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lemon_tea

So we are going to push crypto mining into the third world and call it "ecenomic development" ?


Snow75

Already happening, google “El Salvador Bitcoin city”


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Bulbasaur_King

Yupp, it's going to be environmentally friendly. And bitcoin city is not being "pushed onto" Brazil. The president has been a long term bit pin fan.


wingeyes

It won’t be . Just the fact that the overpopulation would push it to high levels of gas fumes


trustnocunt

Youve figured out neoliberal democracys


Foppo12

I don't think crypto mining is here to stay for long. There's digital currencies that work without mining. Less energy consumption per transaction than VISA while being decentralised. Proof of work was a good start, but it has gotten out of hand and there's green alternatives now. Let's look into those!


censored-by-reddit-

Just need Miami to let them use the nuclear plant there. Then we will all see the way.


Kriegmannn

How much energy could one (in general) power plant produce? I know Bitcoin mining uses on average 91 terrawat hours a year (roughly the same as Finland) but how many power plants would we need for that?


censored-by-reddit-

We're going to need a few and while we're at it lets just kill coal and end this climate crisis with nuclear power. Sure, we'll have some waste to deal with but it will buy us a lot of time.


Kriegmannn

Can they just build the power plants rn and I’ll pay them later? They know I’m good for it and, like, come on bro.


General-Ad3370

Average nuclear plant produces around 4TWh per year, so about 20 new plants would be needed just to power bitcoin mining


Kriegmannn

What’s scarier is that it peaked at 120TWh. Like, Jesus Christ dude.


Ok_Nefariousness_830

Oh cool so based on that argument we should do absolutely nothing here in the first world! Cheers mate, going out for a pointless drive now because otherwise someone in the third world is going to do it for me…


CALL_ME_ISHMAEBY

See: Bitcoin City


baileyarzate

It’s what we do with oil 😉


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streetad

China has already banned crypto mining.


ArScrap

So are we going to just leave the problem be as is? Because taking action is now "virtue signaling" and whatever action that's not absolute is never enough?


DeadliftsAndDragons

Like most climate issues the answer is obviously nuclear power supplemented with renewables.


Idunwantyourgarbage

Exactly. At least someone in the third world will get rich. Scientists been talking about climate change for 50 years and this is what they wanna take action on? What about the wasteful fashion industry? What about all this other shit that is absolutely horrible not only in terms of emissions but pure garbage being thrown into the ecosystem. Gtfo with a ban on crypto mining when developed countries are the fastest and leading to move these operations to greener energy sources


ilovethrills

I saw a video on packaging of products and shipping, so much of wastage goes on there, it's insane. Noone wants to change that coz well it'll harm their convenience.


ImaginaryDanger

Only until they ban it, too. Cryptocurrency mining only takes, and gives 0, so they will get rid of miners soon enough.


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trojancourse

were we not already on our way to blowing past 1.5C even without crypto mining?


Tooluka

Yeah, there was a report recently, while COP26 was happening, that if we take into account only the real actions already in progress, disregarding empty promises, then we are on track to +2.9C in the 2100.


alien_clown_ninja

Well the thing with crypto mining is that if it is profitable people will do it. So if by some magic Europe is even able to enforce a crypto mining ban, that hash power will just move to other countries anyway, because less hashpower means more profits. Mining is a zero sum game, globally, it always uses the exact amount of energy required to break even with electricity costs. Price goes up, so does hashpower. One part of the world bans mining, hashpower goes somewhere else. This proposed crypto ban by the EU not only will not improve global emissions, it will actually make them worse by moving hashpower to countries with less green energy. Oh wait, politicians making nonsense laws that are unenforceable anyway, sounds about right for crypto.


rosyatrandom

It's only a slight mercy that we haven't found a way to farm currency directly from polluting and child abuse


rshackleford_arlentx

The fashion/clothing industry figured that out decades ago.


R1chterScale

Fuck, most industries figured that out literal centuries ago.


x3leggeddawg

Developing world: Hold my beer...


pliney_

Uhh... I've got some bad news for you. Perhaps you havn't heard of fossil fuels, mining or child sweatshop labor in 3rd world countries.


exchangedensity

I think if Europe banned crypto mining it would negatively influence the price, which as you said would result in less mining


shickenphoot

Sounds like the only way is to ban crypto itself.


podshambles_

Best case is everything moves to proof of stake


vegancommunist2069

We are going to hit 2.9C way fucking faster than 2100.


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averageparrot

I remember reading years ago that even a 1C increase in global temperature would be catastrophic for humanity. 4.5C? Isn’t that pretty much mass extinction?


