Bitcoin Q&A: Energy consumption

Such a great answer.

Usually you say good things Andreas, but if you just answered: Yes Bitcoin and PoW is awfully wasteful of energy and we need to solve that.
I would have kept you to higher standards. Cardano and their Ouroboros algo will run more decentralized then any other blockchain the world has seen by end of 2019. In addition it will be 100x faster and all this can run on a low energy computer similar to a RasberryPi. And we will all know it in a few months time. BTC will never solve its energy problems. And with todays knowledge of our planets climate issues… Sorry.

this is an awesome perspective that everyone needs to hear

Numbers. Show me the numbers. A lot of claims here.

"Bitcoin is easy to criticize for its energy consumption, because it's obvious". Yes indeed Andreas. I feel like you've danced around the question, there is a fundamental issue with a proof of work system. Surely Bitcoin must work to resolve this

If bitcoin was really this efficient the banks would have taken it over a long time ago. And know bitcoiners begin to talk about becoming the world bank by providing a centralised mining operation on which everyone else is piggybacking? But that would be equivalent to a takeover by the old banking system.

This guy has no freaking idea how the electrical grid works. I would also be surprised if he ever had a course in physics.

Luv the lateral thought process!

@1:56 using otherwise wasted energy towards running Bitcoin network

Falsehoods, falsehoods everywhere

So bitcoin is digital coal.. not a greencoin, it's waste of fossil fuel. You can convert coal to bitcoin, but it's impossible to convert it back. This entire exercise is ludicrous. Let's take tangible energy and turn it into nothing.

great arguments Andreas

Come on guys, solar is getting cheaper and more efficient. Not to mention other alternative energy production methods. In some years it won't be an issue…

I have a question on the text to the video "misrepresented very often in two ways" – what are the two ways of misrepresented?

Nobody is talking about the energy being saved from settlements on the CC networks, the buildings needed to house this data, the people driving to work to settle transactions / involve in the process. Bitcoin is a replacement to many things, time for a comparison on the consumption.

Yes, miners seek cheapest sources of electricity and that gives entities with an abundance of energy significant power – particularly those with cold climates. I wonder if this pursuit of cheap energy lead to a concentration of miners, which then makes them vulnerable to influence and also attack?

Just wondering, what you say about one thing, that usually is in everybodies head, when thinking about entering:
Why should I now just get minor mining results, while a 12 year old, who just heard about it and just simply did it out of pure lack of safety awreness, just started his program back in the day and is now millionaire or even billionaire?
What did he make, what did he actually performed getting so much money for doing nothing? Sure: you can compare that with some lucky and highly profitable startups involving people, who also had no clue and suddenly were millionaires.
But why should I do so and why should I live in a society, where there are people around me buying stuff with just having had their computer on for several months back in the beginning of a bitcoin?
And what is this currency jumping tell you. I just see hippsters trying to find another upcoming currency, who does perform similarly and make them millionaires out of thin air? Why should someone earn millions with such a stupid stuff, while people are dieing from hunger everywhere.
I know: Comparing it to banking systems, someone would paint me the picture of it being absolutely the same, but we are just anaware of the crimes. But how does an anonymous currency is better than a currency controlled buy institutes, that are largely depending on their countries society and their money and for getting that money, they have to be better than others….having resulted in some policies, that prevent, that the banks now simply go on rage mode and officially call for child molestation. Sure, bank and companies (economy in general) are in total responsible for such fucked up things as well, but doesnt on kryptocurrncy just happen more and more shit? Why is noone seriously accepting bitcoin as a trading currency for their goods? Why is there hardly anyone serious to really use it instead of just shifting it from hand to hand over exchange/buy back/exchange, etc… Why should we involve the absolute downside of stock markets (that are ruining the world already) to our earning…..One day I have 600 dollars, the next day it is 1 dollar and 2 days further it is 2800 dollars again? Sorry, but in the end it is even more fucked than anything else as any second, someone in this network got screwed over and lost nearly anything.

Well that was full of incorrect conclusions. Just saying something doesn't make it real. For one, how is it driving decentralization of energy production? And if it would be, that would be wasted energy production, because it's used for bitcoin. Cheap electricity prices aren't a result of overproduction, negative electricity prices would be.

