Bitcoin miners are buying power plants(nysfocus.com)
nysfocus.com
Bitcoin miners are buying power plants
https://www.nysfocus.com/2021/04/13/new-york-bitcoin-mining-threat/
577 comments
To me it seems like Bitcoin (and other pow cryptocurrencies) are almost like the climate change scapegoat for a number of social and economic issues that have seemingly come to a head recently to facilitate their rise.
People mine because it is expensive, it isn't the other way around, so the real questions we should be asking in good faith are things like "Why it is profitable in the first place?" and I think it is probably related to other questions like why have the greater financial markets become so wonky, why has the behavior of investors changed so radically (GME et al), why have politicians been unable to be effective policymakers for decades, and why many institutions, both social and political in nature, appear to have become less trustworthy in the eye of the greater public? These are some of the questions among others which I think probably provide a better understanding of what is happening than the overly simplistic 'ponzi scam' explanation that has been repeated ad nauseam since its inception.
Bitcoin is just one of many things (pretty much everything) that have been able to use energy profitably, while subsidizing the costs by externalizing them via climate change, that part isn't new. People get too caught up on bitcoin because it is new and nobody understands it (not just from a technical perspective), so it is really easy to dismiss. Singling it out in that manner seems silly.
People mine because it is expensive, it isn't the other way around, so the real questions we should be asking in good faith are things like "Why it is profitable in the first place?" and I think it is probably related to other questions like why have the greater financial markets become so wonky, why has the behavior of investors changed so radically (GME et al), why have politicians been unable to be effective policymakers for decades, and why many institutions, both social and political in nature, appear to have become less trustworthy in the eye of the greater public? These are some of the questions among others which I think probably provide a better understanding of what is happening than the overly simplistic 'ponzi scam' explanation that has been repeated ad nauseam since its inception.
Bitcoin is just one of many things (pretty much everything) that have been able to use energy profitably, while subsidizing the costs by externalizing them via climate change, that part isn't new. People get too caught up on bitcoin because it is new and nobody understands it (not just from a technical perspective), so it is really easy to dismiss. Singling it out in that manner seems silly.
I don't think the criticism is exactly wrong, but it's more like Bitcoin mining is the reductio ad absurdum exposing the waste of resources that goes into gold mining (yes, there's some industrial uses, but that is a rounding error compared to the quantities that are dug up, purified, cast into bars, shipped around the world and buried back underground in vaults).
About half is used for jewelry because gold is shiny pebbles. About 10% is used for electronics.
Mining Bitcoin consumes 5X as much energy as gold, btw, per unit value extracted. It also requires mining gold to produce the circuit boards used for mining Bitcoin - given the popularity of the ENIG immersion gold plating process for PCB contacts.
The secondary issue is that of course each Bitcoin transaction generates 100g of e-waste which cannot be recycled and just gets buried. E-waste has a few grams of metals, but is mostly plastic and FR4 (epoxy filled fiberglass). Plastic and FR4 cannot be recycled. What little of the e-waste can be recycled is shipped to third-world countries where poor people dig through piles of scrap and dunk it in toxic chemicals.
The only meaningful way to move forward is to reduce consumption, especially consumption which achieves nothing, like literally wiring up a power plant to compute hashes of random data instead of attaching it to the grid to do useful things.
What a disaster.
Mining Bitcoin consumes 5X as much energy as gold, btw, per unit value extracted. It also requires mining gold to produce the circuit boards used for mining Bitcoin - given the popularity of the ENIG immersion gold plating process for PCB contacts.
The secondary issue is that of course each Bitcoin transaction generates 100g of e-waste which cannot be recycled and just gets buried. E-waste has a few grams of metals, but is mostly plastic and FR4 (epoxy filled fiberglass). Plastic and FR4 cannot be recycled. What little of the e-waste can be recycled is shipped to third-world countries where poor people dig through piles of scrap and dunk it in toxic chemicals.
The only meaningful way to move forward is to reduce consumption, especially consumption which achieves nothing, like literally wiring up a power plant to compute hashes of random data instead of attaching it to the grid to do useful things.
