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TypicalHog ,

That's why I prefer Cardano, it has a good PoS (unlike Ethereum) and uses thousands of time less energy than Bitcoin.

prole ,
@prole@sh.itjust.works avatar

Just a PSA that the second biggest cryptocurrency by market cap (ETH) is no longer proof of work, and in the process, reduced their power consumption by ~98%.

ohlaph ,

And father.

Snekeyes ,

"Research has found that bitcoin miners alone consume approximately between 60 to 125 TWh of energy annually, which is equivalent to around 0.6% of global electricity"

"Traditional banks' total annual energy consumption of traditional banks is around 26 TWh on running servers, 26 TWh on ATMs, and 87 TWh from an estimate of 600k+ branches worldwide. Totaling 139 TWh."

Not to mention banks impact on people's lives. Limited purchasing power of the poor and soon to join them middle class.. to purchase disposable products

https://www.iyops.org/post/energy-consumption-cryptocurrency-vs-traditional-banks

Pulptastic ,

Compare Wh vs # transactions. PoW is unsustainable and irresponsible. We need a different way.

I've always been a fan of having the USPS provide banking services to everyone. Make it a public service and it is no longer exclusionary.

merdaverse ,

Proof of work is not even scalable to the level of current bank transactions. Ethereum network didn't have enough compute to clear the backlog created by some niche cat NFT "game" a few years ago when people still gave a shit about NFTs.

Limited purchasing power of the poor and middle class is a political problem, not a problem solved by tech, no matter what crypto gurus and tech messiahs will tell you. The most prolific crypto miners are the ones that already have more "traditional" capital to invest. So crypto is not solving the wealth divide, it is just making it worse.

I hate banks as much as anyone, but crypto is not the solution.

stoy ,

Ok fine lets look closer at those numbers, I don't think they mean what you think they mean....

On their own these numbers are completely useless, we need to compare something that exists in both crypto and in traditional banking.

I found this page: https://buybitcoinworldwide.com/bitcoin-mining-statistics/

  1. One Bitcoin transaction can spend up to 1,200 kWh of energy, which is equivalent to almost 100,000 VISA transactions.

I suspect that is on the extreme end of the scale, so let's be kind and slash 50% off of it, even then the energy consumption would be 600kWh per bitcoint transaction, and if we use the same data for VISA transactions, this is the equivalent of 50 000 VISA transactions, if these numbers are correct, crypto is insanely energy inefficient.

So I kept looking and found this page:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-consumption-transaction-comparison-visa/

This page claims that one Bitcoin transaction used about 700kWh in 2023, and 100 000 VISA transactions used about 150kWh in total at the same time.

So we have two sources showing that Bitcoin is an absolute disaster for energy use and therefore the environment.

So I kept looking, and found some data about Etherium, which claims that one etherium transaction consumes 0 kWh, which I naturally doubt...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-consumption-transaction-comparison-visa/

I will make no secret that I dislike crypto, but I did try and find objective data and summarize it objectively, I will also note that while I dislike crypto, I am not blind to the issues with traditional banking, they absolutely needs to clean up their act, environmentally and otherwise.

orrk ,

nah the power use numbers you gave are not on an extreme scale, the point of how the bitcoin and most cryptos work is designed to keep using more and more power

stoy ,

I suspcted as much, but I wanted to show that even cut in half the power use of a single Bitcoin transaction consume an absurd ammount of energy, this to try and stop people arguing that I was being unfair against crypto

Kanda ,

That doesn't make any sense unless it's the only transaction in a block

stoy ,

If you have other data, please post it

darthfabulous42069 ,

You'd think with all of the money they're pulling in, they'd invest in solar panels or something to lower their overhead.

Or am I making the mistake of approaching the situation with common sense?

Huschke ,

Maybe pay off would be so far into the future that they don't want to risk it? Who knows how long crypto will be a thing.

darthfabulous42069 ,

You can get solar panels for like $100-$200 on Amazon right now. Nice ones. The price of them dropped like a fucking rock since China got involved.

Snekeyes ,

Vs. Banks. That have offices, branches, atms, data centers... banking does use more energy yearly. So why not both invest in renewables

darthfabulous42069 ,

I agree with you. That still means Bitcoin is on the hook though.

stoy ,

Sure, but how much of the global financial market does crypto represent?

I susptect that the energy consomption per transaction is considerably higher for crypto than for a normal financial transaction.

orrk ,

no, it is exorbitantly higher for a single crypto transaction

stoy ,

I did find some information about this, and have posted about it in the thread, and you are absolutely right about this in regards to Bitcoin, I did not find a lot of information about other crypto apart from Etherium, which claimed that the energy use of one Etherium transaction would not consume any power at all, which I doubt.

makeasnek ,
@makeasnek@lemmy.ml avatar

Ethereum uses proof-of-stake, there is no "mining" in a traditional sense, so its power consumption is more akin to e-mail than mining crypto. But proof-of-stake leads to centralization over time, which is antithetical to what Bitcoin people want.

