Bitcoin

[Deleted User]

HansOndabush said:

OK let me try to convince you from a different angle. I bitcoin transaction uses 741 Kw hours of electricity which is nearly 500,000 times more than a visa transaction. That is neither progress nor helping to save the planet from global warming.

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

Also please provide sources to backup your statements as I do.

You don't need to convince me, because you are incorrect. I am not arguing about MINING costs, as they are significant, I agree. It's just that you don't understand distinction between networked Bitcoin Node and Bitcoin Miner.

Here, explained what Full Node is: https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node

You can download full node client, called "Bitcoin Core" here: https://bitcoin.org/en/download

You can run it on your computer today and store decentralized copy of whole bitcoin ledger. You will get no reward for that, it's not mining.

NODE is not a MINER. Node doesn't burn 741 KWh of electricity per transaction. It's the MINERS who burn that energy and they are being rewarded for doing so. Nodes don't.
I run a NODE on my home PC server. It's not mining, it's just passing verified transactions with all its peers throughout the network, and stores all ledger (meaning verified, valid blocks) on the hard drive. That's what full node do.

[Deleted User]

fwor said:

[Deleted User] said:It cost me nothing to run Bitcoin full node.

I'm sorry, but that obviously cannot be true. If you were to say that you don't know how much it costs to run your node, but you don't think it's very much, that would be believable. But a statement that it costs nothing is not.

In case you're not aware, a CPU that is doing computational work does actually consume more energy than a CPU that is idling. The costs of each clock cycle may be extremely small, but if there are a lot of them, it adds up.

I deliberately used "nothing" instead "next to nothing" to help HansOndabush understand, and highlight the difference between Full Node and a Miner, but that failed Sorry for not being accurate. Let me try and fix that.

My personal server PC of course, burns some electricity. I have it turned on 24/7 anyway, as my website, various multimedia as network storage, e-mail processing, Forex trading platform, home automation, sits there. It's on anyway, so I decided to contribute to Bitcoin network and run a node, I store whole blockchain ledger on my computer. There are many benefits to that, there are only 10k nodes like that around the world, so I help it to decentralize. I have my own transaction explorer like that one https://explorer.btc21.org/, my personal wallets on phone and desktop connect to it, I don't need to query and trust external provider to see my transactions, or send them. Everything Bitcoin related in my home is served by full node, that's great privacy increase too.

Linux says, that Bitcoin Core process has used 4 processor-core-hours in last day (exactly 3h53m of single core computing time). I have Ryzen 7 1700: a 16 core, 65W peak-power processor there. One processor core would be 1/16 * 65W = 4W on peak use. Bitcoin used 4 hours of that peak power, 4W in last 24 hours. 4W/1000 = 0.004 kW, times 4 hours = 0.016 kWh. So my contribution to Bitcoin network, running a full node, increases my electric bill by 0.016 kWh per day. That's 5.84 kWh per year, less than £1 per year. My PC CPU is an extreme example with 65W CPU. People run full nodes on pocket size Raspberry Pi computers with 1W CPUs.

Malthusian

RolandFlagg said:

People overthink Bitcoin. It's just an alternative way to invest money. Like Tesla it's cool for the kids to invest in, not a boring Wells Fargo. Chamath Palihapitiya back in 2013 said everyone should throw a bit of pocket money into Bitcoin because either it's going to fail or be very big. He was right. A lot of things don't make sense these days. Bitcoin may never make sense to most people, but it doesn't have to. There is nothing else like it. 

Other than the thousands of other cryptocurrencies, of course. The problem with Palihapitiya's assertion (which was not a unique piece of insight but something parroted by millions of rampers) is that if you put £100 into one highly speculative investment on the grounds that it might go up by hundreds or go to zero, you have to put £100 in all of them. The lottery, altcoins (all of them), penny shares, etc etc...

This of course wouldn't work because your losses on all the investments that didn't go to the moon would cancel out your spectacular returns from the one that did.

Once you acknowledge this you're reduced to saying "Well in that case you should just pick one of them and get really lucky".

Even putting a bit of "pocket money" into a speculative investment and getting lucky doesn't actually help much. Say you put £100 into Bitcoin years ago and now you have £50,000. That's very nice, but not "retire to the Caribbean" money. All that really achieves is to make you kick yourself that you didn't put all your money in. So you stick the rest of your savings into Bitcoin so you don't miss out on the next 500x rise. After which of course it dumps. This is not speculation but how zero-sum games are mathematically guaranteed to work for the vast majority of participants.

