Topic: Bitcoin already using too much power by 2020? - page 4. (Read 6843 times)

2020 will be a year of the bitcoin everybody is saying that but if you want to know with year is for the bitcoin you have to see it by your self so i dont think it would happen in just 3 years that take time.

Correct and true!  That is why I said "in this era"

So, in order to keep our power consumption under about 2% of world wide power production, we cannot/do not want the price to get to $500,000 before era 6, which is about 2033 or so.

Using my previously derived formula for the power consumption:

P = (6(50/2^e) + f)(x)(1 - g)/c [kW]

where:

x = exchange rate [USD/BTC]
e = era [0..32] (we are currently in era 1)
f = average fees per hour [BTC/hour]
c = cost of energy [USD/kWh]
g = average gross profit margin [unitless ratio]

we can look at the power consumption in each era assuming a price of $500,000 per BTC.

In order to make it simple I will make the following assumptions:

x = $500,000 per BTC
f = fees per hour will keep the coinbase above 6 BTC/hour (1 BTC/block) in all eras
c = $0.10 per kWh
g = 0.1 miner gross profit margin

Of course this is a vast oversimplification since the values of the USD the price of electricity vary over time and it is very hard to predict miners fees over time and to know the average gross profit margin of mining.

After July, the bock reward is reduced to 12.5. So that will just be 15% of the world power generation. After a few more halving, it will be even lower.

NOPE.  By design the Bitcoin network will use as much power as it can afford.  More efficient mining equipment does not change the amount of energy consumed.

Wrong again.  Power consumption is driven by only one thing:  price.  The energy used will go up if the price goes up.  The only thing that will reduce the amount of energy consumed is a decrease in price.

Wrong again.  You will never be able to make a profit mining no matter how efficient the mining equipment becomes unless you are the only one with access to the more efficient equipment.  If everyone has access to the more efficient equipment then those with the cheaper power will make a profit and those, like yourself, with more expensive power will always lose money.

Sorry.

Kind of.  Since the power consumption is driven by price there is a price at which the power consumption would become excessive.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/estimating-the-energypower-consumption-of-the-bitcoin-network-694401

For example if BTC were to go to $500,000 in this era it would cause a catastrophic mining bubble:

   $500,000 x 25 = $12,500,000 per block = $75,000,000 per hour

$75 million per hour would drive the mining to attempt to use 675 GW.  This is about 30% of all the power generated on the planet.

Denmark is a very small country, so not very alarming. Freedom as a cost. And can you remember how many electricity banks are consuming just with all the ATMs by the World ? That's just another anti-Bitcoin argument without any base.

Im hoping by 2020 the machines (asics) are using very little power so
everyone can mine coins

being in california I had to stop because power was so expensive I was
losing money.

Yeah that would happen cause the hardware mining are continuing its production, Many will try to mine bitcoins by hardware miners, The energy will decrease because many miners are using hardware

I think in the future you will no bitcoin mining tools are more sophisticated and power-saving course. Because of the growing popularity of bitcoin there will be more innovations to develop mining hardware, and of course in 2020 you will use less electricity to mining hehe
Just my opinion, Thank you

If Denmark using renewable energy like solar power plants, hydroelectric power plant,wind power plant I think it does not make a big problem. not if Denmark not using the renewable energy it's become a serious problem.

are you sure if many miners out of bitcoin. it would make more powerful bitcoin? not that would reduce adopter of bitcoin? and of course it makes bitcoin is getting stronger? especially mining users or miners the numbers are very large?

The unit cost of the electricity does not matter. The total cost of mining one block is similar to the  value in one block.

This thread is full of misconceptions about power consumption.

1) The source of the power (coal, nuclear, solar, natural gas) does not matter when calculating the total power consumed by the system.  What matters is the cost of the power.  If solar power ever cost less than coal - taking all costs into consideration - then people would use it.  It is that simple.  The reason people do not use solar power it that it currently costs more.

2) Efficiency of mining does not matter.  If mining equipment becomes more efficient then people will just use more mining equipment.

3) This is all by design.  The amount of power used is exactly what makes it difficult/impossible for someone rewrite transactions.

The power consumption of the Bitcoin network can be estimated by my previously derived formula:

P = (6(50/2^e) + f)(x)(1 - g)/c [kW]

where:

x = exchange rate [USD/BTC]
e = era [0..32] (we are currently in era 1)
f = average fees per hour [BTC/hour]
c = cost of energy [USD/kWh]
g = average gross profit margin [unitless ratio]

Just plug in your favorite guesses for the year 2020:

How much do you think BTC will be worth in 2020?  $100? $1,000?  $10,000?
Which era do you want to estimate for?  (We are currently in era 1, almost in era 2, 2020 could be era 2 or 3)
What do you think the average fees per hour are going to be in 2020?  1 BTC/hr?  10 BTC/hr?  100 BTC/hr?
Do you think the cost of electricity is going to go down, be the same, or go up by 2020?  $0.01/kWh, $0.03/kWh, $0.10/kWh?
What is the average gross profit margin of the miners (portion of all income not spent on electricity costs: equipment, salaries, rents, accounting, ROI, etc.)?  You can use this number to approximate amortized equipment costs.  0.10? 0.25? 0.5?

Have fun.

I think yes, many miners will quit after halving this summer cause it will be hard for them, in 2020 it will be much harder than now, that's why minrers moving to China.

Minning will be very very difficult by 2020 .  As the difficulty increases, the Cost of doing mining also increases. It will require more powerful machines and more electricity to run that machines and perform the mining. still People who have infrastructure for that we do mining but it will be beyond the scope of a common man. Maybe it will be limited to big companies who shall invest high for this purpose.

I think there is no such thing as over power, As long miners can mine bitcoin it is good to go. But when they can't mine they will stop and they will have another player to develop and mine it. Bitcoin adopt on every technology we create so what will we do on bitcoin is in our hands. Not us will follow bitcoin but bitcoin will follow us.

The Bitcoin network will keep self adapting to any scenario. If there is not a profit to be made anymore by x miners in y location, those will simply stop mining and get out of the business, this lowers the difficulty, which means other people will fill incentive to start a mining business.

No thing as too much power, just the required one, as long as its profitable.

Great,i never think about that,we allnever know until when bitcoin will stay,and might in 2020 bitcoin goes down,or bitcoin can't mine again,its why people so greedy nowdays,they try to collect bitcoin as much as they can,and never care about how much power consumed because of their selfish.

Nobody will know what is going to happen with the Bitcoin in that year and you see that Bitcoin was stable for a long time so it works not that much power and it has to rise also in the future.
And that is only nice if the halving is also going to be good but the bad thing is that we cant control it and that is bad.

Don't most bitcoiners hodl bitcoins, hoping to get rich "just because [they] already own something"?

POW makes the most sense. POS is the same retard concept we have with central banks today. Earning interest, just because you already own something? That doesn't make sense at all, since owning is no productive activity. Proof-of-Resources might be an alternative that at least has some logical merit.

I don't share the concerns that Bitcoin POW might consume too much power. Even if Bitcoin will consume the electricity equivalent of an entire nation it is not necessarily "too much" if you put it into perspective. Bitcoin is both a source of secure monetary units and a transaction system. If you consider the joint energy that is used to provide both functions today (putting physical currency into circulation, maintaining networks of ATM's and transaction servers), Bitcoin will still have a smaller energy footprint.

ya.ya.yo!