Bitcoin’s Energy Usage Isn’t a Problem. Here’s Why.

January 5, 2023 7:57 PM

Lyn Alden examines whether the criticism surrounding Bitcoin's energy footprint is warranted. Bitcoin is contentious and it's detractors confidently regard it as wasteful and destructive but how do the facts stack up? Is Bitcoin really going to ruin the planet? How does stranded energy factor into the environmental impact of mining? Lyn breaks down the rubber-meets-road realities and illuminates how Bitcoin and renewables are positioned to cooperate.
posted by neonamber (65 comments total)

Literal Bitcoin shill
posted by lalochezia at 8:06 PM on January 5, 2023 [18 favorites]

Her presence in the industry does not represent grounds to breathlessly dismiss her as a shill.
posted by neonamber at 8:11 PM on January 5, 2023

Tom Cruise examines whether the criticism surrounding Scientology being a cult is warranted
posted by derrinyet at 8:15 PM on January 5, 2023 [21 favorites]

This article is complete nonsense, and I think you probably know that.
posted by Juffo-Wup at 8:21 PM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

This is a tough subject for discussion. Because I continue to see no arguments for bitcoin having any purpose. It's not a functioning medium of exchange, it's not a store of value, it seems like solely a speculative asset. And one that has attracted an enormous amount of hype, misplaced enthusiasm, and outright fraud.

From that perspective, any use of bitcoin at all is a waste of energy--why on earth should renewables "cooperate" with Bitcoin? And yes, anyone who has a presence in the industry is therefore--well, if not a shill then at the very least an unreliable commenter.
posted by col_pogo at 8:22 PM on January 5, 2023 [13 favorites]

This is a garbage article that has no place on a reputable website.
posted by a faithful sock at 8:23 PM on January 5, 2023 [12 favorites]

|🍒|🍒|🍋|
posted by clavdivs at 8:24 PM on January 5, 2023 [7 favorites]

No, I breathlessly dismiss bitcoin boosters as environmental genocidal terrorists.
and anyone that would credulously promote them as unqualified to enter into discussion about anything that involves numbers.

150 TWh is the energy consumption of a COUNTRY. The energy needs of tens of millions of people. An ENTIRE COUNTRY. All of the food. All of the medicine, All of the transport. All of the heating/cooling. All of the manufacturing, things that life needs.. For what? Solving sudoku problems so that criminals can launder money.

The fact that bitcoin uses 0.1% of the worlds energy to run a vast transaction network that can only do a few transactions per second (up to TEN). Visa, which uses one MILLIONFOLD LESS energy per transaction can perform millions per second.

1 VISA transaction consumes about 1.5 Wh of electricity on average. The average energy use per Bitcoin transaction is 2258 kWh. A BTC transaction requires roughly 1.5 million times the same amount of electrical energy; enough to power a single US household for 2.5 months.
. It is literally burning our future for NOTHING.

to scale proof of work properly to make bitcoin a major currency -even if you could get past the ridiculous latency - would require all of the energy in the WORLD.

You are promulgating lies. I will be happy when bitcoin promulgators are in jail and their assets expropriated for a vast environmental crime.
posted by lalochezia at 8:25 PM on January 5, 2023 [18 favorites]

Can those who are stating that it's garbage and nonsense articulate why they believe this based on the content of the article?
posted by neonamber at 8:26 PM on January 5, 2023

HERE IS THE ARTICLE YOU CAN SEND TO PEOPLE WHEN THEY SAY “BUT THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES WITH CRYPTOART WILL BE SOLVED SOON, RIGHT?”
posted by subdee at 8:26 PM on January 5, 2023

I could, but I'm not going to bother.
posted by Juffo-Wup at 8:26 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Sources do matter, you know.
posted by sagc at 8:27 PM on January 5, 2023

Can those who are stating that it's garbage and nonsense articulate why they believe this based on the content of the article?

No, and this is sealioning.
posted by subdee at 8:27 PM on January 5, 2023 [13 favorites]

From the article: [It’s] commonly said that the Bitcoin network uses more energy than some countries. That’s true, but then so does Google, Youtube, Facebook, Amazon, the cruise industry, Christmas lights, household drying machines, private jets, the zinc industry, and basically any other sizable platform or industry.

