🍪 W36 - ₿ Bitcoin uses more energy than Finland
Bitcoin consumes more energy than Finland, Gaming isn’t all that bad & Enter the virtual world of the “metaverse”
Hi,
and welcome to the 5th edition of this newsletter focusing on tech and gaming, where, if you look closely, each article has a link to another.
In this edition:
Bitcoin consumes more energy than Finland
Gaming isn’t all that bad
Enter the virtual world of the “metaverse”
Escape to the virtual world with the Matrix Resurrections trailer
And some additional 🍞 Crumbs & 🧠 Brain game
Happy reading.
Regards,
Steven
Btw, building an audience for this newsletter requires effort, so by sharing this newsletter you can enlighten others and help me grow. Thanks in advance for your help.
☕ Grab a coffee, take a bite 🍪
6 min to chew through this one.
① ₿ Bitcoin uses more energy than Finland
Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies are becoming more popular but also seem to be using huge amounts of electricity. From creating them to spending and trading, they consume 91 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, which is more than Finland. This already accounts for 0.5% of all electrical consumption, is 7 times more than all of Google’s operations and has grown tenfold in the past 5 years.
So why this huge energy consumption?
Going back in time, Satoshi Nakamoto created a proposal in 2008 for electronic payment (bitcoin) that would cut out the middlemen (banks etc…). To safeguard transactions, they are verified against a public ledger. And this is where most of the energy is consumed.
When doing a transaction, you send Bitcoin to someone else’s digital wallet. To ensure a valid transaction, this needs to be validated within the Bitcoin network.
All around the world, individuals, computer networks,… are competing to be chosen to validate the transaction. Because, whenever being chosen, you’ll be rewarded with 6.25 newly created Bitcoin, each Bitcoin worth about $50.000 today.
This competition to validate the transaction is called “mining”, and the more computers and computing power you have, the more chance you have at getting new Bitcoins.
Maybe you remember from the past you could do this with your regular computer, but today to compete, you need a lot of powerful machines, and enough space to house them including cooling to make sure they don’t overheat. Hence mining is done in giant data centres. In fact, only seven mining groups own nearly 80% of all computing power on the network.
But it’s not just the mining and its emissions that are harmful. You need the newest and fastest devices, which creates the problem of e-waste. Alex de Vries, from the Digiconomist, calculated that Bitcoin was creating more e-waste than many midsize countries.
Could Bitcoin be mined using renewable energy?
Experts say this would be possible, but it would also mean this energy source would not be available to power homes, factories,…
So for the time being, it looks as though Bitcoin’s energy consumption will remain highly volatile, connected to fossil fuels, power grids and emissions, and to the climate crisis, we’re in today.
Source: The New York Times - 10 min read
② 🎮 Gaming isn’t all that bad
When thinking about how video games might affect you, probably the first thing to come to mind is “addiction”. But actually, it isn’t all that bad.
One … more … game
Of course, addiction is real. The release of dopamine or pleasant stimuli in your brain when staying alive or being able to buy fancy gear can keep you lured into playing for hours. A great example of this would be Fortnite, a virtual world in which you need to survive and while doing so, can obtain skins and dance moves for your digital self. Fortnite is extremely popular among young children, and cases of addiction are well known.
In 2018, a year after the game’s official release, a 9-year-old girl in the UK was taken to rehab after deliberately wetting herself in order to keep playing
But despite the bad press, first- and third-person shooters have proven to have brain-related benefits. They improve spatial awareness, decision-making and attention. Additionally, the heart-racing pressure to stay alive turns out to be positive stress, increasing your ability to focus in real life.
Positive impact on the brain
Neurological and psychological research on video games is in its infancy but studies so far have shown that video games can be effective tools for upgrading our brains and our cognitive skill sets - especially in the long run.
Daphne Bavelier and C. Shawn Green from the University of Rochester have been researching this since the ‘90s and found that action games in particular provided tangible cognitive advantages that help us in everyday life.
“Individuals who regularly play action games demonstrate improved ability to focus on visual details, useful for reading fine print in a legal document or on a prescription bottle. They also display heightened sensitivity to visual contrast, important when driving in thick fog … The multitasking required to switch back and forth between reading a menu and holding a conversation with a dinner partner also comes more easily.”
In her TED talk, Daphne explains that playing action games like Call of Duty in reasonable doses should be viewed as brain-boosting, instead of being brainless.
Play games in moderation
There isn’t really a one-size-fits-all rule for everyone on how much time to spend on games, especially adults versus children. Remain very well aware of the time you and/or your children spend on gaming, and know that by doing it with moderation it can make you a bit more resilient, quicker and smarter.
Source: WIRED - 4 min read
③ 👨💻 Enter the virtual world of the “metaverse”
You might have already heard of the term “metaverse”, which major tech companies, like Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft,… all want to develop. The aim would be to create a virtual world that you would explore as your digital self or “digital avatars” by means of AR, VR,… technology.
Mark Zuckerberg wants Facebook to be a “ metaverse company”.
The term “metaverse” comes from Snow Crash a 1992 science fiction book written by Neal Stephenson, where, in the wake of a catastrophic global economic crash, people would turn to a virtual world to interact with each other, and show their “status” via the appearance of their digital avatars.
Although this metaverse doesn’t exist yet, virtual worlds are already emerging through games like Roblox and Fortnite, worlds in which a lot of virtual currency is being spent.
Gucci sold a virtual bag for more than the real thing in Roblox; Nike dropped virtual Jordans in Fortnite; Coca-Cola launched avatar wearables in Decentraland, and Sotheby’s has an art gallery that your avatar can wander in your spare time.
Big corporations and tech companies see this as well and are either wanting to create a metaverse themselves or are investing heavily in already existing virtual worlds. For that reason, Sony invested $200M in the developer of Fortnite.
Because while many of us just scroll feeds, Gen Alpha already strolls around virtual worlds with their friends. Because for them, gaming is social life.
And brands will follow as well. Where people go and spend money, they will follow.
Not just a game or gimmick
It’s a bit unclear at this moment what the “metaverse” will be, but it’ll be much more than a game, it’ll be a virtual world in which you can roam freely visiting digital settings that feel very real, such as a nightclub, a sports stadium, famous locations or historical places. You would be able to interact with others and the environment just like in the real world, even allowing you to buy digital items with cryptocurrencies.
In short, it’ll be a place where anything will be possible.
Source: Fast Company - 4 min read
Source: VOA news - 3 min read
Source: The verge - 20 min read
🍞 Crumbs
Facebook launched their smart glasses in cooperation with Ray-Ban
Google is launching a dark theme on Google Search Desktop
Italy says ‘No’ towards Europe’s idea to ban combustion engines to protect their supercars
Apple just had its 'California Streaming' event launching the iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13, Apple Watch Series 7, and the new iPad mini and iPad
El Salvador adopts bitcoin as legal tender, as the first country in the world
What’s App messages aren’t as encrypted as you thought they were
UK is looking to diverge from the EU-enacted GDPR
Chip shortage still has its grip on the auto industry with Ford’s U.S. sales declining 33%
Strange, repeating radio signal near the centre of the Milky Way has scientists stumped
Spiderman comic sold for a record $3.6M
The US states Arizona and Georgia will be the first to add state IDs to iPhone
Facebook has 5.8M VIPs for which rules do not apply
On the note of virtual worlds, the first trailer of the Matrix Resurrections has been released, with the movie premiering on December 22nd.
🧠 Brain game
Which country is responsible for the highest Carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from the burning of fossil fuels for energy and cement production?
Have a look at Our World in data.
Did you like this newsletter? Questions? Leave a comment 😉