Can you be Pro-crypto AND Pro-environment?

[shoutingsteve]

So, I don't want to cloud this topic with just my research, I would love someone to counter this with some reporting that is a bit more reassuring that everyone on the blockchain bandwagon isn't as bad as this seems.  But as more people start to accept crypto, are we just going to worsen the global energy crisis?  And as NFT's become more popular, this looks like it's going to compound the problem.

"According to researchers at the University of Cambridge, most Bitcoin mining in 2021—around 35%—takes place in the U.S. The U.S. gets most of its electricity by burning fossil fuels" according to the investopia article below.  

 

and "Even transactions with bitcoin use a lot of energy, with the average transaction consuming over 1,700 kWh of electricity" (forbes article below))  That is an insane amount of power.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuarhodes/2021/10/08/is-bitcoin-inherently-bad-for-the-environment/?sh=543703dc3033

https://www.investopedia.com/tech/whats-environmental-impact-cryptocurrency/

Edited December 12, 2021 by shoutingsteve
edited to meet posting standards

[Mihle]

I would argue you can't if you think crypto should stay proof of work, but you can if you are a supporter of proof of stake or some other proof system that use less energy. 

[SansVarnic]

@shoutingsteve Please adjust your topic to meet posting guidelines our topic will be locked or moved.

 

 

[LAwLz]

15 minutes ago, Mihle said:

I would argue you can't if you think crypto should stay proof of work, but you can if you are a supporter of proof of stake or some other proof system that use less energy. 

I would argue that the world isn't black and white and you can be for two things even if those two things are in conflict with each other.

As I have pointed out in the past, gaming isn't that far off the same power consumption as crypto mining if we look at it globally, and yet I am not saying every single person who games is against the environment.

I mean, if we want to take it to the extreme them we might as well say anyone who isn't committing suicide is "against the environment" since living will inevitably have a negative effect on the environment (because we need to eat, drink and keep us warm). 

[jagdtigger]

12 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

gaming isn't that far off the same power consumption as crypto mining

Highly doubt it, crypto farming runs 24/7, gaming lasts for short bursts....

[LAwLz]

3 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Highly doubt it, crypto farming runs 24/7, gaming lasts for short bursts....

Feel free to read my sources I linked in the post. 

Sure, mining uses more per user, but gaming is far more widely done than mining. 

[Sauron]

39 minutes ago, shoutingsteve said:

So, I don't want to cloud this topic with just my research, I would love someone to counter this with some reporting that is a bit more reassuring.  But as more people start to accept crypto, are we just going to worsen the global energy crisis?  And as NFT's become more popular, this looks like it's going to compound the problem.

My opinion is that all of this will eventually collapse in on itself and vanish as the get-rich-quick Ponzi scheme it is. There is no indication that cryptocurrency or NFTs will ever provide anything valuable to society outside of speculative investment. The moment the law catches up and all of this is finally regulated, the speculation bubble will burst and nobody will care anymore.

 

From this angle, while you can think of yourself as both a "crypto bro" and an environmentalist, I think it's contradictory to waste any amount of resources into something that gives absolutely nothing in return and also care about the environment. Some have argued that this is similar to entertainment (like videogames) but I disagree; nobody is investing in crypto for fun, and if they are they should look for more entertaining and less harmful forms of gambling.

4 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Feel free to read my sources I linked in the post. 

Sure, mining uses more per user, but gaming is far more widely done than mining. 

Indeed, which would be an extremely relevant distinction when discussing what might happen if crypto use became more widespread, as well as what the direct impact of individually engaging with it would be. Right now, crypto transactions are almost exclusively done for investment purposes and much less often than they would be if it were actually used as currency.

[Dogzilla07]

The impact of Late-stage Crypto(Blockchain) on the environment will be largely irrelevant. It is as any software optimizable and at some point it's impact on the environment will be solely dependent on the hardware that runs it (If the combination of software + x86 doesn't satisfy some future green metrics at some point, it will switch to ARM, if ARM doesn't satisfy, it will switch RISC-V and so on).

