Topic: Sustainability of cryptocurrencies? - page 2. (Read 2256 times)

I understand your angle but not all cryptocurrencies are mined and if you get to compare fiat to them then you better name the entities to be compared. Mineable cryptocurrencies of course can have negative impact on our environment and that's a fact but that doesn't compare in any way to what other petrochemical companies and refineries are doing to our ozone layer thereby increasing global warming tremendously.

Bitcoin mining was completely digital it doesn't give any bad impact to the environment ! If electricity is not a problem at all because there is too many way to gain electricity eitheir natiral or artificial !There is natural way of having an electricity either via solar or wind power , mining bitcoin has no bad effect in the environment unlike mining a gold which involves lot of risk

I wouldn't argue as they might have their quota of contributing to global warming but the aviation industry are the worst culprit yet they are treated with flexible hands while Bitcoiners and miners are treated with iron fist. I call for equality please.

How do you know that?

As far as I know, there are not many hydroelectric power stations in China (even despite the Three Gorges Dam being the largest power station in the world). According to this Wiki article, 73% of Chinese electricity production in 2014 came from burning coal. But coal-fired power stations are one of the most polluting electricity generating plants out there (even without taking into account the purported global warming) since coal is radioactive on its own

There are many factors that we need to consider when we talk about sustainability of cryptocurrencies. Many are talking about mining and other technical stuff when we talk about cryptocurrency but those are just part and not the whole of cryptocurrency. But among other factors there is one basic and fundamental factor that a cryptocurrency must have in order to survive and that is the potential market. Potential market refers to people who might be interested to invest in such a coin, without people promoting your coin by buying it then it will be the end of your coin and it will end up as a shitcoin.

Actually mining in altcoin is about equal to the bitcoin mining . In case of altcoin mining we have another chances of making some profit . Because as the altcoin mining earning is constant in the average time of mining but there remain still another chance if increase the price , if the price of altcoin increases then it may be result into the 100-200% profit in the single time ( which is not possible in case of bitcoin ).
So trend of altcoin increasing day by day due to the reason above .And in my opinion it depends upon the mining hardware that how much electricity is consumed by him , So here I will prefer for the altcoin mining instead of bitcoin .

Even if all 21M coins are mined, that doesn't mean mining will stop

Mining refers primarily to finding new blocks which is essential to keep the Bitcoin network ticking. Miners will just earn from fees, not from the block reward as of now. Regarding electricity consumption vs production, if there were no consumption, there would obviously be no production either. Though I don't think that mining has any effect on global warming. In fact, I'm heavily inclined to think that global warming (if there is any, in the first place) has nothing to do with humans and their activity

We can have sustainability in bitcoin as well other digital currency, because cryptocurrencies were making evolution in the financial system. Periodically several other digital currencies with unique features have been existing. As quoted by one of the mate the digital currencies depends completely on mining process. So electricity is much important and other till resources were easily available digital currency network will sustain.

chinese big farm use electricity that derivate from green source like hydro power plan, therefore they don't need themselves to run with green energy and it doesn't make sense anyway

global warning has more to do with industrial activity and nothing with bitcoin, where the heat generated is a joke in comparison, and it can genuinely re-used if they really wish to

and this for bitcoin, altcoin in general have even lower power consumption, i estimated a maximum of 500k gpu curently mining, with 100watt each you have from 50MW to 100MW in play...

Alternative energy sources can be used if a very serious investment is to be made. Apart from that, alternative energy costs will be more for small investors.
The most logical thing is to go to a country where your electricity is cheap.

Bitcoin mining nowadays requires expensive hardware, for you to be able to mine a great amount of bitcoin, and also requires a stable internet connection, and high on electricity consumption because your PC is 24/7 open. But I just don't see why Electricity consumption is connected to the Global Warming that is one of the problem that we are having in our Mother Earth.

We are the one who is responsible for this Global Warming, All of us, because of our irresponsible deeds here on earth. The burning of plastics and the factories which emits too much waste and smoke to the air, also the vehicles that emits black smoke from its Engine. This are the things that we should give a solution, because we, the all living things here on earth are the ones who are going to suffer from this.