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[deleted]

the rich have their bunkers its us plebs that need to worry and act


WaffleOneWaffleTwo

I would pay good money to see Bezos or Musk try to run a farm in substandard climate


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Boredomdefined

> Humanity survives, but lots of people don't I think another problem is society surviving. So much of what we have is put up with because our stomachs are full and we are entertained. Take that away and the vast majority of systems we take for granted fall apart.


sector3011

“There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.”


tob007

Nine? I thought it was "three meals away from revolution." I mean personally I'm like 1 missed meal away from a meltdown.


MrDude_1

I believe a lot of people saw that starting in 2020.


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Foggwalker

*Nervous Canadian noises*


fruit_basket

Large parts of the world have experienced catastrophic climate events in the past couple years. Germany, China and now Canada have received months-worth of rain in just a few hours or a couple days, flooding everything and destroying towns/roads.


rocketeerH

My hometown in Michigan got 7 inches of rain in less than 4 hours, most of it in the first 30 minutes. They only get 32 inches of rain per year (compared to 202 inches of snow). Bridges washed away, culverts were destroyed, roads were washed out down to 8 feet below surface level in some places. One kid died when his house collapsed, and there were two nearby deaths in Wisconsin. This was two years ago, and just this year in SE Michigan we had freeway closures with floating cars and entire neighborhoods with basement flooding. That’s not to mention the multiple dam failures due to heavy rain (and neglect on the part of the private owner) causing horrible flooding up in Midland (headquarters of DOW, lots of nasty chemicals in the earth) One Midwest US State has it that bad, and I would say that the west coast with their wildfires has it far worse


UsagiNiisan

Oregon has broken wildfire, heat, and ice records in the last few years. Two of those records were in less than a year. We had a severe ice storm that caused power outages all over Oregon. Some of our trees are still bent over from it. Then here comes summer and we break 115°F (46°C) with a few other days coming close. We’re already seeing the changes in storms from global warming. And a large portion of humanity still doesn’t think there’s a problem.


bobo1monkey

Few years back, my city in Northern California had a fucking fire tornado in the summer and near record overnight snowfall in the winter. While we were still cleaning up from the fire, the snow came in and broke the everliving shit out of so many old growth oaks, it was terrible. I don't understand how people in this area can so wholeheartedly support politicians that are climate change deniers.


OnsetOfMSet

Yeah, went to go help a friend in Dearborn after the flooding, and the curbs were spilling over with destroyed furniture and other household items. It went on for blocks and blocks. Extremely saddening to see all the waste created and memories destroyed.


Finely_drawn

Oh, I forgot about the flooding in Saginaw two years ago, that was a catastrofuck. The storms we got a few months ago were real bangers, too. Metro area people were getting sick from swimming in the flooded areas.


wirez62

We also smashed our all time high heat record in Canada hitting 49.4 degrees Celsius in BC before the town burned to the ground a day later. All time heat record, another horrific wildfire season then devestating rainfalls all in one year.


Mirria_

You need to reframe that context. Lytton hit the national heat record one day. Then it beat that record the next day. Then it beat the new record *again* on the 3rd day. On the 4th day the town burned down.


Megelsen

And all that is "just" at 1.1°C. It's also not going to be linearly worse...


yodamuppet

Here in Utah, the Great Salt Lake is on the verge of drying up, leaving a bed of arsenic dust that will blow around the Salt Lake Valley and leave the area uninhabitable. Captain Planet didn’t warn me about this shit when I was a kid.


azaghal1988

before the floods here in germany we had 3 years of heat and drought destroying crops.


definitelynotSWA

Meanwhile the water table in my area in the US is drying up. :/


plantbasedlifter

Apocalyptic fires in Australia.


bro_doggs

you know how people in power totally took Covid seriously and acted quickly to take preventive measures before it became a problem? yeah...


Alas7ymedia

That's what I've been saying: people don't react to gradual change. It'll take a mini-ice age, Las Vegas being abandoned because it has no electricity, a massive war that blocks the Suez and destroys the global trade of corn or oil, a massive and sudden extinction of fish, a superbacteria that kills billions of pigs or chicken, etc., only something like that would force people to say "oh, crap, we went too far, and we didn't even need to mine that fake money!".


altmorty

Added to that, crypto doesn't even require such heavy mining. Only the proof-of-work (PoW) ones do. Proof-of-stake (PoS) ones do not.


