• hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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    10 months ago

    Whatever the motives of those that wrote it, the fact that cryptocurrency uses power wastefully to ensure validity is absurd when we want to reduce climate change.

    The concept is great. The execution needs altering.

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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      10 months ago

      We need to shift to demand shaping. Storing power generated during the day to be used overnight is not particularly efficient, and requires massive pumped storage facilities. We need to use power at the time it is produced. If we do not have sufficient demand at the time of peak production, energy prices will go to zero (or even below zero!) during those times, and there will be no incentive to continue rolling out solar to meet demand earlier in the day, later in the day, and on cloudy days.

      We need much more solar rollout to fully meet demand during marginal or even poor conditions, but that much generation capacity is far more than we can use at that time.

      We need a massive load that comes online during optimal generation conditions, but which can be shed under clouds or at low sun angles. Something that will give the power companies an incentive to keep rolling out solar even when we have excess optimal generation capacity.

      • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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        10 months ago

        Reducing wastage, increasing base load of renewables, back up storage and peak load usage and interconnected grids are all used. This suggests reduce wastage, which should not be ignored. Bitcoin wastes the energy solving problems that are computationally difficult but not useful. That’s wastage.

    • Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      The need for power is to make it extremely difficult to take over the network. If the power needed was minimal, 1 person or group could easily take over. Power is what keeps it secure and as we enter the AI and quantum computing age, blockchain tech and how they are secured is one way to protect ourselves. Centralized databases are sitting ducks as we have seen with the amount of hacks going on at an increasing pace.

      • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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        10 months ago

        No, it needs non-useful computation to make it more and more difficult to mine. This needs more and more power to do. The power wastage is not required, but is a side effect. There are other methods of securing digital currency. Bitcoin should be seen as a proof of concept at this stage, rather than a complete technology.

        The problem is trying to prevent concentration of power and ensuring new good faith actors can enter the ecosystem at any time on a similar footing.

        The irony is that the more widespread it is, the less likely for any one entity or group of entities to have control, yet the more total power is being consumed.

      • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        The need for power is to make it extremely difficult to take over the network.

        This used to be true. Mining pools have now concentrated that governance and specialized hardware has removed the ability for the everyman to mine.

        2nd and 3rd generation blockchains will provide the growth in use cases and adoption.

        Bitcoin’s unique selling point it it’s price. It is tulips2.0

    • DdCno1@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      The concept is great.

      Is it? I really don’t see how cryptocurrency is a good thing for humanity. The name is a problem in and on itself, since it’s not currency and can not scale up to be used as one.

      • Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        I mean this is exactly what the established banking system has spewed out in propaganda all of which have been thoroughly debunked. Only difference is Bitcoin is not a company and does not have a propaganda department to counteract. It relies on people educating and thinking for themselves.

        • DdCno1@kbin.social
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          10 months ago

          This isn’t propaganda and none of this has been debunked. Bitcoin can only handle a theoretical maximum of 7 transactions per second (in practice it’s closer to between 3 and 5) and I’m not aware of any cryptocurrency that can handle more than 60 transactions per second. Regular financial transaction networks meanwhile handle thousands of transactions per second while consuming far less power (both in terms of electricity and computing power).