Most successful crypto speculators just bought a fancy car with part of their five-figure winnings and stuck the rest in more get-rich-quick schemes. After all, "my altcoins are gonna be the next Bitcoin and make me financially secure so why shouldn't I drive a fancy car in the meantime". Within a few years they were back exactly where they started.

fwor

[Deleted User] said:

I deliberately used "nothing" instead "next to nothing" to help HansOndabush understand

I doubt it will help at all. As far as I can see, he is referring to the total environmental cost of running Bitcoin, and not just the cost to you. You appear to be talking about just the cost to you, without accounting for total running costs. While that continues to be true, there won't be a meeting of minds on this.

[Deleted User]

fwor said:

[Deleted User] said:

I deliberately used "nothing" instead "next to nothing" to help HansOndabush understand

I doubt it will help at all. As far as I can see, he is referring to the total environmental cost of running Bitcoin, and not just the cost to you. You appear to be talking about just the cost to you, without accounting for total running costs. While that continues to be true, there won't be a meeting of minds on this.

It all started because I wanted to explain to HansOndabush regarding this

". Add on the increasing power required for each transaction as the blockchain increases in length and it doesn't look sustainable in the long term."

I don't negate impact of mining, but "Blockchain increases in length" is a myth, nothing comparing to mining, as shows on my 500GB disk example.

Anyway, just stumbled upon very informative article https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/how-does-bitcoin-work-blockchain-halving

HansOndabush

[Deleted User] said:

HansOndabush said:

OK let me try to convince you from a different angle. I bitcoin transaction uses 741 Kw hours of electricity which is nearly 500,000 times more than a visa transaction. That is neither progress nor helping to save the planet from global warming.

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

Also please provide sources to backup your statements as I do.

You don't need to convince me, because you are incorrect. I am not arguing about MINING costs, as they are significant, I agree. It's just that you don't understand distinction between networked Bitcoin Node and Bitcoin Miner.

Here, explained what Full Node is: https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node

You can download full node client, called "Bitcoin Core" here: https://bitcoin.org/en/download

You can run it on your computer today and store decentralized copy of whole bitcoin ledger. You will get no reward for that, it's not mining.

NODE is not a MINER. Node doesn't burn 741 KWh of electricity per transaction. It's the MINERS who burn that energy and they are being rewarded for doing so. Nodes don't.
I run a NODE on my home PC server. It's not mining, it's just passing verified transactions with all its peers throughout the network, and stores all ledger (meaning verified, valid blocks) on the hard drive. That's what full node do.

So I'm supposed to ignore the statistics and believe that a Bitcoin transaction only costs a few watts of power on your PC in your bedroom?

Here is another article from the BBC: Bitcoin consumes more energy than Argentina

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56012952

"In order to "mine" Bitcoin, computers - often specialised ones - are connected to the cryptocurrency network. They have the job of verifying transactions made by people who send or receive Bitcoin. This process involves solving puzzles, which, while not integral to verifying movements of the currency, provide a hurdle to ensure no-one fraudulently edits the global record of all transactions. "

- which is exactly what I said i.e. in order to support the transaction processing you have to have the miners.

Here's another report which says the energy consumption of a bitcoin transaction is 612Kwh:

https://www.institutionalassetmanager.co.uk/2021/01/20/294669/global-bitcoin-transactions-cost-usd25m-day-electricity-process

"New data released by Trading Platforms indicates that it costs USD25.2 million per day in electricity to process bitcoin transactions. The consumption cost is based on bitcoin’s 30-day average transaction of 328,418 as of 17 January, 2021, and the energy footprint per 1 BTC transaction confirmation of 612 kWh equivalent to USD76.74."

- they are talking about transactions here; not mining!

 

HansOndabush

RolandFlagg said:

People overthink Bitcoin. It's just an alternative way to invest money. Like Tesla it's cool for the kids to invest in, not a boring Wells Fargo. Chamath Palihapitiya back in 2013 said everyone should throw a bit of pocket money into Bitcoin because either it's going to fail or be very big. He was right. A lot of things don't make sense these days. Bitcoin may never make sense to most people, but it doesn't have to. There is nothing else like it. 

I don't agree it is overthinking bitcoin to look at how wasteful it is on energy for a glorified lottery.

Malthusian

HansOndabush said:

I don't agree it is overthinking bitcoin to look at how wasteful it is on energy for a glorified lottery.

With the lottery you get a Saturday teatime show with Z-list celebrities, videos of the grateful people whose lives have been improved by the charity cut, and then there's an exciting draw machine with lots of coloured balls going round and round, and you can see that your numbers are in there and this week it could be yours that come out.

With Bitcoin you get no celebrities, no charitable element, just sitting in your bedroom year after year waiting for the price to go up (and when it eventually does, fretting over whether you should cash in and buy a Tesla or wait until it really catches fire and you can retire to the Bahamas on your catamaran). There are no exciting coloured balls, just boring lines on a boring graph.

