This thread makes me feel better about selling a long time ago, tons of uncertainty surrounding it back in the day lmao oof
Bitcoin costs $48k and the hottest company in the world just bought $1bil. The market is down, meanwhile BTC is up 50%+ this month. What even is the problem?
I was a doubter , but I’m team HODL for lyfe like most. Not touching this **** even it halves tomorrow.
Square Inc. said it purchased $170 million in Bitcoin, further committing to the cryptocurrency and raising its holdings to about 5% of the company’s cash and equivalents.
I understand most people in this thread only care about gains and little about the innovation and tech. Many are concerned about the energy consumption w/out actually understanding the mechanics behind the BTC protocol. Those who follow understand miners are always chasing the cheapest form of power, which is very often found in renewables and/or excess waste. Here is an interesting article how one way miners are reducing fossil fuel emissions. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/ene...laring-with-bitcoin-mining:-report-2020-08-28 tl;dr When O&G is produced, methane is released as a biproduct, which has a 25x more impact than CO2. Methane is instead burned or flared, turned into CO2. If sites product too much waste, they are forced to shut down. Bitcoin miners are bringing in portable mining (connex) boxes and piping their generators directly into the wells to convert the wasted methane into power for their mining equipment. This further reduces the environmental impact while bring in a revenue stream for everyone.
What Happened: “Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) uses more electricity per transaction than any other method known to mankind,” Gates told CNBC’s Andrew Sorkin in a live-streamed Clubhouse session on Wednesday. Researchers at Cambridge have found that by consuming over 121.36 terawatt-hours (TWh) a year, BTC electricity consumption is more than the whole of Argentina. In fact, some critics have argued that when an electric car company like Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin, it unwittingly may have undermined its environmental image.
Do you feel energy consumption is inherently wrong and should be eliminated? Or are we ignoring fossil fuel emissions vs renewables conversation? Has anyone tried to calculate the cost of traditional finance? Didnt think so.
Me = just a messenger You = Please don't shoot. I have no position in BTC and I probably won't for a long time. Making regular money is stressful enough for me.
Sorry, I wasn't trying to shoot you, more so the message. As a non crypto investor and one who is on the fringe, what are your thoughts? Is energy consumption an issue or do you feel there is little nuance to the discussion?
The problem is that the energy consumption is additive. Whatever power is being used to manage the Bitcoin blockchain, regardless of where it comes from, is on top of whatever other energy is used by the rest of the world. There's nothing uniquely inherent to the power the crypto mining uses - if gas flaring can be reduced by mining crypto, they can also be reduced by figuring out something else to consume that energy instead. There can be a debate about whether it's a *good* use of energy or not, but it seems hard to argue that it's environmentally friendly. Bitcoin is estimated to use about 0.5% of all the world's energy. If you just magically eliminated it, I think it's hard to argue that total emissions would be higher. And given that power is a function of supply and demand, if power generation stayed the same (ie, emissions held flat), that means everyone in the world would pay less to power everything else they do. Instead of that newly minted money going to bitcoin holders, everyone in the world would be a tiny bit richer, presumably. FWIW, traditional finance is much cheaper in terms of energy use because it's a one time transaction entry (or zero consumption if you're talking a cash transaction).
In mining circles, this thought is debatable. For example, I have read reports on solar farms running miners to take advantage of energy they would otherwise lose. Now perhaps the truth is the power still could be used for the entire grid instead of being discharged but mining is more profitable....or the excess energy is indeed discharged to ground. In gas flaring, Crusoe Energy Systems (mining farm) first came up with the idea when one of their engineers was having a casual discussion on trying to find cheaper energy with a friend who ran a waste water treatment plant. The treatment plant was discharging the methane via flaring and offered them to bring miners and a generator to take advantage of the wasted methane. Then then approached the O&G in N Dakota with the same concept. The methane being discharged via flaring in the O&G is too expensive to bring to market due to various reasons. This is a case where the market (bitcoin mining) is coming to the gas. This is a case where miners are able to reduce emissions that regulations and O&G deemed to expensive to keep and opted to dump CO2 into the atmosphere. In the energy sector, this is massive amounts of waste that is too inefficient to bring to market. There are not many markets that can come to the generation source. There are also various creative ideas on how to capitalize on the heat generation from miners. There are many discussions on utilizing the heat from mining to heat water heaters, spas, and even homes. That said, I also understand mining is here to stay. Over the next 15 years, BTC hash is expected hash to go up 20x. That would put it higher than all energy consumed in Russia and 4th in energy consumption by country. Its an interesting comparison to put it in perspective but I am not sure its a fair comparison. Much will change in 15 years.