Topic: Is Bitcoin Mining Really Causing Environmental Damage? Maybe not that much... - page 3. (Read 1997 times)

Thats the point that mining requires big electricity and long-term electricity use will certainly damage the environment?
especially if the tool you use is damaged? of course it will add damage to the environment right. but the effect will not be too large I think

Yes, i am agree that bitcoin mining won't causing damage on our environment. It would be different story if bitcoin mining produce some waste products.
Bitcoin mining only consuming power, i don't see any damage on environment because of this.

Yeah, the Danube is a crap example...let's talk about the Nile, ups.. no good Volga? Amazon? All the Siberian Rivers that flow in the artic? The Ganges? That too has only a 42 meters drop for 800 km.
Actually, it would be better to let you tell me what river (except the Anduin) isn't acting like that.


No, Franky, the question was pretty simple.
Why would a single dam affect transportation on a river where you already have 100 locks...
Because that was one of your reasons why dams are not built by the evil gubbermint.


  Are you forking serious?


There is no point in showing me something I DIDN'T think like that.
I already told you, spike doesn't happen like that because miners are not some stuff you can buy from Tesco!
Have you ever ordered one? Did you choose next day shipping? /sarcasm

Of course (1) ! it didn't jump because it takes a month at least to get that miner and in December even pre-orders for March were filled.


Of course (2) !! it doesn't work like that! And I'm not going to repeat myself, you have the answer for this also above.


Of course (3) !!! Because like I was saying (the third time already) there is no spare capacity. Just like in the oil and gas industry. Only a few countries can afford 10% increase even if they want to produce more, there are simply no drilled wells and it takes months to make them.
Just like chips are not printed at home and you need to wait for TMSC to produce another batch.


Thank you, at least being a comedian might lead to a successful carrier, being stubborn is for sure not.

Bitcoin mining is consuming much electricity indeed, but it won't damage our environment as long the power resource for electricity is eco-friendly.
There are many industries that can causing more harm for environment than bitcoin. So i think crypto mining is not bad for environment

Yes, the world of mining requires a lot of electricity, I think that solar panels can be a solution to save electricity.

This solar panel can be an alternative source of crypto mining energy that is more environmentally friendly, but the price is not cheap. so very rare for miners to use it.

..... anyway. now that comedy sidetrack is now pushed aside..

bitcoin mining does cost money. yes. and thats what backs up a baseline value.(im not talking about speculative volitile ATH price.. im talking baseling (bottomline) value)
EG if gold mining was free gold purchasing would be cheap

at the moment bitcoin mining does not eat into needed demand of residents. it actually buys the EXCESS (above demand) that power stations produced that just goes to waste if not bought.

power stations love it.

as for asics

in late november the math of cost of mining was exa * 277
in mrch-june. it came down to exa*135
and as of october-november it will be exa *65

thats because the cost of the rig and the electric. and the hashrate of the rig change per batch and generation

in october new asics are coming out which have twice the hashrate. the rigs will cost a bit more but thats offset by the reduction in electric used. thus balancing out. .. but effectively being 2x more efficient

again your mentioning the need for elevators.. meaning water has to go up........ (facepalm)
no, no and no. ill say it one more time
it goes downstream. collect in a second area DOWNSTREAM  and goes down again... there is no up

yea you brought up a river thats a crap example and one we both agree is not supportive of such due to cost.
you said it above and you quoted me as i show below. that its about politics and costs and that it would affect the population.. which the electricity demand for the area is not high enough to sway the argument to change that... so why mention the danube.. it has nothing to do with bitcoin mining or hydropower to power bitcoin mining.
no one would be foolish to set up a mining farm in that area..
i am familiar..
im in the UK we have hundreds of canals and thousands of canal locks.. the stupid thing you dont see is you cant use a dam as a 'lock'
a dam is a dam and a lock is a lock. if your going to dam a river you dam a river. boats cant go up
so the only time you dam a river is if the demand for electric outweight the public need for an open river


