
China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining - sjcsjc
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-cryptocurrency/china-says-it-wants-to-eliminate-bitcoin-mining-idUSKCN1RL0C4
======
kevintb
Good. There are few things more wasteful in energy and minimal in doing good
for the world. Widespread bitcoin adoption would be catastrophic for the Earth
and climate change efforts [1].

[1]
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0321-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0321-8)

~~~
mrb
No, Bitcoin won't raise global average temperatures by 2°C. This Nature
article was debunked by other researchers. I too was asked to review it
(recently, post-publication) and the gist of what they did wrong in their
analysis is:

* They overestimate (probably by 3x-5x) the present power consumption of miners because they assume the distribution of types of mining machine is homogenous in this table: [https://github.com/moracamilo/Bitcoin/blob/master/Randi_Tabl...](https://github.com/moracamilo/Bitcoin/blob/master/Randi_TableS1.csv) (when in fact 60-70% of the mining power comes from a single row in this table: Antminer S9). This error causes their calculated average efficiency (J/GH) to be much overestimated as their dataset contains mostly inefficient obsolete ASICs

* They overestimate future power consumption by ~50x by assuming it grows linearly with the transaction rate (in reality it doesn't). Power consumption grows with miners revenues, proportional to {block rewards + transaction fees}. Fees account for currently ~2% of revenues (average of last 60 days). Rewards decline over time, so that fees will eventually account for close to 100% of revenues, which _will_ happen on the authors timeline of 100 years. So if fees per transaction remaimed constant, we could see a 50x tx rate growth with no increase of power consumption.

* They assume the proportion of CO2 emissions per kWh never improves over the next 100 years (great progress of renewables coming to a sudden stop?), and that Bitcoin consumes more fossil fuels than what the entire world currently consumes (infinite fossil fuel reserves?). It is not unrealistic to imagine the proportion of CO2 per kWh could be in a century 20% of what it is today.

Overall, these errors combined mean their scenario overestimates CO2 emissions
by a factor of about a thousand: (3 to 5) x 50 ÷ 20% = 750x to 1250x

Edit: simplified bullet point #2

~~~
ForHackernews
You're quibbling over details: The point is that bitcoin is _deliberately
designed_ to waste as much energy as possible. It's a constant arms race where
you have to keep escalating your hash rate, or you risk somebody else being
able to execute a 51% attack.

It's an absolutely atrocious example of the Red Queen effect ("running just to
stand still") and I can't believe that technologists who in other contexts
value elegance and efficiency can defend bitcoin with a straight face. I can
only assume they have a lot of money tied up in bitcoin, because otherwise it
makes no sense.

~~~
mrb
" _You 're quibbling over details_"

CO2 emissions being wrong by a factor of a thousand is a "detail" to you? ;)
My point is that the impact of proof-of-work, although real, is grossly
exaggerated and appears to be more manageable than what eye-catching press
titles suggest.

Another example: journalists like to claim Bitcoin emits as much CO2 as an
entire country. But in fact current emissions are comparable to what a single
_city_ like Cape Town emits (28 MtCO2/yr.) Thus these sorts of statements are
not so much a testament of how much Bitcoin emits, but more a testament of how
_little_ CO2 these countries emits.

" _designed to waste as much energy as possible_ "

It is designed to use no more than what the revenues (fees+rewards) allow to
purchase.

But instead of debating how big or how small Bitcoin's energy use is, I think
a more intellectually interesting debate to have is whether or not Bitcoin is
useful to society, and whether or not its utility justifies the costs.

~~~
kaolti
Thanks for taking the time to point this out, especially since you're swimming
upstream.

> I think a more intellectually interesting debate to have is whether or not
> Bitcoin is useful to society

Exactly.

~~~
claudiawerner
I don't think it's at all useful to _society_ conceived of as the best a
society could be, but there's no doubt it's useful to capital. Either way, I'm
not sure if merely being useful to society is sufficient to justify that level
of energy usage.

~~~
once_inc
Bitcoin is censorship-free, permissionless money. It is sound money (the
single soundest money ever conceived) and this allows for an age of monetary
freedom where citizens are no longer forced to fight an uphill battle against
centrally planned 2% inflation that is gradually transforming the working
class into a position reminiscent of indentured servant.

