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0 pointsTekMol8y ago0 comments

Obviously it generates enough value for some people that they are willing to pay for it.

Watching television probably uses up even more energy. And I would argue it has a negative impact on life quality. But who am I to decide what people should value?

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alkonaut8y ago

Incandescent bulbs provided light and people were happy to use them.

They were outlawed for the simple reason that the problem they solved wasn't efficient compared to other ways of solving the same problem.

The same thing will happen to cars with internal combustion engines.

People may value the sound of combustion engines or the warm glow of incandescent bulbs but as a society we don't care what they value since we share the effects of externalities.

iaw8y ago

Watching television does not use up more energy than mining bitcoin, that's the point of the linked article.

TekMolOP8y ago

The article states that the "electricity consumed for a single transaction" is equivalent to what 5 households use up in 5 days. Which seems to make you think that one would "use up" less energy by watching TV then by doing a Bitcoin transaction. But that is not true.

Making a Bitcoin transaction uses up hardly any energy.

The miners mine for the block reward. That is completely unrelated to transactions. They even mine if there are no transactions and generate empty blocks.

If nobody made a Bitcoin transaction for a month, the energy consumption of that month would stay pretty much the same.

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