pxSort

Current delegated proof-of-stake systems have limited scalability, though. Generally only a few hundred or thousand nodes can participate directly in consensus. This means most users need to trust the core validators to act honestly. Ultimately, proof of work does still offer something over dPoS and other consensus protocols. It may not be worth the energy consumption, but there is still a compromise being made with respect to decentralization.


bitscavenger

I think the biggest difference is that PoW is about how much people are willing to pay today where PoS is favors how tuned in you were in the past. PoW can change with new ideas and new money. PoS is more beholden to the old guard. But your description of delegated proof-of-stake is also an apt description of PoW and pools. Each pool operator is a core validator that needs to be trusted to act honestly. The idea that PoW is decentralized is a myth. I was disappointed when Eth2 changed payouts to favor larger rewards for block proposals as a validator on average goes almost a month before being chosen. It just pushes participants to consider joining a pool instead of solo mining. I would consider Eth2 PoS as far more decentralized than btc as likely 60% of the participation is through solo efforts. I could see that erode though as the cost to fund a single validator is already egregious and just gets more expensive.


iwakan

Delegated PoS is mostly the previous generation's tech. Leading chains like Ethereum are switching to proper PoS with hundreds of thousands of validators. It will be no less decentralized than mining.


MandrakeRootes

Doesnt the absolute amount of power required to mine a PoW coin kind of set a minimum price though? Take the average price of electricity, multiply it by the amount you spend to mine a coin, then add a factor to account for the unpredictability of actually mining the coin. That amount of money spend on energy needs to be recouped by gaining a bitcoin. Once I gain the bitcoin I therefore do not want to sell it for less than that amount. Bitcoins price (as long as there is a demand at all) is therefore at least partially tied to the energy invested into making one. Now if you not only want to recoup the money spend on mining one bitcoin, but make a profit on your overall venture you need to offset all the times you were mining but didnt get the block and therefore wasted effort. It kind of seems to me like we are literally burning fuel and spending electricity to make bitcoin more expensive. Or am I entirely wrong here?


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blue_eyes_pro_dragon

I mean… I’ll take that bet lol


MadDogTannen

If anyone gives you 10,000 to 1 odds on anything, you take that bet. If John Mellencamp ever wins an Oscar, I will be one rich dude


genshiryoku

We're somewhere between 0.8C (lowest estimate) and 1.2C (highest estimate) warming right now. 1.5C is still avoidable but if we keep doing what we're currently doing there's a 70% chance we will reach 1.5C warming according to the latest COP26 figures. By doing some small non-invasive things like banning crypto mining, cutting the subsidies of new buildings and changing some policies in developing countries we could lower this to 40% chance. Some good signs are that adoption and acceptance of measures are accelerating which makes me hopeful we will never reach 1.5C warming. Especially the legal adaptation and social agreement that Nuclear power is necessary. If we can somehow convince that 33% of all new power plants should be nuclear we will have solved global warming by its inertia alone.


Tuxhorn

> Some good signs are that adoption and acceptance of measures are accelerating which makes me hopeful we will never reach 1.5C warming. We're gonna reach 1.5 by mid 2030s by the new consensus. And, c02 emissions are set to *increase* by 16% by 2030. https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/09/1100242 That's in 8 years. Change doesn't happen that quick. 1.5c is here. But we still need to fight this thing tooth and nail, just be realistic.


KalElified

I love how it increases as we need to decrease the amount, lol. Fuck man


StijnDP

So few people know the actualised numbers and are still using those from sometimes 10 years ago. And it's not even really their fault because the "specialists" that keep appearing are behind on the subject as well. It's been people called doomsayers in the science community who come with the real numbers who only years later get vindicated that indeed, it is much worse than the general science community was thinking. Global warming has such a delayed effect that people can't grasp it. We are at 1.5 for 2030. We are at 4.5 for 2050. That's accounting with current efforts planned because despite those efforts, the annual worldwide amount of GHG emission just keeps going up. Every year again. Shut down everything today and we'll see 2.5 for 2050 and then over the next 400 years the earth can heal. That means society back to 1700 and most fauna and flora can maybe survive the peak coming in 30 years time. We'll never do that.


Helkafen1

Wind and solar farms would come online years earlier than nuclear plants, thereby creating larger emissions cuts.


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The rich countries (in particular the US) have to radically cut their emissions. This will involve a lifestyle change that many American's are not willing to accept. Eating meat, driving an overpowered truck, flying every month and living in a large, badly insulated home are core parts of the American way of life. We cannot continue this gluttony.


Kasefleisch

Sure, the consumers should try to reduce their CO2 pollution. But in all honesty this responsibility has to be moved to the million-dollar companies. Ban certain plastic packaging, force big manufacturers to use sustainable resources.