------
CaliforniaKarl
From an energy-consumption standpoint, I'm not too surprised at this. They
have better uses for their mostly-non-renewable power generation. This will
probably continue the push towards bitcoin mining in places with stable
renewables (like hydro and geothermal).

That being said, I just found [https://www.coindesk.com/norway-ends-power-tax-
subsidy-for-b...](https://www.coindesk.com/norway-ends-power-tax-subsidy-for-
bitcoin-miners), which makes me wonder if current prices would be able to
support mining there. Also, at least part of Washington State is interested:
[https://www.bendbulletin.com/business/6853387-151/central-
wa...](https://www.bendbulletin.com/business/6853387-151/central-washington-
doubles-down-on-blockchain)

~~~
benmarten
from planet's perspective. everyone can be thankful

~~~
billions
Banks run green. They only require lights in the building, the building, the
branches, and the atms, the employee's cars, the oil deals financed, and the
wars financed.

~~~
foepys
Same can be said about the Bitcoin exchanges. Minus the wars maybe but
including the drug cartels.

~~~
TomMarius
What drug cartel runs on Bitcoin? I thought it was US Dollar.

------
sekai
Why a Chinese Bitcoin mining ban is good news:

* It kills the narrative that China controls Bitcoin.

* It severely diminishes the Chinese state's ability to disrupt the Bitcoin network by commandeering hashpower.

* The Chinese miners will move their operations overseas, leading to higher geographical/jurisdictional decentralization.

* It becomes relatively speaking more profitable for Chinese ASIC manufacturers to directly sell their miners compared to mining themselves. This will diminish their oversized power in the ASIC market and decentralize mining in terms of operators.

* BTC itself isn't banned, OTC demand will stay, causing a premium. This means some mining will likely continue in smaller, less obvious operations outside the reach of the state. Everything about that is healthy for the network.

* The biggest source of Bitcoin blocks won't be behind the biggest firewall of the globe anymore.

* The article mentions a phasing out, so the two-week difficulty adjustment period can more than likely gracefully handle this.

* Although a lot of Bitcoin mining is done with hydropower in China, it also has a significant share of cheap coal-powered mining. This likely makes overall Bitcoin mining greener, hurting the Bitcoin climate change FUD.

~~~
asgionio1234
>This likely makes overall Bitcoin mining greener, hurting the Bitcoin climate
change FUD.

I dislike the fact that Bitcoin fans have commandeered the term "FUD". The
term originally referred to coming out of Microsoft, but you are using it to
refer to well-intentioned people saying things that are true.

It's the same as what happened to the term "fake news."

Bitcoin has some very serious problems. We all know what they are. If you keep
pretending they don't exist, you only hurt your own credibility.

~~~
jsutton
Bitcoin certainly has its share of problems. There is nothing true, however,
about Bitcoin causing climate change.

~~~
mprev
Citation needed! Renewables are not free of externalities. Hydro damages
environments.

Wasting renewable energy on crypto mining prevents that energy being used for
something productive and so drives the need for more renewable capacity or
drives further use of fossil fuels.

Bitcoin is an environmental disaster in the making. I see mining as akin to a
religious rite that diverts potential away from useful activity and towards a
fantasy instead.

------
drak0n1c
Commenters are applauding the environmental implications of this policy, but
I’m curious why no one is considering the human side of this ban. There are a
billion people living under authoritarianism who are stuck with an
increasingly devalued Yuan and steadily losing the ability to obtain other
currencies.

Is that not also a problem that can result in humanitarian disaster? I don’t
think we should be comfortable with blanket bans just because they are
accompanied by government greenwashing PR.

~~~
pakitan
Bitcoin trading is already essentially banned in China.

~~~
sekai
Exchanges are, not OTC - it's booming.

------
killjoywashere
Because they finally realized everyone is using bitcoin to exfiltrate
currency?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
More like they are using cheap subsidized Chinese power prices for something
that they weren’t intended for. It’s more of an environmental play (since a
lot of that electricity is produced by dirty coal burning).