RizzRustbolt ,

It's Bitcoin, of course common sense isn't involved.

darthfabulous42069 ,

I mean, fair, but still. People should push them to go green.

this_1_is_mine ,

With how volatile the value of Bitcoin is I don't know whether or not they feel safe trying to take that money and reinvest it you're walking by one of the coin ATMs that's at one of my local stores I've watched the value of Bitcoin halve its value than double it overnight basically every single day for the last 3 weeks

long_chicken_boat ,

they should be doing that, otherwise I don't get how they are making any profit with those huge electricity bills. Last time I checked it, with electricity prices it wasn't worth it to mine cryptocurrency.

orrk ,

no, that's the magic of speculative market financing

phoenixz ,

Solar panels give about 100 watts per square meters best case, practically you'll be on half of that.. With the amounts of electricity they use, they'll need to cover entire nature reserves with solar panels to feed their miners. It's simply not practical

zergtoshi ,

Solar panels can have more than 200 watts peak per square meter and provide around 200 kWh per year and square meter, although these values vary a lot depending on where the panels are installed.
Given these numbers, generating 200 TWh annually (which is more than the current electric energy consumption of Bitcoin mining devices) would require 10^9 square meters; that's slightly more than 31 square kilometers.
Don't misunderstand this as defending the electric energy consumption of Bitcoin mining! I'd rather see this electric energy being used elsewhere.
I merely wanted to show how much electric energy can be harvested using solar panels.

Chriswild ,

They'd still need some type of battery to make solar work though. They want to mine 24/7.

darthfabulous42069 ,

Wind turbines? Solar thermal? Nuclear in exchange for all of those Bitcoins, perhaps?

wahming ,

Whoever Satoshi was, I wonder how he's responding to the thought that he's personally contributed more to global warming than the average billionaire.

kautau ,

Probably not thinking about it on his yacht that he doesn’t pilot or maintain, having built the most successful grifter scheme of all time

NikkiDimes , (edited )

I feel like calling bitcoin a grifter scheme is kind of like calling fiat currency (edit: in general) a grifter scheme. Which I guess isn't entirely untrue...

echodot ,

Oh not this again.

Crypto is also fiat. It's backed by nothing except the trust that it exists, therefore it's fiat.

NikkiDimes ,

That's my point. Sorry, I should have said "fiat in general".

orrk ,

no, the US dollar is backed by the fact that you can use it to pay your taxes to the US government, and interact with the US government in general, quite literally backed by more than crypto.

and I hate to break it to you, but all currency, ever, is fiat.

all that gold standard stuff? you just abstracted the fiat nature from the money to the metal, there was never any actual basis for the value of gold outside its value, and there are plenty of more sparse metals that people don't value as highly

NikkiDimes ,

👍

JasonDJ ,

Satoshi is estimated to have wallets totaling as much as 1.1 million btc. That would make them the 26th richest person in the world.

If, Satoshi and the wallets actually still exist. Most of those wallets have been completely idle since they were mined

I imagine that “Satoshi’s Wallet” is the stuff of legends among cryptographic security researchers.

zergtoshi ,

It's a bit more than just an estimate. If you want to know more, have a look here: https://bitslog.com/2013/04/17/the-well-deserved-fortune-of-satoshi-nakamoto/
The keys to the addresses exist. Whether someone is in control of them is unclear. It can't be proven that they've been lost.

JasonDJ ,

Ok I was kind of dumbing it down when I said “if the wallet exists”, but yeah, obviously a wallet and key “exist”, but whether or not anyone actually has them is unknown.

Really sucks for Satoshi, too. If the keys are still in someone’s position, they can’t use it, because people are watching those wallets like hawks and if they move, that means there’s a new billionaire. For a brief moment. Until Bitcoin takes a massive nosedive from which it’ll never recover.

That must be some special kind of hell. To be an actual billionaire (and truly of their own making, which is even more rare) but not able to spend a cent of it. Spending it instantly reduces its value and likely kills the very thing that created it. Man, that’s like a Monkeys Paw billionaire.

Artemis_Mystique ,

The ONE PIECE is real /s

maness300 ,

It's a drop in the ocean compared to how much energy the banking industry uses.

exhaust_fan ,

Banks use negligible electricity lmao

maness300 ,

the banking industry

Might want to brush up on that reading comprehension.

Dra ,

I think this is the most forced 'lmao' I have ever read

Snekeyes ,

Yeah. 600k Branches, 1 million atms, data centers..

clgoh ,

Including everything, about a million times less energy per transaction than crypto.

orrk ,

yup, tho they also serve more people than crypto bros, about 100,000 times as many

clgoh ,

The banking industry uses at least 50x more, right?

Snekeyes ,

Lets talk about the bank branchs, data centers, and energy consumption vs crypto.

"Research has found that bitcoin miners alone consume approximately between 60 to 125 TWh of energy annually, which is equivalent to around 0.6% of global electricity

"Traditional banks' total annual energy consumption of traditional banks is around 26 TWh on running servers, 26 TWh on ATMs, and 87 TWh from an estimate of 600k+ branches worldwide. Totaling 139 TWh."

Not to mention banks impact on people's lives. Limited purchasing power of the poor and soon to join them middle class.. to purchase disposable products. Like the old tale of buying a expensive boot vs a cheap one.

I'm all for less power usage .. but seems like a witch hunt compared to what banking gets away w. It's the the first time banks can point the finger at someone other then themselves.

https://www.iyops.org/post/energy-consumption-cryptocurrency-vs-traditional-banks

clgoh ,

A system used by everybody, and a system still used by a tiny fraction of the population are using a comparable amount of energy?

orrk ,

hey, most of the crypto fans are all temporarily embarrassed billionaire libertarians anyway, so the bottom 99.5% can all eat shit and die

calcopiritus ,

So it's okay for crypto to consume more energy than banks because... Banks somehow limit the purchasing power of the poor?

I don't think I'm understanding your argument.

