Item — HN Reader

This has come up a number of times...probably because of the studies[1] over the last year or so. It's convenient to hit bitcoin on this front because it's conceivable to estimate its energy footprint. What I find frustrating is that we look at no other segment of tech this way. We never discuss the energy consumption of video games or the stock market. How can we say if this is very bad if we have nothing to compare it to? It's quite likely there are far worse offenders.

To be clear, I hold no bitcoin. I'm no fan of it, but I find criticism of its energy consumption disingenuous...especially when there are so many more valid criticisms of it to seize on.

[1] https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30177-6 and others

1 comments

The assumption is that there is no real benefit to the energy expenditure Bitcoin demands. This isn't true for video games (entertainment is generally considered to be worth a decent amount of resources for the psychological benefits it brings) or the stock market (it's basically the heart of our economy).

If you don't share these assumptions, you'll come to a different conclusion. But I don't think it's hypocrisy.

Exactly, discussing this requires the assumption that bitcoin has little value, instead of directly discussing its value. It may not be hypocrisy, but it's certainly fallacious. It only reinforces existing beliefs in the merit/demerit of bitcoin.

I cannot understand why people (certainly not just you) are so relentlessly obtuse about the destructive effect of Bitcoin mining and how it differs from other currencies.

Say I trade a barrel of oil for $65. That barrel of oil is going to get burnt, (because otherwise it wouldn't have value to the recipient) but the process of burning it can produce something useful, like transportation.

If I burn a barrel of oil to create electricity to mine 0.0084 bitcoin (about $65), I've "traded" the same amount of oil for the same currency value, but I've used the energy up by hashing. Nothing is left over to transport people or make plastic or whatever.

There is a clear difference between a currency where it costs maybe 10 cents to create a token that circulates at $100, and one where it costs $100 which nobody gains to circulate at $100. It doesn't balance out - it is an unambiguous terrible waste. And as I think of it, isn't it really just the same waste as a 100% gold standard?

It continues to bother me that simply by having a problem with this particular argument against bitcoin, people assume I'm pro-bitcoin mining. Isn't it enough to have a problem with fallacious arguments?

Oh I think bitcoin is plenty destructive, but it's a simple fact that we never critique ANY other technology or field in terms of energy consumption this way. We don't break down the industry-at-large in terms of energy consumption, and evaluate whether that's a valuable ROI. We don't do that because doing so is reductive.

Power isn't fungible.

You know what I think is a waste? All the brain power and human resource time spent on solving problems with bitcoin when we could be putting that time toward going to Mars.

"it's a simple fact that we never critique ANY other technology or field in terms of energy consumption this way"

We do, though. I just did. I pointed out that a $100 bill costs about 10 cents to make, whereas mining $100 worth of BTC requires $100 in electricity be used.