Bitcoin to use electricity as much as entire Pakistan for crypto mining in 2021

Mukrab · Sep 13, 2021

mael said:
I mean at least in the case of almond milk you can still drink it like milk.
This would be like buying almond milk but you can't drink it, it only gives you the right to go to a place that allows you to exchange it with actual cow milk that you can then drink.
At this point your almond milk isn't milk in any sense of the word.

Oh you can do one thing that is the same? Same with ada, i can exchange it for other currencies just like i can with the euro or dollar. Just like you can drink almond milk like you can drink cow milk. Can i pay with ADA at mcdonalds, no, just like you can milk an almond.

Aynway im out. Please contact whoever the dictionary or whatever and ask them to change the definitions. Im not the person you should be talking to about that.

Night · Sep 13, 2021

How much power does PC gaming consume per year, I wonder?

mael · Sep 13, 2021

Mukrab said:
Oh you can do one thing that is the same? Same with ada, i can exchange it for other currencies just like i can with the euro or dollar. Just like you can drink almond milk like you can drink cow milk. Can i pay with ADA at mcdonalds, no, just like you can milk an almond.

You can exchange platinium for currencies.
Do that mean platinium is somehow currency itself?

Apple stock goes from some pretty good money and is equally intangible as crypto coins, do that mean Apple stock is somehow currency?

ArrogantBastard · Sep 13, 2021

I'm still waiting for someone to exclaim the massive virtues of these green CC's that are so prevalent. What's wrong that isn't the market?

Transistor · Sep 13, 2021

Night said:
How much power does PC gaming consume per year, I wonder?

Gaming rigs aren't run at 100% performance 24/7

ArrogantBastard · Sep 13, 2021

Transistor said:
Gaming rigs aren't run at 100% performance 24/7

Shh. That goes completely against the talking point.

It is asinine that gaming PC's and usage is even mentioned anymore.

Deleted member 1698 · Sep 13, 2021

Warhawk4Ever said:
More countries are legalizing its use

Receipts?

Transistor said:
Regulation is desperately needed for it.

The true end game of people playing with bitcoin. "Wait, what are sanction checks? Hmm I need to go check some stuff"

ArrogantBastard · Sep 13, 2021

Seriously, why are gaming PC's mentioned anymore?

Night · Sep 13, 2021

ArrogantBastard said:
Seriously, why are gaming PC's mentioned anymore?

Because it's another source of power drain that serves "no purpose" or isn't entirely necessary. It's an interesting comparison and I was curious. So I looked.

The Big Surprise in Home Energy Consumption: Gaming PCs

The typical gaming computer consumes as much power each year as approximately three refrigerators, according to a study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The comparison is one of the many eye-opening statistics in a paper written by Nathaniel and Evan Mills on the impact of...

www.forbes.com

According to this article (from 2015) gaming PCs take an estimated 75 TWh per year. As a PC gamer myself, I can tell you that GPUs and CPUs have only increased in power demand in the past 6 years. That figure is definitely higher, now.

The article in the OP states Bitcoin will take 91TWh in 2021.

So, why wouldn't they be mentioned?

Costa · Sep 13, 2021

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are a scam. The constant introductions of new crypto basically weekly at this point is a race to the bottom to make quick bucks off of falsified hype. It's only purpose is consolidation for speculation and the sooner more countries like the US or European countries ban it the better.

It was a fun experiment but this shit is just killing our planet faster and faster, and all for rich assholes to become even richer.

If you don't think it's a scam then I'm sorry but you were scammed. You'll never "make it big" with it much like in real-life with fiat currency because the big players are already using it to stay big.

And please don't take this to think I am naive or "ah but you participate in society" non-sense, I know big banks are pretty bad too. But they're bad for different reasons.

MegaManTrigger · Sep 13, 2021

Mezentine said:
I think its hard for me to buy that the decentralized blockchain ledger is in and of itself something that's valuable for commerce when a small fraction of cryptocurrency transactions are commercial transactions. The value seems primarily as a speculative asset, as evidenced by the proportion of people that buy it as a speculative asset. If the decentralized ledger was more useful from a commercial standpoint, wouldn't more people be...using it as such by this point?