1) Although it is the largest, Bitcoin is merely one of many cryptocurrencies, and
2) The other things mentioned have some utility beyond financial speculation and money laundering.
posted by MrJM at 8:29 PM on January 5, 2023 [5 favorites]

No, I'm not going to tell you why it is garbage, because I have zero interest in entertaining a sealioning crypto true believer. Either you know full well why and are pretending not to because it is in your financial interests, or you're so out of touch there's no use arguing.
posted by a faithful sock at 8:30 PM on January 5, 2023 [7 favorites]

neonamber, can you go back through all the threads on Bitcoin, and substantively address the many, many, times the various flaws in cryptocurrency have been pointed out to you? You stand out as the main Bitcoin booster on the site, but I've never seen you actually engage with the discussion here.

If not, why would people do the work in this thread?
posted by sagc at 8:30 PM on January 5, 2023 [8 favorites]

In the very long run, if Bitcoin is wildly successful and becomes a systemically important asset and payment system used by over a billion people at 10-20x its current market capitalization, it could reach several tenths of one percent of global energy usage, and maybe upwards of 1% with aggressive modeling.

So that's 5x its current usage, let's say. 0.5% consumption of the world's energy. She then later goes to state that bank branches and ATMs emit 4.7x of bitcoin's CO2 emissions, and the US military uses 7x. Your online payment system/speculative asset would use more energy than building actual physical banks, and nearly as much as the entire US military.

There are probably some interesting things to be said about bitcoin's use of otherwise unharnessed power (like the hydroelectric schemes in China) but taking her at absolute face value still suggests it to be a terrible waste.
posted by solarion at 8:31 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

stop trying to make fetch bitcoin happen
posted by hangashore at 8:33 PM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

to scale proof of work properly to make bitcoin a major currency -even if you could get past the ridiculous latency - would require all of the energy in the WORLD.

That can't happen and won't happen because it's impossible to happen, is my understanding, since Bitcoin proof of work can't scale. It's a Red Queen's Race. The more energy pouring into it, the algorithm adjusts. There will only ever be those seven or whatever transactions a second. You can't get more. If you could get more by using more energy, the algorithm adjusts to swallow up the gains. The way to get Bitcoin to use less energy is for the value of Bitcoin to crater such that Bitcoin miners start losing money and close up shop because they can't continue operating. The TPS of Bitcoin will stay the same, glory be, but the amount of energy consumed by numberwang will decrease. That's also why Bitcoin will never take up 100% of energy; it doesn't actually make any money and pours a bunch of the money that comes into its system into electricity and useless for anything else hardware electronic waste. It's still a disappointing parasite and miners keep doing things like reopening up closed coal power plants.

And as far as I know the Lightning Network can't solve that problem, either
posted by foxfirefey at 8:35 PM on January 5, 2023 [5 favorites]

Its not solving a problem for people, its solving the problem of many people having money you want.

Its like neoliberal economic thought given pseudo-form and set upon the old masters of that "philosophy". Growth and profit with no product but chicanery.
posted by Slackermagee at 8:38 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

subdee: that article is a little outdated, as Ethereum did finally manage to move to proof of stake, a day I thought would never come but apparently they actually pulled it off. Doesn't make me like NFTs any more though.
posted by foxfirefey at 8:39 PM on January 5, 2023

@sagc

Responding to everyone would be spamming, I'm not doing that.
Also, a lot of the criticism I have seen has simply been untrue.
Such as lalochezia's comment above where they grossly misrepresent the argument. The cost per transaction does not map directly to energy because that's just not how it works. This would be evident if they had read and comprehended the article.

I posted this article to MF because I thought people be interested in how BTC will probably be integrated into their power grid if it isn't already. I know it's contentious, particularly here, but the hand wave responses of "Solving sudoku problems so that criminals can launder money." is just a make believe criticism. Criminals are not lining up to use a PUBLIC BLOCKCHAIN for laundering because it's a dumb idea.
posted by neonamber at 8:41 PM on January 5, 2023

Oh that's right, half of your comments on this site are about how crypto is freedom
posted by lalochezia at 8:42 PM on January 5, 2023 [7 favorites]

This post is already effectively a piece of spam.
posted by Juffo-Wup at 8:43 PM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

Criminals are not lining up to use a PUBLIC BLOCKCHAIN for laundering because it's a dumb idea.