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

I think it's contradictory to waste any amount of resources into something that gives absolutely nothing

But it's quite the opposite, it's what will give everything, In it's essence it's the race to develop the backbone of future commerce and trade. Just instead of companies+countries developing it in secret over a long period of time, and using their own money and hardware resources, it's regular people who are fronting the power and hardware cost (similar principle as folding). This is what the first stage of crypto 2009-2014 was, Proof of Concept. 2014-onwards is the rat race who will come on top.

 

In the end after the wild west era has passed most current coins will fail, and most countries will develop/adopt either overtly or covertly centralized digital crypto versions of their respective national currencies. Some will develop/adopt decentralized. Various companies will do the same.

 

Many will be based on currently developing block-chain technologies, and some will be fresh designs. 

 

On the topic of "centralized blockchain", the way I see is just pure utilitarian common sense. No black white, just gray all over. Everyone will pick and chose the best parts and tailor them to individual use in different economic sectors. The new digital currencies backed by governments will be centralized and only use the most poignant cryptographic parts. Trade with countries, and various different trading instruments that aren't regular day to day individual transactions will be more like in the spirit of "blockchain" and so on.

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

But it's quite the opposite, it's what will give everything, In it's essence it's the race to develop the backbone of future commerce and trade. Just instead of companies+countries developing it in secret over a long period of time, and using their own money and hardware resources, it's regular people who are fronting the power and hardware cost (similar principle as folding). This is what the first stage of crypto 2009-2014 was, Proof of Concept. 2014-onwards is the rat race who will come on top.

On top based on what criterion? Crypto is barely used for commercial transactions and the most valuable currencies are not the ones with better technology. It offers no concrete benefits over regular currency other than being a tax loophole. It's too volatile to be acceptable as something you can buy groceries with.

 

Not to mention NFTs which are completely useless even in theory.

7 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

In the end after the wild west era has passed most current coins will fail, and most countries will develop/adopt either overtly or covertly centralized digital crypto versions of their respective national currencies. Some will develop/adopt decentralized. Various companies will do the same.

But why? If it's centralized currency why would it need the blockchain? Normal banking already offers every digital transaction service you might want. There's no technological benefit to cryptocurrency other than decentralization.

4 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

The impact of Late-stage Crypto(Blockchain) on the environment will be largely irrelevant. It is as any software optimizable and at some point it's impact on the environment will be solely dependent on the hardware that runs it (If the combination of software + x86 doesn't satisfy some future green metrics at some point, it will switch to ARM, if ARM doesn't satisfy, it will switch RISC-V and so on).

Nope, that's not true by design. It's intended to be exponentially harder to mine as time goes by and as more transactions occur. You don't get magically more efficient hardware by just switching ISAs, lmao - and bitcoin is already almost exclusively mined on custom hardware, there isn't much left to optimize.

[Kilrah]

9 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

It is as any software optimizable and at some point it's impact on the environment will be solely dependent on the hardware that runs it

That's not how current mining-based crypto works - it COULD be very efficient already regardless of hardware, but is specifically designed to be artificially less efficient the more resources are thrown at it. That's the big problem.

 

10 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

In it's essence it's the race to develop the backbone of future commerce and trade.

What future? It literally achieves nothing more than what the current financial system does. Storage of the data is different, but that's not really relevant. Similar to moving from storing records on paper to databases.

[Dogzilla07]

16 minutes ago, Sauron said:

On top based on what criterion? Crypto is barely used for commercial transactions and the most valuable currencies are not the ones with better technology. It offers no concrete benefits over regular currency other than being a tax loophole. It's too volatile to be acceptable as something you can buy groceries with.

 

Not to mention NFTs which are completely useless even in theory.

It's not crypto, nor the coins that's relevant, the prize blockchain 2.0 technology and how it will complement web 3.0. As i've added to my original post, the most true to the spirit implementation will not be for buying groceries. It will be for trade finance, high level trading between countries and companies, and on stock market, and as digital assets, etc, ... Basically all the stuff at the high level of trade. On top of of course the "independent" use on darkweb, general Libertarian use and so on. For buying groceries you'll have centralized digital currencies, like Chinese digital Yuan.

