Talk:Bitcoin

Updating the Lede Section

Hi guys, I was thinking we should update the Lede section to include the recent widespread acceptance of Bitcoin. The lede reads a tad critical to me, in particular with the sentence "Bitcoin has been described as an economic bubble by at least eight Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences recipients.", taking it from section 11.1. I feel we should have a sentence that balances this statement, such as some general facts from section 7.5, which is even longer than section 11.1 and more recent. Something to indicate to the reader that it has had its critics but it also has some very big supporters as well. Just my 2 cents. I'll let you guys handle it from here. (First edit!) Artimaeus Creed (talk) 01:01, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

This is here are there are a few editors that feel it is necessary for WP:NPOV. It is probably WP:FALSEBALANCE, however I think there is broad support that wikipedia fall on the negative side of NPOV on this one so as not to be seen promoting the article's subject. Not everyone at wikipedia supports bitcoin, far from it in fact. Its up to the reader in this case to make their own opinion. But yes, to a reader the stand alone sentence that makes up its own paragraph, does appear to stand out in a strange away. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 03:49, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

The current lead does a relatively poor job of summarizing the entire body of the article, but as a placeholder until that's fixed, the Nobel line is a useful summary of the mainstream view of the topic. If anyone has any reliable sources for this recent widespread acceptance of Bitcoin please present them. No reliable source I have seen recently has made any such claim, nor does this seem likely, tbh. Grayfell (talk) 07:27, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Excerpting Environmental impact of bitcoin

If no one has any objection I am thinking of copying the "environmental impact" section to the lead of Environmental impact of bitcoin which is much too short, and excerpting back to here. And this might make the 2 articles easier to keep up to date in future. Chidgk1 (talk) 10:49, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

I think I waited a reasonable number of days for comments so I did it Chidgk1 (talk) 09:42, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Greenhouse gas emissions statement in the lede

The addition to the lede of the statement on the bitcoin mining emissions seems meaningless to me. The statement can be applied to just any industry. E.g., "Because not all angle bending uses low carbon electricity it worsens climate change by emitting greenhouse gases." In my opinion, this statement has to be either removed or changed to be encyclopedic. Vgbyp (talk) 18:26, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Many, many reliable sources emphasize this aspect of bitcoin mining, and Wikipedia summarizes reliable source. If anything, the paragraph is an understatement. Per reliable sources, bitcoin is extraordinarily wasteful, and I have added a bit of context to explain why. Grayfell (talk) 22:14, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm not arguing whether bitcoin mining is a wasteful industry or not. My point was that statements that we include in the article should have some meaning. A statement that can be applied to nearly any human activity isn't encyclopedic. Now, with the clarification that its environmental impact is significant (according to the provided source), it makes the statement worthy of inclusion. Vgbyp (talk) 09:30, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

I see. Yes, it is vague. Part of the difficulty is that any comparison to other industries (or just basic activities like angle bending) is going to be incomplete or misleading. Other industries are cost-incentivized to waste as few resources as possible. By design, bitcoin is less energy efficient than conventional finance, which is the only category it directly competes with. With bitcoin and other proof-of-work schemes, consuming electricity is specifically incentivized by adjustments to difficulty, so it is not in the same category of wastefulness as angle bending or farming or credit card transactions or any other industry. Grayfell (talk) 00:47, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't think it is correct to say that "consuming electricity is specifically incentivized" in PoW schemes. Miners are incentivized to use as little electricity as possible by electricity costs. PoW only incentivizes increased computer processing power. Electricity consumption normally increases with the computer processing power, but miners are incentivized to decrease the consumption per unit of power. However, this has little to do with the issue at hand. As I have said, if we have the RS that is saying that the greenhouse gas emissions are significant and this 'significance' is mentioned in the article, then it is fine by me. Vgbyp (talk) 10:31, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

With manufacturing or finance, the output is tied to the market's demand for those services much more directly than it is with bitcoin, since there is no algorithm which artificially makes new production less efficient than old production. When a bitcoin mining consortium figures out a way to use less electricity per unit, they are still incentivized, by the algorithm itself, to use all the electricity available to them. This is different from other industries. The act of processing a credit card transaction doesn't directly increase the cost of the next transaction, for example. Indirectly, sure, maybe, but bitcoin isn't exempt from those externalities, either, so this isn't an excuse.