nope. it does not play out as short term minded as you think
i know your thinking when the price jumped to $20k from novembers lower rate.. that the hashrate must have jumped 3-4fold
no
here ill show you. no spike in december 2017 from
btc.com https://data.bitcoinity.org/bitcoin/hashrate/2y?mining_pool=BTC.com&t=a
btc.top https://data.bitcoinity.org/bitcoin/hashrate/2y?mining_pool=BTC.TOP&t=a
antpool https://data.bitcoinity.org/bitcoin/hashrate/2y?mining_pool=AntPool&t=a

now. here is the thing. the pools above are the main pools that think long term and progress at a periodic growth and when prices go up they dont ramp up more machines 4x and then ramp down just as fast.
Eg the dont ramp up 4x december and ramp down 4x in spring 2018

they make profit and spread it across the year and then progress over the year.
..

now look at these short term pools. you know the ones that now laughingly only have 1% of network hash who are small minded and dont play "the game"
https://data.bitcoinity.org/bitcoin/hashrate/2y?mining_pool=BTCC+Pool&t=a
as you can see they did foolishly sheep follow the price. ..
and if you were to rmeember last year btcc was one of the big names. now its only 1% of network hashpower.
they switched off too many rigs. sold of too many coins in january and then bought too many rigs in january. tried t run them too soon. and by march they had to drop down their rigs again by march
(facepalm) thus now they are stuck with rigs left to gather dust. and no spare cashflow to play any games with..

yea the recent news that bitmain is in trouble is actually that btcc are in trouble.
bitmain are happy spending money in investing in other companies while btcc is closing down business.. as i said btcc is now in the 1% bracket.


lol im laughing
you should be a comedian

you do know bitmain make them right.

i explained above bitmain and the smart pools play the long game.. its actually BTCC that played the short game buying up rigs and then getting face slapped because they ramped up mining too fast due to december.
- hashrate charts dont lie.-

as i said. its stupid that when you make profit. to spend all your profit just to work harder.. btcc learned that the hard way

where as bitmain that have no ASIC shortage and COULD HAVE ramped up their hashrate in december. but they didnt. they played the long game.

anyway.. the bigger point is not about the ATH but sustaining the LOW which sits above $5800

anyway nice talking to you, enjoyed your diverted comments about rivrs unrelated to mining and the comedy of you thinking water has to go uphill via lifting cups of pee or using elevator analogies.. was real funny you cant grasp the concept of down stream...

but great comedy any.. have a nice day

Obviously, as long as mining is still profitable, more and more computers will operate and consume more power. Long-term solutions may not be in the alternative, but with the power itself.

I think it's a huge problem. People saying "but the old system wastes more" don't realize that we should be comparing it to what the next generation of tech can achieve, not to the legacy system.
Both the inflation schedule and the use of PoW are held sacrosanct in BTC circles, so I do not see a clear solution.

No. Bitcoin mining don't cause environmental damage. It just cost energy. I'm sure about that.

For one, all that energy is turned into heat, so it can be used for (gasp!) heating. Let’s also not forget that the financial industry, including the segments cryptocurrencies will eventually replace, is also using energy for e.g. the heating and lighting of the buildings where employees work. So, some or most of the energy that bitcoin mining consumes will not come as a surplus but as a displacement.
I also expect cryptocurrencies with more conservative energy use emerge even within the PoW family. For example, it would be interesting to see something where the level of security for a transaction was proportional to its value.

There will always be a negative nature effects in any profitable futures. Bitcoin mining is not an exception. The power consumed by mining bitcoin is one of the effects. Thats why its difficult to engage in bitcoin mining in most of the developing countries  because of the power supplies in those countries is not efficient and power generating there is very cost.
So, essential one of the major things to consider in bitcoin mining should be power generating system.

that will depend on miners . some miners uses a lot of hardwares to make mining profitable and it do uses a lot of energy or electricity , it also causes a lot of noise which can be considerd a polution .

i forgot , the hardware that they use in mining can also cause air polution to the environment .  therfor mining a crypto do have an effect to our mother earth but not as big as the actual mining .

The production of bitcoin if it harms the minimum, because in time this pays off, if there was a lot of damage and there was no benefit, then the country would not extract bitcoin.

