this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 126 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Electricity is too cheap for these uses.

[–] [email protected] 105 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Why is commercial power so cheap and residential so expensive? We could fix two problems by balancing that back.

[–] [email protected] 76 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Because companies > people in the eyes of the state.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

It depends on which state, which is even more sad.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago (3 children)

My understanding is tha some commercial/industrial users will get a highly variable tariff. This may be cheaper much of the time, but can get ridiculously expensive at times of high demand.

The difference is that a bitcoin farmer can shut down at those expensive times, but a home user still needs to heat/cool their house, run their fridge etc, so the savings cancel out. Because of this, averaging the costs works out easier/better for most home consumers

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[–] [email protected] 120 points 10 months ago (3 children)

They don't produce anything except some numbers. A total waste of energy. I had to laugh when this guy I know who is very "progressive" and environmentally concerned got pissy when I pointed out how much energy was wasted on bitcoin mining just because he was into it.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 10 months ago (3 children)

My comment here is a much better use of energy

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Recording my next fart would be a better use of energy than Bitcoin.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago (6 children)

Right this is the fundamental problem. There needs to be some value to the Blockchain application which the crypto tokens support beyond just token speculation.

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[–] [email protected] 98 points 10 months ago (124 children)
[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago (3 children)

More like fuck crypto mining. There are cryptos that dont need mining.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (4 children)

If there's no demand for a particular crypto then people mining it can't sell it and go out of business. People mine this stuff because other people will pay them for it.

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 10 months ago (38 children)

JFC how long do we have to wait for a carbon tax

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[–] [email protected] 67 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There is no good reason why this isn't illegal.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not a good reason, but money.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not even real money, tech bro phantom bullshit.

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Crypto is the digital coal of our times.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 10 months ago (22 children)

Whoever Satoshi was, I wonder how he's responding to the thought that he's personally contributed more to global warming than the average billionaire.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Satoshi is estimated to have wallets totaling as much as 1.1 million btc. That would make them the 26th richest person in the world.

If, Satoshi and the wallets actually still exist. Most of those wallets have been completely idle since they were mined

I imagine that “Satoshi’s Wallet” is the stuff of legends among cryptographic security researchers.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Modern day gold rush.

Digging up more and more dirt for diminishing returns while destroying the environment.

Bitcoin using more and more power for essentially the same.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 10 months ago (16 children)

You'd think with all of the money they're pulling in, they'd invest in solar panels or something to lower their overhead.

Or am I making the mistake of approaching the situation with common sense?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's Bitcoin, of course common sense isn't involved.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (61 children)

Misleading title - the problem is not "crypto", it's pretty much all Bitcoin and the people against the change in the consensus mechanism. Out of the top ~~10~~ 9 coins in market cap, Bitcoin is the only one using proof of work, which demands such high energy requirements.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (15 children)

Ultimately, mining should be banned from the surface of Earth. Let miners build orbital solar panel infrastructure close to the Sun where power is plentiful. See Bitcoin developer Peter Todd's 2017-09-10 presentation on the subject (transcript).

Edit: Fixed URL. Edit2; Add transcript link.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Destroying the environment and not even for real money

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