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> the BTC network uses a staggering amount of power Actually, bitcoin uses a ridiculously small amount of power for what it provides. See for example here http

> the BTC network uses a staggering amount of power Actually, bitcoin uses a ridiculously small amount of power for what it provides. See for example here https://www.lynalden.com/bitcoin-energy/ https://www.lynalden.com/bitcoin-energy/ for an introduction to clear up this misconception.

the_gastropod 3y ago
This article is basically like arguing: “Sure, using the Infant-Chipper 9000 results in the deaths of infants. But it’s a rounding error if you consider how many infants die in the world every year!” Bitcoin purposefully wastes lots of energy to provide something of extremely dubious value.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  It's literally an infant chipper insofar as it enables the sale of (and thus the production of) CSAM.
- ardme 3y ago
  Yet obviously, some people find it useful. Who are you to tell people how to live their lives? Maybe you should stop flying on airplanes for the rest of your life?
  - the_gastropod 3y ago
    “Some people find the infant-chipper useful. Who are you to tell people how to live their lives?” <insert improve the world somewhat meme here>
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    The people finding it useful are overwhelmingly moving money illegally, such as how you can peg BTC shifts to Xi's anti-corruption crackdowns in China, or MBS in Saudi. Or moving drugs. Or hyping something to sell more made up money to rubes.
  - ChainOfFools 3y ago
    When how people live their lives depends on them shoveling millions of joules s of externalities onto my environment and that of my kids, in addition to propping up a rube goldberg Ponzi scheme that has a non-zero chance of ensnaring people I care about either directly or indirectly through financial mismanagement, you better believe I'm going to tell you how to live your life. I'll tell lots of other people how you live your life is hypocritically contributing to a massive increase of financial leverage on the part of "rationally self interested" sociopaths and criminals at everyone else's expense( in direct opposition to its putative purpose of undermining predatory central bankers, yet is simply shifting the power to predatory anon-ish ransomware purveyors and sex traffickers and bullshit gambling token insta-twit "influencers" seeking to exploit the naivety of children for their own financial gain), and generally promoting the enshittification of everything that touches the internet, and should be mocked and discouraged at every opportunity. You don't like the free market of ideas when it turns against you? tough.
    - crtified 3y ago
      "When how people live their lives depends on them shoveling millions of joules s of externalities onto my environment and that of my kids, in addition to propping up a rube goldberg Ponzi scheme that has a non-zero chance of ensnaring people I care about either directly or indirectly through financial mismanagement, you better believe I'm going to tell you how to live your life." This is no defense of Bitcoin/crypto, but the above paragraph relatively concisely describes how I feel as part of the underclasses in the traditional world. Except that all the fears it encapsulates have already occurred for my family, generations back. There are people in this thread who get a yearly payrise (which translates to increased selfish expenditure on plastic toys and air flights and fancy petrol burning machines) that's greater than my entire household's income, and I'm just an ordinary person in a western country. How many household bitcoin miners does that equal, environmentally speaking? For that one person? The hypocrisy embedded in fervent hatred of crypto, as though extravagant & hugely unbalanced wastage of resources wasn't practiced by us all daily, implies a moral distance that, imo, barely exists. Bitcoin and crypto are mere reflections of the wastage that we as a species have normalised, and still do, via our lifestyles. It's "industry" and "business" that have fucked this world.
manuelabeledo 3y ago
What exactly does it provide? So far it seems that Bitcoin mainstream use is to create speculative markets. Any other intended objective is a drop in the bucket.
- nkuttler 3y ago
  If your country's money and banking works for you I don't think I can explain to you why bitcoin is useful, you simply have no use for it. That your peers primarily use it for speculation says more about them than about bitcoin.
  - patmcc 3y ago
    Give me a ballpark for the relative market share of "bitcoin as speculation" vs "bitcoin as currency". I'd estimate it as...oh...98% speculation, and I think I'm being generous.
    - RestlessMind 3y ago
      What is your estimate about Gold? I say Bitcoin and Gold serve roughly the same purpose.
      - patmcc 3y ago
        Looks like gold mined gets diverted to: 47% investment and central1 banks 45% jewellery 7% tech/industrial applications See https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-industry-sector-share/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in... and https://natural-resources.canada.ca/our-natural-resources/minerals-mining/minerals-metals-facts/gold-facts/20514 https://natural-resources.canada.ca/our-natural-resources/mi... - don't exactly agree, but close. (and, importantly, it doesn't require terawatt-hours to maintain gold once you've mined it).
        RestlessMind 3y ago
        So basically, 92% of gold is purely due to social conditioning and invented belief. > (and, importantly, it doesn't require terawatt-hours to maintain gold once you've mined it). I am pretty sure collective security spent on gold worldwide exceeds terawatt hours once you account for all the physical security as well.
plopilop 3y ago
If you really believe that something that is 1 million times less efficient than Visa/MasterCard for a fraction of the service, and that miners really use residential energy when they are active 24/7 and thus by definition a continuous strain on the grid, I have so many scams^W interesting products to sell you https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
- nkuttler 3y ago
  [flagged]
- RestlessMind 3y ago
  Comparing Bitcoin network to Visa/MasterCard is as pointless as comparing Gold mining to those cc networks. Fair comparison would be Bitcoin network vs Gold mining/storage/securing/transfer activities.
  - plopilop 3y ago
    The convertibility between money and gold has stopped in the 70s. Bitcoin allows for instant money transfer, and so does Visa. The fact that bitcoin has no collateral is a whole other topic.
    - parineum 3y ago
      Instant?
    - RestlessMind 3y ago
      Bitcoin allows for instant Bitcoin transfer. The fact that it can be converted for money is a separate angle. > The fact that bitcoin has no collateral is a whole other topic. That's actually the main topic. Both Gold and Bitcoin are valuable because we as a society decided that they are valuable.
thedrbrian 3y ago
All that electricity so that 3 to 7 people a second can buy some drugs.