In a very real sense, the lottery is a glorified Bitcoin.

RichTips

Malthusian said:

HansOndabush said:

I don't agree it is overthinking bitcoin to look at how wasteful it is on energy for a glorified lottery.

With the lottery you get a Saturday teatime show with Z-list celebrities, videos of the grateful people whose lives have been improved by the charity cut, and then there's an exciting draw machine with lots of coloured balls going round and round, and you can see that your numbers are in there and this week it could be yours that come out.

With Bitcoin you get no celebrities, no charitable element, just sitting in your bedroom year after year waiting for the price to go up (and when it eventually does, fretting over whether you should cash in and buy a Tesla or wait until it really catches fire and you can retire to the Bahamas on your catamaran). There are no exciting coloured balls, just boring lines on a boring graph.

In a very real sense, the lottery is a glorified Bitcoin.

In a very real sense, you're diminishing the foreword thinking of those who bought early and held.
To begrudgingly adopt your analogy, anyone who bought a "ticket" to Bitcoin prior to today has "won" your "lottery," unlike an actual lottery. Not winning a lottery is probably easier for you to reconcile with your ego though, I grant you.

[Deleted User]

HansOndabush said:

[Deleted User] said:

HansOndabush said:

OK let me try to convince you from a different angle. I bitcoin transaction uses 741 Kw hours of electricity which is nearly 500,000 times more than a visa transaction. That is neither progress nor helping to save the planet from global warming.

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

Also please provide sources to backup your statements as I do.

You don't need to convince me, because you are incorrect. I am not arguing about MINING costs, as they are significant, I agree. It's just that you don't understand distinction between networked Bitcoin Node and Bitcoin Miner.

Here, explained what Full Node is: https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node

You can download full node client, called "Bitcoin Core" here: https://bitcoin.org/en/download

You can run it on your computer today and store decentralized copy of whole bitcoin ledger. You will get no reward for that, it's not mining.

NODE is not a MINER. Node doesn't burn 741 KWh of electricity per transaction. It's the MINERS who burn that energy and they are being rewarded for doing so. Nodes don't.
I run a NODE on my home PC server. It's not mining, it's just passing verified transactions with all its peers throughout the network, and stores all ledger (meaning verified, valid blocks) on the hard drive. That's what full node do.

So I'm supposed to ignore the statistics and believe that a Bitcoin transaction only costs a few watts of power on your PC in your bedroom?

Here is another article from the BBC: Bitcoin consumes more energy than Argentina

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56012952

"In order to "mine" Bitcoin, computers - often specialised ones - are connected to the cryptocurrency network. They have the job of verifying transactions made by people who send or receive Bitcoin. This process involves solving puzzles, which, while not integral to verifying movements of the currency, provide a hurdle to ensure no-one fraudulently edits the global record of all transactions. "

- which is exactly what I said i.e. in order to support the transaction processing you have to have the miners.

Here's another report which says the energy consumption of a bitcoin transaction is 612Kwh:

https://www.institutionalassetmanager.co.uk/2021/01/20/294669/global-bitcoin-transactions-cost-usd25m-day-electricity-process

"New data released by Trading Platforms indicates that it costs USD25.2 million per day in electricity to process bitcoin transactions. The consumption cost is based on bitcoin’s 30-day average transaction of 328,418 as of 17 January, 2021, and the energy footprint per 1 BTC transaction confirmation of 612 kWh equivalent to USD76.74."

- they are talking about transactions here; not mining!

 

Let me try again, because you don't understand fundamental technical aspect, thanks to inaccurate journalists wording.

Mining and full node serve two different purposes. I tried to explain above in previous posts. Bitcoin doesn't exist without mining and doesn't exist without nodes. I know bitcoin in total burns as much electricity as Argentina of whatever, but my home computer isn't part of that because IT'S NOT MINING.

This problem arises because of the wording, journalists use unfortunate "process bitcoin transactions" to describe the mining. That's nodes job. Miners are only "mining" (which is finding solution to mathematical equation by bruteforce computation) blocks (with millions of watts of electricity burned in the process), nodes handle validating, processing and propagating it. I am not bitcoin developer, but that's how I understand it.

So I'm supposed to ignore the statistics and believe that a Bitcoin transaction only costs a few watts of power on your PC in your bedroom?

Transaction cost (in average) as much as you said there with your example, I don't argue. I try to explain to you, that to store full copy of blockchain ledger and strengthen decentralization you don't need to be a miner. To have a Bitcoin wallet on your phone, send and receive transactions you don't need to be a miner either. Do you understand?