UnrepententProcrastinator ,

Watch out! Lemmy is full of Fudd that are not part of the cult.
You need actual data to convince them and not even just the comparison of 2 numbers but something that takes into account the comparative size of both industries.

Don't worry, you will be able to laugh at them after your gambling addiction pays up.

(Jk you might not even be a line goes up guy but you do seem to have a lot of the crypto bible memorized)

reattach ,

I can't tell if these crypto people (comparing the energy use of banking to Bitcoin) are dumb, or if they think everyone else is.

blazeknave ,

Yes.

baltakatei , (edited )
@baltakatei@sopuli.xyz avatar

Ultimately, mining should be banned from the surface of Earth. Let miners build orbital solar panel infrastructure close to the Sun where power is plentiful. See Bitcoin developer Peter Todd's 2017-09-10 presentation on the subject (transcript).

Edit: Fixed URL. Edit2; Add transcript link.

mvirts ,

Mineral resource mining as well

Meowoem ,

What year do you think we'll get the first product mined and manufacturered in space? And how about the first space grown food sold commercially?

I would guess 2040 and 2050 respectively, we'll have the automation tools to get started by 2030 with government science projects then a decade for it to mature into something a company can try to create a market with, probably something that can only be made in low gravity like solve form of novelty such as space glass spheres or a special use material.

I think food will be fast behind because people will pay a lot for it and there's already a lot of research into it for use in space based living facilities.

echodot ,

The problem is still rocket launches are expensive and complicated. But if maybe we can get orbital tethers working then we may be okay.

burble ,

I don't think this is true anymore. The cost of a rideshare with SpaceX is super accessible. Companies can launch for <$1 million. This has been huge for a lot of companies trying to launch a proof of concept or one-off, and even for some operational constellations.

Simulation6 ,

There may be some manufacturing processes that need microgravity or a good vacuum and could be be profitable, but I think you are being much too optimistic.

Meowoem ,

Maybe, it's so hard to guess which way things will go. I would place a safe bet though that a rich person will buy a bit of jewelry or a watch that was made in space from space mined metals within in the next ten years.

burble ,

AstroForge thinks they can close the business case for asteroid mining. Their concept is to launch mining satellites to near-Earth M-type asteroids to mine platinum group metals. These would go on 2 year missions to bring back $100 million+ in metal at a time. With launch and satellite costs dropping, it might just work. Their forge demo sat has been struggling but moving forward. Their asteroid flyby demo sat should launch later this year.

Redwire 3d printed a meniscus in space last year. That'll take awhile to get worthwhile scale and cost, but it's another interesting avenue.

Varda hit regulatory trouble, but their orbital drug manufacturing demo did its job.

Meowoem ,

Oh I had totally missed the 3d printing in space that's really cool, just watching their video about it and wow is it painful with the marvel tie ins and stuff but looks very cool

Seems like the ability to control temperature dissipation without convection could be really useful especially with metals like platinum, might be even sooner that it's commercialised at scale if they can gather raw platinum and make high quality parts especially something like premium bike or boat parts, the corrosion resistance would make it perfect for tidal generation components too.

That could be a possible first strong business, if the space platinum to earth pipeline is already in progress then it should be relatively cheap to divert some for manufacturing then parachuting them in splash down zones would make sense for tidal generator parts.

Of course with progress on fusion it's possible there won't be a huge market for reliable cheap energy but we'll see. I suspect the first thing made will be jewelry that's sold in small amounts for absurd prices.

maness300 ,

Wait till you find out how much energy banking uses...

Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In ,

Per transaction?

baltakatei ,
@baltakatei@sopuli.xyz avatar

Banks will use progressively less energy per capita as bulk data processing becomes more energy efficient, assuming they donʼt transition to using proof-of-work.

SketchySeaBeast ,
@SketchySeaBeast@lemmy.ca avatar

How much? How much of total US power is used by banks? You have a number, right?

Pulptastic ,

Don't forget the opportunity cost of achieving orbital velocity.

I'd say ban it but the cat is out of the bag. Tax it and provide alternatives and hopefully it will die.

orrk ,

dude you can totally ban it, it's not even difficult, you just don't let them suck up infinite power

PanArab ,

Destroying the environment and not even for real money

pirat ,

What makes it less real than other fiat currencies, if I may ask? If a currency is agreed upon being valid by multiple parties, I'd argue it is "real money".

n2burns ,

If a currency is agreed upon being valid by multiple parties, I'd argue it is "real money".

That right there. The vast, vast majority of people don't think it's valid, therefore it's not real money.

PanArab ,

It’s a speculative asset, based on the bigger fool theory. You need to sell it for real money to pay your taxes.

hypersigil_media ,

Elon Musk's private jet uses energy equivalent to 980 average American households a year. What's your point?

iquanyin ,
@iquanyin@lemmy.world avatar

the point is we need to stop all this kind of ish or we die. our species is at a crossroads.

nadir ,

Ah, but we won't all die. Just the poor. The majority will just live worse, much worse lifes.

The important people like Elon will be mostly fine though and isn't that what counts?

moon ,

How does this logic make sense in your head? Does this suddenly not become an issue because something irrelevant is also bad? How does that make sense??

RememberTheApollo_ , (edited )

Modern day gold rush.

Digging up more and more dirt for diminishing returns while destroying the environment.

Bitcoin using more and more power for essentially the same.

FlashMobOfOne ,
@FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world avatar

There is no good reason why this isn't illegal.

GiddyGap ,

Not a good reason, but money.

TheAlbacor ,

Not even real money, tech bro phantom bullshit.