The skew between the uses that cryptocurrency pitches itself on and what people actually do with it seem important

Bingo. As I've said before, people have fallen in love with the concept and that's completely blinded them to the end result.

You can't say that Bitcoin/Crypto is unironically a decentralizing currency, and then disregard that it hasn't been taken seriously as a currency standard in the marketplace and banking. Adoption is incredibly low, and the perception is that it's nothing more than a value storage designed as an investment with the intent to profit from. The fact that people refuse to see this issue is nothing more than baffling.

SuperHans said:
They have massively helped randomware attacks be untraceable. Try and do that through a legit bank or by sending a pallet of cash halfway around the world. The main utility of cryptocurrency has been to make illegal payments easier.

This is flatout wrong. Go watch SomeOrdinaryGamers' videos on tracking wallet transactions (specifically SavetheKids and TechLead's Million Coin). It can be tedious but completely doable, and if Mutahar is able to do it, then you bet your ass that an agency is able to do it as well.

ArrogantBastard said:
Seriously, why are gaming PC's mentioned anymore?

Deflection and an ignorance to how PC hardware actually works. They think a mining GPU rig that's on 100% is equivalent to a gaming PC without factoring in idle and max TDP/electricity consumption.

anthro · Sep 13, 2021

Aaronrules380 said:
Being green has nothing to do with what they're asking. The fact is no crypto has ever come close to being usable as currency. They're either way to volatile, or there's nowhere near enough people using them. And I suspect that if the latter became more widespread they'd just become the former. The issue is people like the idea because it's a currency that can't be regulated or controlled by any specific organization, but the issue is that because nobody can regulate them keeping prices stable enough to be viable as currency is pretty much impossible

I think the main reason for Bitcoin's instability is that it is modeled as a commodity money but it fails to behave like most commodities by design. The way new Bitcoin come into existence is through the block reward, which was scheduled out by Satoshi from Bitcoin's inception. The block reward was arbitrarily set, it has no connection to the actual resources put into supporting the network. So when demand for Bitcoin rises, the price goes up, miners start investing more money into a higher hashrate and every 10 minutes the same amount of Bitcoin pops out. The means the cost per Bitcoin just fluctuates with the demand, so if the price rises then Bitcoin's cost will probably rise, and if it falls it will fall. This leads to a feedback loop that probably just exacerbates rapid rises and declines in price.

Whereas let's say you are in the business of producing glass or something. You invest in new factories to process raw material to turn into glass, you get more glass. The average cost to produce other commodities is usually relatively stable, barring exogenous shocks to the industry or rapid technical change. So in competitive markets prices stabilize in respect to that ground everybody is walking on. But Bitcoin doesn't have that ground, due to goldbug fears of inflation Bitcoin is designed to just spit out an arbitrary amount regardless of the amount of resources put into producing it. If it was designed to have the Bitcoin produced as a ratio of the hashrate, then it might actually stabilize more quickly. But it also may have never grown to the size it did simply because the massive price swings wouldn't have drawn so much interest.

GYODX · Sep 13, 2021

Night said:
Because it's another source of power drain that serves "no purpose" or isn't entirely necessary. It's an interesting comparison and I was curious. So I looked.

The Big Surprise in Home Energy Consumption: Gaming PCs

The typical gaming computer consumes as much power each year as approximately three refrigerators, according to a study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The comparison is one of the many eye-opening statistics in a paper written by Nathaniel and Evan Mills on the impact of...

www.forbes.com

According to this article (from 2015) gaming PCs take an estimated 75 TWh per year. As a PC gamer myself, I can tell you that GPUs and CPUs have only increased in power demand in the past 6 years. That figure is definitely higher, now.

The article in the OP states Bitcoin will take 91TWh in 2021.

So, why wouldn't they be mentioned?