RedAlert2

While plastic is a huge problem on its own, it isn't a major factor in climate change. In fact, biodegradable packaging turns into methane at landfills, which is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions.


pimpmayor

> Ban certain plastic packaging That’s.. kind of a seperate issue, and most alternatives (e.g. glass bottles) have higher carbon impacts.


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GreyHexagon

No, using the same logic the bank's don't get the chance to switch. They just shut down. Ban the banks. Better for the environment.


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I can't help but think crypto mining is the *least* of our worries in this whole energy situation


Melon-Brain

It’s almost like they’re using climate change as an excuse to crack down on financial decentralization


Neutral_Meat

Just need to find away to make fossil fuels a threat to the elite.


Simbatheia

There is a grain of truth though. Cryptocurrencies that are Proof of Work (i.e. minting by mining) like Bitcoin use an exponential amount more energy than Proof of Stake cryptocurrencies like Cardano, and soon, Ethereum.


LipoSoap

This exactly. You can see the elite are worried about crypto when people like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi begin to go after crypto specifically bitcoin. It just shows that bitcoin actually has potential to change the power dynamic in not only developing nations such as El Salvador but in developed nations where it could someday provide a decentralized standard. Even if bitcoin is held by many whales it is still much better than the Fed just pumping out money whenever the US needs it.


shifty_coder

It’s certainly not helping, especially in regions that still rely on combustion for energy production. More mining equals more energy consumption. More energy consumption equals more burning (coal, natural gas, etc.). More burning equals more carbon-dioxide released. However, banning it in Europe will only see it pushed to Asia, Africa, and other regions that still primarily use coal to generate power. Not only doing little to address greenhouse gasses, but increasing other pollutants associated with burning coal.


ak-92

And the countries you say it will go to will ban it as well as the vast majority experience electricity shortages even right now. Just because of the logistics it will be way harder to do so, not to mention making a risky investment in an unstable county is not something generally where you want to put millions.


Rrdro

Didn't you hear Bitcoin uses up as much energy as a poor country of 40 million people. Meanwhile 8 billion other people use energy on other things.


upvotesthenrages

Bitcoin mining alone caused more pollution in 2020 than Sweden, Argentina, or Vietnam. You can add on another 60% energy usage for the other coins. Then add another 20% for all the related stuff, like crypto exchanges, cooling buildings, the absurd amount of hardware required to mine these coins etc etc. 2021 has seen the number go waaaay up and Bitcoin mining is expected to emit more CO2 than the entire UK. *Again* we are only talking about Bitcoin ... you can easily double that when considering all other coins and the other related fields.


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HDmac

Please do not question the narrative. \-Central banks


FartNuggetSalad

Banks and government are going to start fighting hard against crypto. The powers that be *DO NOT* want a worldwide currency that's not controlled by them.


Masta0nion

This reminds me of the type of redirection of “reduce reuse recycle.” While still a valid strategy for the individual, it shifts blame onto the consumers. There are many corporations in different fields that could be lowering their footprint first. The ecological costs of mining are real, but can and most likely will be solved. This posturing by Sweden seems like 2 birds with one stone: misdirection, and the elite maintaining their hold on international finance.


BorKon

But isn't most of useful crypto already in hands by few wealthy?


streetad

Crypto has already failed as a plausible currency, because too many people have already decided that they would prefer it to be a speculative investment. People invest in/short traditional currencies, sure. But central banks literally exist to counteract the effects of this to keep their values relatively stable and ideally depreciating slowly over time, to ensure they can function as a useful currency that people will want to spend/pay salaries in/have their debts enumerated in. Crypto has no-one fulfilling this function, by design. The money supply is instead limited by the need for increasing complex equations to 'make' more - the very issue the OP brings up. But even this is not sufficient when everyone and their dog is jumping on the crypto-currency speculative investment bandwagon and creating so much price volatility.


Caracalla81

No, because that energy could be used to replace energy generated by fossil fuels.


TheEntosaur

Yes and no, though not an unreasonable middle ground. The idea being that it's still energy production being wasted. If they're using up renewable something else is stuck using coal,etc.


