Technology

37804 readers

154 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] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You’d need to qualify what you mean by ‘exchanging any value of money’.

Previously you said "whether it would replace any more or less efficient actions" and I'm trying to get to the bottom of what you mean. I even asked for clarification if i was asking the wrong question. I feel like I'm now being asked to qualify what I just asked you to qualify.

The real answer is a rhetorical question: what is the impetus for the traditional finance system to operate sustainably, either now or in future? Because for Bitcoin miners it’s clear.

This sounds like it's agreeing with the premise of the article here: Bitcoin is not sustainable. This isn't to say other things are sustainable. It's just pointing out that it uses a ton of water, and a lot of it has moved to a place that can't really handle the increased water usage so it might cause a water shortage. If this is the reason the article is "not how any of this works" and "BS clickbait" then I disagree.

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

It was the wrong question and I just guided you on how it was wrong. For it to be the correct question you should have qualified what you meant by using that phrase. I'm sorry you didn't understand that.

The post headline is "each Bitcoin transaction uses 4,200 gallons of water". This generalisation is based on one Bitcoin mining operation which upon cursory inspection is actually a LNG electric company. I'm speculating but likely the reason they mine Bitcoin is to make it worth keeping the gas fire on during off-peak.

If you're going to use a single operation to generalise about the whole network, why use this small weird outlier and not the bigger companies like Riot, Bitfarms, Genesis? I could turn around and say "each bitcoin transaction is fully renewable" based on the operations of any of those companies, and the claim would be even more substantiated than that headline is by that report. But it would still be wrong. Neither example is representative of the energy required by Bitcoin.

Now, I'm not coming to the party trying to push Bitcoin as a transactional currency, like you seemed to have a notion of it trying to compete as. I don't think it's much good for that. But I'm not about to go believing some made up shit about how a computer solving some cryptographic puzzles has a comparable environmental impact to filling an entire swimming pool. Gimme a break dude.