Videogames add more value to society than crypto.

subpar spatula · Sep 13, 2021

I get my electricity through hydro so I am in the clear. XD

RPGamer92 · Sep 13, 2021

INTERGALACTIC said:
Honestly, fuck crypto. Shut this shit down.

This.

Night · Sep 13, 2021

GYODX said:
Videogames add more value to society than crypto.

Now that's entirely subjective unless there's some metric you're basing that on.

MegaManTrigger said:
Deflection and an ignorance to how PC hardware actually works. They think a mining GPU rig that's on 100% is equivalent to a gaming PC without factoring in idle and max TDP/electricity consumption.

Except the study takes this into account and even goes on to say more vigorous users could consume more per year. We know some people be gaming hard.

Link in the article to academic study was dead.

Taming the energy use of gaming computers - Energy Efficiency

One billion people around the world engage in some form of digital gaming. Gaming is the most energy-intensive use of personal computers, and the high-performance “racecar” systems built expressly for gaming are the fastest growing type of gaming platform. Large performance-normalized variations...

link.springer.com

Night · Sep 13, 2021

LGHT_TRSN · Sep 13, 2021

I don't get why people obsess over how much energy is consumed by X instead of where the energy comes from...which is what actually matters.

Zyrokai · Sep 13, 2021

This shit should be illegal.

HMS_Pinafore · Sep 13, 2021

Anyone who uses crypto is scum, that's right it includes you reading this. Can't believe that a pyramid scheme for techbros will kill us all but thanks for that.

D.Dragoon · Sep 13, 2021

Machado said:
Not trying to be that guy but, so is crypto. Just not for you, sadly.

You are that guy because our society functions that way government use it, NORMAL EVERYDAY people can easily use it. Crypto is not that maybe in the future but not even close now.

MegaManTrigger · Sep 13, 2021

Night said:
Except the study takes this into account and even goes on to say more vigorous users could consume more per year. We know some people be gaming hard.

Link in the article to academic study was dead.

Not sure why you chose to post that particular study, because it doesn't objectively prove that gaming is more energy intensive than crypto mining, especially when it was based on the hardware standards of <2015. The funniest part is if you read at the end of the abstract, it says:

"Savings of more than 75 % can be achieved via premium efficiency components applied at the time of manufacture or via retrofit, while improving reliability and performance (nearly a doubling of performance per unit of energy)."

And then you look at the chart where it literally outlines energy saving strategies that companies are already employing now. The bolded is important because hardware releases post-2015 has continued to be incredibly efficient. Architectural changes has led to less electricity consumed than in previous years (Intel is the only exception for this considering how power-hungry their CPUs are). On top of that, PC enthusiasts/gamers are often swapping out their part for new and more efficient CPUs (as long as it is compatible with their existing parts).

And on top of that, that study still doesn't not factor how varied the power consumption is on gaming PCs (and since they went so far as to include laptops and consoles into this, it's an even more baffling omission). It's not as if people are just gaming from the moment they wake up to the moment they sleep, vs. how GPUs are literally left on to do blockchains and mine for Bitcoin/Ethereum/what have you. The difference with mining is that it is cumulative, when there's a boom, there's even more electricity consumption. So that 80TWh estimation is outdated. Not to mention, the growth rate of PC gaming is much smaller than the growth rate of crypto mining.

LGHT_TRSN said:
I don't get why people obsess over how much energy is consumed by X instead of where the energy comes from...which is what actually matters.

This is another good point, and one where researchers have admitted it's unclear.

Ororo · Sep 13, 2021

Hasseigaku said:
It uses more because it is used for vastly more transactions than crypto but it's energy use per transaction is extraordinarily smaller.

Mezentine said:
In absolute numbers its much higher, which is what crypto defenders always point to, but that's rhetorical sleight of hand. On a per-transaction basis crypto is massively massively more wasteful, its only less than the global banking system because the global banking system supports billions of people

Are there any hard numbers on this? I feel many are jumping the gun just because they don't like a technology.

