5 ms·

How many pounds of coal did this game consume? I wonder if it's possible to compare the watt-hours of a typical game of snake as compared to this.

by phrz 5y ago

beachtaxidriver 5y ago
None. It didn't affect the number of miners.
- pavlov 5y ago
  That's like saying "my air conditioner doesn't affect the number of power plants in the city". It's only true for a very narrow view of cause-effect relationships. The author paid Ethereum fees to run snake on the world's crappiest "global supercomputer" (as they like to call it). Those fees then support miners who consume energy and semiconductor resources that could have been spent on something more useful.
  - tedunangst 5y ago
    This is incorrect. Ethereum gas fees are burned, they don't go to miners.
    - smabie 5y ago
      Nah miners are still collecting part of the fee https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1559 https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1559
      - tedunangst 5y ago
        Yeah, my bad for being imprecise. The base fee is burned and you can pay a bribe for priority, but from a supply and demand perspective, does that affect miner supply? It's the same number of blocks and hashes and miners regardless of excess gas spent. I think it's more like you're not paying to play snake specifically, you're paying miners not to do what they were going to do anyway.
        Dylan16807 5y ago
        How could it not affect miner supply? The block reward directly affects how much equipment miners buy for the future, and if it fluctuates enough it can also affect how loaded they keep their existing equipment.
        tedunangst 5y ago
        I'm probably wrong.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - miracle2k 5y ago
    Yes, the gas fees support the miners directly. Of course, the miners are also financed via the block rewards; the cause-effect relationship is much more spurious there; individual transactors can only be considered responsible for that part of the energy output in so far as their actions cause an increase in the price of ETH, for example by causing ETH to be desirable. Arguably, a sell-transaction of ETH could be energy-positive in that it causes downward-pressure on the ETH price. This also means that buying ETH on an exchange can be considered as contributing to the energy consumption of the network. The fees the miners earn are currently a small part of their revenue: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/data/on-chain-metrics/ethereum/ethereum-miner-revenue-monthly https://www.theblockcrypto.com/data/on-chain-metrics/ethereu...
    - jallen_dot_dev 5y ago
      > Arguably, a sell-transaction of ETH could be energy-positive in that it causes downward-pressure on the ETH price. Interesting thought, but mining profit margins are rather thick right now in most parts of the world (because the supply of miners is a little inelastic--mining equipment doesn't just poof into existence as the price rises). So I don't think anyone is turning miners on or off in response to small movements in the price right now. Also, if you bought and then sold that would seem like a wash. Or worse, since you temporarily raised the price and therefor incentivized mining for that time.
- floe 5y ago
  Driving up gas fees increases the number of miners who find it profitable to operate their rigs, no?
  - Tenoke 5y ago
    Yes but less than before (since eip1559 part of the fee is burned instead) so the relationship is sublinear.
    - floe 5y ago
      I see, that's interesting! I guess there's another causal chain, which is 'buying ETH to pay gas fees -> price of ETH goes up -> value of block reward to miners goes up -> more miners find it profitable to operate rigs'. I wonder how strong that effect is.
dvt 5y ago
> How many pounds of coal did this game consume? I don't know, how many kids helped put your iPhone together? How many women did your tax dollars widow? How many "Made in China" widgets do you own? I am so sick of this holier-than-thou narrative on HN. I am 100% a crypto critic, but the idea that crypto is the primary existential threat we face today is not only absolutely absurd, it's also highly hypocritical, considering how routinely mega-corps eschew human rights reform and eco-responsibility.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  > the idea that crypto is the primary existential threat The problem is the ratio of entertainment:cost is extremely bad for PoW blockchain art, and the cost is substantial and growing. It doesn't matter at all that it's not the "primary" threat, and you should realize that's a strawman. Looking at that ratio also explains why it's not hypocritical, or at least it's only slightly hypocritical and still a valid and important criticism of a waste.
  - tromp 5y ago
    The energy cost is born for two purposes, neither of which is entertainment: 1) reach consensus on tx history (without being hampered by notions of weak subjectivity like PoS is) 2) provide a somewhat fair distribution mechanism for new coins (something PoS fails at completely)