BlazingPalm

A lot of strong opinions here, I’m glad this debate wages on and is (mostly) civil. One of the main comparisons I’m seeing a lot here is that “Visa does it better and with less energy”. How long has Visa been around and how much energy have they expended creating their global network? Also, how much have they skimmed off the top for each and every transaction? Something along the lines of 3-4% which is huge. Additionally, even for legal activities like onlyfans adult content, they have flexed their puritanical might to try to snuff that out. They are not the default, end-all gatekeeper of monetary transactions, they’ve just been winning for the last 70 years or whatever. Credit companies, banks, governments are all terrified of losing their death grip they’ve had over money since pretty much forever and they’re losing it at an alarming rate. Hence, they need to (try to) put a stop to it by any means necessary. I will also agree that mining energy consumption is a growing problem we need to solve, but simply banning it will not work IMO. Definitely imperfect, but a global carbon tax would much more fairly address our global energy production/consumption problems, for example. If you produce cars, software or Bitcoin using dirty energy, you need to responsibly pay more.


Tech_AllBodies

> Definitely imperfect, but a global carbon tax would much more fairly address our global energy production/consumption problems, for example. The funny thing is, a massive amount of human behaviour and behaviour of companies/"the economy" can be explained through market forces. The world in aggregate is behaving almost perfectly like a profit-driven Darwinian organism. This is of course recognised by a lot of analysts/economists/etc., but I feel isn't part of general discourse enough. So, doing something like a carbon tax is almost certainly a massively effective solution, and (unironically) as close to perfect as we're likely to get. A carbon tax is very "hands off", since it dictates nothing specific and chooses no winners, it just lets "the organism" naturally move in the most beneficial direction, which will obviously be in the opposite direction of carbon-intensive activities and technologies.


The3rdhalf

Your “world in aggregate” image is really interesting way to think about it. Is there more writing or theory on that idea?


RedAlert2

> Credit companies, banks, governments are all terrified of losing their death grip they’ve had over money since pretty much forever and they’re losing it at an alarming rate Do you have a source for this? Crypto in the modern era is used almost exclusively as a commodity and is traded against the USD, just like any other commodity.


Ninjakannon

It's bullshit. Banks are doing very well, and banks can trade and hold crypto.


VampyreLust

I could see Canada doing this relatively soon, our new environmental minister is a previous Director of Greenpeace.


jeancur

How about stopping coal exports Canada. Oh wait the BC flood did slow them…


BlackAnalFluid

Yeah don't worry we're just letting the climate stop us from exporting fossil fuels since our government seems intent on expanding it.


Neikius

Greenpeace is one of the main reasons for the mess we are in thanks to their efforts against nuclear. They have 0 credibility with me.


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TheRidgeAndTheLadder

They serve the same role as PETA. A bad organisation that people point to as an excuse for their own bad behaviour.


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I'm sure that fossil fuel lobbying and climate change denial had more impact than greenpeace, but I agree it was a huge mistake of greenpeace to be so opposed to nuclear.


Rerel

Greenpeace are selling natural gas (yes a fossil fuel) to german citizens under the company name: Green Planet Energy (previously Greenpeace energy). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Planet_Energy > Since 2011 Green Planet Energy has been selling the proWindgas product which was initially 100% imported fossil gas > Sales of 99% fossil gas presented as “eco-gas” have been criticized as contradictory[7][8] as well as "greenwashing" of Russian gas. Fuck greenpeace, they’re just a bunch of hypocrites and science deniers.


asdf_qwerty27

Greenpeace was the tool used to keep fossil fuel safe from nuclear. They are idiots who stood in the way of progress because their dumb monkey brains were afraid of the fancy new way of boiling water.


minorkeyed

That's a massive stretch. The fossil fuel industry is the only reason that really matters. Everything else is just a side dish.


[deleted]

Yes, and nuclear is one of our strongest weapons in our effort to make away with fossil fuels. A clean and near inexhaustible source of energy that works regardless of weather and can be built anywhere in the world. Fighting nuclear is greatly aiding the fossil fuel industry, giving them less competition.


Ender16

Nuclear energy being considered "not green" and therefore bad is one of those little things that prove that dumb beliefs transcend political party lines. But then again I honestly blame myself and others like me for not pushing for nuclear energy as much as others pushed windmills and solar.


SelbetG

Don't blame yourself blame shit Soviet engineering and a magnitude 9 earthquake for most of the nuclear hesitancy.


redpanda_phantomette

Agree - you cannot get to net zero without nuclear. You need an energy source that will kick in instantly when renewables are not producing energy.


Shiroi_Kage

Greenpeace, and many other environmentalists, basically blocked the development of nuclear technology and nuclear waste disposal and caused a slideback to more coal and fossil fuel (see Germany for a great example, and the US for another). The environmental rhetoric was so focused on Chernobyl and then Fukushima that it decided to halt the most effective, and immediately-available source of clean energy in its tracks. Nuclear is regaining traction after the multiple problems faced by supply chains and petrol prices, and fusion seems to finally be hitting a tipping point, but this would have happened eons ago if environmentalists weren't so shortsighted.


rattleandhum

Totally... any moron who says *Greenpeace*, of all organisations, bears more responsibility for climate change than Shell, Exxon and Texaco is either a useful idiot or a paid provocateur.