What a disaster.
Where did you get the 100g of e-waste figure from btw? Is that, roughly speaking, the e-waste mass of storage/txn * total number of nodes?
Digiconomist [1]. I should have linked it up top, my bad.
Looks like they, in turn used this reference [2].
[1] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/
[2] https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(19)30087-X
Looks like they, in turn used this reference [2].
[1] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/
[2] https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(19)30087-X
Ah, but they’re calculating e-waste in the form of specialized mining hardware (ASIC) that, at present, goes obsolete every few years.
The e-waste generated this way is not an intrinsic cost of handling a transaction, since the hardware could hypothetically be reused or recycled. It seems unwise to think of it as an irreducible cost per txn, rather than a dynamic figure that would likely improve over time (especially if the carbon externality were appropriately taxed)
The e-waste generated this way is not an intrinsic cost of handling a transaction, since the hardware could hypothetically be reused or recycled. It seems unwise to think of it as an irreducible cost per txn, rather than a dynamic figure that would likely improve over time (especially if the carbon externality were appropriately taxed)
But is it recycled? From what I understand it cannot be reused as a device, it has to be reprocessed to extract metals and such. So the value is pretty low and losses are high.
This is a better index and not run by someone with an axe to grind
https://cbeci.org/
The number you link is 43% higher.
The miners don’t compute hashes of random data. They confirm transactions.
If you don’t think that a technology that allows you to store value in a tamper free digital ledger is useful it’s hard to argue the usefulness of PoW crypto currencies to begin with.
If you don’t think that a technology that allows you to store value in a tamper free digital ledger is useful it’s hard to argue the usefulness of PoW crypto currencies to begin with.
It does so with the same efficiency as a Rube Goldberg machine moves a marble from one place to another.
Efficient or secure. Take your pick.
I"ll hire a few guys with guns, plus auditors. Their ability to maintain no sense of humor beats out your wonky crypto scheme in both regards. Your issue is you don't like the rules that come with the auditors. Those rules have a purpose, and that purpose is tied with sovereign diplomatic interrelation of civic bodies the world over.
Many of whom are expressing great concern over the very thing PoW hastens.
So no, it isn't either or. It's stop jeopardizing the planet in the long term so you can do whatever you're doing now. I don't care that you're doing it, and we can talk civily about the warts of the financial system so it can be tuned to meet your use case better and cone to a compromise; but PoW has the worst set of dysfunctional societal incentives I've seen in my life.
Many of whom are expressing great concern over the very thing PoW hastens.
So no, it isn't either or. It's stop jeopardizing the planet in the long term so you can do whatever you're doing now. I don't care that you're doing it, and we can talk civily about the warts of the financial system so it can be tuned to meet your use case better and cone to a compromise; but PoW has the worst set of dysfunctional societal incentives I've seen in my life.
>I"ll hire a few guys with guns
A few guys with guns can be beaten by several other guys with guns.
>plus auditors
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wirecard-scandal-puts-spotlight...
A few guys with guns can be beaten by several other guys with guns.
>plus auditors
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wirecard-scandal-puts-spotlight...
How's that Tether transparency report looking :) ahh, here it is. [1]
[1] https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021.02.17_-_settlemen...
[1] https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021.02.17_-_settlemen...
What if we had 1000x the power being used to confirm transactions? 1,000,000x the power? At some point we aren't achieving anything.
The is made worse by the fact that there are alternatives to produce trustworthy ledgers that don't involve destroying the planet.
The is made worse by the fact that there are alternatives to produce trustworthy ledgers that don't involve destroying the planet.
Yes, alternatives that work for rich, powerful people.
These people buying power stations aren't rich?
One of the issues with crypto currency is that we're replacing one elite with another.
As John Oliver says Cryptocurrency is everything you don't understand about finance combined with everything you don't understand about computers. That new, even eliter, elite is probably no more moral or ethical than the old.
