith is misplaced. Organizations that are hostile to questions and criticisms are cults.

[ea550ff70a]

I agree with literally all the problems in the criticism presented here. I think the problems are real as well. My only issue is that the approach to solve some of the issues generated in crypto industry are either not practical, sustainable, or effective, hence my criticism of the criticism presented in this thread. I don't like the idea of insane power consumption, specially when coming from non renewable sources. But at the same time I also recognize that the incentives built into the protocol (BTC specifically here) are stronger than the environmentalist approach of either killing the industry or moving to POS (which has not been proven to work at scale or in the wild outside a testnet yet). Which is why I think that a better approach is to guide the industry into ONLY using and incentivizing renewables.

[danbruc]

[...] consumption is still below 0.5% or so (so really not that big of a deal percentage wise).

What? Look at all the things we do with electricity. Spoiler, there are quite a few. Spending half a percent on crypto currencies is a lot.

As long as the source is green, which it already is fo a huge chunk of the energy behind cryptos, and as long as it is not messing with the availability for the demand in the grid for other industries/consumers, then who cares how much it consumes?

Even if the energy is green, it could be used for better purposes. [1]

[1] Yes, I have heard about the green energy used in remote places where there is no other demand. If this is the dominant source of electricity, then calculate as much hashes as you want.

[ea550ff70a]

You are missing on the incentives side of the equation. If I'm a miner and the green energy source is cheaper, I will get that infrastructure built for it. This could also help to recoup investment, for someone who doesn't see mining as its main goal, in the case where renewable infrastructure is not cost effective for a specific region but could help with reducing overall carbon emissions.

[derac]

If public concensus is negative on crypto, the market shrinks. You can criticize crypto and support green energy at the same time.

[ea550ff70a]

Other than price of most of them (due mostly to macroeconomics really and unhealthy rapid expansion which is not uncommon to happen each cycle) adoption and use of them in almost every metric is up and increasing.

[derac]

I would argue this can only be proven by showing the number of individual users buying crypto over time. Of course, due to the pseudonymous nature of crypto this is impossible to prove. One person can open 10 billion accounts and make a minor transaction on each in the extreme case. Do you have any data that proves your case conclusively?

[ea550ff70a]

global adoption metrics:

https://go.chainalysis.com/rs/503-FAP-074/images/Geography-o...

from (in case the link of the doc doesn't work)-> https://go.chainalysis.com/2021-geography-of-crypto.html

this data clearly doesn't show current situation (June 2022 to be precise) as that report is not out yet but the macro situation is clearly affecting valuations in all markets (commodities, equities, crypto, etc) specially crypto and growth-driven tech companies as they are obviously more risky in a higher interest and more uncertain (from the global macro perspective) environment.

[nathias]

While these environmental critics are trivial, at least they are true for PoW, and have made a significant change. Crypto projects now like to offset their carbon footprint even if they have a very low one to begin with.