Sustainability would only be possible if there's a growing support for crypto currencies. There is no point for the continuous existence of something if it doesn't serve any purpose. Right now, with the digital age, we see that these new digital currencies are coming out left and right and we are being given choices on how to benefit from their offerings.

It depends on what Bitcoin is being used for:

As a currency, Bitcoin will likely evolve into a 'regional currency', i.e. it will be used by a limited set of individuals or institutions for a narrow application (see the ECB's notes on this: Euro banknotes - a means of payment recognised worldwide).

As an platform for innovation, Bitcoin is definitely sustainable. For example, Bitcoin has already caused a lot of people and institutions to examine inefficiencies with the financial system - security, speed, risk, transparency, cost, accessibility... Although Bitcoin will spur discussion around these issues, it's unlikely Bitcoin will be the actual technology that solves these.

For example, thinking about the most popular Bitcoin companies (Circle, Xapo, Bitpay, Coinbase, etc.), it seems clear that these companies have contributed a huge amount to innovation in the financial system, but that the Bitcoin-only business models will not survive. It's more likely that large incumbent financial services companies will apply the functional innovations to existing currencies and transaction systems. It's clear that some companies had these goals in mind.

As a distributed database technology, Bitcoin is not sustainable. The proof-of-work consensus method is unreasonably cost inefficient. There are numerous methods that are more efficient

You dont need to know how much electricity is being used since you csn tell by the total mining power. Just assume all gfx cards are on full since that is how they mine. So just take the average consumption of watt per hash. Its not exact but its good enough.

Why are ypu worrying about the tiny little bit GPUs are using up in electricity anyway ?

No there is no srguemwnt to be made for it about global warming. Why are you worrying about that when there people dumping toxic waste into the ocean and cutting down forests to burn the wood and coal that they mine in huge factories thst pump out this smoke all day long. GPUs sre not going to cause the Ozone layer to open up.

How would trading drastically influence the electrical consumption and push that past the electricity being used by banks? You know Wall street

and other financial markets around the world use much more electricity to operate than the average Bitcoin market. You only see the front end

and not the servers and mainframes behind it.

In the case of the energy consumption caused by mining, the whole thing needs to be analyzed by comparing it to the other currencies and payment systems that are in use. I read somewhere that Bitcoin is currently using 30% of the amount of energy used by the banking system, and yet Bitcoin is involved only in a small fraction of the economic activity taking place (this 30% doesn't include the production and shipping of mining equipment). So, as more people start using Bitcoin, the amount of energy consumption is going to increase by a huge amount.
  
Perhaps more energy efficient ways of mining Bitcoin can be invented. What miners can do today is to purchase and use the most energy efficient mining equipment. They could also set up their mining systems in cold climates, so that cooling doesn't use up additional energy.

No question. Banking's energy use far outstrips current bitcoin use, but I'm actually not sure how much less crypto overall is using in relative terms to achieving the same purposes and needs.

Bitcoin alone might "win" this argument but if you were to count all the cryptocurrencies just focused on nothing but trading and mining..?

Let me ask you this.... Has anyone made a study of the electric consumption and eco footprint of ALL the banks in the world and also the electricity and

resources being spend to mine resources for metals for coins and also to manufacture paper currencies globally. Then they need to include the transport

of this currency and security systems needed to guard it.   ..... I bet you, if you compare that to Bitcoin mining, you will not even have to ask this

question.    { ATM's run 24/7 and how much electricity do they use? }

I think some studies will point out that cryptocurrencies using proof-of-stake have the advantage of not requiring a high electricity consumption. But I think in the case of proof-of-work, the energy we use is not being wasted. As long as this keeps the network running in a more decentralized and stable way, in fact this can be considered an efficient way of power usage.

Yeah, unless some really huge mega corporate company gets into mining no scientists are going to be looking into the energy consumption and let alone what the energy consumption does to affect global warming. Scientists are only going to come and do a job if there is reporting and money to come out of it, and in this case there is going to be nothing to be made to profit if they were to look into the issue.

Companies that manufacture and sell air-conditioners and refrigerators like said above have a lot to profit off of having scientists say that this is "eco-friendly" or some bullshit along those lines.