• i strongly urge skepticism when reading articles about the environmental impacts of bitcoin. I am not saying that bitcoin is a sensible use of resources - rather that the claims made about the environmental impacts are often overstated and based on models extrapolated to absurdity. For example, see https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0321-8 where Mora, Camilo et al suggested that “Bitcoin Emissions Alone Could Push Global Warming Above 2°C”. Then read Implausible projections overestimate near-term Bitcoin CO2 emissions by Masanet et al.

    Again - the environmental impacts of cloud computing in general and bitcoin in particular are something we should be concerned about. But there are a number of researchers who have made wild claims that should be treated with a critical eye.

      • Yeah. Right now, the cost of a Bitcoin transaction is around $65 US. That price includes all of the expenditures that the miners have made on resources (electricity, water, rental costs for the space they’re using, hardware depreciation, etc.), as well as whatever bit of profits it takes to keep miners in business. That puts a cap on whatever environmental impact the transaction is having.

              • Yes. If you’re wanting to know how many resources mining a transaction takes, that’s the value you need to look at. The block reward effectively goes into subsidizing the transaction fees that are being paid.

            • Bitcoin is deflationary. There is a hard limit on the total number of bitcoins that will ever exist. Every so often, the reward for mining a block is halved. Eventually there will be effectively zero reward for mining at all.

              • Maybe in the long run. However, when you want to actually calculate how much each transaction costs, you need to account for the fact that right now Bitcoin is inflationary. It won’t stop issuing new tokens until around 2140 AD, assuming no hard forks happen to modify that issuance strategy in the meantime.