Sami_Uso ,

The tech bros are convincing stupid people it is real money though. Just like they always have, whether it's this or something else.

SocialMediaRefugee ,

They don't produce anything except some numbers. A total waste of energy. I had to laugh when this guy I know who is very "progressive" and environmentally concerned got pissy when I pointed out how much energy was wasted on bitcoin mining just because he was into it.

escaped_cruzader ,

My comment here is a much better use of energy

GhostMatter ,

Recording my next fart would be a better use of energy than Bitcoin.

n3m37h ,

Even if you upload it as an 8k video

crystalmerchant ,

My lower-down comment is an even better use of energy

n3m37h ,

Pfft, my comment is the best use of energy

Socsa ,

Right this is the fundamental problem. There needs to be some value to the Blockchain application which the crypto tokens support beyond just token speculation.

iquanyin ,
@iquanyin@lemmy.world avatar

no. it just needs to end, as does pretty much our entire economic system, worldwide. and the social systems that support wasteful, destructive living. transform or die. that's the point we're at. is humanity up to it? well know within our own lifetimes.

echodot ,

Money is how you get people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do. Farmers don't like farming they do it for the money, truck drivers do it for the money, factory workers do it for the money.

So if we get rid of economics then who's going to farm the food, who's going to pick the food, who's going to transport the food to the stores (although at that point I guess they are just public distribution centers), who's going to run the stores?

They only solution to all of these problems is automation but we're not there yet. So what is your solution for today?

hatedbad ,

you understand there’s more than one way to have an economy right? that there’s more than one way for labor to be rewarded for its output?

saying “our economic system needs to end” has nothing to do with what you wrote

maniclucky ,

Do you have a proposal or are you just theorizing? Obviously there are more economic models, but all of them center on allocation of finite resources. As stated above, automation isn't there yet to even approach post-scarcity.

So, what you got?

orrk ,

seeing as everyone starved before the advent of capital... oh wait

The reason we don't have famines isn't because of money, it's because of one Jew's patriotism to what he saw as his German fatherland.

The reason we have the internet is due to an organization need in warfare, not a profit motive.

The reason we have modern medicine was because people wanted to help other, even if they went broke to do it, sometimes even being outcast from society.

The reason the Nazis were stopped was not because it made a lot of profit, but in spite of it.

do not conflate the achievements of modernity with the inherent economic system you ascribe to.

maniclucky ,

So many words shoved in my mouth. At no point did I say that people can't do good things with minimal incentive. Though it's either naive or disingenuous to pretend that some form of bartering didn't exist before capital or would be suitable solution the modern problems.

Could that one person feed a city on his own? Or keep it clean? Or supply it power? Water? Maintain the infrastructure?

I wasn't talking about individual achievements and technological leaps. I'm talking about the day to day necessities that a functioning society requires. A city like New York is not some simple thing. To make it possible for all those people to coexist, the effort and man power is staggering.

And a bunch of it sucks.

Garbage, sewage, paperwork. You name it, there's some poor bastard that has to deal with it and doesn't want to. In fact, there's a shortage of power lineman (I may be out of date) that can stand as my example. Difficult job, risk of death, need a bunch of them. And you're not going to find enough people passionate about power lines to fill the roster and that job is essential for modern lives.

Now, I'm not rushing to defend capitalism. Holy shit the crimes committed for the unholy dollar. No. I'm generally for socialist practices in any industry that should be a public work (education, utilities, healthcare, etc) and leave capitalism to the luxuries. But I'm getting off track.

I wasn't defending capitalisms many crimes. I'm calling you out for being a child about what can be done about it. Ideals don't pave roads, specific plans and actions do. So what are yours? This system sucks? I fucking know. What changes should be made short of a violent revolution that would almost certainly leave everyone in a worse place? We don't have the luxury of sci-fi tech that can provide for our needs with trivial cost.

Example: taxing the fuck out of the rich, single player health care, investment in green energy, walkable cities, forbidding Congress from owning individual stocks. These things push the world in a better direction.

Next time you advocate for burning it all, try to remember that we live in the most peaceful time in all of human history.

pedroapero ,

You should check out the impact of gold production also.

rusticus ,

JFC how long do we have to wait for a carbon tax

FonsNihilo , (edited )

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    •
    Chocrates ,

    Any suggestions on how we can actually make corporations pay for the carbon they emit if a carbon tax isn't it?
    Doing nothing is what we have been doing and it isn't working.

    FonsNihilo ,

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    Silentiea ,
    @Silentiea@lemm.ee avatar

    How would you implement that? Like, how do you propose to impose a tax on the company that they can't just pass along to the customer?

    FonsNihilo ,

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    Silentiea ,
    @Silentiea@lemm.ee avatar

    How would that law work? Unless you're setting the price as a matter of law, how could you ever prove that a price rise was because of the tax and not "other economic factors"?

    brophy ,

    That's. That's the whole point. Things costing their true value.

    Business exist to make money (even non profits need to make enough money from either sales or donations to cover operating costs). If something costs them more, it's going to cost their customers more. This way negative externalities aren't swept away to become an unmanageable problem in the future. The true cost of consumption is reflected in the price we pay.

    What you're describing as a bad thing is really the system working for good, as it was intended.

    evranch , (edited )

    Unfortunately they are correct as the carbon tax in Canada is indeed a racket. It's only on consumer consumption.