Night · Sep 13, 2021

MegaManTrigger said:
Not sure why you chose to post that particular study, because it doesn't objectively prove that gaming is more energy intensive than crypto mining, especially when it was based on the hardware standards of <2015. The funniest part is if you read at the end of the abstract, it says:

"Savings of more than 75 % can be achieved via premium efficiency components applied at the time of manufacture or via retrofit, while improving reliability and performance (nearly a doubling of performance per unit of energy)."

And then you look at the chart where it literally outlines energy saving strategies that companies are already employing now. The bolded is important because hardware releases post-2015 has continued to be incredibly efficient. Architectural changes has led to less electricity consumed than in previous years (Intel is the only exception for this considering how power-hungry their CPUs are). On top of that, PC enthusiasts/gamers are often swapping out their part for new and more efficient CPUs (as long as it is compatible with their existing parts).

And on top of that, that study still doesn't not factor how varied the power consumption is on gaming PCs (and since they went so far as to include laptops and consoles into this, it's an even more baffling omission). It's not as if people are just gaming from the moment they wake up to the moment they sleep, vs. how GPUs are literally left on to do blockchains and mine for Bitcoin/Ethereum/what have you. The difference with mining is that it is cumulative, when there's a boom, there's even more electricity consumption. So that 80TWh estimation is outdated. Not to mention, the growth rate of PC gaming is much smaller than the growth rate of crypto mining.

This is another good point, and one where researchers have admitted it's unclear.

I wasn't trying to prove it took more. Only that it takes a similar amount of power globally, which it definitely does.

If people are going to come in here and decry Bitcoin for consuming power, I'm hoping they're just as critical of other unnecessary uses of power is all.

Warhawk4Ever · Sep 13, 2021

HMS_Pinafore said:
Anyone who uses crypto is scum, that's right it includes you reading this. Can't believe that a pyramid scheme for techbros will kill us all but thanks for that.

I can only imagine how many people in your group of family and friends would end being scummy then to you. Great way to judge the character of someone.

Darksol · Sep 13, 2021

Costa said:
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are a scam. The constant introductions of new crypto basically weekly at this point is a race to the bottom to make quick bucks off of falsified hype. It's only purpose is consolidation for speculation and the sooner more countries like the US or European countries ban it the better.

It was a fun experiment but this shit is just killing our planet faster and faster, and all for rich assholes to become even richer.

If you don't think it's a scam then I'm sorry but you were scammed. You'll never "make it big" with it much like in real-life with fiat currency because the big players are already using it to stay big.

And please don't take this to think I am naive or "ah but you participate in society" non-sense, I know big banks are pretty bad too. But they're bad for different reasons.

One of my good friends is a millionaire from crypto; also, my ETH holdings have increased over the past five years more than any stock I own. If I am being scammed, it's a pretty good feeling.

Nobody who has put money in ETH and held onto it has lost money. Even after "the crash" in 2018, anyone who held has made their money back and then seen that value rise dramatically.

Warhawk4Ever · Sep 13, 2021

Darksol said:
One of my good friends is a millionaire from crypto; also, my ETH holdings have increased over the past five years more than any stock I own. If I am being scammed, it's a pretty good feeling.

Nobody who has put money in ETH and held onto it has lost money. Even after "the crash" in 2018, anyone who held has made their money back and then seen that value rise dramatically.

As someone who has made a 100% profit of my investment back, I agree. But that poster probably thinks its a scam because the energy issue, criminal use, etc. That or he thinks investing in Wall Street is also a scam.

Night · Sep 13, 2021

Warhawk4Ever said:
As someone who has made a 100% profit of my investment back, I agree. But that poster probably thinks its a scam because the energy issue, criminal use, etc. That or he thinks investing in Wall Street is also a scam.

Most of these threads end up being an exercise in futility because people really don't understand what they're talking about and have created a crypto boogeyman to rail against.

Bitcoin changed my life and so many other peoples lives.