There's also the related issue that any energy consumed must be weighed against what's actually being accomplished. With the beef industry, which sources compare to bitcoin, the work is pretty obvious: it feeds people, and pets, and provides leather and industrial applications, and so on. With bitcoin, on the other hand, the work is still mostly within a walled garden. The primary use is money transferring. Any other type of work being done in the outside world by bitcoin is, so far, a rounding error. Bitcoin is so much less efficient than other, older technologies at transferring money that it's absurd to even try and compare them. People aren't using it because it's efficient, they are using it because its intentionally inefficient design provides some specific benefit to them. Grayfell (talk) 19:57, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

I would say that your opinion on the mining industry doesn't quite match the reality described to me by some bitcoin miners, who specifically aim to reduce electricity consumption instead of using as much as is somehow available to them. But we are deviating into WP:NOTFORUM here. After all, it matters little what our opinion is on mining or on the network's utility. We should rely on RS for that and convey their findings in clear and concise way. Vgbyp (talk) 11:37, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

I am attempting to summarize sources which are cited here, at Environmental impact of bitcoin, and at several other articles. The reason I bothered explaining any any of this at all was to make it easier to summarize this information in these articles. The goal with this article, as with every other article, is to summarize sources. As I'm sure we're both aware, your conversations with bitcoin miners are not reliable, not verifiable, and not impartial. Reliable sources which explain this are not hard to come by, or at least, they wouldn't be if mountains of unreliable sources didn't actively attempt to drown-out legitimate information. Grayfell (talk) 00:36, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree it is probably WP:UNDUE and maybe WP:SYNTH as written in the lede. Issues is that we have RS that state the majority of bitcoin mining is renewable energy. It warrants examination in the article and summarization in he lede (with summarization being that the findings are mixed). Jtbobwaysf (talk) 02:03, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Whether or not it's a majority or a minority, it's still significant per an overwhelming number of reliable sources. It's a subtle bit of editorializing to decide, as an editor, that being a majority makes any sort of difference to how encyclopedically significant this is. It also doesn't address the more nuanced issue of externalities, which many sources talk about, but often in less direct terms which are more difficult to summarize succinctly. Being difficult to summarize, of course, isn't by itself a valid excuse to leave something out, so this would also have to be addressed. Grayfell (talk) 02:51, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

OK, I took a more neutral stab at the wording. We dont need the full linkfarm in the lede, that can be done in the article body. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 04:29, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

@Grayfell: Here you reverted my edit and called the statement fringe. Please provide a more neutral wording. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 06:02, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

There is absolutely no dispute among reliable sources that bitcoin mining is tied to dirty power which releases greenhouse gasses. Calling this "controversial" is misleading and loaded. Even if some bitcoin mining is clean, nobody of any credibility is claiming that all bitcoin mining is clean. Implying that this is merely "suspected" is completely unacceptable. Grayfell (talk) 06:09, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Now it became even worse with the latest changes by User:Jtbobwaysf. What does this phrase even mean?

The environmental impact of bitcoin is controversial as its proof-of-work algorithm for bitcoin mining uses electricity...

