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The 2025 global carbon footprint of bitcoin is estimated by Digiconomist at 98.10 Mt CO2, comparable to that of Qatar.

It’s electrical energy use at 175.87 TWh is comparable to a country like Poland.

At 48.36 kt, bitcoin will produce as much e-waste as the Netherlands.

At 2,772 GL it will consume as much water as Switzerland.

Bitcoin is evil, true evil.

digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energ…

in reply to Gerry McGovern

it's not so much the energy consumption. It's that we get NOTHING in return as a society. We are suffering a harm (energy consumption, climate change, materials) to buy another harm (speculative financial assets, i.e. a casino, plus money laundering and a business model for ransomware).
#bitcoin
This entry was edited (7 months ago)

Gerry McGovern reshared this.

in reply to Gerry McGovern

Blockchain is a slow, cumbersome, badly designed database that is incredibly energy and material intense to run.

1 single bitcoin transaction:

712.41 kgCO2: carbon footprint of 1,578,956 VISA transactions,

1277.28 kWh of electricity: power consumption of an average U.S. household over 43.78 days

351.20 grams of e-waste: equivalent to the weight of 2.14 iPhones 12

20,130 liters of water: amount of water in a backyard swimming pool

digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energ…

in reply to Gerry McGovern

Serious question, is it even remotely possible to make crypto currency sustainable?

In a couple of years quantum computers will solve the crypto currency issue by instantly breaking it. Meanwhile all that computing power is wasting huge amounts of resources.

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in reply to Frank Heijkamp

@alterelefant No. The entire tech industry has built its core business model on the destruction of energy and materials. Planned obsolescence of everything including our environment from the tech bros who hope they'll escape to Mars where they can occupy and devour a new world.
in reply to Gerry McGovern

@alterelefant can’t tell you how much crap the EU has had to endure from tech bro’s and current US government for our derictves pushing energy efficient and sustainable solutions.
in reply to Frank Heijkamp

@alterelefant Not all cryptocurrencies are based on proof of work. Proof of work is not sustainable. Other consensus methods might be.

For instance, the FBA (federated byzantine agreement) is a nice decentralized consensus protocol that does not consume a lot of energy and material; it is just "sending messages", like an email server.

I do not care much about cryptocurrencies (I owned like 40 BAT from using Brave and that's it), but I like smart protocols and cryptography :)

in reply to F. Maury ⏚

@x_cli
But there always has to be a cost in creating these currencies, doesn't there? Otherwise, where is the perceived value? And, in one way or another, the cost is always borne by our environment: energy, water, materials.

@alterelefant

in reply to Gerry McGovern

@alterelefant I do not think a currency value comes from the cost of producing it, but from its scarcity and the perceived value of the amenities you can buy with it. But I am not well versed into these things: as I said, I am interested in protocols, not cryptocurrencies :)
in reply to Gerry McGovern

Your information are focusing on one type of Blockchain: Proof of Work.
There are alternatives available. So please, your onesided statetement is at least wrong.

(So this is only true for Bitcoin etc. but not Blockchain in general)

This entry was edited (7 months ago)
in reply to Gerry McGovern

How is Bitcoin consuming energy (in more detail please)...

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in reply to Gerry McGovern

Not reposting as the preview image says “make bitcoin sustainable” which is impossible. You cannot make proof of work (proof of waste) sustainable. It’s the opposite of sustainable. Otherwise would have loved to have boosted it as the article is very informative.
in reply to Aral Balkan

@aral You're 100% correct. There's nothing remotely sustainable about bitcoin or crypto. It's a giant environment-destroying scam.

And this idea that if bitcoin was using 100% 'renewable' energy that everything would be ok, that's another scam. There is no such thing as 'renewable' energy and there is no such thing as 'sustainable' bitcoin.

in reply to Gerry McGovern

“#Bitcoin (and other #crypto currencies) is like rat poison squared.” - Warren Buffett

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mastodon - Link to source
Gerry McGovern
@funkybuddha Don't have but I'm sure it's huge.
in reply to Gerry McGovern

All proof of work crypto is the absolute worst. Massive environmental impact for near zero utility.
This entry was edited (7 months ago)

Gerry McGovern reshared this.

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mastodon - Link to source
Gerry McGovern
@burnitdown
Couldn’t agree more. From top to bottom, Bitcoin is a criminal scam and everyone involved knows it.
@hypostase @alterelefant
in reply to Gerry McGovern

Banks, Crypto all unsustainable?

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in reply to #FreeSchool ⬅️ (see hashtag)

@freeschool Good points. The whole system is pretty rotten and unsustainable because its foundation is infinite growth on a finite planet. What we need is degrowth. A massive reduction in the use of energy and materials. What we're getting, from bitcoin to AI, is a massive acceleration.
Unknown parent

Banks vs Crypto (both ARE similar ! Neither great !)...

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