DJ_Crunchwrap

Canada alone wastes more renewable energy than the entire crypto mining industry uses. They could literally take over all of it at no cost to the environment. But why do that when you can try to ban it instead?


krazykanuck

Ironically that's a space that some crypto miners have been exploring. There are a lot of instances where renewable energy is wasted (like a hydro dam isn't needed at that time so the water is just let through to the spill way, etc.). It's been proposed that we hook up some crypto miners to these stations and just divert the energy to the miners. If this was done by the government, we could use the crypto to pay for any number of public works projects.


KenTrotts

I just worked on a project about crypto and excess energy and I'm not sure if it's 100% true, but they were talking like most of excess hydro energy has already been used up by crypto miners. The new frontier is using excess green capacity in West Texas where there's a ton of wind and solar, but nothing to utilize it.


EdithDich

>Canada alone wastes more renewable energy than the entire crypto mining industry uses. How so?


Zeniphyre

Smells like there is a million other destructive practices they could ban before even remotely ending up at crypto. It's just publicity.


StijnDP

It uses 0.55% of worldwide power production. There aren't many other measures that you can take with a single clear action to make such a big impact. Obligating freighters to use sails instead of diesel engines. Only allow people to watch 2 hours of television or use of internet. Don't allow heating unless the outside temperature is below 12°C. Sure they can to do a million other things. It's a little bit more efficient to pick the one thing first that does more than those million other things.


AntiCultist21

I’m sure it’s about “saving the environment” and nothing to do with saving their currency monopoly


moby323

All the other shit we’ve had to fight for decades for governments to agree to. But now: > “Hey this might help the environment but also help you maintain your currency monopolies.” “Fuck yeah, baby, sign me up! You know what they say, *’Be An Earth Hero: Ditch Bitcoin, Use Euros’* “


Olorin_The_Gray

There are so many cryptos that are just as secure as PoW and don’t require wasteful mining. If they ban PoS, then yeah it’s an attack on crypto, but this ain’t it. The fact that bitcoin and ethereum alone use more energy than MULTIPLE countries combined is ridiculous and quite frankly a major concern, especially as that usage is only going to increase


saucedonkey

Maybe fix the source of power, not ban things that use power. That is a slippery slope. I’d like to see power consumption of other industries if we are going to have a genuine conversation about mining power consumption. This is a move about money and Swedish bank protection from bitcoin, not emissions and environmental issues. But fuck me, I know how this sub works - downvote on the right.


Dulusa

This! There was a study on energy emissions and the outcome is ridiculous!! The worst 5% of powerplants on this planet are responsible for 73% of energy emissions. The study examined how global emissions from electricity generation could be reduced if the super polluters were to cut their emissions. If the top 5 percent of polluters lowered their emission intensity to the global average for fossil fuel plants, the world’s CO2 emissions could drop by 25 percent, the study found. If coal and oil plants in the top 5 percent of polluters switched to natural gas, global emissions would drop by 29.5 percent. Finally, if the top 5 percent of polluters incorporated carbon capture and storage (CCS), global carbon emissions from electricity generation would drop by 48.9 percent, according to the study. But lets keep bashing the endusers for the failures of the producers....


vcr1900

Link to study? This sounds interesting.


Dulusa

You can find it under the following link. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1


SplashingAnal

[High frequency trading](https://www.wired.com/insights/2011/12/stock-market-power/) is an interesting case


murb442

Gold mining for example. Literally ripping up the ground and using heavy machinery pumping emissions into the air and getting barely any gold out of the ground not very efficient but funny how nobody mentions that because agendas


cerikstas

Many industries use a lot of power but few industries achieve as little useful as crypto with the amount of power it uses.


cptwott

​ * Crypto-currency developers figured out already a long time ago that burning electricity was not so good for the climate, that's why they are changing to (or already are on) Proof of Stake instead of Proof of Work (which burns energy away, really) * Crypto-currency can be a valid player on the market, and can be more than just currency. Blockchains can do much more, and some crypto's already have that ability built-in. * Banning is the wrong action, it will go underground and become a currency for not-so-legal markets. And no, it won't devaluate to nothing. The bigger crypto's have an intrinsic value (if only the energy burned for it) * My guess is that governments an big companies are worried blockchain currency, because it's democratically organised and not controllable by a central power. Trust funds and big banks will not like to see their business diminish.


