<story><title>Bitcoin mining and energy consumption</title><url>https://blog.bitcoin.org.hk/bitcoin-mining-and-energy-consumption-4526d4b56186</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>seanwilson</author><text>One of the big selling points of Bitcoin is that it&amp;#x27;s meant to be decentralised but it doesn&amp;#x27;t look like this plays out. Proof of work seems to inevitably lead to all the power going to parties that can afford specialised hardware who are in countries with low electricity costs.&lt;p&gt;Running a Bitcoin miner on commodity hardware now is pointless which seems to go against the spirit of Bitcoin when it started. Was this predicted at the inception of Bitcoin? It&amp;#x27;s interesting how economics impacts the security of the protocol like this.&lt;p&gt;Proof of stake is meant to consume less resources but then the power is then handed to people with the most money? Coming up with a way to have a decentralised currency where everyone involved gets a fair say without consuming too many resources is a super interesting problem.</text></comment>
<story><title>Bitcoin mining and energy consumption</title><url>https://blog.bitcoin.org.hk/bitcoin-mining-and-energy-consumption-4526d4b56186</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>albertgoeswoof</author><text>Bitcoin&amp;#x27;s electricity consumption is unfortunate, it&amp;#x27;s difficult to assess whether it is a waste or not. The current position blockchain tech can be compared to the state of networked computers in the 70s and early 80s. Not a huge amount of value delivered at the time, yet very few could have foreseen the impact of the internet and personal computing on the world.&lt;p&gt;If blockchains and distributed computing does present a new leap forward in how we communicate, this electricity will not be wasted.</text></comment>