- johnsolo1701 5y ago
  OP asked a simple question and did not say "crypto is the primary existential threat we face". Crypto's environmental impact is a valid concern.
- antihero 5y ago
  There is no ethical consumption under capitalism but we can’t just cuff ourselves to being unable to criticise absurd things simply because our own existence risks some level of hypocrisy
imgabe 5y ago
New technologies start out less efficient than existing technologies. Early cars were less efficient than horses. Early computers were less efficient than a room full of people doing math by hand (when you account for the time building, programming and debugging the computer before anyone knew how to do those things). That doesn't mean we shouldn't ever develop anything new. The clunky inefficient phase is a necessary step to figure out how to get to the sleek, efficient phase. It's a nonlinear process. The slope is pretty flat at the beginning of the exponential. Shortsighted people often mistake this for failure.
- purerandomness 5y ago
  > New technologies start out less efficient than existing technologies For PoW to work, they necessarily must be inefficient, there is no future possible where they become more efficient. Inefficiency is a necessity for them to exist.
  - mccorrinall 5y ago
    If the price drops, there will be less incentive to mine. We are headed downwards anyway
  - imgabe 5y ago
    PoS is coming. There may be other developments too. Betting against humans figuring out how to do something they want to do is rarely a good idea in the long run.
    - purerandomness 5y ago
      "Proof of stake is a scam and the people promoting it are scammers" [0] > humans figuring out how to do something they want to do Humans don't want tulips that much (or monkey GIFs, or Amway toothpaste, or whatever the scheme du jour is). They want to get rich quick, and to show off their status to their peer group. If collecting tulips however is destroying the planet, you and I have a responsibility to make this scheme unfeasible. [0] https://yanmaani.github.io/proof-of-stake-is-a-scam-and-the-people-promoting-it-are-scammers/ https://yanmaani.github.io/proof-of-stake-is-a-scam-and-the-...
sp332 5y ago
About 6 tons of CO2 according to https://www.aerial.is/nft/0xd723190ea96380E00ea21BD88ED53bAF76a84253 https://www.aerial.is/nft/0xd723190ea96380E00ea21BD88ED53bAF... kgin pointed out that the gas fee was already about $150 USD, so I'm surprised that buying carbon offsets would be only another $112. That seems downright reasonable.
- antihero 5y ago
  How is it reasonable in any way? It’s still using a ridiculous amount of energy to achieve fuck all whether it’s supposedly offset or not
  - sp332 5y ago
    Well I don't think the 6 tons of CO2 is reasonable. But I think the someone already paying $150 in transaction fees might be willing to pay $112 to mitigate the environmental damage as well.
vmception 5y ago
“on Ethereum” is just a reference to a virtual machine platform, and not the actual network or consensus model, as any code deployable on Ethereum is deployable elsewhere including localhost
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  It sure looks like they put it on the network and made transactions with it.
  - vmception 5y ago
    yes, they deployed it on mainnet Ethereum, they could also deploy it on non Proof of Work platforms that use the Ethereum Virtual Machine, their wish was to display it on the NFT marketplace Opensea, which currently reads data from Ethereum mainnet and Polygon mainnet so they have two choices. to answer the more facetious but concerned prior poster, blocks use energy no matter how many transactions are involved, so the existence of the transaction itself was not a meaningful contributor to the energy use. completely empty blocks use almost the same amount of energy, which inevitably solidifies the actual concern about Proof of Work energy use, but also highlights how its not a useful comment on any thread that coincidentally used a Proof of Work blockchain as a development platform.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      > yes, they deployed it on mainnet Ethereum, they could also deploy it on non Proof of Work platforms that use the Ethereum Virtual Machine, their wish was to display it on the NFT marketplace Opensea, which currently reads data from Ethereum mainnet and Polygon mainnet so they have two choices. Does that mean you already knew it was on mainnet when you replied before? It's entirely true that a different article about a different topic could have used "on Ethereum" to mean something different. But if you already know this is on mainnet Ethereum, and someone asks about mainnet power usage, then talking about other ways to interpret "on Ethereum" is a total non-sequitur.
      - 5y ago