It's not like cryptocurrency is more accessible. Maybe it will become so but I still have to fork out a lot of money to buy Bitcoin. It's just the fees get paid to different people.
Not entirely sure how it's better. It is different though, I'll give you that.
One of the issues with crypto currency is that we're replacing one elite with another.
As John Oliver says Cryptocurrency is everything you don't understand about finance combined with everything you don't understand about computers. That new, even eliter, elite is probably no more moral or ethical than the old.
It's not like cryptocurrency is more accessible. Maybe it will become so but I still have to fork out a lot of money to buy Bitcoin. It's just the fees get paid to different people.
Not entirely sure how it's better. It is different though, I'll give you that.
Bitcoin is like any other infinitely divisible asset. You can buy as much or as little as you want.
The nonce used as input of the mining hash function IS random (or rather, arbitrary).
Comments like the above are a sad demonstration of the fact that, while Bitcoin was originally an interesting technical project... Discussion of it has now been completely taken over by shills that try to dismiss/refute/hide all of the problems with Bitcoin (or the cryptoasset du jour) to safeguard their bet
Comments like the above are a sad demonstration of the fact that, while Bitcoin was originally an interesting technical project... Discussion of it has now been completely taken over by shills that try to dismiss/refute/hide all of the problems with Bitcoin (or the cryptoasset du jour) to safeguard their bet
You’re just deflecting. Your argument is as invalid as “mutations are random so evolution is false.” Randomness in an algorithm does not mean the algorithm is non-converging.
I never said anything about converging or not. My GP's post simply points out that having repeated computations with arbitrary input is wasteful.
"Your argument is as invalid as..." ROTFL
Wake me up when Bitcoin moves to a PoS consensus
(Btw, I recommend whoever is reading to also steer clear of PoS coins... If you want to invest, look elsewhere)
"Your argument is as invalid as..." ROTFL
Wake me up when Bitcoin moves to a PoS consensus
(Btw, I recommend whoever is reading to also steer clear of PoS coins... If you want to invest, look elsewhere)
There is a really easy solution for this disaster - a trusted party could run a big relational database that was basically a non-inflating currency and really cheap to run.
Except that isn't going to work, because governments are untrustworthy and as history shows will sooner rather than later debase their currency.
All people are looking for here is a safe way to store value over time. If governments would let people keep reliable records without bringing in the inflation tax or changing the rules, things like gold and bitcoin wouldn't be anywhere near as interesting. But they are interesting, because it is normally policy to block anyone who tries to store (small-time) wealth for more than a couple of years.
Except that isn't going to work, because governments are untrustworthy and as history shows will sooner rather than later debase their currency.
All people are looking for here is a safe way to store value over time. If governments would let people keep reliable records without bringing in the inflation tax or changing the rules, things like gold and bitcoin wouldn't be anywhere near as interesting. But they are interesting, because it is normally policy to block anyone who tries to store (small-time) wealth for more than a couple of years.
I don't get your argument.
Bitcoin is very very volatile and just because it went up the last x years, doesn't make it stable or trustworthy.
My money in my bank is very safe and it doesn't cost me anything.
The inflation itself is a systematic thing and should affect bitcoin equaly.
When corona came, i was looking at the stock market and was surprised how many people left it. It doesn't make much sense to distrist the stock market that much. After all alot of pension funds are existing, lots of companies or people who are self employed also have to keep their money safe. There is a lot of dependency on the share market and we are all bound to a certain degree of not being able to move it out asap.
Bitcoin is very very volatile and just because it went up the last x years, doesn't make it stable or trustworthy.
My money in my bank is very safe and it doesn't cost me anything.
The inflation itself is a systematic thing and should affect bitcoin equaly.
When corona came, i was looking at the stock market and was surprised how many people left it. It doesn't make much sense to distrist the stock market that much. After all alot of pension funds are existing, lots of companies or people who are self employed also have to keep their money safe. There is a lot of dependency on the share market and we are all bound to a certain degree of not being able to move it out asap.