 

Most versions of NFTs will almost certainly fizzle yes, but I wouldn't count off a few niche uses surviving xD

16 minutes ago, Sauron said:

But why? If it's centralized currency why would it need the blockchain? Normal banking already offers every digital transaction service you might want. There's no technological benefit to cryptocurrency other than decentralization.

You're thinking too black&white about this. There's dozens and dozens of different ways finance and trade happens, and for different usage blockchain is the best option, for other usages, just cryptographic technology developed along the way. Oh but there is, just forget about all the fluff and marketing, and just think of it as a stepping stone for a digital world. 

 

16 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Nope, that's not true by design. It's intended to be exponentially harder to mine as time goes by and as more transactions occur. You don't get magically more efficient hardware by just switching ISAs

You do when it's not Proof of Work and when there's no mining involved. We're just at the late Industrial Age stage of this. Great Britain, Soviet Union and United States releasing carbon circa 1800-1970 xD

 

17 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

That's not how current mining-based crypto works - it COULD be very efficient already regardless of hardware, but is specifically designed to be artificially less efficient the more resources are thrown at it. That's the big problem.

Yes, mining is not pro environment. it is also just a crutch to get crypto going. And crypto is just a crutch to get blockchain 2.0 going, etc, ... Proof of Stake is what I'm exclusively talking about.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, Dogzilla07 said:

It's not crypto, nor the coins that's relevant, the prize blockchain 2.0 technology and how it will complement web 3.0.

Both of which are completely unrelated to any current use of crypto and for which all current transactions and investments are absolutely irrelevant. There is no need for "mining" with artificial complexity if you just want cryptographic authentication.

7 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

There's dozens and dozens of different what's finance and trade happens, and for different usage blockchain is the best option

Please provide a couple examples, "high level trade" is way too vague and sounds like made up evangelism.

8 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

You do when it's not Proof of Work. We're just at the Industrial stage of this. Great Britain, Soviet Union and United States releasing carbon circa 1800-1970 xD

Except they were releasing carbon for a tangible reason, not to mention they didn't know the negative effects yet. Even the counterpoints you provided don't really need any energy being wasted right now.

[Dogzilla07]

36 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

What future? It literally achieves nothing more than what the current financial system does. Storage of the data is different, but that's not really relevant. Similar to moving from storing records on paper to databases.

It achieves the evolution of the current financial system. Yes it's exactly a step in the stage of record keeping at it's core. Yes it could all have been built upon by what the current financial system does. But as I said the R&D and proof of concept has been done in a roundabout way. And now now the current financial system are being upgraded with knowledge and technology gleaned from the crypto madness.

 

17 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Both of which are completely unrelated to any current use of crypto and for which all current transactions and investments are absolutely irrelevant. There is no need for "mining" with artificial complexity if you just want cryptographic authentication.

There is no need, but it's been done anyway, it's the case of the chicken and the egg, without the crypto madness, research and development into the next stage of commerce was going slow. crypto madness however shocked the establishment into progress, which in turn made many programmers and other people people work in this arena, which in turn made them get much investment, which would have never happened without the crypto madness.

 

17 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Please provide a couple examples, "high level trade" is way too vague and sounds like made up evangelism.

https://www.ledgerinsights.com/china-explores-using-blockchain-for-digital-yuan-cbdc-issuance/

 

Check the 3 bullet points.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59223340

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2021/html/ecb.pr210714~d99198ea23.en.html

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/ecb.digitaleuroscopekeylearnings202107~564d89045e.en.pdf

 

I remember reading more potential implementations, google around, there's been tons of it in the past few months.  And in general China is the furthest along, so keeping an eye out on new developments from China is prudent, and then EU and the UK. This is all 2nd part of this decade stuff for, but Chinese implementation in the next few years will be a window in the future what the rest world does (adapted of course).