How many pounds of coal did this game consume? I wonder if it's possible to compare the watt-hours of a typical game of snake as compared to this.

by phrz 5y ago

How many pounds of coal did this game consume? I wonder if it's possible to compare the watt-hours of a typical game of snake as compared to this.

beachtaxidriver 5y ago

None. It didn't affect the number of miners.

pavlov 5y ago
That's like saying "my air conditioner doesn't affect the number of power plants in the city". It's only true for a very narrow view of cause-effect relationships. The author paid Ethereum fees to run snake on the world's crappiest "global supercomputer" (as they like to call it). Those fees then support miners who consume energy and semiconductor resources that could have been spent on something more useful.
- tedunangst 5y ago
  This is incorrect. Ethereum gas fees are burned, they don't go to miners.
  - smabie 5y ago
    Nah miners are still collecting part of the fee https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1559 https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1559
    - tedunangst 5y ago
      Yeah, my bad for being imprecise. The base fee is burned and you can pay a bribe for priority, but from a supply and demand perspective, does that affect miner supply? It's the same number of blocks and hashes and miners regardless of excess gas spent. I think it's more like you're not paying to play snake specifically, you're paying miners not to do what they were going to do anyway.
      - Dylan16807 5y ago
        How could it not affect miner supply? The block reward directly affects how much equipment miners buy for the future, and if it fluctuates enough it can also affect how loaded they keep their existing equipment.
        tedunangst 5y ago
        I'm probably wrong.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- miracle2k 5y ago
  Yes, the gas fees support the miners directly. Of course, the miners are also financed via the block rewards; the cause-effect relationship is much more spurious there; individual transactors can only be considered responsible for that part of the energy output in so far as their actions cause an increase in the price of ETH, for example by causing ETH to be desirable. Arguably, a sell-transaction of ETH could be energy-positive in that it causes downward-pressure on the ETH price. This also means that buying ETH on an exchange can be considered as contributing to the energy consumption of the network. The fees the miners earn are currently a small part of their revenue: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/data/on-chain-metrics/ethereum/ethereum-miner-revenue-monthly https://www.theblockcrypto.com/data/on-chain-metrics/ethereu...
  - jallen_dot_dev 5y ago
    > Arguably, a sell-transaction of ETH could be energy-positive in that it causes downward-pressure on the ETH price. Interesting thought, but mining profit margins are rather thick right now in most parts of the world (because the supply of miners is a little inelastic--mining equipment doesn't just poof into existence as the price rises). So I don't think anyone is turning miners on or off in response to small movements in the price right now. Also, if you bought and then sold that would seem like a wash. Or worse, since you temporarily raised the price and therefor incentivized mining for that time.
floe 5y ago
Driving up gas fees increases the number of miners who find it profitable to operate their rigs, no?
- Tenoke 5y ago
  Yes but less than before (since eip1559 part of the fee is burned instead) so the relationship is sublinear.
  - floe 5y ago
    I see, that's interesting! I guess there's another causal chain, which is 'buying ETH to pay gas fees -> price of ETH goes up -> value of block reward to miners goes up -> more miners find it profitable to operate rigs'. I wonder how strong that effect is.

dvt 5y ago

> How many pounds of coal did this game consume? I don't know, how many kids helped put your iPhone together? How many women did your tax dollars widow? How many "Made in China" widgets do you own? I am so sick of this holier-than-thou narrative on HN. I am 100% a crypto critic, but the idea that crypto is the primary existential threat we face today is not only absolutely absurd, it's also highly hypocritical, considering how routinely mega-corps eschew human rights reform and eco-responsibility.

