Bitcoin Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for Bitcoin crypto-currency enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
If Bitcoin is open source as proponents mention, why can't make Bitcoin as environmentally friendly as Ripple, Dogecoin, Cardono etc? Elon Musk tanked the market by mentioning Dogecoin is More environmentally friendly. It apparently uses an algorithm that takes less computation and energy consumption.
Source Code reference:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
Yes, there is a way, by creating a BIP, but an alternative to PoW would very likely not get consensus in the community, and thus its supporters would be forced (and are free to) to create a hard fork, creating a new coin altogether. It is then to be seen which coin the market will choose, but my sense is that the majority of bitcoin investors will still favour the coin with the original PoW mechanism.
Many coins have been created to set out to find a replacement for PoW, yet none of the coins have gained significant market share.
The monetary property that PoW provides for bitcoin is unforgeability, conceptually very similar to the unforgeability of gold. Other proof mechanisms of other coins are believed to be easier to forge/corrupt and more prone to centralisation of a coin. Buyers of bitcoin likely value the monetary property of unforgeability that PoW provides and this is likely the reason why bitcoin remains the most valued coin, despite its reliance on energy.
While bitcoins reliance on energy on the surface does not seem ideal, a currency that can be forged or centralised also has no (long term) value. Users will subjectively value whether the energy spent that safeguards their investments is ‘worth it’, by investing in it, or not. Some journalists or celebrities, like Elon Musk, may consider it ‘not worth it’ or ‘morally unjust’ from their vantage point, or still believe that PoW can be replaced, despite many failed altcoins and a large body of research on PoW. However, if you have suffered through many currency devaluations or disagree with how the ‘petro’-dollar is upheld and the effects it has on the world politics, the energy spent to safeguard the value of bitcoin may -subjectively!- be ‘worth it’ to you.
If Bitcoin is open source as proponents mention, why can't make Bitcoin as environmentally friendly as Ripple, Dogecoin, Cardono etc.
Changes to Bitcoin protocol are proposed as BIPs, discussed, implemented and used if enough consenus with soft forks as mentioned in an answer to one of the question you asked previously: Who approves the feature and bug code reviews in Bitcoin?
Nothing in the Bitcoin protocol stops people from creating better ASICs, using renewable energy sources, recycling ASIC heat etc.
In fact there are some people who are involved in some of these things instead of virtue signalling on social media: https://braiins.com/blog/green-innovation-in-bitcoin-mining-recycling-asic-heat
Why XYZ features of some altcoin are not available in Bitcoin is already answered in one of the questions you asked previously:
Will Bitcoin copy Best Features of Litecoin, Ripple, if its Open Source?
I am also curious why some of the altcoins use chains of block for scamming and not just SQL database or Google Sheets API. They could save some energy.
Elon Musk tanked the market by mentioning Dogecoin is More environmentally friendly
10-15% moves are not big in BTCUSD considering the overall volatility. The price has gone 10x in last one year. Tesla has dumped 25% in last couple of weeks, is it because of his tweets? Speculating why price moves up or down every day is not something I want to discuss on Bitcoin Stackexchange.
It apparently uses an algorithm that takes less computation and energy consumption.
This is not true as mentioned by sipa in comments.
Source Code reference: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
This is not the source code for Bitcoin. This is the repository for one of the implementation for Bitcoin: Bitcoin Core
KWh consumed per transaction
This makes no sense.
