The downfall of Bitcoin
In its currents incarnation it's not green, neither are most other proof of work (POW) coins.
As wonderful as proof of work is as a concept, for securing blockchain networks, it comes with an unintended consequence.
Greed has led to the development of dedicated hardware to mine POW coins (ASIC's) and these get faster and faster all the time. This has resulted in a mining hardware and capacity arms race that is spiraling out of control. The result is greater and greater amounts of electricity are being wasted in this ever escalating race to mine the next block and secure the block rewards.
This is unsustainable, no matter how high the price of bitcoin goes there will soon not be enough electricity generated on this planet to power all the bitcoin mining equipment that is being thrown into the mix at an ever increasing rate.
Already the hashrate can be used to estimate that more power is being consumed by the bitcoin network than is utilized in entire countries.
Solar and other renewable energy is coming online faster than older power generation technologies. This will however never be sufficient if bitcoin electricity consumption continues to increase at the current exponential rate.
Surely it's time for a better solution? It is after all a simple maths equation that is being solved, but the solution derives no real world value other than determining who gets the block rewards.
i think you are right. Soon there will be downfall in bitcoin price.
I think this better explains the truly scary issue of power consumption and puts into scale the power used by the BTC network and the potential consequences.
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@pawsdog/is-bitcoin-really-decentralized-or-are-we-being-led-like-lambs-to-the-slaughter
Yes, bitcoin rising fast another solution may not be fast enough. Yes as previous guy mention ethereum is the other solution working to solve the btc work.
Agreed, it seems ridiculous
You know that ethereum and some other currencies' dev teams are working on an answer for this, right?
Bitcoin is consolidating in 10.000, and that is only the beginning.
Whe masses come to Bitcoin it will moon.
As Moore Law says, computers duplicate their processing power every two years.
Will this be enough to reduce the power consuming of mining Bitcoin? Let's see.. if not we should do Bitcoin more power-efficient
With Bitcoin fluctuating so much Iam surprised Litecoin hasn't boomed
I never really thought of it like that... Brand new to crypto, I do not understand a LOT of it but your point is quite clear.
I also agreed that it seems ridiculous @sme 👍👍
There are a lot of coins that dont't use PoW. Ther are even some that you could argue have a net savings effect on electricity.
For example Gridcoin: The chain moves by PoS mechanism, but the coin also rewards work. Not the meaningless hashing work like Bitcoin, but actual research.
A lot of researches are in dire need of more computing resources and funding. some put up their work to the volunteer network BOINC.
Gridcoin now pays the crunchers by distributing the cryptocurrency based on the amount of work done.
Depending how you use it and on which hardware, this is extremely effective (e.g. on smartphones or on your desktops only when they are running anyway), more effective then on a scientist's lab supercomputer.
If you let your computer run just for Gridcoin it may be less effective, but if people crunch Gridcoin (Science) instead of POW coins then it again is either saved POW energy or additional science done.
Either way better then Bitcoin. Now someone just needs to pump the price so that the PoW workers change their coin ^^
I don't think so, we just have to improve the work of asics, more intelegent machine will do the work and consume less energy.