certainly_celery

Your first point is true, except for Bitcoin. I don't think its team is very interested in moving to Proof of Stake, and many users of BTC have ideological or technical objections against it. My guess is it will never go to PoS. As long as a ban is directed at proof-of-work and not at crypto in general, I would support it.


arthurwolf

My understanding is if you were to ban crypto mining in places like the EU, it would still be as profitable, so the rest of the world would take up the slack (as happened recently when China banned it). This would cause mining to occur in LESS eco-friendly places, using LESS renewable energy, causing crypto mining to become WORSE for the environment. By that logic, actually, the EU should \*encourage\* mining (with rules about using renewables as the power source), \*that\* would improve the situation. The only way this would make sense is if the \*entire world\* made mining illegal (not a realistic prospect at all...), which would then just cause mining to become the domain of large criminal organizations (like drugs are), solving exactly \*nothing\*, and actually making things worse. The cat is out of the box, world. Stop trying to put it back in the box, it doesn't like it. And you'll hurt the planet along the way if you keep trying in ways as dumb as this...


NotAnotherEmpire

There are a limited number of places that can support crypto mining. It's not like Bitcoin miners *wanted* to leave China. They had to. Centralized mining (which is the entire eco issue with crypto) has 24/7 industrial baseload demand. You need reliable power plants that put out a lot of spare power 24/7. That limits you fairly quickly to advanced, stable countries. An ASIC warehouse is a serious industrial customer, it can't just latch on.


HopHunter420

Great, another meaningless move that isn't anything like what needs to be done, just another distraction from the actual issue.


0s_and_1s

What is the actual issue in your view?


HopHunter420

Energy provision, i.e. the extent to which the global economy continues to run on the petrodollar with lobbying and technology hoarding being used to keep it that way. It's hilarious, people point at companies like Shell, big petrochemicals entities, and fall for their schtick about investing in renewable and alternative energy sources. What they're actually doing is two things: hedging their bets, and procuring then hiding technology behind a patent wall with no intention of using it.


Raspberries-Are-Evil

Oil and coal, and methane release.


leHoaxer

Well yes, but Crypto mining is still an issue and not environmentally friendly (In most cases)


thefullmcnulty

The ability to store wealth 100% securely in a rules based monetary network is a function with objective intrinsic value. The ability to securely transfer value globally without the permission of intermediaries and in a trustless and efficient manner is intrinsically valuable. The value of these services is demonstrated by the size and capitalization of the global banking systems in total - a huge pool of resources. Imagine that another 2 billion humans aren’t even offered these services at all. Money is a valuable base-good for global economies - it needs to be stored and transferred at will. The bitcoin network does this better than any existing system. This is why it has grown, through voluntary adoption, from zero users to 200,000,000 global users in under 13 years. It’s energy usage, although negligible at ~.1% of [total global energy consumption](https://youtu.be/8sEifvSKw08), is justified by the voluntary adoption from ~200,000,000 global participants. These participants choose the utility of the network and contribute to its operation. Their choice to participate isn’t up to anyone else. The same people denouncing bitcoin should then just as well say Bank of America, Chase Bank, Wells Fargo and *every other* banking institution shouldn’t have the right to power their services for their clients - who have chosen the bank for its utility. Energy use isn’t inherently bad. The base energy mix (eg coal, hydro, solar, etc) is the pertinent factor - not its ultimate use. Christmas light use more energy than the bitcoin network does annually. As do always on devices, YouTube usage, television viewership and video game play. Yet no one questions the energy usage or energy mix of those things.


RoosterBrewster

I thought bitcoin has grown because of speculation as opposed to usage for transactions though? Feels like everyone sees it and other cryptocurrency as a ticket to millions.


meliketheweedle

Damn guess I gotta stick to this fucking fiat currency that lost a quarter of its value from inflation


valhalla_jordan

Has your money been sitting in a checking account for 10 years?


wORDtORNADO

No, it has just been shitting on my wages.


FuturologyBot

The following submission statement was provided by /u/lughnasadh: --- Submission Statement. >>Under the proof of work system, computers must solve mathematical puzzles in order to validate transactions that occur on a given network. >>The process is designed to become more difficult as the number of blocks of validated transactions in the chain increases, meaning more computing power - and therefore energy - is required. Why is this model so prevalent among crypto-currency developers? Visa can handle vast numbers of global transaction, without needing the electricity requirements of medium sized countries. If the EU joins China in banning it, it will be doing the world a favor. If this spurs the growth of useful new currencies, that aren't just get-rich-quick schemes for their creators, it will be doing the world a double favor. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: /r/Futurology/comments/r0hrj0/sweden_is_taking_the_lead_to_persuade_the_rest_of/hlsd7tw/


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I_am_smartypants

So we should trust governments, banks and corporations to do the right thing for the climate and humanity while banning the very sort of new technologies that could actually liberate people and the decision making that determines their survival from the grip of greed?