So franky:



I never said to pump water up to fill the reservoirs
I was strictly talking about efficiency in your golden example.

Rather than recycling the water that guy will eliminate from the x floor, it's more efficient to let him pee at the entrance than having the elevator carrying him with the extra weight.


Franky, let's stick to the Danube since I've brought this up.
The Danube drops 32 meters from the Iron gates in 1000 km.
You will have to dig 20 times more earth than the Panama canal to create a dam and deepen the river bed to make the water flow to the sea after the new dam. Not even talking about what will happen to the ports water pumping stations that are going to have to lift water from 30 -20 meter deeper for the population

You're going to spend more energy doing that than the powerplant will produce in a millennium


You're not familiar with how things are in Europe. 
The Canal de la Marne au Rhin has no more than 154 locks, one every 2 km 

Switching to hashrate


Everything is right if we consider this a close game.
But when the price goes up, so does the number of miners, which start with new equipment and new costs.


If you really have said something like this....I'm starting to feel disappointed.
You've calculated the costs per BTC? Common!!!



It didn't because there wasn't any miner left to be sold and added to the network.
Price for miners jumped to even 3000$ for a used s9 first generation in December.
If the price goes x10 in a week miners will not be able to add new gear even if they wanted to, mining equipment is not bread, hasn't the last video card shortage taught you that?

firstly. where are you even getting the idea about guy travelling up to 100th floor
where are you getting the idea about energy excersion of me lifting a cup to my lips to drink own pee
where are you getting the idea of pumping water upstream to fill reservoirs...

get them foolish idea's out of your head.
the idea is water is already up stream by this funny thing called the weather....
it all goes downstream
but instead of stopping the river. using the water once and then let it travel un reused. to just give it to the sea.
the idea is to have more dams downstream to then reuse the water as it travels...DOWNSTREAM

by the way its not a problem of physics.. but cost and bureaucracy of digging holes concreting walls and displacing residents in the way.

the reason parker and davis dont make as much is because they are bureaucratically not allowed to be as big as the lake preceding hoover damn.

again not physics.. but politics is the restraint
luckily china and other countries dont have the same political problems as a nevada/arizona debates.


the reason the danube doesnt have more dams is because politicians wont allow it as it then stops boats travelling upstream
it seems transporting goods up river is more important then making walls to make electricity down river

the amount of electricity produced is enough for there not to be a NEED. so the priority politically of more electric vs other things the rivers are used for have not had a need to sway the debate.


it is feasible. its just not needed.
EG in 1920's only X electric was needed. so only hoover and parker was made.. lots of fighting over if should they be made happened back then..
...
1950's demand rose. but wait.. stompix says it cant happen there just aint enough..
i imagine stompix having a vision of the river is saying "im trying captain im giving it all she got(scotty startrek)"
 but then miraculously. davis dam was build.. OMG how is that possible. stompix must have asked himself
.. the answer
because politicians weighed up the politics of relocating people, cost to build. vs the real need of more electric. and it was decided. its worth the cost.(physics was not the problem


actually you will find this mindset strange but.
when a miner is willing to pay $6k to mine 1btc. what he also sees is he is commited to $6k for a year. because he has already prepaid the asics and the electric equivelent to that for a year

now if the price goes down below the $6k he is paying.. he actually thinks.. well there is no point buying new equipment this week. but i can buy btc on the market below $6k. and actually turn off some rigs. meaning they can renegotiate the electric allotment they have not used this week. to be allowed to be used at the 53rd week

now if the price rises. they are not forced to do anything... they can all just mine at the same rate. and spend their profits investing in other businesses (yep they do that)
or replace thir rigs with less costly equipment. so that they can let the energy companies give them a few extra weeks extension at the end of the year because they didnt need to use it during the year...

heres a thought for you
if mining is at a 43terrahash month minimum.. ($5800 at per btc mining COST) (i done the math it works out. its in my post history if your bored)
then knowing the btc PRICE is only a bit above that..  so in your mindset. miners in december should have been mining at 120terrahash. because PRICES were 3x so hashrate could/would/should have been 3X 'because they could afford to'

sorry but no. it dont work like that.

