Every Bitcoin payment 'uses a swimming pool of water' (www.bbc.com)

submitted 1 year ago by yogthos@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.ml

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[-] jet@hackertalks.com 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Globally in 2018 there are 370 billion credit card transactions, divided by 6 million for swimming pool comes to 62,000 swimming pools worth of water for global credit card transactions.

Or 170 swimming pools a day

Or seven swimming pools an hour.

Bitcoin is targeting 10 minutes per block on average, so that's 144 blocks per day or six swimming pools per hour.

I don't really have a point with this math, just that if an article is going to make a colorful analogy, they should take it all the way so we can have comparables

[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-consumption-transaction-comparison-visa/

[-] jet@hackertalks.com 6 points 1 year ago

Hey fair enough. You don't have to down vote me because I'm extending the metaphor of your article.

Thanks for posting data that is using the same units.

[+] Fenrisulfir@lemmy.ca -11 points 1 year ago

Every swimming pool uses a swimming pool of water too. Wait til they find out about cattle, fossil fuels or mining.

[-] habanhero@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

Ummm, all of the examples you gave are actually more reasonable and valuable uses of water than Bitcoin.

SelfAwareWolf is that you?

[-] Fenrisulfir@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 year ago

Destroying the Amazon for beef is a better use? Swimming pools are better uses?

[-] habanhero@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Destroying the Amazon for beef is a better use? Swimming pools are better uses?

As opposed to using them for Bitcoin? Oh yes, 1000%.

The technology is interesting but the people and economics around Crypto is rotten to the core. Crypto as it is today is a shitstain on humanity.

[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

Ah yes, we should obviously ignore this problem because other problems exist. That's a stunning feat of logical deduction!

[+] Fenrisulfir@lemmy.ca -6 points 1 year ago

Where did I say we should ignore problems?!

[-] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago

By using whataboutism, which is used to dismiss problems by pointing out others problems.

You did not explicitly state it, but dragging focus away from this problem is clearly your goal here. Why else did you write that comment?

[-] Fenrisulfir@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

Because quite often the inefficiency of bitcoin is used to detract from all cryptocurrencies. The same way all game consoles are nintendos. If this was truly a problem people gave a shit about they’d be praising proof of stake currencies instead.

I just don’t get the point of the article. It’s not a trade off where every transaction launches a swimming pool into the sun. The water is used to power electricity and cool the electronics. No ones freaking out about millions of watercooled PCs across the globe or Niagara Falls being used to power strip clubs or all the water all the data centres use to store my NFTs in S3.

Nestle and Coke are literally destroying water tables and exterminating villages by buying the upstream water rights and removing that water from the area or “selling” it back to people who can’t afford it.

If you actually care, do something like switching to ethereum, cutting back on beef, and protesting Nestle and Coke. But don’t protest Coke because they’ll just murder you.

[-] Krause@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If you actually care, do something like switching to ethereum

"If you're against drinking poison drink this 1% healthier poison in place of it!"

Or maybe we can stop with this crypto shit instead?

this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023

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