Now we know you're just lying


https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-arrested-alleged-conspiracy-launder-45-billion-stolen-cryptocurrency

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/11/30/us-prosecutors-charge-21-alleged-money-mules-with-using-crypto-to-launder-proceeds-of-international-cybercrime-operations/

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/10/crypto-criminals-laundered-540-million-using-renbridge-elliptic-says.html


Dozens more examples.

Mods: can we ban this shill?
posted by lalochezia at 8:45 PM on January 5, 2023 [6 favorites]

You didn't post it because you thought we'd find it interesting, you posted it because you're a crypto shill.
posted by a faithful sock at 8:49 PM on January 5, 2023 [8 favorites]

It's a pile of scams and crime all the way down, but it's not nearly as incredibly shitty and environmentally destructive as everyone says it is!

That's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see how it plays out for them.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 8:50 PM on January 5, 2023 [4 favorites]

Yeah, the Feds also used the traceability of the blockchain to take down a giant CSAM ring.

And hey everybody that hates crypto! To show how awesome and amazing the system is, know that one of the key Bitcoin developers just lost a bunch of his recently. He's been crying to the FBI to help him, though whether or not they'll do anything for him about it who knows. Most people do not want to be their own bank, which in essence means being their owned bank in an ecosystem full of scammers and hackers, and so many of the exchanges keep going belly up because of fraud. Even a mature, experienced Bitcoin developer lost his stuff in this oh so secure system and has no real recourse unless somehow the FBI can get ahold of the keys to the addresses where the Bitcoins were moved.

Governments do bad and oppressive things with finance, I can't argue that. However, if you take away the ability of governance and regulation what you end up with is a system where the strong or lucky feed off the weak or unlucky. Just like how before the FDA you could use whatever medical treatment anybody was selling to you but you had no real idea if it would help you or harm you.

How many people put their real money into SBF's system only to be left with nothing? Or any of the other exchanges where all of that brand new future of money has disappeared into the ether?
posted by foxfirefey at 8:53 PM on January 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm not a shill, I use this technology on a regular basis in the real world and thought this article was a genuinely fascinating examination of proof of work.
posted by neonamber at 8:54 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

So, User-every-day

the cost per transaction does not map directly to energy because that's just not how it works.


what does this even mean? where else does the energy go? network uses X TWh per year, Y transactions per year, energy use per transaction = X/Y TWh.

is there some other use for the energy apart from solving? apart from helping late-stage capitalists despoil the world?
posted by lalochezia at 8:57 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

You're the internet version of that over enthusiastic guy you only kinda know who keeps casually bringing up this thing he just heard of that sounds pretty interesting and totally isn't an MLM that he's already neck deep in and desperate for a downstream.
posted by a faithful sock at 8:59 PM on January 5, 2023 [4 favorites]

Yeah, no, you’re a bag holder that even the most juvenile Buttcoin subscriber would recognize.

…you know what bag holder means, right? In the cryptoverse? There are no reasonable uses of blockchain — every use that’s been proposed to date has superior solutions using traditional tech.
posted by aramaic at 8:59 PM on January 5, 2023 [4 favorites]

[It’s] commonly said that the Bitcoin network uses more energy than some countries. That’s true, but then so does Google, Youtube, Facebook, Amazon, the cruise industry, Christmas lights, household drying machines, private jets, the zinc industry, and basically any other sizable platform or industry.

And furthermore, you can't even demand Christmas lights or the world's zinc industry as payment for your ransomware attack on the Hospital For Sick Children.
posted by Superilla at 8:59 PM on January 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm not a shill, I use this technology on a regular basis in the real world and thought this article was a genuinely fascinating examination of proof of work.

