Again with this same tired nonsense on Hacker News. Famous for censoring worthwhile comments to death while leaving up misinformed "curious" posts that mislead everyone. Bitcoin is using half of the power as banking systems. Bitcoin is using half of the power, of the gold industry. Might I suggest, if you think you can suggest banning things for using too much carbon, that you first quit working, quit driving your vehicles, and disconnect the power in your house. I don't think it's good for the environment in you doing so. In fact, your carbon consumption should be banned. Turn your computers off. Unplug your wasteful device chargers, you've had enough.
The amount of energy used is only one aspect of the matter. The other is value derived from that energy. I think it is safe to say that regular banking provides not just twice the value of Bitcoin, but in fact probably two orders of magnitude more. Pretty much everyone uses regular banking, while pretty much nobody uses Bitcoin, and not only they use banking more, they use it many times a week or even a day. The comparison is not even close.
Something tells me that a user named "BTCOG" is not here to provide rigorous objective analysis but okay lets attack the strawman.
The number of bitcoin addresses with a balance is 30 million. The number of bank accounts is in the billions.
As you said, BTC is two orders of magnitude less efficient than banks assuming mining provides the same value to people as ALL of the services banks provide including loans, savings, and money transfer which IT DOES NOT.
Something tells me you just like to go on tangents nobody was talking about here. Never once, have I ever said that "Bitcoin is two orders of magnitude less efficient than banks."
That's where it stops, because what you've said is nonsense.
The regular banking system leaks your purchasing power over time via the mechanism of inflation. The regular banking system relies on the US Dollar which is backed by proof of violence - aka the largest military industrial complex ever created. Externalities are a net negative. It's important to consider the externalities of every system. When compared with the death and destruction and burning oil fields in Iraq, Libya, Syria etc, the cost of proof of work seems trite.
And when the comparison is not even close, why are you the one making it? All you've stated was an old opinion and not a fact about what is more useful, or how they are used. It's totally fine for you to have just said "I don't understand either banking or Bitcoin whatsoever." Bitcoin is going to get a lot more global over the next several years in it's use cases and for savings. I hope to see you commenting later on after becoming more informed about our current times of inflation and what the people want, vs what is forced on everyone so that they have no way to save hard money. The revolution isn't going to wait for everyone who chooses to be truly ignorant about Bitcoin. And there is only Bitcoin.