    • oil exports, our largest source of emissions, are exempt
    • agriculture and forestry, the next largest, also exempt
    • shipping and rail, oh look, exempt
    • heavy industry can buy phoney carbon credits for $5/ton instead of paying the $65/ton tax. Some of these are for forests that have already burned down
    • oh yeah the greatest emission source last year, dwarfing all others, 80% of our total emissions came from the massive forest fires for which our policy is just to LET THEM BURN

    So the only people who carry the burden of the Canadian carbon tax are the ordinary taxpayers. But hey, the optics are good! Looks very progressive. Despite the fact that Canadian consumer consumption is the definition of a drop in the bucket that is global emissions.

    If Canada wanted to make a difference they would nationalize the grid, build nuclear and renewables. Or forget it all for now and just put out the damn fires!

    Edit: I forgot one more, as imports are not taxed, the carbon tax actually encourages the import of goods made with coal power in China, over goods made with hydropower in Canada!

    SatansMaggotyCumFart ,

    Do you have a source of your wildfires cause 80% of our carbon emissions?

    Only thing I could find was about 25% which is much different then the number you showed.

    evranch ,

    I believe it was a CBC article last fall that mentioned it, talking about the massive rise in acres burned from previous years. But I can't directly give you a link at this time unfortunately, am on mobile and can't find it either.

    SatansMaggotyCumFart ,

    I’d be really surprised if you could because it’s a made-up number.

    evranch ,

    Not made up, but estimated. Rather than find the exact article, here are the numbers after all was said and done:

    https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/greenhouse-gas-emissions/sources-sinks-executive-summary-2023.html

    In 2021, Canada’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were 670 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (couldn't find 2023 quickly on mobile but it will be close)

    https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/copernicus-canada-produced-23-global-wildfire-carbon-emissions-2023

    The wildfires that Canada experienced during 2023 have generated the highest carbon emissions in record for this country by a wide margin. According to GFASv1.2 data, the wildfires that started to take place in early May emitted almost 480 megatonnes of carbon

    470 / 670 = 72%

    To be fair this is not 72% of total emissions including wildfire smoke, but wildfires emitted 72% as much as the Canadian economy did.

    So yes, it's not 80% of total emissions - but it's still a massive amount. Putting out these fires would have had nearly the same effect as shutting down our entire country and letting them burn.

    Or you could say letting them burn nearly doubled our emissions, and in the hand-wavey world of emissions accounting you would be pretty close.

    SatansMaggotyCumFart ,

    Not made up, but estimated.

    So yes, it's not 80% of total emissions.

    evranch ,

    Man it's been like 6 months since I read it, give me a break lol. "80% of Canada's emissions" is correct, it can just be read either way, and I remembered it the wrong way (as % of combined, not % of emissions)

    SatansMaggotyCumFart ,

    There’s no Shane to admit you’re wrong.

    It’s the internet no one cares.

    assassin_aragorn ,

    There's still market incentive for reducing emissions. Either lets you charge the same and for higher margins, or reduce prices and be more appealing to consumers.

    FonsNihilo ,

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    •
    Silentiea ,
    @Silentiea@lemm.ee avatar

    Hey, just because companies always choose (and get away with) "make more money by cutting costs" instead of "attract more customers with lower prices" doesn't mean they have to ...right?

    assassin_aragorn ,

    When has there been a carbon tax in recent years?

    BrianTheeBiscuiteer ,

    That sucks. It's not like climate change is everybody's problem.

    FonsNihilo ,

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    Klear ,

    We can see you are not against it. Also go fuck yourself.

    SatansMaggotyCumFart ,

    I'm Canadian and I support the carbon tax.

    I would like to see our government stop subsidizing the fossil fuel companies and establish a national oil fund too.

    FonsNihilo ,

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    SatansMaggotyCumFart ,

    I support the carbon tax means that I support the carbon tax that we have.

    What form would you like to see?

    FonsNihilo ,

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    SatansMaggotyCumFart ,

    I pay almost 30% in taxes to heat my home.

    I don't understand this part of your comment, can you explain it please?

    Boxtifer ,

    It means for every $10 he gets charged, he's paying $3 for stuff like gst, carbon tax, etc. $7 is for the actual gas or whatever he is consuming.

    SatansMaggotyCumFart ,

    I’m just curious is that includes income tax too.

    BedSharkPal ,

    I love how downvoted you are and how many people can see through this BS.

    Frostbeard ,

    The tax will just be the cost of doing business. But surely "tHe MarKeT" will correct this by finding cheaper non carbon transport sell a cheaper product.

    Personally I support tax of fossile and subsidization of alternatives. Worked like a charm to electrify Norways car park.

    The cons are however that increased demand for electricity means building wind, hydro, solar power, with a huge cost to local environent both in most land and the diesel used by construction euipment

    Ullallulloo ,
    @Ullallulloo@civilloquy.com avatar

    What does the government do with all the extra revenue? Theoretically it should be able to reduce other taxes proportionally so that those with low carbon usage come out ahead instead of just being a negative for everyone.

    n2burns ,

    Yup, the Climate Action Incentive is a Pigouvian tax, so the government estimates the revenues, divides that up to comes up with a number for each resident, and we receive it back in quarterly payments.

    dgmib ,

    And you get CAIP now, which, for most Canadians, especially lower income Canadians, CAIP is greater than the additional cost you pay for goods and services due to the carbon tax.

    The carbon tax is quite literally a tax on the rich that gets given to the poor, while at the same time making high carbon intensity products more expensive incentivizing choices that lower carbon emissions.

    Only the very rich lose.

    The people who speak out against it, are either rich, or they are useful idiots, people who are ignorantly shilling to scrap the tax to their own detriment because they were told by their rich tribe leader it’s bad.

