Ahhhhhhh, speculation is best done WITH drinks. Everyone knows that.
What's the point of drinking if you can't think all the things?
I have a little BTC, but I am with the Fudsters... BTC uses a huge amount of energy... and blockchains like Hive just use a fraction in comparison. Of course, I understand that organisations like Visa use a ton of energy as well, but they also provide employment, and while BTC can help innovate green energy solutions, miners will always just pick the cheapest energy to run their servers. I just can't help but think that PoW is just inefficient technology at this point.
I agree somewhat with the energy issues, but I also think there is an opportunity here in regards to this, and why it can drive innovation. Imagine setting up mining rigs in the Sahara, taking solar energy for the mining - this means they are able to literally export the sun from an area that doesn't need that energy locally. It might take the energy of Finland or whatever now, but what actually needs to happen is the energy consumption of all industries needs to come down - saving energy is not going to deliver the requirements needed - new energy generation methods is what will change things. Focus on the innovation of energy production, not saving on what we already know doesn't work, as it is just delaying the inevitable.
Not sure if that made sense, but I might flesh that out into a post later :)
No, it totally makes sense and it's something I've been thinking about a lot too.
The only problem is, why would Bitcoin miners set up the infrastructure to use Sahara solar or thermo from Finland when it's cheaper to just use Texas' cheap coal power? It's always going to be driven by the bottom line.
The main issue that I have is that all that computing power is being used on solving extremely difficult equations that don't matter. Surely there is a way to use all that computing power on something important to mine crypto?