Feep · Sep 13, 2021

Night said:
Most of these threads end up being an exercise in futility because people really don't understand what they're talking about and have created a crypto boogeyman to rail against.

Bitcoin changed my life and so many other peoples lives.

No one is denying that BTC has enriched the lives of many people. However, that wealth did not materialize with the blockchain. It comes from people, below you, buying into the system and pumping that money up toward you.

It is *literally* the definition of a pyramid scheme. The pyramid may be very large, in this case, and many people enriched, but since no tangible goods or services are associated with the item in question, it's a pyramid scheme.

Warhawk4Ever · Sep 13, 2021

Feep said:
No one is denying that BTC has enriched the lives of many people. However, that wealth did not materialize with the blockchain. It comes from people, below you, buying into the system and pumping that money up toward you.

It is *literally* the definition of a pyramid scheme. The pyramid may be very large, in this case, and many people enriched, but since no tangible goods or services are associated with the item in question, it's a pyramid scheme.

Is the stock market a pyramid scheme?

HMS_Pinafore · Sep 13, 2021

Warhawk4Ever said:
I can only imagine how many people in your group of family and friends would end being scummy then to you. Great way to judge the character of someone.

Good, fuck em too for destroying the planet.

Warhawk4Ever · Sep 13, 2021

HMS_Pinafore said:
Good, fuck em too for destroying the planet.

Surely you dont own a car, right? Eat meat? Own a smart phone or computer? I assume no, right?

Deleted member 48991 · Sep 13, 2021

Night said:
I wasn't trying to prove it took more. Only that it takes a similar amount of power globally, which it definitely does.

If people are going to come in here and decry Bitcoin for consuming power, I'm hoping they're just as critical of other unnecessary uses of power is all.

PC power usage has been subject to regulations since like forever, even causing a controversy recently in which Dell was not selling some gaming PC's in California due to their regulations. But if you care so much about the energy usage of gaming PC's, I urge you to make a thread about it, because discussing it here seems more like a derail/whataboutism.

HMS_Pinafore · Sep 13, 2021

Warhawk4Ever said:
Surely you dont own a car, right? Eat meat? Own a smart phone or computer? I assume no, right?

Yes you're very smart.

Warhawk4Ever · Sep 13, 2021

HMS_Pinafore said:
Yes you're very smart.

So what are you typing on?

Mezentine · Sep 13, 2021

Warhawk4Ever said:
So you're a hypocrite? I mean, as long you dong deny that then more power to you.

Once again, what we disagree about is if the social benefit of crypto is in proportion to its wastefulness. You haven't made any arguments for why its actually worth the energy consumption, just pointed at other things that most people broadly agree are worth it (although we'll probably argue the most over cars)

Its not an argument to say "This useful thing you use also consumes power" if we don't believe the thing you're comparing it to is useful. And since, as I mentioned, a small fraction of cryptocurrency transactions are used for commerce, no-one in here buys that its currently useful as anything other than a speculative asset

HMS_Pinafore · Sep 13, 2021

Warhawk4Ever said:
So what are you typing on?

Yes, there is no difference between the power I use and the excessive power used by crypto. You are very smart.

Enjoy your bitcoin when you're dead from climate change.

Warhawk4Ever · Sep 13, 2021

Mezentine said:
Once again, what we disagree about is if the social benefit of crypto is in proportion to its wastefulness. You haven't made any arguments for why its actually worth the energy consumption, just pointed at other things that most people broadly agree are worth it (although we'll probably argue the most over cars)

Its not an argument to say "This useful thing you use also consumes power" if we don't believe the thing you're comparing it to is useful. And since, as I mentioned, a small fraction of cryptocurrency transactions are used for commerce, no-one in here buys that its currently useful as anything other than a speculative asset

The issue in my direct back and forth with that poster isn't denying btc is bad for the environment. The issue he condemns anyone who uses crypto because it harms the planet. Thats fine, but dont argue that owning a car, laptop, or phone also doesn't have a negative impact on the planet. Ergo, hypocritical.