    Which one are you?

    eager_eagle , (edited )
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    Misleading title - the problem is not "crypto", it's pretty much all Bitcoin and the people against the change in the consensus mechanism. Out of the top 10 9 coins in market cap, Bitcoin is the only one using proof of work, which demands such high energy requirements.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    dogecoin is top10

    eager_eagle ,
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    ah yes the 10th place - still, Doge is estimated to use ~1% of the energy Bitcoin uses and it's been in steady decline since the meme blew up.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    the entire Bitcoin block chain could be run on the phone I'm using to write this. there is nothing inherent to the protocol that dictates such massive power use.

    and dogecoin merge mines with all the other script coins so how can you even calculate its independent usage?

    eager_eagle ,
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    idk their methodology - source

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    if they don't explain their methodology, there is no reason to believe they got it right

    eager_eagle ,
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    then there's no reason to believe they got it wrong.

    also they're vague estimates, even bitcoin has a huge margin for error.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    there is every reason to not believe them. they clearly have a motivation to paint power consumption as worse than is true, and the complexity of extracting the use of dogecoin mining from the rest of the mergedmine is, personally, unfathomable. maybe i'm dumb and there is a simple calculation that can be done, but without evidence of their methodology, i'm not going to believe them, and no one should.

    eager_eagle ,
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    what's the problem of estimating based on mined blocks and difficulty?

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    the work that goes into mining those blocks should be discounted by the amount of energy that goes into mining every other merge-mined chain

    eager_eagle ,
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    ok, so either ~1% figure already discounts this energy due to merge-mining, or it doesn't discount and the effective energy consumption of Doge is lower. The original point remains: Bitcoin is pretty much the energetic problem of crypto, .

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    asic miners are the problem with crypto's energy consumption. nothing is wrong the the bitcoin protocol, which is functioning as expected.

    eager_eagle ,
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    it's just that PoW is trash when applied at scale for encouraging energy use to create consensus - and that's by design - so indeed, "there's something wrong with the protocol".

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    you seem to understand that the protocol can function without the massive power use but you seem to want to blame the protocol for the power use.

    at this point, we have to agree to disagree.

    have a nice day

    eager_eagle ,
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    the protocol can function without the massive power use

    At scale no, it can't and that'll never be the case because at any given time, someone will be willing to put more energy (work) into it to gain an advantage - so as long as there's demand for that coin, PoW will always demand huge amounts of energy.

    And yes, I do blame the consensus protocol because ultimately that's the culprit of causing this incentive to waste energy and targeting miners or any other actors is an utter waste of time.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    >At scale

    what does that mean?

    eager_eagle ,
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    meaning PoW is not such a problem when applied to create consensus in local or niche blockchains as the difficulty (and energy consumption) is orders of magnitude lower. For widely used coins it's a terrible choice.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    PoW isn't a problem at all.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    > at any given time, someone will be willing to put more energy (work) into it to gain an advantage

    that's not a problem with the protocol. that's a problem with people. that's like saying that houses are a problem because people rent them to exploit the working class. the problem isn't the house, it's the people who try to buy all the houses.

    eager_eagle ,
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    I never said there's a problem with the protocol - that's indeed, working as intended. There IS a problem of using the protocol (at scale) though, because it creates this unsustainable environment.

    As another comment put it: PoW is the coal burning of this era.

    Using it for your bbq is no big deal. Using it to generate energy for half the world is awful.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    >There IS a problem of using the protocol (at scale) though, because it creates this
    unsustainable environment.

    this isn't true. the protocol is still functioning fine. the problem is how people are using the protocol.

    eager_eagle ,
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    And there's no way to use it so that it doesn't consume huge amounts of energy because of greed and because of how computers work.

    So very much a problem of using PoW.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    you can certainly use it: using the protocol to transact doesn't contribute meaningfully to power consumption. power consumption is almost entirely in the mining.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    not everyone is merge-mining and even those who do may only be merge-mining specific chains.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    it's a bit like clocking your gas mileage to and from work, and then saying thats how much gas it took you to get out of your driveway.

    FaceDeer ,
    @FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

    there is nothing inherent to the protocol that dictates such massive power use.

    Yes there is, massive power use is the entire point of proof-of-work. If Bitcoin blocks could be produced without massive power use then the blockchain's system of validation would fail and 51% attacks would be trivial.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    the hash rate for the first blocks was achievable with a pentium 3. the protocol functioned then. there is nothing inherent to the protocol that dictates more hashpower is used. a 51% attack is the protocol functioning properly.

    FaceDeer ,
    @FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

    That's because there were just a handful of people mining the first blocks and there was no demand, so the price was basically zero.

    The protocol is meant to promote decentralization, so I have no idea how a 51% attack would be an example of the protocol functioning properly. A 51% attack is a demonstration that the protocol is controlled by a single entity.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    a 51% attack means that 51% of the hashpower has agreed on a certain chain. this happens every 10 minutes.

    FaceDeer ,
    @FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

    That's not an "attack."

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    no, it's the protocol functioning properly.

    FaceDeer ,
    @FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

    Right. Which is not what I was talking about. This was about how a PoW chain would become useless if there was no cost involved in making blocks, ie, if the "W" part was missing. It would allow anyone to add blocks. There'd be no way to distinguish forks from each other and decide on a canonical one. Being able to agree on a particular fork as being the "valid" one in a decentralized manner is the fundamental secret sauce of what makes cryptocurrency work. All the various protocols boil down to ways of solving that one particular problem.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    even a 51% attack is just the protocol following its prescribed mechanisms.