Cool. Do you run a Ponzi scheme, or do you just sell drugs?
posted by Superilla at 9:01 PM on January 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

@lalochezia

If you read the article you would have the answer to your question about energy per transaction.
Maybe try that first.
posted by neonamber at 9:02 PM on January 5, 2023

I read it. it did not address it ANYWHERE. The sophistry about other layers does not disprove the fact that as configured, bitcoin uses this much energy for that many transactions. The physics is quite simple. You are either being wilfuly obtuse or incapable of simple mathematics. Both do this community and the wider world a disservice.
posted by lalochezia at 9:03 PM on January 5, 2023 [7 favorites]

The article tries but fails to hand-wave away Bitcoin's extraordinarily high energy consumption per transaction.
posted by Juffo-Wup at 9:04 PM on January 5, 2023

If you read the article…
Yeah, cuz you’re just asking questions, right?

Bag holder, 100%.
posted by aramaic at 9:04 PM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

If you read the article you would have the answer to your question about energy per transaction.
Maybe try that first.

The person making the fantastic claims is the one who needs to do the convincing. Bitcoin has been around a long time now, and aside from a fringe group of techbros and the usual Ponzi-schemers, has yet to demonstrate a core audience who find it at all compelling or useful.
posted by Ickster at 9:05 PM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

Cool. Do you run a Ponzi scheme, or do you just sell drugs?

what if there's another option?

I'm not saying there is. I would like it to be possible here at Metafilter to maybe argue that there is (could be?), which this Ponzi-scheme-or-sell-drugs reduction makes kind of impossible.
posted by philip-random at 9:06 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Bitcoin is freedom! From money. As in you will lose all of yours.
posted by axiom at 9:07 PM on January 5, 2023

what if there's another option?

If there is, then I would encourage the person exercising that other option to tell us what it is. Bitcoin has been around for quite a few years now, and that hasn't happened yet.
posted by Juffo-Wup at 9:07 PM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

I would like it to be possible here at Metafilter to maybe argue that there is (could be?), which this Ponzi-scheme-or-sell-drugs reduction makes kind of impossible.

It's entirely possible to argue that angle, except that no one has been able to actually come up with an argument that stands up to scrutiny.
posted by Ickster at 9:08 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

(FWIW, I obviously can't disagree more with the post, but let's tone down the personal angle in replies.)
posted by Ickster at 9:11 PM on January 5, 2023

Cool. Do you run a Ponzi scheme, or do you just sell drugs?

I buy stuff, I donate, I save for my future. As far as I'm concerned it's open source decentralised cash and I love the degree of independent control I have over it. It's like linux but with money IF you want to tinker on the low level you can. Yet, it's simultaneously super convenient to control via my aging mobile phone. It CAN be super convenient in contrast to traditional monetary systems.
posted by neonamber at 9:11 PM on January 5, 2023

@lalochezia

Ignoring Layer 2 technology that is operating as we speak is dishonest. Secondary layers exist for a reason and they radically alter the energy per transaction argument you are making.
posted by neonamber at 9:14 PM on January 5, 2023

I think it's reasonable to put bitcoin in the same category as christmas lights, household drying machines, private jets, etc.
posted by aniola at 9:15 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

And that still doesn't actually address the disproportionate energy usage per transaction. I get it. People like things they can tinker with. But even at "only" 0.1% of global energy use, it's still a tremendous waste and nothing in the posted article will convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced.
posted by Ickster at 9:15 PM on January 5, 2023

At least Christmas lights look pretty and jet aircraft move people rapidly throughout the world.
posted by Juffo-Wup at 9:16 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

I buy stuff, I donate, I save for my future.

Oh, Ponzi victim. Genuinely sorry to hear that.
posted by Superilla at 9:19 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Super-convenient? Really? Are you sure you know what convenient means?

…because in my world convenient does not mean having to maintain multiple cold wallets with verifiable custody chains using disparate technologies and unrelated passphrases.

In my world convenient means going to a bank and getting money without being afraid a hacked smart contract will drain my savings. In my world convenient means not worrying about whether a scratch on the casing of my hardware wallet means it’s been compromised by the Korean mafia (look it up, this is an actual concern).

In my world, convenient means using money to buy things in a frictionless and risk-free way.

Your world may be different, and that’s cool, but maybe consider why exactly you’re prepared to deal with so much shit in order to get a sub-par solution.