I thought it is controversial because of its significant usage of electricity, of which still a significant part is derived from "dirty" sources. Something using electricity isn't a reason for it being controversial, is it? Vgbyp (talk) 13:39, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

"Significant" is not an encyclopedic term and is subjective to the reader. The whole reason that the energy use discussion is being added to this article is that it is considered controversial. You will note that there are others that consider the proof of work system to be a feature rather than a flaw, hence the controversy. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:25, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't agree that "significant" isn't an encyclopedic term. The same term is often used to described results of scientific research. If something is deemed significant or insignificant by a RS, it is encyclopedic. PoW being considered a feature has little to do with a statement that something using electricity is controversial. Vgbyp (talk) 15:48, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Statistically significant is a scientific term and maybe WP:OSE. If you can find it in the sources, please show us here. If you think it is significant it is only your WP:OR. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:12, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

We have an entire article on the environmental damage caused by bitcoin, and that article is summarized in this article. There are thousands upon thousands of reliable sources which now mention the climate change damage caused by bitcoin mining. Even though only a small sample of these sources are cited at these two articles, it's still almost overwhelming. To put it another way, per sources, this is one of the most important, if not the single most important, issue facing bitcoin. Again, this is not just my opinion, this is per sources already cited in this and other articles. Any attempt to ignore sources to artificially downplay this issue is whitewashing. The sources are already in the article. Asking for even more sources is wikilawyering to demand WP:CITEBOMBING. Grayfell (talk) 19:42, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

I think the article isn't summarized, the lede of the other article you refer to is quoted verbatim to create a section in this article correct? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:24, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

As explained above, that lead of that article is now excerpted here. This is not the same as a verbatim quote (that would potentially be a WP:COPYWITHIN problem, among other things).

As I said, per an overwhelming number of sources, this is a defining issue with bitcoin, so the article will need to cover it proportionately and without euphemisms, and without editorializing to add whataboutism. Grayfell (talk) 20:38, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

The defining issue of bitcion is environmental issues? Do you have some evidence of that or only your own WP:OR? What method did you use to determine due weight in the lede for this content? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 22:49, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

As I said this is not just my opinion, this is per sources already cited in this and other articles. The method I used was WP:DUE: I looked at reliable sources. Grayfell (talk) 20:00, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Please show me the source that says bitcoin's defining characteristic is its environmental issue as you have claimed. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:28, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Again, as I already said: per countless sources already cited this is one of the most important issues facing bitcoin. If you understand what I'm saying, you're not going to ask for "the source" which says this, because countless sources say this.

Here is a small sample of sources which mention this issue, in whole or in part:

• DeRoche, Mandy; Fisher, Jeremy; Thorpe, Nick; Wachspress, Megan (September 2022). "The Energy Bomb: How Proof-of-Work Cryptocurrency Mining Worsens the Climate Crisis and Harms Communities Now" (PDF). Earthjustice / Sierra Club. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
• Dhanesha, Neel (18 April 2022). "The daunting task of making cryptocurrency climate-friendly". Vox. Retrieved 4 November 2022.
• Starn, Jesper; Saul, Josh (29 March 2022). "Analysis | Why Bitcoin's Environmental Problems Are So Hard to Fix". Bloomberg. Retrieved 4 November 2022 – via Washington Post.
• Allen, Hilary J. (September 2022). "The Superficial Allure of Crypto". IMF.
• "FACT SHEET: Climate and Energy Implications of Crypto-Assets in the United States | OSTP". The White House (Press release). 8 September 2022.
• Huang, Jon; O’Neill, Claire; Tabuchi, Hiroko (2021-09-03). "Bitcoin Uses More Electricity Than Many Countries. How Is That Possible?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-10-26.
• Gonzalez, Oscar. "Bitcoin Mining: How Much Electricity It Takes and Why People Are Worried". CNET. Retrieved 2022-10-26.
• "Tesla will no longer accept Bitcoin over climate concerns, says Musk". BBC News. 13 May 2021. Retrieved 13 May 2021.
• Howson, Peter (1 June 2022). "Cryptocurrency price collapse offers hope for slowing climate change – here's how". The Conversation. Retrieved 4 November 2022.
• etc.
• etc...