~~~
Macross8299
Funny that they care about the environmental effects when the end result is
something they have little control over, less so when it's a state-run or
state-affiliated business

~~~
TaylorAlexander
It makes sense to me. They believe their control is an important part of the
country’s economic development. They’re willing to sacrifice the environment
when they believe the benefits outweigh the concerns, but they trust their own
plans more than that of individual actors. Not saying it’s right, but it’s
consistent with their outlook on politics and government.

------
127
When people realize that Bitcoin mining is a mechanism to prevent fraud, the
energy consumption suddenly makes a lot more sense. How much waste in the
world is the result of fraud and lack of trust? Quite a lot of it.

That said, reducing the energy consumption of Bitcoin should be an absolute
priority. Lightning Network and other such technologies help.

~~~
jayd16
It doesn't really prevent fraud that isn't already a solved problem. When was
the last time you had to deal with wire transfer fraud?

If you buy counterfeit goods with bitcoin there's not much you can do. A
credit card protects you from fraud over $50.

What exactly is this bitcoin waste getting us?

~~~
jraedisch
I would not call it preventing fraud, rather simplifying global money supply
and making it more transparent, which in turn could prevent fraud due to
smaller attack surface and more eyeballs.

~~~
jayd16
But this is just a pipe dream. You would just have fraud hidden away in Swiss
bitcoin accounts and wallets in the Cayman islands. Isn't it just less privacy
for the naive user and business as usual for the fraudster?

~~~
jraedisch
You are correct in that money can and will still be used for fraudulent
activity. But the system itself (so far) could not be corrupted. So there is a
class of systemic manipulation, that becomes a lot harder with Bitcoin (e.g.
inflating money supply).

~~~
jayd16
In theory, but in practice it seems easily manipulated.

------
forkLding
This will probably crush Bitmain and other Chinese bitcoin mining giants and
they will probably move elsewhere, however Chinese courts have said bitcoin
itself is legally allowed. Probably what is going to happen is that you can
own but you can't mine or even obtain more bitcoins in China.

[https://www.ccn.com/chinas-merchants-are-legally-allowed-
to-...](https://www.ccn.com/chinas-merchants-are-legally-allowed-to-accept-
bitcoin-and-crypto)

~~~
mpoteat
Bitmain makes huge margins on selling equipment, not mining. They make shovels
in the gold rush.

~~~
Macross8299
From what I understand, and, correct me if I'm wrong, but Bitmain _does_ make
money by mining, but they do it by using their own next-generation hardware to
mine before making it available for sale, which spikes the difficulty and then
they sell it off when the profitability drops.

Manufacturing mining ASICs and running your own mining operations seems like
it has these big inherent conflicts of interest to me.

~~~
gcb0
which looks like the most efficient way. China will likely make it the State
miner initiative in the middle of all those legal changes.

------
Al-Khwarizmi
As a techie and a math lover, I was initially excited with Bitcoin, and did a
bit of mining, transactions, etc. But after learning about the environmental
impact, I no longer support Bitcoin. It's just not worth the cost, a very
beautiful idea but with a serious flaw (which I hope can be fixed in the
future). So this sounds quite sensible to me.

~~~
tudorizer
As a techie, you should still apprectiate the fact that Bitcoin mining is the
first financial system that can be measured in terms of energy impact.

Existing systems, banks and all adjacent institutions and companies, are close
to impossible to track and measure.

~~~
bamboozled
I think the same thing, I'd love to see the Co2 emissions of all financial
institutions combined put against bitcoin, that would be interesting.

~~~
nosuchthing
Financial institutions offer a vast array of services, safeguards, and
functionality and significantly higher transactional infrastructure versus
Bitcoin/cryptocoins.

Exchanging cash versus submitting a Bitcoin transaction would be more on par.

------
ulfw
Oh thank the lord this idiotic waste of (often fossil) energy will find it's
end. Crypto proof of work is such a flawed (proof of) concept in many ways.

------
cheekybillberry
I think bitcoin has been really overhyped (and manipulated in many different
ways), and would be happy to see it fade into history (if not some of the
technologies and ideas it's based on).

However, I'm not happy to see an outright ban on it, for all sorts of reasons.
Not only are there fundamental freedom of speech issues involved, but it sets
a dangerous precedent with regard to decentralized computing in general. I
also believe that the best way forward in a bitcoin-free future is to leave
things be, expose rather than suppress, and to let people do what they want so
as to encourage transition.

I'm surprised to see so many comments supportive of this move here. First they
come for bitcoin, then they come for Matrix?