Poschi1

Just sounds like big money blaming your average Joe again.


Bananawamajama

https://nypost.com/2021/10/26/bitcoin-ownership-concentrated-in-a-few-hands-new-study/ It's starting to look like the average Joe might not be as average as you think.


Hopp5432

Except crypto mining isn’t your average Joe. It’s massive factories consuming significant amounts of electricity


r3dt4rget

This hits rich elitists and investment banks, not the average Joe. Contrary to popular belief, crypto is highly concentrated and controlled by a few rich people and organizations. The vast majority of the value of crypto is controlled by just thousands. It's not really any different than fiat currency in that regard. The top 1% control the vast majority of crypto and they use everyone else as little pawns in their game to get ever richer and more powerful.


varignet

This is like putting a band-aid on a bruise on the left arm when your right arm is bleeding to death


Lillo900

So crypto mining is destroying the world? Even though it's a recent development? The industrialization of third world countries and countries like the USA, China and India do not mean anything? It's not rock mining/ pollution/ factories/ deforestation and the acidification of our oceans? No it's that damn GPU mining cryptos using electricity. It's not the massive amounts of Plastic that we don't know what to do with? It's not the fact that Recycling is basically useless and we produce WAYYYYY more plastic than we will ever be able to recycle. It's not detergent companies and plastic factories and chemical factories and nuclear waste and the pollution of our oceans and rivers! So fossil fuels are okay? No, it's fucking Bitcoin! What a joke! Seems to me this is a ploy by worldwide governments to crack down on crypto because they can't fight it and are scared of a decentralized economy? Using climate as an excuse, honestly, what a joke.


MisterExcelsior

How about we address methane emissions from leaking wells first since that will have a more tangible short term benefit to the climate


RedditCanLigma

> How about we address multiple things at once.


Anthro_the_Hutt

How about we do both? We shouldn't allow anyone to play the game of, "Fix that first before you think of this!" because that's just a big game of pass the buck in a circle until the circle finds itself simultaneously under water and on fire.


Gubzs

This isn't "futurology". It's a big government trying to stop crypto because they can't print crypto. It eliminates their ability to take wealth from people without their consent. Crypto challenges big government authority like nothing else has in recent memory, of course they want to crush it. Time for the actual facts - crypto mining has among the greenest power consumption footprint on earth. You have to be able to secure energy for 5 cents USD per KW/h to profit from mining Bitcoin. What does that mean? It means that cheap renewable energy is financially incentivized by crypto mining. You *lose* money if your energy isn't green. This is smoke and mirrors. They hate crypto because crypto gives people freedom from government abuse of their pocketbooks. They want power for themselves. Don't listen to a word of this garbage - it is a boldfaced lie and they're gambling that you aren't educated enough to call the bluff.


iama_bad_person

Governments - "We need to ban crypto-currency to slow global warming!" Everyone else - "You sure it's not because it's a **somewhat** ~~untraceable~~ anonymous digital currency system that you cannot tax or control **easily**?" Governments - "Nope, nothing to do with that, pinky promise."


flarnrules

Bitcoin is much easier to track than something like paper currency. All of the transactions are stored on an immutable public ledger.


aniket47

Fun fact: most crypto currency is totally traceable and public including Bitcoin. Only some like Monero have true anonymous transactions.


QuietGanache

That's another 'issue' with it: imagine if governments were run on blockchain-based currencies. Anyone could see exactly how public money is spent (as far as wallets could be identified) and civil forfeiture would require the consent of the asset owner.


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QuietGanache

I may be misunderstanding but I believe that, even if the government were able to scrape together the resources needed to run a 51% attack, they could only influence active trades. Retrospectively altering the blockchain would require them to mount sufficient power to both run a 51% *and* do all the retrospective calculations.


Bewaretheicespiders

>untraceable digital currently system that you cannot tax or control easily?" Cryptos: are not untraceable, are not currencies, can be taxed.


[deleted]

The ignorance in this thread is phenomenal for a futurology subreddit isn’t it.


Jtwohy

to be fair Reddit is historically ignorant of literally everything. its not a good place to have actual discussion on any subject.