You can see it already [0].

Eth PoS network already exists, what is missing is for the transition to be completed (aka, the "Merge")

[0]: https://beaconscan.com/statistics

The 380k validators concerns me a little, that's a lot of computing power burnt making sure we know who owns the monkey jpg. But I don't expect you would see the true reality of unexpected side effects until a system like this goes live and there is $$ to be made.

That's not just a "monkey jpg", and your comment would be a lot more valid if you dropped the sarcasm.

Anyway: 380k validators at 10W and assuming the cost of the kwH to be $0.25 (which is more than the world's average cost) amounts to ~8 million USD /year. That seems to me more than acceptable if it means that we are securing a blockchain that is already holding more than ~500B in assets.

I can not, and I will not, drop the sarcasm. If blockchain is the future, it deserves to be mocked every bit as much as the bits of paper it replaces, probably more. If it's not the future, then it's even funnier (in a sickening way) that humans decided to create 500B worth of monkey jpgs while the climate imploded around them.

Also, for the record, your back-of-the-envelope estimate - 32,000,000 kwh assuming I reversed it correctly - corresponds to about 27,200,000 lbs of carbon @ 0.85lbs/kwh - the average for all US electricity production in 2020.

Convert from lbs to 12337.7125 metric tons, divided by the 141 mT of carbon stored per acre of rainforest. Which makes the answer:

87.5 acres of rainforest burnt per year by PoS, before full adoption.

Adoption of the network is not related to its electricity consumption. The number of validators is a function of how many people want to invest (capital and resources) to secure the network.

And forgive me if I don't act all-too-shocked by your numbers, judging from all your posts about iOS and Apple stuff, I can easily see that your talk is cheap. Come back when your consumer habits actually match your concern about the environment.

> The number of validators is a function of how many people want to invest (capital and resources) to secure the network.

My point isn’t that every new user adds n new validators. My point is that larger the network and the more money involved, the more reasons there are to be a validator. They’re linked, just not directly.

As for my own activities, first - my carbon output doesn’t negate your carbon output, they’re both something we need to tackle. Second - I’d be the first one to say that the apple tech ecosystem has huge carbon costs that haven’t been reckoned with. That’s a big part of why I’ve been refocusing my attentions in the 6 years since 2016 when I last posted something about iOS.

> My point is that larger the network and the more money involved, the more reasons there are to be a validator.

Not exactly. Even for PoS, there will be a threshold where it is not as profitable to be a validator, leading people to rebalance their ETH allocation.