------
AFascistWorld
"Ok guys, enough with this money launderying, the party should be over now."

------
baxtr
_“...said should be phased out as they did not adhere to relevant laws and
regulations, were unsafe, wasted resources or polluted the environment.“_

It surely doesn’t help keeping the rivers clean

------
chakintosh
Genuine question. Would it be possible for mining facilities to harness the
heat from the miners and use it on steam turbines to generate power that'll be
used by the miners?

~~~
swarnie_
Not an engineer so maybe someone else will have to chime in but i doubt the
radial heat from a GPU is enough to heat an element which in turn can flash
water to steam.

Surely you cant get the density needed before the GPU's themselves burst in to
flames?

~~~
chakintosh
Yes but we're talking about thousands of GPUs here and each one radiating 70ºC

~~~
swarnie_
Again, probably need a physicist or engineer to figure out if that's enough to
get water to the 500-600 degrees typically used in steam driven turbines.

~~~
smile_
I do not believe this would be possible. If we stick with 70 degrees being the
max temperature of the GPUs^, as we increase the number of GPUs then the
coolant will approach 70 degrees but not go over, hovering from 69-70.

To break it down, if you have a comically large stove top heater set to 70
degrees and a regular sized one set to 70 degrees, if you put a pot on either
the max temperature of the water in the pot is still 70 degrees. The rate at
which it heated to 70 would change but max temp wouldn't.

^Max safe temp of GPUs is around 100c. What will actually happen is that the
GPUs will heat the coolant to this temperature, then either the coolant will
lose heat through normal means (when water isn't heated it cools), or if the
coolant stays hot eventually a GPU will turn itself off through overheat
safety mechanisms. Once this GPU is off the coolant loop will drop temperature
for a while then slowly approach max temp again, until either another GPU gets
turned off or the system finds its equilibrium where the coolant is at a
stable temperature and no more GPUs are turning themselves off.

------
rocqua
This should help a little against centralization. With the cheaper electricity
out of the game, more locations might become viable as sites for bitcoin
mining.

We're still stuck with two Chinese ASIC manufacturers, but at least more of
the actual mining will be outside china.

------
balboah
in the long run I believe cryptos that doesn't require mining this way will be
more popular, such as EOS and maybe Ethereum soon. But mining will probably
never go away completely

------
HNLurker2
This reminds me of the idea of bitcoin owning 51% of miners and being able to
split.

What do you think?

------
SRTP
"China bans Bitcoin, for realsies this time."

------
Mengkudulangsat
Interesting development. There's a massive amount of accumulated capital and
equipment inventory held by Chinese miners.

These are mobile, and will surely emigrate.

------
ashwinr14
Good luck

------
brisance
Saw this coming back when the Chinese government expressed an interest in
Bitcoin. They'll pass a law to confiscate all Bitcoin in China.

------
polskibus
Supply reduction should pump up the price, right? Good for holders.

~~~
Nursie
Supply is constant, regardless of how many people mine. In theory it should
have no effect on price.

I guess existing miners would get their coins cheaper, so there would be less
pressure on them to sell to cover electricity costs, so the supply may reduce
a little via that mechanism.

------
revskill
BTC harms "poor" newscomers who think they will get rich/richer overnight.

So instead the media told that it's a revolution with blockchain, they should
tell people that: BTC is also a game, a trading game, keep yourself at risk
before pouring your money into it.

------
sschueller
I wonder if bitcoin will try to go the Ethereum route and move to proof of
stake [1] instead of proof of work.

[1] [https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-
FAQ](https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-FAQ)

~~~
Arbalest
It wouldn't be bitcoin anymore then... Being able to grandfather in the whole
transaction log after rolling out a new system runs counter to the principle.

~~~
lucb1e
Fine by me, if it makes people want to switch to other proof of stake
networks. Who cares about a name when we all know we need to use drastically
less energy?

------
latchkey
In the early days of crypto, it used to be that China would ban it and the
price would drop as the market would freak out. This is just another scare
tactic that won't go anywhere.

China makes so much money from mining and crypto, there is no way they would
get rid of it.

~~~
pavlov
In the total Chinese economy it’s a blip. I don’t think the central planners
at the Party care about crypto very much.

~~~
jenshk
Yeah, it's a drop in the sea.

