If we had as of precise data on both energy & resource consumption as we have on Bitcoin mining we could remove all taxes and create a consumption/VAT tax based on how much resources and energy something used. That could go a long way in shifting costs that are socialized back in to their consumers and producers.
My article on this topic:<p><a href="https://hackernoon.com/dummies-guide-to-bitcoin-energy-use-5f38e91c3253" rel="nofollow">https://hackernoon.com/dummies-guide-to-bitcoin-energy-use-5...</a>
Something I've been thinking about is that proof of work "coins" are basically energy credits. When energy is cheap, miners can lower their fees and keep the same return, leading to more economic activity. When it is expensive, they need to raise their fees to stay profitable, thus reducing economic activity.<p>I think this makes sense. Wouldn't it be beneficial if economic activity scaled with energy availability? It also creates a direct incentive to develop and utilize the most efficient energy sources possible, without regard for the politics between various stakeholders (hydro vs oil vs coal vs wind vs solar, etc).
does anyone else think that articles like this are fueled self interested parties who don't have a stake in crypto?<p><i>if</i> crypto is here to stay, wont more efficient mining hardware, potentially more efficient software, and things like recent advances in solar relax these fears in reality?
The energy invested in adding transaction blocks to the Bitcoin blockchain (which requires iterating through nonces until one is found that can partially reverse a cryptographic hashing algorithm, consuming computing power) is what makes the blockchain <i>immutable</i>.<p>Consider: Modifying a transaction block from, say, 3 days ago, is practically impossible, because it would require burning the same amount of energy the entire network has burned over the past 3 days in an instant, before the network invests even more energy adding more transaction blocks. Forget about trying to modify or revert transactions from more than a few days ago.[a]<p>The energy invested in Bitcoin is <i>securing</i> the transaction history.<p>There is value in that, no?<p>[a] Edit: I mean modifying a transaction right now, <i>without forking</i> the blockchain. Please see maxerickson's comments and my responses below.