17 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Except they were releasing carbon for a tangible reason, not to mention they didn't know the negative effects yet. Even the counterpoints you provided don't really need any energy being wasted right now.

It's just an example of how you sometimes have to break a few eggs to make an omlet. I'm not even saying the omlet is good xD, nor that anyone wanted, or needed to eat it. Just that it happened now, it happened in the past, and it will happen in the future. Again none of the technological advancements developed within the scope of crypto and block-chain developments "needed" the mining part. The mining part just sped everything up in a roundabout way. It kick-started the digital future and saved us some years.

[shoutingsteve]

The wasteful part isn't that one person is is using 600-800 watts at a time per transaction.  It's that EVERY MACHINE is pulling that much power for ever transaction in an attempt to make a buck.

[Sauron]

Just now, Dogzilla07 said:

There is no need, but it's been done anyway, it's the case of the chicken and the egg, without the crypto madness, research and development into the next stage of commerce was going slow.

This is absolutely not true, the "crypto madness" does nothing to incentivize or finance blockchain research. All firms looking to get in to the craze just use existing, free platforms like ethereum. And what's more, the "next stage of commerce" is poorly defined and honestly just completely unnecessary. Modern commerce is more than adequate for all our needs in that space; nothing in our world is significantly held back by commerce technology. The only ones who stand to benefits are speculators, who are for the most part leeches on society and produce nothing of value.

6 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

https://www.ledgerinsights.com/china-explores-using-blockchain-for-digital-yuan-cbdc-issuance/

 

Check the 3 bullet points.

None of those say anything about why blockchain technology is beneficial in those fields. The fact that they stand to profit from entering the crypto market doesn't automatically make it useful.

8 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

also google around, I remember reading quite a few interesting articles what the UK is developing.

No, how about you "google around" and come back with an argument you can actually follow up with facts rather than evangelist talking points? And I'll reiterate, people using it doesn't mean it's necessary or useful.

9 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

It's just an example of you sometimes have to break a few eggs to make an omlet. I'm not even saying the omlet is good xD, nor that anyone wanted, or needed to eat it. Just that it happened now, it happened in the past, and it will happen in the future.

You were quite explicitly saying this would be a good omelette but you failed to show how. I never contested the fact that it is happening, I said that it's worthless and a net negative.

[Kilrah]

14 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

I remember reading more potential implementations, google around, there's been tons of it in the past few months. 

All of the things I've seen are just "reimplementing what we already do just fine using blockchain", but the explanation of why using blockchain for it (other than being trendy) is beneficial for it compared to the current ways is pretty much always lacking.

[Dogzilla07]

28 minutes ago, Sauron said:

This is absolutely not true, the "crypto madness" does nothing to incentivize or finance blockchain research. All firms looking to get in to the craze just use existing, free platforms like ethereum. And what's more, the "next stage of commerce" is poorly defined and honestly just completely unnecessary. Modern commerce is more than adequate for all our needs in that space; nothing in our world is significantly held back by commerce technology.

But it does. The current crypto-madness is a unfortunate byproduct. But the origin of bitcoin very much incentivized blockhain research. Apples and oranges here in your second sentence. You're talking about firms using the moment, yes, but what about all the other ones developing the next stage of ethereum, and all all the other ones developing other blockchain technologies, and web 3.0 and so on. ? you're lumping everyone in the same pot. It's not that black & white.

28 minutes ago, Sauron said:

None of those say anything about why blockchain technology is beneficial in those fields.

It's all in development stage yes, but did u even click on the link on the pilot programs they're doing for inter-country trade ?

 

https://www.ledgerinsights.com/china-central-bank-endorses-citic-42-billion-trade-finance-blockchain/

 

28 minutes ago, Sauron said:

No, how about you "google around" and come back with an argument you can actually follow up with facts rather than evangelist talking points? And I'll reiterate, people using it doesn't mean it's necessary or useful.

I gave you links for what i recently remembered/had archived, I don't archive everything i read. For concrete implementations and how they work, it's all gonna come in the next 1-2 years. And yes most of it is speculation, cause it's a new field. The questions is not whether it's necessary or useful as a whole, but whether some parts will be useful. I get your point of view, that we as as species should strive to more efficiently progress and research with less waste.