the_gastropod 3y ago

This article is basically like arguing: “Sure, using the Infant-Chipper 9000 results in the deaths of infants. But it’s a rounding error if you consider how many infants die in the world every year!” Bitcoin purposefully wastes lots of energy to provide something of extremely dubious value.

willcipriano 3y ago
It's literally an infant chipper insofar as it enables the sale of (and thus the production of) CSAM.
ardme 3y ago
Yet obviously, some people find it useful. Who are you to tell people how to live their lives? Maybe you should stop flying on airplanes for the rest of your life?
- the_gastropod 3y ago
  “Some people find the infant-chipper useful. Who are you to tell people how to live their lives?” <insert improve the world somewhat meme here>
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  The people finding it useful are overwhelmingly moving money illegally, such as how you can peg BTC shifts to Xi's anti-corruption crackdowns in China, or MBS in Saudi. Or moving drugs. Or hyping something to sell more made up money to rubes.
- ChainOfFools 3y ago
  When how people live their lives depends on them shoveling millions of joules s of externalities onto my environment and that of my kids, in addition to propping up a rube goldberg Ponzi scheme that has a non-zero chance of ensnaring people I care about either directly or indirectly through financial mismanagement, you better believe I'm going to tell you how to live your life. I'll tell lots of other people how you live your life is hypocritically contributing to a massive increase of financial leverage on the part of "rationally self interested" sociopaths and criminals at everyone else's expense( in direct opposition to its putative purpose of undermining predatory central bankers, yet is simply shifting the power to predatory anon-ish ransomware purveyors and sex traffickers and bullshit gambling token insta-twit "influencers" seeking to exploit the naivety of children for their own financial gain), and generally promoting the enshittification of everything that touches the internet, and should be mocked and discouraged at every opportunity. You don't like the free market of ideas when it turns against you? tough.
  - crtified 3y ago
    "When how people live their lives depends on them shoveling millions of joules s of externalities onto my environment and that of my kids, in addition to propping up a rube goldberg Ponzi scheme that has a non-zero chance of ensnaring people I care about either directly or indirectly through financial mismanagement, you better believe I'm going to tell you how to live your life." This is no defense of Bitcoin/crypto, but the above paragraph relatively concisely describes how I feel as part of the underclasses in the traditional world. Except that all the fears it encapsulates have already occurred for my family, generations back. There are people in this thread who get a yearly payrise (which translates to increased selfish expenditure on plastic toys and air flights and fancy petrol burning machines) that's greater than my entire household's income, and I'm just an ordinary person in a western country. How many household bitcoin miners does that equal, environmentally speaking? For that one person? The hypocrisy embedded in fervent hatred of crypto, as though extravagant & hugely unbalanced wastage of resources wasn't practiced by us all daily, implies a moral distance that, imo, barely exists. Bitcoin and crypto are mere reflections of the wastage that we as a species have normalised, and still do, via our lifestyles. It's "industry" and "business" that have fucked this world.

manuelabeledo 3y ago

What exactly does it provide? So far it seems that Bitcoin mainstream use is to create speculative markets. Any other intended objective is a drop in the bucket.

nkuttler 3y ago
If your country's money and banking works for you I don't think I can explain to you why bitcoin is useful, you simply have no use for it. That your peers primarily use it for speculation says more about them than about bitcoin.
- patmcc 3y ago
  Give me a ballpark for the relative market share of "bitcoin as speculation" vs "bitcoin as currency". I'd estimate it as...oh...98% speculation, and I think I'm being generous.
  - RestlessMind 3y ago
    What is your estimate about Gold? I say Bitcoin and Gold serve roughly the same purpose.
    - patmcc 3y ago
      Looks like gold mined gets diverted to: 47% investment and central1 banks 45% jewellery 7% tech/industrial applications See https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-industry-sector-share/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in... and https://natural-resources.canada.ca/our-natural-resources/minerals-mining/minerals-metals-facts/gold-facts/20514 https://natural-resources.canada.ca/our-natural-resources/mi... - don't exactly agree, but close. (and, importantly, it doesn't require terawatt-hours to maintain gold once you've mined it).
      - RestlessMind 3y ago
        So basically, 92% of gold is purely due to social conditioning and invented belief. > (and, importantly, it doesn't require terawatt-hours to maintain gold once you've mined it). I am pretty sure collective security spent on gold worldwide exceeds terawatt hours once you account for all the physical security as well.

plopilop 3y ago

If you really believe that something that is 1 million times less efficient than Visa/MasterCard for a fraction of the service, and that miners really use residential energy when they are active 24/7 and thus by definition a continuous strain on the grid, I have so many scams^W interesting products to sell you https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

nkuttler 3y ago
[flagged]
RestlessMind 3y ago
Comparing Bitcoin network to Visa/MasterCard is as pointless as comparing Gold mining to those cc networks. Fair comparison would be Bitcoin network vs Gold mining/storage/securing/transfer activities.
- plopilop 3y ago
  The convertibility between money and gold has stopped in the 70s. Bitcoin allows for instant money transfer, and so does Visa. The fact that bitcoin has no collateral is a whole other topic.
  - parineum 3y ago
    Instant?
  - RestlessMind 3y ago
    Bitcoin allows for instant Bitcoin transfer. The fact that it can be converted for money is a separate angle. > The fact that bitcoin has no collateral is a whole other topic. That's actually the main topic. Both Gold and Bitcoin are valuable because we as a society decided that they are valuable.

thedrbrian 3y ago

All that electricity so that 3 to 7 people a second can buy some drugs.