So Bitcoin bombed last night after Musk said he won’t allow payment with it due to the environmental impact of mining.

This article seems to debunk the idea that mining is having a big negative effect, citing that around 75% of miners are using renewables:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-bulls-on-social-media-reject-musks-reasoning-for-halting-crypto-based-car-sales-11620879149

There is also the irony of Musk’s own batteries impacting the environment.

Someone will need to help me out here. There isn't an unlimited amount of renewable energy, so even if bitcoin mining uses renewable, doesn't that just mean other energy usage won't be from renewable?

A couple of points from that article.
76% of miners use renewable as part of their energy mix. So firstly thats 24% definitely using fossil.
The Cambridge report probably states it but there is a certain percentage of that that 76% not mined using renewable. The number of miners really tells us very little on its own.

The other point raised is that crypto is low energy usage once mined. The problem I see here is that these fuckers aren't making transactions with it. All this bitcoin is being hoarded right now. All these promises of it being in every shop all over the world simply haven't come true.
Comparing bitcoin transactions to cash or visa etc is kind of pointless because as it stands they don't serve the same purpose.
Gold holds up as a comparison but if the best you are doing is being more ethical than gold its a low bar.

LivDiv wrote:

The other point raised is that crypto is low energy usage once mined. The problem I see here is that these fuckers aren't making transactions with it. All this bitcoin is being hoarded right now. All these promises of it being in every shop all over the world simply haven't come true.

Yeah, this is often overlooked. It's not about the raw energy consumption. It's about waste.

It's a waste to have every miner in the world competing for a block, when all of that effort bar one machine is thrown away. And ultimately, like you touch on, to what end? What is the point, other than "durp, make number go up"?

Bitcoin as a proof of concept was great. Now it's completely toxic, as is the entire crypto space.

I think most conversation revolves around the mining electricity use argument, but hardware costs are a factor too. Chip/GPU shortages are often linked to mining.

Again, I think if there was some kind of positive contribution to humanity from this stuff then the environmental impact would seem less severe.

poprock wrote:

“Hey, we’re more ethical than conflict diamonds too!”

*Gets note from legal team.

“Hey, we’re arguably more ethical than conflict diamonds too!”

This made me chuckle.

Is a renewable source of energy?

Proof-of-Stake? That's where you stake your "coins" on a node and earn interest? The nodes are likely to be centralised I guess (so much for decentralisation!)? Just another mechanism to get the public to buy Internet magic money in the hope they will "make number go up".

Is there a way to have a Blockchain without having to pump constant Internet magic money in? That interests me.

Hell, you could just centralise it and call it a "database".

Magic money.

.

The language is a bit confusing right now I think.

As far as I understand...

Blockchain is the tool and the catch all term. There is nothing necessarily wrong or right with blockchain it is what it is and its application can be useful or not.

Crypto is a prefix attached to a type of application of Block Chain. Crypto-Currency, Crypto-Art.

Bitcoin, Dogecoin etc are types of Crypto-currency.

However because currency is the most reported on, in fact for a good while the only reported on use Crypto has been used as shorthand for Crypto-currency. In a similar way Bitcoin has become the Hoover of Crypto-currency. The result ends up being in many minds all blockchain is Bitcoin.

Blockchain = secure distributed ledger = magic spreadsheet in the cloud.

That’s the bit people don’t need to understand. We just need to understand that it’s a magic database.

Cryptocurrency = money system secured against data on the blockchain instead of gold etc. = virtual currency.

It feels off to people because it feels like it’s secured on something intangible. Our actual money is too, but that’s underwritten by the Bank of England, or whoever.

NFTs = ownership data ‘tokens’ securely stored on the blockchain = virtual ownership certificates.

NFT’s are agreements that you own a thing, even if that thing isn’t traditionally ‘ownable’. And they’re usually bought and sold with cryptocurrency.

Bitcoins have always been fucking Pokemon cards and that's all they ever will be.

Harsh on Pokemon cards that are at least a relatively entertaining, entry level card game

Tether is a scam

This is probably of interest to yous crypto enthusiasts -