As I said, this is just a sample. Some are more reliable and weighty than others, but the over-all picture here is clear. This is a major issue which has attracted a large amount of attention from outside of the crypto-niche. Grayfell (talk) 22:57, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

You have given a list of sources that discuss the matter. Bitcoin is discussed in thousands of sources regarding all different angles. Please provide the sources that substantiate your assertion that this matter deserves a greater weight in the lede. Your list of sources doesnt address that point as far as I can see. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 00:47, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

I've already answered your request. As we both agree, countless sources have documented bitcoin's country-sized energy consumption. Those sources have specifically described this as wasteful and damaging to the climate. I have, for your convenience, provided a sample. You mention other sources, but on Wikipedia, past discussions of about the weight of those other thousands of sources and their different angles have been skeptical, for whole lot of reasons.

To put it another way, the mere existence of hypothetical other sources isn't really meaningful, because experience has given us many valid reasons to doubt the reliability and neutrality of most of them. Many, many reliable sources discuss the damage to the climate caused by bitcoin mining. Our goal is to summarize reliable sources.

As for different angles, sources discuss this problem from different angles. Among those source I sample above, I tried to include those which show that this isn't merely a technical issue, it's also very much the popular perception of bitcoin. Per sources, this is a facet of bitcoin that people want to know about.

Since this is extensively documented by many reliable sources from multiple perspectives, it would be inappropriate to downplay this perspective in the article. Grayfell (talk) 05:33, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Acceptance for donations

I currently don't have >500 edits, so I cannot edit this article due to it being locked with Extended Confirmed Protection. Instead, can someone with >500 edits please add the following to the Bitcoin article in a new section titled "Acceptance for donations" directly below the section titled "Acceptance by merchants"? Thank you.

Acceptance for donations

In 2008, Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin as an alternative to existing electronic payment systems that was specifically designed to reduce transaction costs by eliminating the inefficiencies caused by requiring a :trusted third party. By storing the transactions on the blockchain, Bitcoin was able to allow "any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party."

A side-effect of making transactions peer-to-peer without a trusted third party was that all transactions became permissionless. A permissionless currency is one where there is no third party that can block or reverse a transaction. Many protest movements and nonprofit organizations started accepting bitcoin because permissioned financial institutions froze their accounts or blocked their donors' transactions.

In 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement started accepting bitcoin after PayPal blocked the demonstrators from being able to withdrawal their donations from the platform.

In 2011, WikiLeaks started accepting bitcoin after PayPal blocked the non-profit from being able to accept donations on their platform.

In 2019-2020, protestors in Hong Kong accepted bitcoin when HSBC froze an activist's bank account holding over $9 million.

In 2022, the government of Ukraine raised over $50 million in cryptocurrency.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Maltfield (talk • contribs) 19:23, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

The content about being permissionless appears to be original research. It is also a crypto WP:BUZZWORD. We would need to summarize reliable, independent sources to explain something like this without hype.

Likewise, Wikilinks is not independent of Wikilinks, for example. For the Forbes source, see WP:FORBESCON.

For the Ukraine story, this would need more context, but one specific issue is that the Washington Post story is about donations in general, with only a single paragraph about cryptocurrency specifically, and the article doesn't mention "bitcoin" at all. That source cites a crypto analytics firm (which is not itself reliable) and that source specifically says that bitcoin was less popular than other cryptos for donations due to being more expensive. If we're going to mention this here, we shouldn't imply to readers it's more significant than sources say it is. Grayfell (talk) 19:54, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

"Permissionless" isn't a buzzword. It's a term used, for example, by the Bank for International Settlements in its research of cryptocurrencies and CBDC:

• https://www.bis.org/publ/bisbull56.pdf
• https://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar2018e5.htm
• https://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar2022e3.htm

Regarding the poor quality of references, I agree. This would need better refs to be added. Vgbyp (talk) 18:22, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Whether or not it is a buzzword is decided by context. In this context being 'permissionless' was presented as a reason for a perspective's significance, but the word isn't informative as to why that perspective is significant. More simply put, the word tries to tell readers that this is impressive, but it doesn't really add useful information. A reliable source would need to explain what permissionless means and why that would make any difference in this specific situation for this to not be a buzzword. Grayfell (talk) 21:47, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