Dylan16807 5y ago
> the idea that crypto is the primary existential threat The problem is the ratio of entertainment:cost is extremely bad for PoW blockchain art, and the cost is substantial and growing. It doesn't matter at all that it's not the "primary" threat, and you should realize that's a strawman. Looking at that ratio also explains why it's not hypocritical, or at least it's only slightly hypocritical and still a valid and important criticism of a waste.
- tromp 5y ago
  The energy cost is born for two purposes, neither of which is entertainment: 1) reach consensus on tx history (without being hampered by notions of weak subjectivity like PoS is) 2) provide a somewhat fair distribution mechanism for new coins (something PoS fails at completely)
johnsolo1701 5y ago
OP asked a simple question and did not say "crypto is the primary existential threat we face". Crypto's environmental impact is a valid concern.
antihero 5y ago
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism but we can’t just cuff ourselves to being unable to criticise absurd things simply because our own existence risks some level of hypocrisy

imgabe 5y ago

New technologies start out less efficient than existing technologies. Early cars were less efficient than horses. Early computers were less efficient than a room full of people doing math by hand (when you account for the time building, programming and debugging the computer before anyone knew how to do those things). That doesn't mean we shouldn't ever develop anything new. The clunky inefficient phase is a necessary step to figure out how to get to the sleek, efficient phase. It's a nonlinear process. The slope is pretty flat at the beginning of the exponential. Shortsighted people often mistake this for failure.

purerandomness 5y ago
> New technologies start out less efficient than existing technologies For PoW to work, they necessarily must be inefficient, there is no future possible where they become more efficient. Inefficiency is a necessity for them to exist.
- mccorrinall 5y ago
  If the price drops, there will be less incentive to mine. We are headed downwards anyway
- imgabe 5y ago
  PoS is coming. There may be other developments too. Betting against humans figuring out how to do something they want to do is rarely a good idea in the long run.
  - purerandomness 5y ago
    "Proof of stake is a scam and the people promoting it are scammers" [0] > humans figuring out how to do something they want to do Humans don't want tulips that much (or monkey GIFs, or Amway toothpaste, or whatever the scheme du jour is). They want to get rich quick, and to show off their status to their peer group. If collecting tulips however is destroying the planet, you and I have a responsibility to make this scheme unfeasible. [0] https://yanmaani.github.io/proof-of-stake-is-a-scam-and-the-people-promoting-it-are-scammers/ https://yanmaani.github.io/proof-of-stake-is-a-scam-and-the-...

sp332 5y ago

About 6 tons of CO2 according to https://www.aerial.is/nft/0xd723190ea96380E00ea21BD88ED53bAF76a84253 https://www.aerial.is/nft/0xd723190ea96380E00ea21BD88ED53bAF... kgin pointed out that the gas fee was already about $150 USD, so I'm surprised that buying carbon offsets would be only another $112. That seems downright reasonable.

antihero 5y ago
How is it reasonable in any way? It’s still using a ridiculous amount of energy to achieve fuck all whether it’s supposedly offset or not
- sp332 5y ago
  Well I don't think the 6 tons of CO2 is reasonable. But I think the someone already paying $150 in transaction fees might be willing to pay $112 to mitigate the environmental damage as well.

vmception 5y ago

“on Ethereum” is just a reference to a virtual machine platform, and not the actual network or consensus model, as any code deployable on Ethereum is deployable elsewhere including localhost

Dylan16807 5y ago
It sure looks like they put it on the network and made transactions with it.
- vmception 5y ago
  yes, they deployed it on mainnet Ethereum, they could also deploy it on non Proof of Work platforms that use the Ethereum Virtual Machine, their wish was to display it on the NFT marketplace Opensea, which currently reads data from Ethereum mainnet and Polygon mainnet so they have two choices. to answer the more facetious but concerned prior poster, blocks use energy no matter how many transactions are involved, so the existence of the transaction itself was not a meaningful contributor to the energy use. completely empty blocks use almost the same amount of energy, which inevitably solidifies the actual concern about Proof of Work energy use, but also highlights how its not a useful comment on any thread that coincidentally used a Proof of Work blockchain as a development platform.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    > yes, they deployed it on mainnet Ethereum, they could also deploy it on non Proof of Work platforms that use the Ethereum Virtual Machine, their wish was to display it on the NFT marketplace Opensea, which currently reads data from Ethereum mainnet and Polygon mainnet so they have two choices. Does that mean you already knew it was on mainnet when you replied before? It's entirely true that a different article about a different topic could have used "on Ethereum" to mean something different. But if you already know this is on mainnet Ethereum, and someone asks about mainnet power usage, then talking about other ways to interpret "on Ethereum" is a total non-sequitur.
    - 5y ago