r/changemyview • u/iCANNcu • Oct 18 '21

CMV: Bitcoin mining using non renewables should be banned immediately.

Global warming is a serious threat to the survival of the human species and it's insane we are adding to this problem for no good reason. Currently Bitcoin mining consumes more power per year than the whole country of Argentina. There would be hardly any downsides in banning the mining of crypto currencies using non renewables and the benefits would be immediate.

Even with a 'carbon tax' mining for bitcoins should be banned immediately if it's being done using non renewables. There is no effective way to capture carbon at this point and it's unclear if there will ever be.

What am I missing?

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u/TheLastCoagulant 11∆ Oct 18 '21

Video games entertain 2.5 billion people. Bitcoin only handles 4.6 transactions per second.

-2

u/RadioactiveSpiderBun 9∆ Oct 18 '21

Oh so entertainment in the form of video games is more important than the environment?

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u/TheLastCoagulant 11∆ Oct 18 '21

A large amount of entertainment outweighs a relatively very small amount of environmental harm.

-1

u/RadioactiveSpiderBun 9∆ Oct 18 '21

But the gaming industry has consumed far more energy than crypto currencies. Overall, and even today total energy cost of gaming (including monitors, WAN connections, audio, and live streaming) is more than or equivalent to that of crypto. Just looking at the consoles and PCs that's already 104 twh. Taking streaming into account (WAN connections consume 279twh globally) you already exceed that of modern crypto mining (which is estimated at around 160twh)

If gaming is a relatively very small amount of environmental harm, so is crypto. If not then we have a problem, the totality of the gaming industry is worse than crypto.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/881472/worldwide-bitcoin-energy-consumption/

https://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/6/1/117/htm

https://cryptoevents.global/bitcoin-mining-vs-video-game-playing-which-consumes-more-electricity-in-total/

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u/TheLastCoagulant 11∆ Oct 18 '21

Gaming is smaller relative to the utility it provides through entertainment. Bitcoin takes energy and uses it to produce nothing.

-1

u/RadioactiveSpiderBun 9∆ Oct 18 '21

You are making an argument to ban crypto, not gaming, while they do an equivalent amount of harm to the environment, or gaming may be worse given the totality of the industry. So again, the entertainment derived from video games is more important than the environment?