I'm assuming you're in the US/Europe/somewhere with a stable currency. Places like Argentina that have had serious devaluation of currency do not see money in their bank accounts as "safe".
Bitcoin can provide a way for e.g. Argentinians to get their money into other currencies when the government is actively preventing that through "standard" mechanisms. It's safe (er, safer) from that perspective.
Bitcoin can provide a way for e.g. Argentinians to get their money into other currencies when the government is actively preventing that through "standard" mechanisms. It's safe (er, safer) from that perspective.
How is it safe when it's so volatile and based on speculation?
As someone from a country which has had its currency's value slashed to half 5 years ago, I genuinely don't see how Bitcoin is safe at all. If anything, gold or real estate are safer.
Sure, if it is somehow guaranteed that I won't wake up tomorrow seeing 1 BTC = $30 000, I could see your argument. But is that guaranteed?
I would also like to add that the swings that BTC takes are unpredictable (at least for the common people who would benefit from it being a safe storage for their wealth).
As someone from a country which has had its currency's value slashed to half 5 years ago, I genuinely don't see how Bitcoin is safe at all. If anything, gold or real estate are safer.
Sure, if it is somehow guaranteed that I won't wake up tomorrow seeing 1 BTC = $30 000, I could see your argument. But is that guaranteed?
I would also like to add that the swings that BTC takes are unpredictable (at least for the common people who would benefit from it being a safe storage for their wealth).
As somebody who saw family wealth slashed 100x due to crazy inflation just 20 years ago, 2x fluctuations are nothing. This is the perspective worth recognizing. Bitcoin is actually very stable by comparison. Edit: fat fingers typing.
Ouch. My condolences.
Yeah, if things are that bad, it could be viable.
Civil war is another viable scenario. However, one should also assess the situation properly if his/her country is in civil war. If things go bad and you have to escape, "safe passage for x amount of gold I have on hand" is more guaranteed than "safe passage for x BTC I promise to pay".
Yeah, if things are that bad, it could be viable.
Civil war is another viable scenario. However, one should also assess the situation properly if his/her country is in civil war. If things go bad and you have to escape, "safe passage for x amount of gold I have on hand" is more guaranteed than "safe passage for x BTC I promise to pay".
Nothing guarantees you at all, that bitcoin doesn't fall today from 60k back to 100.
This isn't a very good use case for bitcoin. It's very easy to buy coins, but getting your money out is as difficult as various governments want it to be. Most of the major exchanges have KYC and anti money laundering laws that can make it hard to transfer large amounts of any crypto into a spendable currency.
If a government is preventing people from transferring money through standard mechanisms, it's only a matter of time until they prevent them from using crypto to do that. If the best use is circumventing the law, it isn't much of a currency at all
If a government is preventing people from transferring money through standard mechanisms, it's only a matter of time until they prevent them from using crypto to do that. If the best use is circumventing the law, it isn't much of a currency at all
A TransferWise Borderless account that allows you to store any of 80 currencies including the USD, in Argentina, is a much better system.
Not to mention, a $20 transaction fee in Argentina is devastating.
Not to mention, a $20 transaction fee in Argentina is devastating.
> My money in my bank is very safe and it doesn't cost me anything.
Your money is safe, your wealth is not. Taking the US as a reference, it is official government policy that if you store your wealth as money then it has a half life of 35 years.
> Bitcoin is very very volatile and just because it went up the last x years, doesn't make it stable or trustworthy.
I was sneaky in my wording - I'm a gold bug and think Bitcoin is worthless. Nevertheless, a rational person who was interested in bitcoin would probably note that whatever its bad points it is simply not subject to the sort of technical intervention that makes fiat untrustworthy.
Also, using gold as a reference, the unofficial policy half life looks more like 12 years. Using the M2, maybe 14 years.
Your money is safe, your wealth is not. Taking the US as a reference, it is official government policy that if you store your wealth as money then it has a half life of 35 years.
> Bitcoin is very very volatile and just because it went up the last x years, doesn't make it stable or trustworthy.