    FaceDeer ,
    @FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

    Yes. But failing at the intent of the protocol in the process. When a hacker exploits a buffer overrun to take control of a remote computer, the computer is following its prescribed mechanisms to the letter. But that's certainly not what the computer's owner wants it to be doing.

    If adding blocks to a PoW chain had no cost then the chain wouldn't be functioning as its users desire - there'd be no canonical fork any more. It would fail to solve the Byzantine generals problem, which is fundamentally the purpose of cryptocurrency.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    >it’s been in steady decline since the meme blew up.

    it got a pretty big bump from elon a couple years back, but dogecoin is nearly perfect money. it isn't deflationary, it's cheap to transact, and the on-ramps are ubiquitous.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    two of the top 10 by market cap ar stable coins.

    eager_eagle ,
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    what's your point?

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    that market cap is a dumb metric to use to dictate protocol specifications

    eager_eagle ,
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    wtf are you even talking about? What protocol specs? Who's dictating what?

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    the specifications of the bitcoin protocol require proof of work. using the market cap to dictate what the protocol specification should be is absurd.

    eager_eagle ,
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    and who's proposing that? I picked the top in market cap to illustrate what most relevant coins are doing because most of them are irrelevant shitcoins.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    seems like you undrestand that market cap is irrelevant to the protocol design.

    Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In ,

    Want to suggest a better one?

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    uh... adoption, stability, code commits, forks....

    Jeknilah , (edited )

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    eager_eagle ,
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    You mean proof of work? And I disagree, Ethereum moved from PoW to PoS and gained market cap since then. The high costs are just a consequence of the consensus mechanism in use.

    Skua ,

    can always just pump up more oil out of the ground.

    No, this is actually exactly the fucking problem

    Jeknilah ,

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    Skua ,

    I have some bad news for you about the environmental effects of burning lots of oil

    nadir ,

    They're a crypto bro. They probably think they'll live on a swimming libertarian island by then.

    matjoeman ,

    As long as there's enough for your remaining lifetime that's fine. We don't have to worry about anyone else's lifetime after that.

    Jeknilah ,

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    nadir ,

    I think you're telling on yourself

    adrian783 ,

    bitcoin has got to be invented by an alien or something so that we would terraform for them...

    Odd_so_Star_so_Odd ,

    Probably just a fool thinking free fusion energy was just around the corner

    wizardbeard ,
    @wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    It's more that it was originally a theoretical white paper meant to present a potential solution for a very specific problem space. Energy use wasn't a consideration in the design, because that wasn't part of what it was meant to address. Likewise, anonymity in the sense of hiding transactions wasn't part of the design either, besides avoiding centralized banking's requirement that every "wallet" is associated with a government ID.

    It was a fun toy meant as a proof of concept solution to centralized banking.

    Eventually market speculators saw what the nerds were getting up to, got some ideas, and everything freaking exploded. It wasn't meant to drive speculative markets.

    SuckMyWang ,

    Isn’t it strange no one gave a shit about this a year and a half ago when the price was lower? It appears everyone’s concern for the environment and energy consumption only increases when the price goes up. Interesting correlation or may be causation.

    Nilz ,

    Everyone already gave a shit about this a long time ago. It's also one of the reasons Ethereum switched from proof of work to proof of stake.

    SuckMyWang ,

    Yes but only when the price was high did anyone care and ethereum switch. Barely a peep for the last 2 and a half years

    fidodo ,

    I've been hearing about the stupid amount of energy usage for years and years. You just created a straw man that isn't based on reality.

    SuckMyWang , (edited )

    I’ve been keeping a close eye on the news about crypto and there has been virtually no stories about any crypto for the last 2 years, prior to that when the price was high there were a lot of stories about it which is my point. They only started to come back into circulation about 6 months ago. If you remember otherwise you are wrong.

    doylio ,

    I've always found this argument against crypto to be a bad one. The headline will say something like "Crypto mining uses XYZ total energy" and we're supposed to infer that this means crypto is polluting a lot. But it doesn't say how much pollution there actually was. For economic reasons, these miners often use cheap excess energy that would have been produced anyway or green tech. Not all of it obviously, but that level of nuance is missing.

    Also, we don't make the same moral arguments against other energy uses. Air conditioners use more energy than Bitcoin mining does, but we don't go around saying the government should ban people from using AC.

    There are legitimate problems with crypto, but this one never convinced me

    drcobaltjedi ,

    Dude. It's 2.3% of a massive industrialized nation where most citizens have access to some luxury goods. A nation with nearly 350 million people being the 3rd most populous country.

    It does NOT fucking matter if it's """"""waste"""""" energy. And no, we don't fucking make that arguement about things like ac because you know why? Someone is getting comfort out of it instead of burning seals to make a line go up.

    doylio ,

    It does NOT fucking matter if it's """"""waste"""""" energy

    Sounds like you don't actually care about the energy use, you just hate this for moral reasons. Using excess energy has zero externalities

    drcobaltjedi ,

    Yeah, its not like we could store that energy in say a battery and then use it another time when demand is higher for actually useful things instead of jerking off techbros/cryptobros.

    doylio ,

    I would love if this were an option, but it's not. The current battery technologies don't have the scale for grid level storage capacity. The only grid scale storage solution that is really being done is to build very expensive infrastructure that moves water between two dams of different heights, and building more of those doesn't seem politically likely at the moment

