Bitcoin Mining Now Accounts For Almost One Percent of the World's Energy Consumption (theoutline.com)

It is well-established established that Bitcoin mining -- aka, donating one's computing power to keep a cryptocurrency network up and running in exchange for a chance to win some free crypto -- uses a lot of electricity. Companies involved in large-scale mining operations know that this is a problem, and they've tried to employ various solutions for making the process more energy efficient. But, according to testimony provided by Princeton computer scientist Arvind Narayanan to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, no matter what you do to make cryptocurrency mining harware greener, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the overall network's flabbergasting energy consumption. From a report: Instead, Narayanan told the committee, the only thing that really determines how much energy Bitcoin uses is its price. "If the price of a cryptocurrency goes up, more energy will be used in mining it; if it goes down, less energy will be used," he told the committee. "Little else matters. In particular, the increasing energy efficiency of mining hardware has essentially no impact on energy consumption." In his testimony, Narayanan estimates that Bitcoin mining now uses about five gigawatts of electricity per day (in May, estimates of Bitcoin power consumption were about half of that). He adds that when you've got a computer racing with all its might to earn a free Bitcoin, it's going to be running hot as hell, which means you're probably using even more electricity to keep the computer cool so it doesn't die and/or burn down your entire mining center, which probably makes the overall cost associated with mining even higher.

Comments

Not using computers or anything general purpose

[perpenso]

"It is well-established established that Bitcoin mining -- aka, donating one's computing power to keep a cryptocurrency network up and running in exchange for a chance to win some free crypto -- uses a lot of electricity." Not quite. No one is using their computer to mine bitcoin. That hasn't been profitable in many years. People are using dedicated highly specialized hardware that can do nothing else except mine, ASIC, application specific integrated circuit. This isn't really donating your computer power since these ASICs can do absolutely nothing else. "Computing power" implies something a little more general purpose.

Tulip fields take up one percent of arable land

[xack]

People are starving as people grow tulips instead of food. Meanwhile in crypto land precious rare earth metals have been wasted producing gpus and asics to feed the money factories, which will be useless when the difficulty rises again.

GPUs not used for bitcoin, bitcoin compromised

[perpenso]

After the upcoming cryptocurrency crash, small energy sources all over the place will be freed up for local use. Graphics cards are already becoming available again.

Graphics card have not been able to mine bitcoin for many years. GPUs are only able to mine some alternative cryptocurrencies. And as these "alts" get popular they sometimes follow the bitcoin path and end up being mined by ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) hardware. GPU mining is relatively insignificant compared to bitcoin mining.

The "other" significant cryptocurrency, ethereum, one that GPUs were able to profitably mine this last year, is planning on moving from a proof-of-work scheme to a proof-of-stake scheme for maintaining its block chain and rewarding the miners/forgers who do so. This is in part to avoid the power demands but also to allow ordinary users to help maintain the blockchain with ordinary computers.

Right now bitcoin has deviated from its design and its security has been compromised by not having ordinary people maintain the blockchain with ordinary computers, by no longer having a decentralized system. By evolving to an ASIC system mining has become more centralized, both in terms of large commercial operations where a 51% cartel is more plausible and geographically by have the vast majority of mining located in a single country. A country not known for a hands off approach to economic matters.

Re:GPUs not used for bitcoin, bitcoin compromised

[shess]

But the very fact that the number of different cryptocurrencies is proliferating tells us that the basic idea does not work. As each currency smashes into its supply limit, people who want to use crypto as money have to invent a new coin, and then teh next new coin, and then the next.

That doesn't follow. People who want to use bitcoin as MONEY have no problem, there's no need to invent a new coin for that. You can use any of these as money just fine, insofar as you can find people to make your transactions. The increasing computational needs of the network don't make it any harder (or easier) to use it as money, as bitcoin aims for a 10-minute block-completion rate.

The reason we're getting so many cryptocurrencies is the same as the reason we get so many log-structured key-value stores. It's not because the existing ones don't do the job, it's because they are (relatively) easy to create and there are no barriers to entry. So technically capable newcomers see the system as it is, and imagine that all of the outstanding issues could be solved with some minor change, without comprehending the systemic issues which caused those issues. So we get another implementation which is slightly different, ad nauseum, but since the barriers to use really aren't technical in the first place, none of them really wins.

Comparison with gold, please?

[whoever57]

Most gold that is mined is not used. It's just stored.

What resources are used to mine the ~80% of gold which is not used?

Re:Comparison with gold, please?

[thegarbz]

Sure I'll give you a comparison with gold:

Gold a noble material with special properties is bought and sold not just for its trading value but for actua looks, and a massive amount of specific applications too.
Bitcoin is a system for converting energy into wishful thinking.

The world would be better off if bitcoin had never existed.
The world wouldn't function as we know it (many chemical reactions depend on gold catalysts, many more depend on gold for protection of materials from the chemicals being worked with) without gold.

 

Re:Of all the the attacks on bitcoin

[MrL0G1C]

I can transfer money from my bank to anyone else in the UK with a bank account quickly and for free. I can withdraw cash from thousands of cash machines for free. I can buy from millions of merchants for free.

Bitcoin - Free? Fast? Energy efficient? Decentralised?
No, no, no and no (blockchain size).