Exactly 14 years ago , Satoshi Nakamoto designed the most pathetic / inefficient system ever invented by humankind : the blockchain.
Today, it weights 60 000 tons, wastes constantly 10 gigawatts .. to process less than 7 transactions per second :
Less than a 33 bps modem from 1990.
This could be joke if it didn't have such gigantic environmental impact, wasn't enabling billion dolllars ransomware industry and was not crushing thousands of lives in the process.
@FranckLeroy I mean, that's just not factually true.
@volkris
What's wrong exactly ?
Well the main thing that too many people have bought into is that Bitcoin wastes that much power. That gets it backwards.
No, the Bitcoin system itself could run on a solar cell. It's a fairly efficient method of accomplishing its goals of trustless transaction recording.
The rest of the power isn't Bitcoin's waste but rather what people are paying to use the system. It's effectively customer revenue.
To say Bitcoin wastes this ton of power is like saying Taylor Swift wasted $13 million since fans paid that for her concert.
@volkris
No it could *not* run on a single cell.
Proof of work is designed to waste a constant share of transferred funds in energy.
Currently the Bitcoin wastes around 1300 kWh of energy per transaction.
As much as an average US household during 45 days.
That's absolutely insane.
I've run it on a single battery before. You can too. Grab a RaspberryPi, install the daemons, and let it rip.
Proof of work is designed to allow people to decide for themselves how much energy they think the network is worth. If they think it's worth very little then they'll give it very little energy--they won't give it much work--and then it won't take much energy to operate.
Currently people believe Bitcoin to be worth 1300 kWh of energy per transaction, and people believe Super Bowl tickets to be worth $200 and Taylor Swift tickets to be worth $1000.
Is that insane? Well, people are going to value what they value.
@volkris non mining nodes are completely useless.
Only mining enables to register teansactions.
POW is a shame.
That's an absolute waste of energy.
This is , by far, the single most wasteful activity of the humanity
If it's a waste of energy that's not worth the cost then people won't spend the cost, and then the system is designed to lower the difficulty automatically in response.
The ONLY reason this much energy is being spent is because people believe it's worthwhile and not a waste to spend it.
That is built into the system. Any moment that people decide it's not worth the energy then the difficulty will be lowered in response.
That is how we know it's not a waste, because people are choosing to spend the energy because they value it.
That's the whole point. That's what you're missing.
If you personally don't value Bitcoin that much it's perfectly understandable! Don't spend your energy that way. I don't value Super Bowl tickets at $200. I'm not going to spend my money that way.
But it would be foolish for me to say that $200 is being wasted on the Super Bowl just because other people value it that way.
And that's exactly what's happening here.
Other people happen to have different values than you. Well that's life.
@volkris
You're totally missing the point.
I'm talking about energy and physics.
You're talking about economics.
You can't break the laws of physics. Economics is an arbitrary human construction.
We have limited resources and energy.
We already suffer the drawback of ignoring those physical limits.
We shouldn't leave the free market drive humanity and waste this precious resources on things like generative AI or crypto.
I don't believe unlimited economic freedom is good.
I'm talking energy and physics. It doesn't take much energy to run Bitcoin. That's how it was designed, to only take the amount of energy that people want to spend on it.
The entire Bitcoin system can run on a car battery. You can literally do this any day of the week if you want to. Load up the daemon and let it rip. It does not take much energy at all to run. That's the physical truth of it.
All of the rest of the energy is optional, all of the rest of the energy is extra that people are trading because they think it's valuable.
But physically, it does not take hardly any energy at all to run Bitcoin. That's how it was designed, to use a minimal amount to function.
Again, everything above that minimum is optional, it's just that people decide to opt in to spending that. Everything above that minimum is economic.