 

28 minutes ago, Sauron said:

You were quite explicitly saying this would be a good omelette but you failed to show how. I never contested the fact that it is happening, I said that it's worthless and a net negative.

I'm not saying it would be a good omelette in general. I subjectively completely agree that in the long run the highest chance is it will be a net negative. And it is painfully obvious Proof of Stake wouldn't had happened without Proof of Work, and Proof of Work wouldn't have had happened without a decentralized idea. And parts of the block-chain intertwined with web 3.0 would not happen without Proof of Stake. And so on, it's a very iterative process.  But it is far from worthless, and there will be quite a few positives. 

 

that's just not how the world works (Goverments, companies, people countries organizations) all entities learn and change and fix stuff once it goes wrong. A huge number of the best things we came up with it, come from a long chain of iteration, that originally happened on the back of suffering, mistakes, etc, ...

 

it's happened, it's here, the best we can do is make the best of our current situation (and when I say we, I mean the people developing the technology, and no one else).

[Sauron]

13 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

You're talking about firms using the moment, yes, but what about all the other ones developing the next stage of etheruem, and all all the other ones developing other blockchain technologies, and web 3.0 and so on. ?

You've still not explained how any of this is 1) beneficial to society and 2) boosted by crypto investment.

15 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

I gave you links for what i recently remembered/had archived, I don't archive everything i read. For concrete implementations and how they work, it's all gonna come in the next 1-2 years. And yes most of it is speculation, cause it's a new field.

So you have no examples, you just have a strong feeling that something useful must be coming. Very convincing.

16 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

The questions is not whether it's necessary or useful as a whole, but whether some parts will be useful.

Right now it looks like no parts of it are useful and, if any are ever going to be useful, it's going to be in spite of current cryptocurrency implementations and investment, not thanks to them.

18 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

I'm not saying it would be a good omelette. I subjectively completely agree that in the long run the highest chance is it will be a net negative. But it is far from worthless, and there will be quite a few positives.

You have not listed a single concrete positive, just vague talking points.

18 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

that's just not how the world works, it's happened, it's here, the best we can do is make the best of our current situation (and when I say we, I mean the people developing the technology, and no one else).

Right now the best course of action would be to just stop pushing this.

[Dogzilla07]

1 hour ago, Kilrah said:

All of the things I've seen are just "reimplementing what we already do just fine using blockchain", but the explanation of why using blockchain for it (other than being trendy) is beneficial for it compared to the current ways is pretty much always lacking.

That's because that's overwhelmingly true, as that is the current stage of the Blockchain development. The reinvention, the reimplementation is the point, at this stage. The whole internet is in the process of being redesigned to function on blockchain (WEB 3.0)

 

What it comes down to is (and when I say we I mean the collective voice and words of researchers, programmers and engineers that talked about this, that I've read/listened to) :

 

"We reimplement what we can already do fine and will be able to do fine the near future in a way that's more complex and more resource and time-consuming now, so that we can incrementally implement all the cyberpunk features in the future more easily and with less resources, as we believe that the current way is not efficient for what we'll need in the future"

 

Or even more condensed: "More angst now for smoother sailing later, as opposed to smoother sailing now, for more angst later"

 

That is the core of crypto, everything else is collateral damage in the process of development and acquiring and continuing to acquire funding.

 

Basically the software equivalent of what Elon Musk is always saying hasn't progressed enough (Tools that make stuff, and tools that make tools) Making new, better, tools and the new backbone for making stuff later.

[Dogzilla07]

52 minutes ago, Sauron said:

So you have no examples, you just have a strong feeling that something useful must be coming. Very convincing.

0 personal feeling from me specifically. All to do with the feeling, and opinions, and examples of implementation of those the article is talking about. That's the point of linking an article. Then my objective assumption is that i "feel" they are "convinced" of the usefulness 'they" mentioned. There's test pilot programs etc, ... And I eagerly await to see if and what pans out in what way. Why do I assume that way ?, cause everything I've read and watched on the subject is starting point in this way. Things are taking shapely, slowly but surely.