…maaaaaybe bag holder? Maybe? Can’t say it’s not the case, riiiight?
posted by aramaic at 9:21 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Jesus christ, this secondary layer shit again?

We have talked about this before and you have never addressed the elephant in the room. "Secondary layer" is just a fancy way of saying, "we're going to use a totally different, non blockchain channel that requires trust relationships that blockchain is supposed to obviate to offer any added scalability, and then pretend this somehow makes blockchain less wasteful".

Nothing anyone is doing with Lightning or any other proposed secondary layer couldn't be done with completely traditional databases. It's a fucking smokescreen.
posted by a faithful sock at 9:22 PM on January 5, 2023 [5 favorites]

"what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."
posted by krisjohn at 9:23 PM on January 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

How do you, like, block a tag or otherwise remove this post from the frontpage. Never had this wish before so never noticed there doesn't seem to be a way.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:24 PM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

Can this just get deleted? It's looking like one person sealioning and a bunch of people dunking on said person. No one is learning anything here, no information is being iterated on or even really shared, it's the inverse of what makes this site cool.
posted by Philipschall at 9:24 PM on January 5, 2023 [5 favorites]

I'm trying to figure out how many TPS the Lightning Network is doing since apparently that's a very important part of how good crypto money is going to be in the future we pink swear. This Bitcoin magazine article cites a source that has around 800,000 transactions in Feb 2022. Older than I'd like but at least a decent datapoint. If I'm doing my math correctly...that's a whopping .33 transactions per second. Not even as much as the Bitcoin blockchain.

I also found a crypto source that wants you to buy a different crypto coin, better because Reasons, talking about
BTC’s Lightning Network: It still doesn’t work, but does anyone notice? in September 2022.
posted by foxfirefey at 9:28 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Bitcoin should go.

And the other things on that list of things that use as much energy as bitcoin should be rethought, too. Clothes dryers, for example, are mainly a US thing. Most of the rest of the world manages to do ok without them. Private jets are, well, private. Most of the rest of the world manages to do ok without them. Christmas lights kill birds so we can have something pretty. I'd rather have the pretty birds. Etc.
posted by aniola at 9:30 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Flag it and move on.
posted by Ickster at 9:30 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

@aramaic

A sizable chunk of the world does not have access to traditional banking using currencies as dependable as USD.
I am admittedly a technophile early adopter but the utility goes far beyond my use case. People across the world are adopting this technology because it works for them. It's enabling people to fund protest movements against authoritarian governance, it's allowing people in Africa to side step the exploitative West African CFA franc.
Say what you will about it but people ARE increasingly choosing to use it for reasons valid to them.
posted by neonamber at 9:31 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

How about a post about those people who are getting amazing benefits from Bitcoin instead of this nonsense then?
posted by mmoncur at 9:34 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Citation for my above claim about utility for a protest movement
posted by neonamber at 9:35 PM on January 5, 2023

I love how you can't address the many substantive criticisms from prior threads because that would be spamming, but endless empty positive responses about how actually crypto is good is somehow not spamming.

Well. "Love" may not be the right word.
posted by a faithful sock at 9:36 PM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

How about a post about those people who are getting amazing benefits from Bitcoin instead of this nonsense then?

So glad you asked!
posted by hangashore at 9:37 PM on January 5, 2023 [5 favorites]

Outside of the energy consumption, let's go to the article:

Ethereum as a network may fail to bring its solutions to the mainstream in an appropriate manner. Instead, she says, it may end up “weighed down by its own complexity and lack of broad economic use.”

"Weighed down by its...lack of broad economic use." Well OK then! The secret ingredient is persuasion.
posted by rhizome at 9:37 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Again, bitcoin/crypto is not a mechanism for addressing the unbanked, unless you view them as a target.

…how many West Africans do you know that maintain cold hardware wallets? Any? Ledger ain’t free; are you proposing to immunize them against loss? If not why not? Why should West Africans accept a shitty emulation of a banking system — why not just give them a real banking system that’s resistant to cheap scams?

Do they not deserve proper banking systems? I don’t need to worry about what the BONK coin has done today, are you seriously saying they should, just because they’re poor? Or African?
posted by aramaic at 9:39 PM on January 5, 2023 [6 favorites]