    The reality is that there is much a whole bunch of excess energy supply that is produced because power plants can't cycle up and down with demand. So they have to keep producing at peak demand 24/7 (there is some nuances based on the type of power plant, NatGas is faster to turn on/off, but this is broadly true)

    I have my qualms with Bitcoin. As a currency it has significant transaction speed problems, and potential security ones after a couple more halvenings. But I don't see a problem if Bitcoin miners want to pay energy producers to use energy that would be produced anyway and earn the producers nothing.

    emergencyfood ,

    There are plenty of projects that use spare computational power for useful things. Like folding@home, which models protein structures to come up with potential drugs. Why not use the excess electricity for one of those?

    doylio ,

    That would be great! And I'm sure there are people doing it. And if 2.3% of the US Power grid were dedicated to that I'm sure some people would be upset about it too

    My basic point is I don't think there is anything morally wrong with Bitcoin miners using energy, even though this is a narrative that is very popular now. There are plenty of other valid criticisms of Bitcoin, but I don't think this one stands up to scrutiny.

    zergtoshi ,

    It's a lot of energy for a global (!) maximum of around 7 transactions per second.
    Unless you want to use the replica of traditional finance called Lightning Network. Then you have more transactions per second and a whole new set of drawbacks.

    doylio ,

    Oh yeah there are many criticisms of Bitcoin one can make, I just don't think the energy one is very convincing if you think about it a bit

    zergtoshi ,

    Shall I add the mountain of electronic waste to the list?
    I mean, Bitcoin mining devices can literally do nothing else but calculate SHA256.
    Once they can no longer be operated economically, they're garbage.
    At least Ethereum's PoW ran on GPUs, which can be used for, let's say: gaming!
    And Ethereum showed that a transition from PoW to PoS is possible.
    I think that Bitcoin sparked a great idea, but way better implementations of that idea are available. Bitcoin has a massive network effect and first mover advantage. technology wise it's no longer on top of the list.

    doylio ,

    I agree with everything you've said

    Pretty much the only things Bitcoin has on Ethereum today is a better brand and Lindy effect

    BleatingZombie ,

    Holy shit. 7 transactions a second is horrible and pretty much definitively proves (to me) that it's not currently used as a currency

    By chance, do you have a source for that or know where I would go looking?

    zergtoshi ,

    You can look how much space a transaction requires, how much size is available per block and how many blocks per time are being created (at average).
    The only way to exceed the figure is by creating transactions with 1 (or few) input(s) and a lot of outputs as they are more efficient in terms of space per tx. Individuals rarely have use for that, but exchanges tend to do that.
    If you want to do your own research, start with the fundamentals and investigate the numbers (size per tx depending on type of tx, size per block, blocks per time).

    ililiililiililiilili ,

    Because the max blocksize of BTC is heavily crippled, max transactions per block is around 3,500ish. That puts us at about 500k transactions max per day (1 block every 10 min). So divide 500k by how many seconds are in a day (86,400) and you get slightly under 6 TPS. Whoever came up with 7 TPS probably did more accurate math than me.

    FaceDeer ,
    @FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

    Different transactions use different amounts of space so it's always going to be a rough estimate.

    ililiililiililiilili ,

    Yep. That 3.5k I pulled out of my ass was just by looking at a graph of max transactions per block thus far. It highly depends on the efficiency of the transactions and size of each.

    emergencyfood ,

    So what happens if a lot of people want to make transactions at the same time? Do they have to queue? Also, this sounds like anyone can cripple the system by scheduling a few thousand tiny transactions.

    IAm_A_Complete_Idiot ,

    There's a transaction fee, the higher you pay the more priority you have (since miners get a cut).

    zergtoshi ,

    Yes, there's a queue called mempool.
    Clogging up the network is possible, but costs money (BTC), because transaction fees need to be added to the transactions and those fees need to be higher than those of the highest not yet processed transactions if "regular" users' transactions shall be delayed.
    Miners prefer transactions with higher fees (to be precise: higher fees per occupied block space), because they earn them when creating the block successfully - together with the BTC that get issued when a block gets created.

    bassomitron ,

    Air conditioning literally saves lives, especially medically vulnerable people, the hell are you on about?

    As others have pointed out, ~2% of the entire US's energy output is absolutely insane. According to the eia.gov, the US produced around 100 quadrillion BTUs worth of energy in 2022 (I don't fully know why they chose BTUs to measure the total energy output, they explain on the website, but that's besides the point). 2% of that is 2 quadrillion BTUs. According to psu.edu (I googled these sites on my laptop so don't have exact urls on my phone at the moment), the entirety of US households in 2017 used 4.58 quadrillion BTUs.

    Think about that. Bitcoin/PoW coin miners are using enough electricity to power around half of all homes in the US. According to statista.com, in 2022 there were 144 million homes. These miners consume 72 million homes worth of energy. And for what? To solve math problems that benefits no one but Bitcoin/PoW coin investors?

    We're literally seeing our weather patterns become more and more extreme every year due to climate change, which is also killing our oceans which is causing a severely negative chain reaction in the rest of our ecosystems... But, you know, fuck all that, I need to use an extremely inefficient method of generating currency that no one but enthusiasts/speculators/investors asked for. I'm not inherently against cryptocurrency; however, fuck Bitcoin and other extremely wasteful PoW coins.

    And yes, printing dollar bills/other fiat currencies creates pollution, too. I agree that process should be modernized as well. And in some ways, it already has been undergoing modernization as more and more people use electronic payments vs cash, thus decreasing the need to print more bills.

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