Bitcoin (₿) and Energy Consumptions.

Hey!! This is not an advanced javascript question and i doubt, is it a question at all?

Let me tell you the story today..

Aha!! I like stories 😍 !! I am listening.. 

It is technical story 😅 not the fairy-tail one !!

I can expect that only from you. 😅 Go ahead!!

Okay, Few years back, I went to a place, more like a jungle, really tall trees, birds chirping and deep peaceful silence. Whenever I go there I feel relaxed.

Hey, do you think about such a things?

Obviously, Everyone thinks about it when Bitcoin is off there mind 😂😂😂😂😂

Yeah, 😂😂😂😂😂 Bitcoin is trending topic these days, After “Elon” tweeting about DOGE, It went over the roof.. everyone knows about it now.

Yeah, You are right!! but Let's get back to the story 😅.

Actually, I don’t have any story for you, I was just thinking How that place will look like today?

🧐 What do you mean by that?

I mean, We (Humans) are already doing lot of pollution and because of that our environment is changing so i was thinking about it, will that place remain the same? I mean let’s take an example of this Bitcoin thing. Do you know how much energy is needed for bitcoin mining and how much it is impacting our environment?

😏 Bro.. I don't know much about Bitcoin but who told you all this?

I searched about it, even few days back “Elon” tweeted about it.

Check 👇 this out.

Okay but bitcoin is a digital thing, How it is connected to a fossil fuels and coal? 🧐🧐🧐🧐

For that you need to know what is Bitcoin and how it works !!

🙄 Okay, Let's start with "What"

Okay, Bitcoin (₿) is a decentralized digital currency.

What does decentralized mean? 🧐

In normal currencies, Central Bank or Single Administrator is incharge of it, where each transaction goes through this intermediate people or organisation.

But in decentralized currencies, In this context Bitcoin can be sent directly to a user via its pear to pear network, It is not tied to any person, entity, bank, organisation. It is transparent and accessible around the glob.

You can relate to this like for example we download something from torrent, Its kind of same but it uses special Bitcoin Network to transfer bitcoin.

Bitcoin Network? What it is? 🧐

In easy words, It’s same like internet, few machines are connected to each other over the internet and it uses protocol called Blockchain.

What is this Blockchain? 😅 In each sentence you are throwing new terminology at me.

😂😂😂😂 It is what it is!!

Okay, In a nutshell, Blockchain is single chain of blocks (each block has some information) and each block has its unique id and reference of previous block id. Hence they form a chain and called as Blockchain.

Check this 👇 diagram you’ll get the idea, how it works !!

I checked it, Its pretty easy to understand but I didn't understood validation process step and what is this mining? 😅

Every bitcoin transaction has a public account which is called a Ledger. This public accounts ie Ledgers are stored on many computers on Bitcoin Network. The people who runs this network are known as Bitcoin Miners. It is miners who verify each transaction.

For example, “Person A” wants to send 2 bitcoins to “Person B”, then minor verifies that “Person A” really has 2 bitcoins and to do that he/she has to solve really complex mathematical equation.

Each bitcoin transaction has its unique variable. Minor has to find that variable by solving puzzle. Once minor solves this complex puzzle, the other people in the network verifies it and then one block is formed and it is added to the blockchain.

Aha!! I got the overall idea. 
but 😏 To be honest, I still don't see any fossil fuel and coal in your talks.

😂 🤣 🤣 Okay, Let’s get back to it.

For each bitcoin transaction, there are many minors trying to solve the puzzle. It’s like a race where who solves the puzzle first wins it and to solve such a complex puzzle high configuration computers are needed. And because of this reason lot of energy is consumed by these minors on repetitive work.

Okay, but firstly why this rat race? 😅 Just to complete someone else's transaction. and secondly what kind of repetitive work?

One question at time!!

This rat race is because whenever minor verifies the transaction and transaction is completed, as a reward minor gets few bitcoins, currently it is 6.25 bitcoin for single transaction which is $2,31,726 USD now.

🤩 Wow, That's super awesome reward.

Yeah, I know It is fascinating reward. This means many people are trying to mine bitcoins and because by nature it has complex equations to solve so many people trying to solve it, hence repetitive work.

And obviously people are not going to solve it with pen and paper 😂😂.

It becomes simple formula, more processing power more chances of solving bitcoin puzzles and wining bitcoins.

And because of this rat race, minors are consuming more energy than many countries.

And this energy is mostly produced from fossil fuel and mainly coal.

1 kg of coal produces 2.42 kg of CO2, Which is not environment friendly.

I believe “Elon” was also talking about same thing.

Okay, but does this means Bitcoin is not good?

I believe process could be improved. Actually there are few alternatives already present in Market. Example Etherium and Litecoin etc. They are more energy efficient than Bitcoin itself.

You are saying lot of energy but how much? Does this consumption matter? 

Bitcoin consumes 'more electricity than Argentina'

Read this article from BBC.

Cambridge researchers say it consumes around 121.36 terawatt-hours (TWh) a year — and is unlikely to fall unless the value of the currency slumps.

Day by day this bitcoin network will grow, more high configuration computers will be added, by nature of blockchain the puzzles will get more and more complex, so I see lot of energy consumption in up coming days by the minors.

To be honest, It’s not completely bad at all, but current solution we have is not optimal.

We need to improve it to make use of crypto currencies efficiently in future.

Yeah, things could be improved and right now its not major thing and we have time to correct it right!!

Yeah, It could be. My idea here was to give you a small hint, a starting point to think about all this.

Yeah, I got the gist. We are planing to go the mars but keeping earth a place to live is also a challenge.

Yeah, You are right!! I am feeling sleepy now. Good night.

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Take care and stay safe. Good Night 😴

😴 Yep, bye bye.