this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024

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Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power — government now requiring commercial miners to report energy consumption (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 6 months ago by misk@sopuli.xyz to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] Badeendje@lemmy.world 125 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Electricity is too cheap for these uses.

[–] aniki@lemm.ee 104 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Why is commercial power so cheap and residential so expensive? We could fix two problems by balancing that back.

[–] Deceptichum@kbin.social 75 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Because companies > people in the eyes of the state.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 15 points 6 months ago

It depends on which state, which is even more sad.

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[–] Nighed@sffa.community 28 points 6 months ago (3 children)

My understanding is tha some commercial/industrial users will get a highly variable tariff. This may be cheaper much of the time, but can get ridiculously expensive at times of high demand.

The difference is that a bitcoin farmer can shut down at those expensive times, but a home user still needs to heat/cool their house, run their fridge etc, so the savings cancel out. Because of this, averaging the costs works out easier/better for most home consumers

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[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 120 points 6 months ago (3 children)

They don't produce anything except some numbers. A total waste of energy. I had to laugh when this guy I know who is very "progressive" and environmentally concerned got pissy when I pointed out how much energy was wasted on bitcoin mining just because he was into it.

[–] escaped_cruzader@lemmy.world 36 points 6 months ago (3 children)

My comment here is a much better use of energy

[–] GhostMatter@lemmy.ca 20 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Recording my next fart would be a better use of energy than Bitcoin.

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[–] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 32 points 6 months ago (6 children)

Right this is the fundamental problem. There needs to be some value to the Blockchain application which the crypto tokens support beyond just token speculation.

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[–] furzegulo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 97 points 6 months ago (124 children)

fuck crypto shit ffs

[–] WallEx@feddit.de 28 points 6 months ago (3 children)

More like fuck crypto mining. There are cryptos that dont need mining.

[–] FaceDeer@kbin.social 12 points 6 months ago (4 children)

If there's no demand for a particular crypto then people mining it can't sell it and go out of business. People mine this stuff because other people will pay them for it.

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[–] rusticus@lemm.ee 73 points 6 months ago (38 children)

JFC how long do we have to wait for a carbon tax

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[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 67 points 6 months ago (1 children)

There is no good reason why this isn't illegal.

[–] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 22 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Not a good reason, but money.

[–] TheAlbacor@lemmy.world 20 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Not even real money, tech bro phantom bullshit.

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[–] Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de 60 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Crypto is the digital coal of our times.

[+] an0nym0us@lemmy.dbzer0.com 34 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (6 children)

[deleted]

[–] Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de 29 points 6 months ago (4 children)

With the disadvantage of large stakeholders dominating the network and undermining the decentralization.

[–] parpol@programming.dev 21 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Which is just as true with mining, except money is staked into mining rigs.

[–] FaceDeer@kbin.social 13 points 6 months ago (11 children)

It's actually more true for proof-of-work mining than it is for proof-of-stake. PoW mining has strong economies of scale, a professional miner with a warehouse full of mining rigs and a special deal with an industrial electricity supplier can churn out hashes more cheaply than a home miner can. Whereas the hardware needed for PoS is negligible so there's nowhere near that disparity between small and large miners.

Also, under Ethereum at least (the largest proof-of-stake chain and the one I'm most familiar with the workings of), stakers don't "dominate" the network. They have no decision-making power over what the consensus rules are. If the users decide to upgrade to a new version and the stakers refuse to go along with that or try to push an upgrade that the users don't want then those stakers lose their stake after the resulting fork.

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[–] wahming@monyet.cc 48 points 6 months ago (25 children)

Whoever Satoshi was, I wonder how he's responding to the thought that he's personally contributed more to global warming than the average billionaire.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 37 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Modern day gold rush.

Digging up more and more dirt for diminishing returns while destroying the environment.

Bitcoin using more and more power for essentially the same.

[–] darthfabulous42069@lemm.ee 34 points 6 months ago (16 children)

You'd think with all of the money they're pulling in, they'd invest in solar panels or something to lower their overhead.

Or am I making the mistake of approaching the situation with common sense?

[–] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's Bitcoin, of course common sense isn't involved.

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[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 30 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (61 children)

Misleading title - the problem is not "crypto", it's pretty much all Bitcoin and the people against the change in the consensus mechanism. Out of the top ~~10~~ 9 coins in market cap, Bitcoin is the only one using proof of work, which demands such high energy requirements.

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[–] baltakatei@sopuli.xyz 27 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (15 children)

Ultimately, mining should be banned from the surface of Earth. Let miners build orbital solar panel infrastructure close to the Sun where power is plentiful. See Bitcoin developer Peter Todd's 2017-09-10 presentation on the subject (transcript).

Edit: Fixed URL. Edit2; Add transcript link.

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[–] PanArab@lemmy.world 26 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Destroying the environment and not even for real money

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