Bitcoin
Out of context: Reply #2641
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- neverscared3
Bitcoin miners in the US get 85% of their energy from fossil fuels and emit as much CO2 as 3.5 million cars.
They also raise the price of electricity for homes in the area (5% in Texas), by increasing demand.
The Real-World Costs of the Digital Race for Bitcoin
Bitcoin mines cash in on electricity — by devouring it, selling it, even turning it off — and they cause immense pollution. In many cases, the public pays a price.Texas was gasping for electricity. Winter Storm Uri had knocked out power plants across the state, leaving tens of thousands of homes in icy darkness. By the end of Feb. 14, 2021, nearly 40 people had died, some from the freezing cold.
Meanwhile, in the husk of a onetime aluminum smelting plant an hour outside of Austin, row upon row of computers were using enough electricity to power about 6,500 homes as they raced to earn Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
The computers were performing trillions of calculations per second, hunting for an elusive combination of numbers that Bitcoin’s algorithm would accept. About every 10 minutes, a computer somewhere guesses correctly and wins a small number of Bitcoins worth, in recent weeks, about $170,000. Anyone can try, but to make a business of it can require as much electricity as a small city.
In Texas, the computers kept running until just after midnight. Then the state’s power grid operator ordered them shut off, under an agreement that allowed it to do so if the system was about to fail. In return, it began paying the Bitcoin company, Bitdeer, an average of $175,000 an hour to keep the computers offline. Over the next four days, Bitdeer would make more than $18 million for not operating, from fees ultimately paid by Texans who had endured the storm.
The New York Times has identified 34 such large-scale operations, known as Bitcoin mines, in the United States, all putting immense pressure on the power grid and most finding novel ways to profit from doing so. Their operations can create costs — including higher electricity bills and enormous carbon pollution — for everyone around them, most of whom have nothing to do with Bitcoin.
- Ban Bitcoin or CCP?shapesalad
- https://edition.cnn.…shapesalad
- meassuring yourself up to china ... never an intelligent thing... whats next ? the justice system to duterte and phillipines for murder ?neverscared
- what´s next? allowing a kim yong figure as pres. because NK is doing it..so we can do it too?neverscared