The environmental impact of Bitcoin

[Regiomontanus]

'Bitcoin uses more electricity annually than the whole of Argentina, analysis by Cambridge University suggests.'

Bitcoin consumes 'more electricity than Argentina'

Perhaps that is not as bad as all of the mining required to mint coins, but still a disturbing trend. Digital money is surely the way to go but not a cryptocurrency that is so computationally expensive (with conventional computers at least).

 

[SigurdReginson]

It'll be interesting to see what happens with crypto currency when quantum computing enters the public market.

 

[Regiomontanus]

It'll be interesting to see what happens with crypto currency when quantum computing enters the public market.

Indeed. When that technology becomes stable and starts being used it will break everything; it would make the elliptical curve digital signature algorithm, which I think Bitcoin still uses, worthless.

 

[Quintessence]

How weird and interesting.

This is why appropriate technology proofing needs to be mandatory worldwide. I suppose in a fashion it is already, it's just enforced by the gods (aka, natural laws to most of you, probably). This won't be sustainable and it'll die off because of that. Either that or it'll be only the currency of the elites with everyone else not using it.

 

[Brickjectivity]

'Bitcoin uses more electricity annually than the whole of Argentina, analysis by Cambridge University suggests.'

Bitcoin consumes 'more electricity than Argentina'

Perhaps that is not as bad as all of the mining required to mint coins, but still a disturbing trend. Digital money is surely the way to go but not a cryptocurrency that is so computationally expensive (with conventional computers at least).

Bitcoin is a first try, but I think it is impossible for bitcoin and other true bitmining ledgers to ever be less energy intensive. On the other hand its high cost is also the solution, because that electricity costs money. Eventually no one will be able to profit from mining bitcoin due to the cost of the processing. Your computer will work to guess the bitcoin number, and the money you spend supporting this will be greater than the value of the bitcoin.

That leads to....green renewable energy resources required to break even. Possibly this explains Tesla's interest. Perhaps they foresee bitcoin requiring solar power.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Is there some way they can somehow recycle the supposed heat that the calculating computers creater for power? I don't know anything about bitcoin, I just heard that the calculations might be generating heat, or using too much power, or something