Did I miss this part of your discussion? Crypto is a catastrophic development not only for the climate but for the cost of energy we need for daily life. And it will only get worse. As more and more transactions occur and depending on the validation system(s), basically we can expect the transaction processing cost to scale at least line…
Did I miss this part of your discussion? Crypto is a catastrophic development not only for the climate but for the cost of energy we need for daily life. And it will only get worse. As more and more transactions occur and depending on the validation system(s), basically we can expect the transaction processing cost to scale at least linearly. And blockchains never never never stop growing.
The current (ha ha pun) best estimates available (source: US Energy Information Agency) are that cryptocurrency consumes between 0.6% and 2.6% of total US electrical production. (The details of this accounting are complex and fascinating and it would take several Bulwark podcasts to begin to cover them... I'm using EIA numbers.)
Still using EIA numbers. Compare this to domestic air conditioning in US homes at about 19.2% of US electrical consumption. In other words: right now, in the middle of the EIA range, crypto processing in the US already consumes 5.2% as much energy as we use to cool our homes.
The infrastructure to produce and distribute this to crypto fraudsters and gangsters is of course paid for by all users of electricity. Hoq lucky for them!
Since this is America, the economy with the highest ratio of innumerate ignoramuses to population in the world, we need to ditch exponents... so the energy cost ratio of a single bitcoin transaction to a single VISA transaction is (148/100,000) kWh divided by 1,214 kWh.
In other words: a bitcoin transaction costs more than 12,000 times as much energy as a transaction by credit card.
Thank heaven that (for now at least) almost all the crypto activity is for criminal purposes. If we actually get to the nightmare world where we're using lots of blockchain type "money" in daily life, we'll all be bankrupt in the dark. (Come to think of it, though, the way everything else is going, this is probably where we'll find ourselves in any case.)
Unless we can find cheaper ways to process all these transactions, the blockchains will only get more and more energy intensive. The point of blockchain is of course that all transactions are transparent, so all though there are some workarounds like Etherium that reduce the processing overhead, they do so by inserting validators into the process... which hides the chain. In other words -- all the disadvantages of crypto combined with the disadvantages of needing to trust intermediaries whose pecuniary interests are at best orthagonal and at worst diametrically opposed to our own.
Or, as has been noted, it all boils down to this: the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
Did I miss this part of your discussion? Crypto is a catastrophic development not only for the climate but for the cost of energy we need for daily life. And it will only get worse. As more and more transactions occur and depending on the validation system(s), basically we can expect the transaction processing cost to scale at least linearly. And blockchains never never never stop growing.
The current (ha ha pun) best estimates available (source: US Energy Information Agency) are that cryptocurrency consumes between 0.6% and 2.6% of total US electrical production. (The details of this accounting are complex and fascinating and it would take several Bulwark podcasts to begin to cover them... I'm using EIA numbers.)
Still using EIA numbers. Compare this to domestic air conditioning in US homes at about 19.2% of US electrical consumption. In other words: right now, in the middle of the EIA range, crypto processing in the US already consumes 5.2% as much energy as we use to cool our homes.
The infrastructure to produce and distribute this to crypto fraudsters and gangsters is of course paid for by all users of electricity. Hoq lucky for them!
More fun with easy numbers. Bitcoin transactions, for instance. This one is really cool. (See https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-consumption-transaction-comparison-visa/). -- This compares 100,000 traditional VISA transactions (done the old fashioned way -- banking!) to one bitcoin transaction: 148 kWh for 10^5 VISA, 1,214 kWh for 10^0 bitcoin.
Since this is America, the economy with the highest ratio of innumerate ignoramuses to population in the world, we need to ditch exponents... so the energy cost ratio of a single bitcoin transaction to a single VISA transaction is (148/100,000) kWh divided by 1,214 kWh.
In other words: a bitcoin transaction costs more than 12,000 times as much energy as a transaction by credit card.
Thank heaven that (for now at least) almost all the crypto activity is for criminal purposes. If we actually get to the nightmare world where we're using lots of blockchain type "money" in daily life, we'll all be bankrupt in the dark. (Come to think of it, though, the way everything else is going, this is probably where we'll find ourselves in any case.)
Unless we can find cheaper ways to process all these transactions, the blockchains will only get more and more energy intensive. The point of blockchain is of course that all transactions are transparent, so all though there are some workarounds like Etherium that reduce the processing overhead, they do so by inserting validators into the process... which hides the chain. In other words -- all the disadvantages of crypto combined with the disadvantages of needing to trust intermediaries whose pecuniary interests are at best orthagonal and at worst diametrically opposed to our own.
Or, as has been noted, it all boils down to this: the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.