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Each Bitcoin transaction uses 4,200 gallons of water — enough to fill a swimming pool — and could potentially cause freshwater shortages (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (20 children)

I do wonder how this compares to current payment processors (Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, etc)

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Well my understanding is that visa, MasterCard ECT. Are far more efficient in terms of energy and transaction time when compared to Bitcoin and Ether. Visa uses about a quarter of the power per 100,000 transactions.

So I would assume that would mean fewer data center computers to cool and therefore less water used per transaction

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

By design.

Bitcoin has pretty much no incentive to make the transactions efficient. The load is distributed to other people (their customers), and their biggest customers have a perverse incentive to want the transactions to be as inefficient as possible in order to discourage competition.

Vista et al have to pay for their own transactions, so keeping it light is simple cost savings and totally rational.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Sorry, I’ve not kept up to date with crypto, but wasn’t ethereum due to move from computational mining to staking? Wouldn’t that be a lot more efficient, or is that not a thing yet?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

ethereum moved to proof of stake sometime back. BTC and I think a few other (very) minor cryptos still use proof of work which is where the significant power usage goes. Not something I track but I believe the vast majority of non-BTC cyptos are proof of stake or something not proof of work anyway and BTC is the only one that uses proof of work and is used at all. That might not exactly be technically correct but it is in the practical realm.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Most importantly, VISA, MasterCard, etc. are far more profitable for VISA, MasterCard, etc. stock holders.

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