I was sneaky in my wording - I'm a gold bug and think Bitcoin is worthless. Nevertheless, a rational person who was interested in bitcoin would probably note that whatever its bad points it is simply not subject to the sort of technical intervention that makes fiat untrustworthy.
Also, using gold as a reference, the unofficial policy half life looks more like 12 years. Using the M2, maybe 14 years.
Supply is only half the inflation calculation, the other half is velocity. That's why the increase in the M2 supply doesn't translate to what you're paying at the grocery store. You've missed half the equation. [1]
[1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2014/september/wha...
[1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2014/september/wha...
I'm not missing anything, I just don't care about the inflation calculation. I'm using gold and the M2.
Ok, so you're doing it incorrectly then. That's fine, but it seems weird to give advise on the basis of information that you know is wrong.
That's got all the argumentative power of a damp noodle. If you happen to be using the CPI to adjust your portfolio, you might be saying you've experienced real growth when your investments are literally being outperformed by the steadily growing value of an inert rock.
The inflation rate is basically a proxy measure of wage growth [0]. The money printing hasn't going in to wages. It isn't appropriate to use the CPI to adjust wealth, because then you'd be mistaking asset price inflation for productive growth and putting money into things that don't earn real returns (ie, are grossly mismanaged).
[0] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2015/november/rela...
The inflation rate is basically a proxy measure of wage growth [0]. The money printing hasn't going in to wages. It isn't appropriate to use the CPI to adjust wealth, because then you'd be mistaking asset price inflation for productive growth and putting money into things that don't earn real returns (ie, are grossly mismanaged).
[0] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2015/november/rela...
> Except that isn't going to work, because governments are untrustworthy
Some governments are more trustworthy than others, and lots of people trust some governments. For example many people hold USD because they consider it a better store of value than their own country's currency.
> a trusted party could run a big relational database that was basically a non-inflating currency and really cheap to run
Somewhere like Switzerland would probably be quite trusted to run this.
Some governments are more trustworthy than others, and lots of people trust some governments. For example many people hold USD because they consider it a better store of value than their own country's currency.
> a trusted party could run a big relational database that was basically a non-inflating currency and really cheap to run
Somewhere like Switzerland would probably be quite trusted to run this.
"a trusted party" does not exist at scale.
Liberty Reserve was such a trusted party for a long time before Bitcoin became popular. In fact, there's a good argument to be made that the US government shutdown of Liberty Reserve is exactly what kicked off bitcoins popularity in the first place.
On May 6, 2016, the operator of Liberty Reserve was sentenced to 20 years in US federal prison
On May 6, 2016, the operator of Liberty Reserve was sentenced to 20 years in US federal prison
Including with Bitcoin, since 51% ownership of hash rate is simply a function of who has the most pooled resources (read: money)
One such trusted party does exist. It’s a non-profit and it’s called the Stellar Development Foundation.
It’s cryptocurrency, the Stellar Lumens (XLM) is trusted well enough to be in the top 15 cryptocurrencies by marketcap. It has years of history to look back at. It doesn’t have a inflation rate (0% inflation rate now + occasional coin-burns).
It uses orders of magnitude less electricity than bitcoin because it uses distributed databases instead of ASICS, transactions are sent and received in a few seconds (near-instant), and transaction fees are less than 1 cent (just high enough to disincentivized spamming the network). Compared to Bitcoin’s $250 tx fee and Ethereum’s $30 tx fee, XLM’s tx fees are very cheap.
Finally you can buy XLM on most exchanges since it’s been around so long.
It’s cryptocurrency, the Stellar Lumens (XLM) is trusted well enough to be in the top 15 cryptocurrencies by marketcap. It has years of history to look back at. It doesn’t have a inflation rate (0% inflation rate now + occasional coin-burns).
It uses orders of magnitude less electricity than bitcoin because it uses distributed databases instead of ASICS, transactions are sent and received in a few seconds (near-instant), and transaction fees are less than 1 cent (just high enough to disincentivized spamming the network). Compared to Bitcoin’s $250 tx fee and Ethereum’s $30 tx fee, XLM’s tx fees are very cheap.
