I often hear the argument: Bitcoin mining is wasting enormous amounts of energy.

Bitcoin mining uses about the same amount of energy as a small country and that is fine!

Time for a thread:

To start, energy consumption in general is not a bad thing. Without it, civilization as we know it would simply not be possible.

If we would monetize your manual labor by putting you on a rowing machine you would have produce approximately $0.30 of value per day.
Energy grids are in nature in efficient. It is impossible to tranport electrical energy over long distances. Because of this approximately 6% of the US energy production is wasted because of losses alone. Just about 3.5X the total energy consumption of the Bitcoin network!
Varying load, seasonal or daily, poses challenges to the grid and the producers. It is for example not always possible or easy to lower supply to match demand.

This brings the need for balancing the network. Without it, the grid will become unstable.
With the increase of renewable energy, the need for load balancing solutions will continue to grow:

Solar energy only creates energy when the sun shines. Wind energy only creates energy when the wind blows.
In general, load balancing solutions are expensive. Without those solutions, excess capacity is often wasted eg: gas flaring.

Producers have to produce at sub optimal levels which hurts their profitability and stability. Excess energy is dumped or even sold at a negative price!
Today, Bitcoin miners for example use those flare gasses to mine bitcoin. Energy that otherwise would simply be wasted.

Another example are hydroelectric dams, where because of their location, sometimes the energy created can simply not be transported far enough to meet demand.
Bitcoin mining is extremely commoditized. This means net profit margins are low and the market is extremely competitive.

Therefore miners will move to the edge of the grid where energy is cheapest and there simply is no other use case, if there was, they would be outcompeted.
On top of that, Bitcoin miners are easily switched on/of if needed and can be moved if the supply/demand balance in the network changes.
Bitcoin mining can play a sustainable role in our future.

It provides an opportunity to monetize excess capacity in situations with varying load and will even help our transition towards a more sustainable future by making those solutions more profitable.
I hope this sheds some light on market dynamics in energy grids.

@saifedean @johnkvallis @stephanlivera @Breedlove22 @wmiddelkoop

More from Crypto

You are running out of time to get ahead in cryptocurrency.

You know what's coming:

🔺️ Regulation
🔺️ More shutdowns
🔺️ Banks deciding who gets to do business

It's time you got your own crypto wallet.

Don't know how? I'll show you.

/////THREAD\\\\\

METAMASK

What's metamask? It's a wallet. That you -- I mean YOU -- own.

You see, when you buy crypto through an exchange like CoinBase, you own it but only kind of.

If they get

🔺 Hacked
🔺 Shutdown
🔺 Servers crash

-- your money is STUCK.

We are gonna avoid that 👇


First thing,

Go to

https://t.co/JXAp9o5RzJ

You can download it on your computer. It's a browser extension.

Alternatively, go to the app store on your Android or iPhone. It's there too.

As part of the setup process, you will choose a password.

More importantly though...

SEED PHRASE

As you follow the setup process, you will be given a 12-word seed phrase.

WRITE. THIS. DOWN.

Take it down and guard it like the map to Davey Jones' Locker.

THESE ARE THE ONLY WAY TO RECOVER YOUR ACCOUNT.

DO NOT LOSE.

We good? Great.

Let's continue.


Once you're all setup, your MetaMask wallet is going to look something like the picture below.

See where it says Crypto Address? That's where your actual address will be.

It'll be a random arrangement of letters, numbers, etc.

Click on it to copy to your clipboard

NEXT STEP
Out of curiosity I dug into how NFT's actually reference the media you're "buying" and my eyebrows are now orbiting the moon

Short version:

The NFT token you bought either points to a URL on the internet, or an IPFS hash. In most circumstances it references an IPFS gateway on the internet run by the startup you bought the NFT from.

Oh, and that URL is not the media. That URL is a JSON metadata file

Here's an example. This artwork is by Beeple and sold via Nifty:

https://t.co/TlJKH8kAew

The NFT token is for this JSON file hosted directly on Nifty's servers:

https://t.co/GQUaCnObvX


THAT file refers to the actual media you just "bought". Which in this case is hosted via a @cloudinary CDN, served by Nifty's servers again.

So if Nifty goes bust, your token is now worthless. It refers to nothing. This can't be changed.

"But you said some use IPFS!"

Let's look at the $65m Beeple, sold by Christies. Fancy.

https://t.co/1G9nCAdetk

That NFT token refers directly to an IPFS hash (https://t.co/QUdtdgtssH). We can take that IPFS hash and fetch the JSON metadata using a public gateway:

https://t.co/CoML7psBhF
Quick Thread on #Altcoins/ #Altseason

Step 1: $BTC has a huge correction. Every range starts with either a pump (or dump) and then follows with a dump (or pump). In this case, #Bitcoin pumped and is now pulling back. This is


Step 2: $BTC ranges big once it finds a bottom. This will allow it to reaccumulate for a big summer run in 2021. This is HEALTHY IMO.


Step 3: Once $BTC finds a bottom and starts to grind up again, I expect $ALTS to do very very well in both alt/usd and alt/btc pairs. ALTSZN is almost always characterized by strong alt/btc pairs moving- I've already accumulated most and have done my final buying today and more.

$BTC.D typically has a very nice time during this time of the year. I was off on December prediction bc I thought $BTC was going to pull back by then but oh well! #Altcoins will start their pumping time VERY soon now.


More information on what #Altseason is and $ALTS market

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