We could use some convoluted solution to sort of solve some of Bitcoin's huge list of shortcomings, or we could just use RaiBlocks which was built with these solutions from the ground up. No mining, no transaction fees, instant transactions. There's literally no practical reason to use Bitcoin or one of its thousands of clones over RaiBlocks. The only people hanging on to 1st generation cryptocurrencies are those that are heavily invested in them, either via the market, or mining equipment. It's time to move on to the future. Bitcoin is the 28k modem of crypto.

Andreas is not saying we should plan energy (blah blah) based on bitcoin needs. Rather the opposite, he says plants are built for future people's demands, so there is always initial excess capacity. Bitcoin can use this temporarily, helping pay back the investment on the plant, and moving alsewhere when people's demands increase and local energy prices rise.

so the energy lobby could kill us … well, i hope they are on our side

Yeah this is the answer of a child has when you ask “Why are you eating ice cream when you’re not supposed to?” And the child says, “But he’s eating ice cream too.” I get what he’s saying but his answer is predicated upon the idea that Bitcoin’s and thereby blockchain technology use is worthy of the power it uses. I think the jury is still out on that.

He’s absolutely right we don’t have enough energy on Earth for more than one proof of work system. And he’s right that there’s an end game on mining for Bitcoin. But if we extend this power-hogging technology beyond currency we’re in trouble.
The fact is that blockchain technology is intentionally written to be a power hog. It’s bad design. It could have been designed a different way but it isn’t. And it was fine for a few geeks playing coin God’s on their CPUs but now it’s I the real world and people are actually trying to find use cases for it we’ve got a problem. It’s not enough to say Blockchain soaks up wasted energy; it can and it does but I have a problem with the way that energy is generetated. His “green coin,” comment is particularly aggregious. Energy is usually cheap because it’s exploitive. The costs to humanity are great. I’m not saying blockchain technology started this problem my gripe is that it needlessly and without true value adds to it.

The real opportunity is in redesigning the proof of work system in a way that doesn’t require untold energy amounts.
What does a redesigned blockchain technology look like with actual value embedded in proof of work look like. How might we reengineer blockchain technology to provide value that data exceeds its costs?
Also not sure I buy the Visa argument. I’ll have to look at the real data. But if you want to put it in those terms the only real value in Bitcoin is to miners. That’s the way it’s designed where as Visa has a value arc that crosses many.

but but but… we already have a solution. and that is a token having NO MINERS as one of its features.

Why use a mining currency when there are countless low energy currencies that function as well or better than bitcoin. I think we all just see the $$ and money bug in our brain overrides rationality. Sure they maybe setting up Renewables to mine BTC but its all material, energy, being wasted that could be used for useful purposes. So yes it IS possible to waste renewables. Dont let greed cloud your judgement.

That's the biggest train of evasive arguments I've heard in a while…
1. How does the market price of electricity across the globe say anything about the sustainability of it? You could argue that lower prices are even worse for the environment.
2. Did he just say that the energy that is used in mining would otherwise be wasted? Really?? Don't you think the energy producers are adjusting their production based on estimated usage? And don't you think increased usage would result in higher capacity (and thus production).
3. I agree with the point that normal transaction usage (banking system) uses tremendous energy as well. But he hides the fact that mining is so incredibly inefficient compared to the usual ways of handling transactions (banks) or things like PoS. It will not get better over time because if adoption of the currency increases, the fees will only go up in value and so will the mining.

Love your work!

there are solutions happening now re: sustainable green energy & mining..there are even opportunities re: individuals investing in crypto-coins and/or tokens and services that support these endeavors..actual affordable ones that don't require someone to be wealthy to get in.

a lot of people forget this is still fairly early days for the space..and that's a reason to stay on top of related news – as new information is bring reported on daily..choose at least a few websites dedicated to this overall topic and visit them regularly..and don't be afraid to do searches on the crypto-coin issues you care about.

I think what he's talking about is plausible in the future, but I don't see China or the US investing in the necessary tech and infrastructure to meet the need in time before ecological disaster. That's not really BitCoins fault though.

can't thank you enough

So cutting through the hero worship, the real answer was right at the end:

"I don't think we can afford two proof of work systems on the planet."

That was an incredible response to that question, Andreas. I had been struggling with that myself, just getting into crypto currency. Thanks for everything.