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Cryptocurrency Mining For Dummies
book

Cryptocurrency Mining For Dummies

by Peter Kent, Tyler Bain
December 2019
Beginner
368 pages
9h 46m
English
For Dummies
Content preview from Cryptocurrency Mining For Dummies

Chapter 17

Ten Criticisms of Cryptocurrencies and Mining

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Re-evaluating Proof of Work energy consumption

Bullet Finding ways to reduce computational waste

Bullet Putting transaction-throughput metrics in context

Bullet Avoiding scams and rip-offs

Bullet Averting fires and neighbor complaints

Many criticisms and complaints have been leveled at cryptocurrencies and, in particular, the Proof of Work mining that often underpins them. Many of these criticisms are valid, but these topics have a ton of nuances that deserve thorough explanation, discussion, and debate. In this chapter, we explain some of the most common criticisms as well as some of the counter arguments associated with them.

Energy Consumption

There has been much ado about Bitcoin’s and other cryptocurrencies’ network energy consumption that occurs as a result of Proof of Work mining. As you learn in this book, it takes truly massive amounts of electrical energy to mine the Bitcoin blockchain.

It is true that Proof of Work mining ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781119579298Purchase book