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posted by janrinok on Wednesday June 27 2018, @12:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the my-bubble-is-bigger-than-yours dept.

As reported in the Evening Standard, the Bank of International Settlements published an annual report with four criteria to continue economic growth. However, it was rather overshadowed by a statement in the appendix (reported here, here, here, here, here and elsewhere) where cryptographic currency was described as a "combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster".

I agree and so does a Canadian electricity company.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @05:03AM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @05:03AM (#699141)
    Bitcoin burns through 32 TW per year [arstechnica.com]. Each bitcoin transaction costs 250 kW !!! This power burn is a disaster, considering that the society does not gain anything from this game - too few people are interested, and even then for speculation. BTC is not well configured to be a store of wealth or a settlement network for everyday purchases. It was expected to come as a revolution in payment tools, but ended up in a trash. It is highly unwise to continue to burn real money and real resources of this finite Earth just so a few speculators can fool each other.
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday June 27 2018, @05:40AM (8 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 27 2018, @05:40AM (#699154) Journal

    Bitcoin burns through 32 TW per year [arstechnica.com]. Each bitcoin transaction costs 250 kW !!!

    A peeve here. That's 32 TWh and 250 kWh. Watts are a unit of power. Watt-hours are a unit of energy. And that's just not a lot of power.

    This power burn is a disaster, considering that the society does not gain anything from this game - too few people are interested, and even then for speculation.

    I guarantee more people are interested in the Bitcoin game than are interested in you staying alive. The mealy-mouth phrase "society doesn't gain anything" really means "It doesn't further my interests."

    It was expected to come as a revolution in payment tools, but ended up in a trash.

    Sorry, Bitcoin delivered on that.

    It is highly unwise to continue to burn real money and real resources of this finite Earth just so a few speculators can fool each other.

    If we cut back only to activities that benefited society, we'd all be dead in a week or two. The resources of Earth, particularly, energy may be finite, but they are also vast. We can afford those speculators just fine.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @07:45AM (7 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @07:45AM (#699191)

      A peeve here. That's 32 TWh and 250 kWh. Watts are a unit of power. Watt-hours are a unit of energy. And that's just not a lot of power.

      So 1/5th of the anual energy consumption of my household per transaction is "not a lot of power"?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @11:06AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @11:06AM (#699226)

        The average daily electric energy consumption in the developed world is about 20 kWh per day. Unless you live in some third world shit-hole, or somehow manage to use only one seventh the energy of your compatriots, you are a lying sack of shit.

      • (Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Wednesday June 27 2018, @11:12AM (5 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 27 2018, @11:12AM (#699228) Journal

        So 1/5th of the anual energy consumption of my household per transaction is "not a lot of power"?

        At $0.10 per kWh, it'd be $25. So yes, not a lot of power.

        • (Score: 4, Touché) by TheRaven on Wednesday June 27 2018, @11:59AM (1 child)

          by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday June 27 2018, @11:59AM (#699243) Journal
          To put that in perspective, merchants complain about credit card companies charging 30¢/transaction.
          --
          sudo mod me up
          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 27 2018, @12:23PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 27 2018, @12:23PM (#699255) Journal
            And stock transactions can be had for $10 per. It's a little pricey for a transaction fee and may go up even further.
        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @12:05PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @12:05PM (#699245)

          Whatever you are smoking must be some good shit; would you like to share? That is an insane amount of power to process one transaction. 250kw/h is enough to fully charge 3 electric cars! I would say in a month, I probably have 20 or so transactions. 20 * $25 = $500 / month in transaction costs. Your .10 kw/h is on the cheap side in the US. I pay more than that.

          Lets do some math. A nuclear power plant near me outputs about 1600MW. It has 2 reactors. A typical nuclear reactor generates 800MW. 20 transactions per month is 5MW/h per month. There are about 720 hours in a month. 800 * 720 = 576,000 MW/h per month of output from a nuclear reactor. I am a card carrying tightwad, so at 5MW/h per month, a nuclear reactor powering nothing but bitcoin transactions can only support 115,200 people. The average residential customer in the US uses about 900KW/h per month. A single reactor can power 640,000 average homes. If all those homes used bitcoin for everything, they would need an additional 5 nuclear reactors! That is at tightwad spending levels! I am being conservative!

          If everyone used bitcoin for everything. The US would have to generate more than 6 times the electricity we currently do!

          Not a lot of power!?!?!?! Seriously!?!?!

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 27 2018, @12:26PM (1 child)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 27 2018, @12:26PM (#699256) Journal

            That is an insane amount of power to process one transaction.

            I gather most transactions happen through secondary markets which normally don't trigger actual bitcoin transactions on the primary one. There are many problems with secondary markets (fraud, theft, etc), but they do work to massively reduce the cost of transactions.

            If everyone used bitcoin for everything. The US would have to generate more than 6 times the electricity we currently do!

            Or conduct most transactions through secondary markets.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @01:24PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @01:24PM (#699283)

              That 6 times thing is funny since the number of transactions per block is just a choice. JUst change the blocksize from 1 mb to 1 gb, problem solved: https://news.bitcoin.com/gigablock-testnet-researchers-mine-the-worlds-first-1gb-block/ [bitcoin.com]

              The only problem is the price of memory limits who can then run the software. If memory became 1000x cheaper tomorrow this would be done immediately. In reality memory seems to get about 100x cheaper per decade: https://jcmit.net/mem2015.htm [jcmit.net]

              The total ignorance about the topic of the people who are making these arguments is ridiculous.