Replying to House_of_Lewis

I’d side with #[2]​ here. And I’m not saying any government should actually dictate how much energy bitcoin miners consume. The real point is that lots of energy has been used for bitcoin mining and so that process is not at all efficient.

Let’s pretend we all stopped eating food, heating/cooling our buildings, watching sports, browsing social media, lighting our spaces, buying & building stuff, and going places. And we did that to the point that the only energy consumption was for mining bitcoin. Seems to me that world would be exactly the opposite of what we want for humanity.

New technologies should be reducing the carbon footprint, not increasing it. We need to find a way to increase the efficiency.
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harq 2y ago

You completely missed the point of bitcoin mining. The energy expenditure is the main factor that keeps the network secure.

ASICS get more efficient all the time and hashrate keeps going up because of it, but the thing that should be looked at is energy expenditure. That's the real cost of network security.

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Mike Brock 2y ago

I don’t think I missed this point? I was talking about the electrical generation and transmission infrastructure.

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harq 2y ago

I was under the impression I was replying to someone else. New to nostr, not really getting who I'm answering to on what.

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House_of_Lewis 2y ago

So, if someone could figure out some big leap that reduced the energy expenditure, then that could reduce network security?

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harq 2y ago

Efficiency improvements have been happening the whole time and energy expenditure isn't going down.

Why do you think that is?

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harq 2y ago

Asking this question reveals the lack of understanding about the topic.

If somebody invented an ASIC that is so powerful that just one machine replaces the entire current hashrate, what do you think will happen?

Will everybody except that one guy with that one ASIC just stop mining and leave OR will they try to get a few of those as well?

The limiting factor, in todays world, is energy.

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🐢 2y ago

This person gets it. And that energy is Electricity in particular. And electrical power works within parameters of current, voltage, and resistance, within conductors for transmission like copper or aluminum. These create physical restraints to delivering electricity to where it’s needed, further expanding the limitations of todays world for bitcoin mining.