if you get a salary. and then suddenly get a pay rise. if your just going to use your pay rise to work even harder always chasing the oppertunity and hope of a pay rise.. then thats you stuck in a perpetual cycle of only ever 'living to work'..
smart people keep the profit. and go on vacation. invest in things. treat their kids to new toys and gadgets. renovate their homes.
if you got a 3x payrise and you only use that to then do 3x more work.. i feel sorry for your family

you will see miners in the MAJORITY only increase 5-10% as a planned periodic growth. if bitcoin went to $1m a coin in under 2 years. you wont see mining pools jump to network hash of 6.6zetahash overnight (using the metrics of this generations ASICs)($900k)

they would go on vacation. and keep at their slower progressive hashrate..

ill give you a hint. sustainable price rises that dont crash is due to mining pushing up prices and then buying up coin if the price goes down...
not where the price makes the hashrate jump.

heres another hint.
october 2013 happened because miners pushed the price up becaus everything switched from GPU to ASICS.
asic miners were making a profit and going on holiday. GPU miners cried as they couldnt profit gpu mining. so they just bought coin..
(bitcoin history asics released october 2013)

now the december 2017 spike (caused by banking institutions buying up coin to settle with certain bitcoin entities contracts that completed midnovember) the spike of that buyup DID NOT cause mining pools to ramp up their hashrate to 120 terrahash in december.

again price does not ramp up hashrate. but hashrate does ramp up sustainable price...

Franky is not about fetishes, it's about the laws of physics

That guy who goes to the 100floor will spend more energy caring that extra 500ml of 'water" to dump on his neighbor than the energy that "flow" of water will generate.

That chain of yours will only work when there is enough water at a reasonable altitude, and even with Colorado which is one freaky river, how much does the Parker dam generate? 10% of Hoover's capacity?
If you don't have the relief needed then you will not be able to extract even 1% of the first dam power.
This is why we have so little hydroelectric powerplants in Europe and this is why the largest river (the Danube) has only one set of two dams in a gorge at the Iron Gates.

You simply can't build those damns everywhere and the energy gain is minimal.
Even the eco-warriors are acknowledging that we have reached 50% of the hydro capacity this planet can produce, there is simply too little left untapped.

Don't you think those solutions would have been implemented everywhere if they would indeed be feasible?


I really don't understand why you're so stuck to Asic performance an hashrate..
The thing is pretty simple, the energy consumption is only influenced by the price, nothing else.

You have 10 million in daily rewards then miners will afford to spend 9 million in energy and get some profit.
Bitcoin goes to 60 000, then they will be able to consume x10 more...
It goes to 1 million before the halving ...we're f***.

funny guy
but logic is not your friend here
no where in the example is showing the watr going back upstream
in short im not perpetually drinking my own pee.
in short whats happening is its a chain gang oral sex orgy of golden shower.
someone below me drinks mine. and generates energy from the same pee that originated from me
someone below them drinks from the middle person. and generates energy from the same pee that originated from me
(p.s.. i never was into golden showers and using this analogy made me cringe.. may i never use this analogy again. but i hope it atleast sparked the idea in easy form for others to understand.)

now take one more look at the picture of the chain of reservoirs/dams...
now going from left to right i shall name them for you.

be aware...(shock warning)
once i name them you can google it. and see that its not perpetual nor is it a fantasy dream. and it is infact possible
left: hoover dam
middle Davis dam
right Parker dam

PS. if davis and parker didnt exist. colorado would make 18% less power
and davis and parker can expand..

I totally agree with you. For me, bitcoin mining just cost a small amount of energy and not harm to our ecosystem

Does bitcoin mining really cause environmental damage? I think no because bitcoin mining is a digital process of mining the so called digital gold and you can set your mining rig in your house or at the back of your bakcyard if you're doing mining farm. Unlike the traditional ones where they dig deep into the mountains and use some chemicals just to extract gold out from the land. Additionally, let's not forget that bitcoin is digital and we don't need to cut for trees just to make a printed copy of it.