 

You have to separate the subjective from the objective.

52 minutes ago, Sauron said:

You have not listed a single concrete positive, just vague talking points.

There's a lot of positives for AMD and NVIDIA, for AIBs (Asus,Gigabyte,MSI,Palit, Sapphire, etc,..), for TSMC/Samsung, ASML, factories. Developers of PCI-E riser cables. PSUs manufacturers. For Mining Pool owners, for Online wallets, for exchanges (everyone who took cuts on trade). For VISA/Mastercard, Banks, Paypal, Ebay, Amazon, etc. Countries through tax (once turned into fiat currency). for everyone whos product was bought when the money was pumped into the world economy. For all the programmers, and employees who got payed as a result of the gains mentioned above. (everyone that made money mining). 

For all the people that got cheap cards in mining busts when the gpus flooded the market. ($100 7950s, $100 RX470/570, etc, ...).

 

And before you mention speculators, with the above I mean before even count speculators/day traders, long, short traders, etc, ...

[Sauron]

19 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

There's a lot of positives for AMD and NVIDIA, for AIBs (Asus,Gigabyte,MSI,Palit, Sapphire, etc,..), for TSMC/Samsung, ASML, factories. Developers of PCI-E riser cables. PSUs manufacturers. For Mining Pool owners, for Online wallets, for exchanges (everyone who took cuts on trade). For VISA/Mastercard, Banks, Paypal, Ebay, Amazon, etc. Countries through tax (once turned into fiat currency). for everyone whos product was bought when the money was pumped into the world economy.

All of those would have been sold regardless. Used mining cards were just a bit cheaper because they got on the market all at the same time, which of course was offset by the price of new cards being overinflated when they were bought en masse. I consider exchanges to be leeches on the same level as speculators - they too are speculating on other people investing in something worthless.

23 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

For all the programmers, and employees who got payed as a result of the gains mentioned above. (everyone that made money mining). 

Again, these people would have been paid regardless and their wages did not go up due to this. This is also not counting the damage done by people evading taxes through crypto investment and the potential damage to the global economy the bubble bursting would cause. Lots of people made money from subprime mortgage speculation right up until they lost it all in '07 and drove the global economy into the ground.

26 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

0 personal feeling from me specifically. All to do with the feeling, and opinions, and examples of implementation of those the article is talking about. That's the point of linking an article. Then my objective assumption is that i "feel" they are "convinced" of the usefulness 'they" mentioned.

You have a lot of blind trust into something you can't even explain or exemplify.

27 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

You have to separate the subjective from the objective.

Objectivity usually requires evidence, not just pointing to someone else and saying "well they said it too".

[Dogzilla07]

8 minutes ago, Sauron said:

All of those would have been sold regardless.

Strongly agree to disagree here.

8 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Again, these people would have been paid regardless and their wages did not go up due to this.

Here I'll give an example, SLS rocket system, same thing, different flavour.

8 minutes ago, Sauron said:

You have a lot of blind trust into something you can't even explain or exemplify.

I've explained and exemplified why I assume what I assume, and my understanding behind it, you're just conveniently skipping it, and cherry-picking xD

[Sauron]

Just now, Dogzilla07 said:

I've explained and exemplified why I assume what I assume, and my understanding behind it, you're just conveniently skipping it, and cherry-picking xD

No, you have not provided a single example of the technology being beneficial over existing methods, only examples of other people or organizations saying or believing they are. You're just repeating ready made talking points and hoping I don't notice.

[Dogzilla07]

3 minutes ago, Sauron said:

only examples of other people or organizations saying or believing they are.

Tools to make tools, to make tools, WEB 3.0, re-read my last answer to @Kilrah

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

Tools to make tools, to make tools, WEB 3.0, re-read my last answer to @Kilrah

You can't just say "web 3.0" without explaining why it's better and why specifically the blockchain makes it better