Technology

37804 readers

215 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

200

Each Bitcoin transaction uses 4,200 gallons of water — enough to fill a swimming pool — and could potentially cause freshwater shortages (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

110 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Even when you throw in the entire electrical consumption of Visa down to the last lightbulb and ATM you’re going to be dwarfed by bitcoin. Mining is inherently necessary for bitcoin to process and records transactions, but even if it wasn’t the scale of waste just kills bitcoin. Running a few office buildings to serve hundreds of millions of people just can’t compete on a per transaction cost. And comparing the energy needed of one way to send money online to another way to send money online seems fair enough to me.

For scale, in an electric suv like the Ionic 5, 708kwh is enough to drive from California to Florida, and that’s necessarily for every single transaction.