Everywhere you go people are talking about Bitcoin as one of the most invest able opportunities out there, but everyone is also a bit wary about it because it’s so mysterious and nobody knows what the hell is going to happen with it.Nobody knows when it will vanish or completely erase itself or spread itself around every corner of void.
Well thats very much true but Eric Holthaus in his article Grist he states in the next couple of years, the energy requirements for Bitcoin are going to become untenable and this could seriously affect the climate of the Earth as well.
Here s what he said:
"Today, each bitcoin transaction requires the same amount of energy used to power nine homes in the US for one day.And miners are constantly installing more and faster computers.But what they might not have accounted for is how much of an energy suck the computer network behind bitcoin could one day become.Simply put, bitcoin is slowing the effort to achieve a rapid transition away from fossil fuels.What’s more, this is just the beginning. Given its rapidly growing climate footprint, bitcoin is a malignant development, and it’s getting worse. In just a few months from now, at bitcoin’s current growth rate, the electricity demanded by the cryptocurrency network will start to outstrip what’s available, requiring new energy-generating plants.
And with the climate conscious racing to replace fossil fuel-base plants with renewable energy sources, new stress on the grid means more facilities using dirty technologies.By July 2019, the bitcoin network will require more electricity than the entire United States currently uses.By February 2020, it will use as much electricity as the entire world does today.This is an unsustainable trajectory. It simply can’t continue."
Even though crypto curency is providing a platform for the people to earn it could really be pain in the ass in future. Everything seems to have negative effects. I hope what he says doesnt come true.
What this article is also not accounting for is that the Computers often become more efficient at using electricity as processors evolve. Last year people were estimating that the Bitcoin Network used more electricity than entire nations like Denmark, or Ireland.
The digiconimist article this content appears to be based on has come under serious questioning by analysts. Indeed, it appears the methodology for estimating energy consumption is presuming all costs are electricity based. That logic is horrifically flawed, as operating costs include the hardware and software development and acquisition costs.
FTA I linked:
This is roughly 50% to 33% of the estimates given by Digiconimist, showing that, once again, the Luddites out there are just being alarmist.
I think that at some point developers should decide to implement another consensus algorithm like the proof of stake. Ethereum is going to do that in the near future, so probably bitcoin will follow it.
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https://grist.org/article/bitcoin-could-cost-us-our-clean-energy-future/
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