Feep · Sep 13, 2021

Warhawk4Ever said:
Is the stock market a pyramid scheme?

In some sense, yes, though companies have value (dividends) that pay out independently of the wealth of people coming in after you and pumping up the stock price. Which is to say, you are owning a thing that does not simply "exist to exist".

rac · Sep 13, 2021

jack doresy should probably fix all the negative impacts of owning a car, laptop, and phones

oh wait too busy fixing cryptocurrency? well shit

Warhawk4Ever · Sep 13, 2021

HMS_Pinafore said:
Yes, there is no difference between the power I use and the excessive power used by crypto. You are very smart.

Enjoy your bitcoin when you're dead from climate change.

One person may be 600lbs, the other is 400lbs. They are both overweight, one more than the other.

You didnt say you hate anyone who harms the planet at ___ level, rather you condemn anyone whose actions harm the environment at all. Ergo, you are a hypocrite in this area.

Mezentine · Sep 13, 2021

Warhawk4Ever said:
The issue in my direct back and forth with that poster isn't denying btc is bad for the environment. The issue he condemns anyone who uses crypto because it harms the planet. Thats fine, but dont argue that owning a car, laptop, or phone also doesn't have a negative impact on the planet. Ergo, hypocritical.

Its not just that it harms the planet, its that it harms the planet disproportionate to the other benefits it provides. Arguing over where that line is is one of the biggest conversations we're having globally right now, but wherever you draw it cryptocurrency seems way off to one side

Cation · Sep 13, 2021

jelly said:
Power companies must be making a mint.

Historic Power Plant Decides Mining Bitcoin Is More Profitable Than Selling Electricity News

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/restored-hydroelectric-plant-will-mine-bitcoin Rejuvenate my old hydroelectric plant if old.

www.resetera.com

Ironic lollll

Deleted member 69501 · Sep 13, 2021

LGHT_TRSN said:
I don't get why people obsess over how much energy is consumed by X instead of where the energy comes from...which is what actually matters.

Yes good point, except on Era they'll argue that crypto takes green energy away from places that would otherwise purchase it.
..which to me was initially a compelling argument until I found out that the many of the largee btc miners in NA are using green energy capacity that remains underutilized...so yea, the focuse should be on the production of green energy. Forget about the amount of consumption cause that is cumalativly risising annually.

Warhawk4Ever · Sep 13, 2021

Mezentine said:
Its not just that it harms the planet, its that it harms the planet disproportionate to the other benefits it provides. Arguing over where that line is is one of the biggest conversations we're having globally right now, but wherever you draw it cryptocurrency seems way off to one side

that line is very important in the context of my specific back and forth with that poster. You are responding to the overall debate of this thread while I am responding directly to that persons claims.

Mezentine · Sep 13, 2021

Warhawk4Ever said:
that line is very important in the context of my specific back and forth with that poster. You are responding to the overall debate of this thread while I am responding directly to that persons claims.

It is also the argument that person is making

GYODX · Sep 13, 2021

Warhawk4Ever said:
Is the stock market a pyramid scheme?

The stock market is ultimately backed by labor, a very real and tangible thing. Crypto has no intrinsic value.

ConanEdogawa · Sep 13, 2021

Threads like this make me realize how early we are in the life of crypto.

Warhawk4Ever · Sep 13, 2021

Mezentine said:
It is also the argument that person is making

Then he shouldve been quite specific. So tell me, do even POS waste as much energy as PoW? Do PoS take up a large part of the mining? Ofcourse not which is why PoS was created.

So the poster shouldve said btc or pow and even then, specificy the rate its damaging the planet. He didnt. He mentioned crypto in general and damaging the planet which he does too.

Warhawk4Ever · Sep 13, 2021

GYODX said:
The stock market is ultimately backed by labor, a very real and tangible thing. Crypto has no intrinsic value.

Im sure that makes everyone who lost their retirement in 2008 feel
Better.

Bitcoin to use electricity as much as entire Pakistan for crypto mining in 2021

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