This is exactly the right context for this term. Permissionless means that there is no controlling third-party for transactions. The importance of it lacking such control is obvious to the protest movements mentioned in the proposed edit. Of course, the term can be avoided by repeating its definition instead, but why do it if the term is already defined and widely accepted when discussing cryptocurrencies? Vgbyp (talk) 16:28, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Again, this all comes down to reliable sources. One of the problems is that "permissionless" is jargon, because it's used in a narrow field to mean something different from what the word implies in normal, conversational English. As a general-audience encyclopedia, we have to be aware of what words mean to everybody, not just those inside the niche. Specifically, placing this word in a redlink as permissionless is broadcasting to readers that this word has a definite and important meaning. That is very much using it as a buzzword, regardless of how accurate it it. Further, I don't accept that this term is as well-defined as you do, which is why we need to look at it in context as used by those (hypothetical) sources. When bitcoin advocates talk about it being 'permissionless' they are including several unstated assumptions which are not accepted by outside observers (such as the BIS, which you've cited). If the ONLY use of this term in the article is this vague suggestion of something positive while glossing over all of the many serious problems, then it's a buzzword. Instead, we could use sources to explain the term neutrally and then introduce this as one example. If handled well, that would be informative, but as we agree, it depends on reliable and independent sources.

Likewise, just because something is obvious to some editors doesn't mean it must also be obvious to readers, nor does that mean it's factually correct. That why this looks like original research to me. Grayfell (talk) 19:54, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Please feel free to find some better sources, this would be good content to add. BIS is of course a good source as is the wikileaks official website. But we are not using contributor sources on cryptocurrency articles. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:27, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

No, Wikileaks is not reliable per Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. It might be usable in some limited cases as a WP:PRIMARY source, but only if a reliable independent sources provides context. Forbes' "contibutor" content should be avoided everywhere, not just crypto articles. For the Bank for International Settlements, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. Grayfell (talk) 21:56, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for clarification. I was referring to wikileaks as a primary source about the organization's own acceptance of bitcoin, if that is what we were discussing. I recall that wikileaks was the first major organization to accept it, it caused consternation with Satohsi, and was quite a notable event (at least in regards to early bitcoin history). There should be WP:RS for this I would think. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 11:18, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

References

marketcap

@Grayfell: I see you removed the market cap seeking an WP:RS for this. I think we can use things such as bloomberg or other quote engines, there are plenty of these. This is non-controversial content. @David Gerard: care to comment? For example bloombergcrypto Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 05:32, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

See Template talk:Infobox cryptocurrency#Market cap, again. Regardless of whether this field belongs or not, every single instance of this should be supported by a reliable source.

But I think it's more controversial than it might appear. To briefly explain my issue with the template: It is potentially misleading to present the market cap as a bland statistic. It's more complicated than that. Infoboxes are a bad place to put complicated info that needs context.

But again, every single use needs a reliable source. Without a reliable source, or with an unreliable source, it is definitely controversial content. That's why I removed it. Grayfell (talk) 05:46, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

yeah, that field arguably shouldn't exist in the infobox - it's a bad number, and people keep putting it in and citing it to non-RSes - David Gerard (talk) 10:34, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia runs off of WP:RS, if there isn't much / any coverage by reliable sources. It probably isn't notable enough to be on Wikipedia. --MaximusEditor (talk) 21:44, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 25 November 2022

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency. This needs to be clarified. 2A00:23C4:DE4A:B901:CC73:2EA3:8A6:DAEE (talk) 19:58, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. It's in the 3rd sentence of the lead already. What further clarification would you suggest Cannolis (talk) 20:13, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Decentralization

The current text in the decentralization section has a bit which is supposed to cast doubt on Bitcoin's decentralization. It uses several year old statistics, which, while probably correct, are misleading as there is no recent update to them. Also, there is a lot more to be said about Bitcoin's decentralization, so I'm thinking of adding another paragraph on it's importance, etc. (Esp. see that bit about being "controlled by a small set of entities")

Anyone have any thoughts, or want to work with me on an update?

Haxwell (talk)