Author: Anton Ragin 2021-05-17 12:39:02
Published on: 2021-05-17T12:39:02+00:00
The discussion thread revolves around the issue of energy consumption in Bitcoin mining and how to address it. The author suggests that miners may have no economic incentive not to draw power when idling and how a huge spike in energy consumption every 1 minute in 10 is the worst possible load profile to any power grid which would result in burning off peak energy during the 9 minutes cool-down period. They propose that users should allow only "green miners" process their transactions and encourage non-profit organizations to certify green miners and give them cryptographic certificates of conformity, either usage of green energy or purchase of offsets, allowing users to encrypt their transactions and submit them to mempool such that only green miners can decrypt and process them. While some members consider this proposal as centralization, the author argues that different miners could use different standards/certifications for 'green' status and it does not affect the stability of the network in a material way. They further suggest that carbon credits to offset dirty energy burned by miners would cost only approx 5% of block rewards in USD terms max, and if every miner on the planet agrees to go green or buy carbon credits, it will actually be commercially beneficial to everybody. Lastly, they recommend that huge mining pools need to establish a 'green cartel' like OPEC and all start buying carbon credits to make Bitcoin greener and more widely adopted.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T21:52:34.432336+00:00