this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power — government now requiring commercial miners to report energy consumption (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There are plenty of projects that use spare computational power for useful things. Like folding@home, which models protein structures to come up with potential drugs. Why not use the excess electricity for one of those?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

That would be great! And I'm sure there are people doing it. And if 2.3% of the US Power grid were dedicated to that I'm sure some people would be upset about it too

My basic point is I don't think there is anything morally wrong with Bitcoin miners using energy, even though this is a narrative that is very popular now. There are plenty of other valid criticisms of Bitcoin, but I don't think this one stands up to scrutiny.