Energy Expenditure: Bitcoin vs. Banking System ⚡

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(Edited)

Der Energieverbrauch von Bitcoin wird in den Massenmedien immer als Totschlag-Argument gegen Bitcoin verwendet.

Bitcoin verbrauche mehr Energie als das Land x ohne aber jeglichen Kontext zu liefern, wie viel Energie zum Beispiel das Bargeldsystem oder (Zentral-)Banksystem inkl. der Glaspaläste verbrauchen.

Außerdem wird der meiste Strom für Bitcoin aus erneuerbaren Energien gewonnen und man könnte es auch so sehen, dass Bitcoin jährlich Milliarden in den Ausbau der grünen E-Wirtschaft investiert.

Andererseits stimmt es natürlich auch, dass Bitcoin viel Energie zur Absicherung des dezentralen Netzwerks benötigt, um nicht von einem Staat oder einer großen Firma mit viel Rechenpower angegriffen werden zu können.

Der Energieverbrauch von Bitcoin wird grundsätzlich durch den zukünftigen Wert eines Bitcoins, den Stromkosten und den sinkenden Mining-Rewards bestimmt und wird dadurch nicht ewig steigen.

Langfristig wäre es auch denkbar, sollte sich in den nächsten Jahren die geplante Umstellung bei Ethereum auf Proof Of Stake bewähren, dass auch Bitcoin mit einem Software-Upgrade (Hardfork) dem Beispiel folgt.

Jedenfalls ist die Energie nicht verschwendet, sondern es ist eine Investition in eine neue revolutionäre Welt, die ganz neue Möglichkeiten und Freiheiten bietet, die im traditionellen Banksystem bis vor kurzem noch unvorstellbar gewesen wären wie Instant-Überweisungen statt 3-5 Werktage auf sein Geld zu warten, Micro-Transaktionen von Cent und Sub-Cent-Beträgen, dezentrales Crowd-Investing und Lending (DeFi) oder die Tokenisierung von Wirtschaftsgütern (NFTs).

Was sagt ihr zum Stromverbrauch von Bitcoin? Soll Bitcoin langfristig von Proof of Work (PoW) auf Proof of Stake (PoS) umstellen oder macht es Sinn wenigstens eine globale PoW-Chain zu haben?

bitcoinenergyexpenditure1.jpg

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/lincrs/some_perspective_on_the_energy_expenditure_fud/

English

The energy consumption of Bitcoin is always used as an argument against Bitcoin in conventional mass media.

Bitcoin consumes more energy than country X without providing any context on how much energy for example the cash system or (central) banking system including the glass palaces consume.

Also, most of the electricity for Bitcoin is generated from renewables and one could also see it as Bitcoin investing billions of Dollar annually in expanding the green e-economy.

On the other hand, it is of course also true that Bitcoin needs a lot of energy to secure its decentralized network so that it cannot be attacked by a state or a large company with a lot of computing power.

The energy consumption of Bitcoin is basically determined by the future value of Bitcoin, the electricity costs and the decreasing mining rewards and will therefore not increase forever.

In the long term, it would also be conceivable, should the planned conversion of Ethereum to Proof Of Stake prove itself in the next few years, that Bitcoin will also follow suit with a software upgrade (hardfork).

Anyway, the power is not wasted, but it is an investment in a new revolutionary world that offers completely new possibilities and freedoms that would have been unimaginable in the traditional banking system until recently such as instant transfers instead of waiting 3-5 business days for one's money, micro-transactions of cent and sub cent amounts, decentralized crowd investing and lending (DeFi) or the tokenization of assets (NFTs).

What do you think about Bitcoin's power consumption? Should Bitcoin move from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS) in the long run, or does it make sense to at least have one global PoW powered chain?

Sources

[1] PoW is Efficient https://danhedl.medium.com/pow-is-efficient-aa3d442754d3
[2] 78% of Bitcoin's Electricity Usage is from Renewables https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-energy-debate-resurfaces-with-calls-for-green-hackers-to-attack-network
[3] Bitcoin Hash Rate https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate

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9 comments
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The massive hardware investment and power consumption is the source of network security.
PoS can never be as secure.

See my detailed post on this from almost 3 years ago (one of my first posts on this blockchain).

https://peakd.com/crypto/@apshamilton/analysis-of-51-attack-by-nation-state-vulnerability-of-pow-vs-pos

https://peakd.com/crypto/@apshamilton/51-attack-by-nation-state-pow-vs-pos-debate-with-founder-of-eth-etc-ada-coins-and-iohk-company

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(Edited)

Thx for the input, yes PoW has some advantages over PoS and that its security model relies not only on money, but also hardware and energy. Also the distribution of new coins could be seen more fair, as it does not depend on prior stake. However, if Ethereum proves that a system can be successfully transitioned to PoS, PoS could at least become an option for Bitcoin in the long run.

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Bitcoin devs are weary about making big changes on the protocol level to BTC. Any such fork would become an "altcoin", as did the upgrade to larger blocks.

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Bitcoin devs are very conservative for a reason, but that does not mean that no changes to the protocol level could be done, more important is that there is consensus for the change, then it can be done, like increasing the block size with the SegWit soft fork upgrade.

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Das muss immer mal wieder gesagt werden.

LG Michael

!invest_vote
!jeenger

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Your contribution was curated manually by @mima2606
Keep up the good work!

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The price that we are paying for POW of the Bitcoin network is tiny if we compare it with the benefits that we have from it! I think that it's not the time for Bitcoin to change to POS, and it will be hard to do it in general... But, it could come in the future, no doubts...

And comparing the BTC network with Banksters network full of bureaucracy is exactly as your graph shows... It's always like that... the loudest people are usually those you are the most guilty of for what they criticize...

Great post! Thanks for sharing this info!

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