Finally you can buy XLM on most exchanges since it’s been around so long.
Is this a press release?
Where are you seeing $250 tx fee on btc?
Are you in any way related to stellar?
Reported
My mistake, Bitcoin transaction fees are lower around $25 according to this chart[1]. Everything else in my comment still stands though. No I’m not related to Stellar, I’ve just known about Lumens and have used them for a few years now. I figured there might be some people here that didn’t already know about it.
[1] https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_f...
[1] https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_f...
>It’s cryptocurrency, the Stellar Lumens (XLM) is trusted well enough to be in the top 15 cryptocurrencies by marketcap. It has years of history to look back at. It doesn’t have a inflation rate (0% inflation rate now + occasional coin-burns).
market cap =/= trust, especially when you consider that in the past there were outright scams that were in the top 15 (eg. IOTA).
market cap =/= trust, especially when you consider that in the past there were outright scams that were in the top 15 (eg. IOTA).
I don’t like IOTA. It was pretty overhyped for it’s value. I don’t know how many cryptocurrencies there are, maybe 10s of thousands, but being in the top 15 by market cap lends more credibility than in the top 1000 by market cap. Anyone can make a cryptocurrency, but not anyone can make it valuable.
This is utter nonsense. XLM is founded by Jed McCaleb of Ripple and Mt Gox fame, and it's not a cryptocurrency. It certainly is not money. Bitcoin tx fees are readily verifiable on mempool.space and are currently $11-12 for a low-medium priority transaction. (One can easily get in for several dollars less, as well) When you insert such blatantly misleading and outright false information it brings into question everything else you said. Plus, it should be noted this fee is pretty high. The BTC tx fees lately have been averaging only around $5-8 and that is sending on Legacy.
My mistake, bitcoin transaction fees are lower around $25 according to this chart[1].
Everything else in my comment still stands though and it certainly is a cryptocurrency.
[1] https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_f...
Everything else in my comment still stands though and it certainly is a cryptocurrency.
[1] https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_f...
> It’s cryptocurrency, the Stellar Lumens (XLM) is trusted well enough to be in the top 15 cryptocurrencies by marketcap.
lol, Dogecoin is #6 and XLM is #14. Are you saying your currency is less trusted than one with a dog on it?
lol, Dogecoin is #6 and XLM is #14. Are you saying your currency is less trusted than one with a dog on it?
Possibly, yes? It’s not my cryptocurrency, it’s just one I’ve used and known about for a few years. Dogecoin is something else; I don’t know how that meme coin got so big.
Also by your same logic, should we not trust the USDC stablecoin because it’s #18? Lol
Should definitely not trust the USDT stable coin in spite of its position at #5. I'm just saying market cap isn't a function of trust.
Right on USDT. But Marketcap is a function of overall value and what gives money value oftentimes (but not entirely) is trust.
Bitcoins wild fluctuations based on speculation would say it’s not a safe place to store value over time
Interesting that you should say the opposite of what JP Morgan is now saying. That the wild fluctuations are steadily going away as volatility has been calming down quite a lot.
JPM like Goldman are only interested in selling their clients what they want. It's what they do. And it's only to benefit themselves. These are the bankers Bitcoin was trying to overthrow lol doesn't that ring alarm bells? Remember?
We typically use the bankers as a sentiment indicator to show you folks who like bankers, that the bankers are getting into Bitcoin. The beauty in Bitcoin is these bankers enter in an equal or lower playing field to those involved. We don't seek permission from, or worry about said bankers.
They are pawns, if you will, to point to as jumping off points to your average Joe and say "Look! Your favorite X,Y,Z institutional guy is into Bitcoin now!" That is all.
They are pawns, if you will, to point to as jumping off points to your average Joe and say "Look! Your favorite X,Y,Z institutional guy is into Bitcoin now!" That is all.
In my world view, if you are actively removing wealth from circulation, then it should be disappeared.
But I do agree that it is too hard for the average person to save in the sense of "I will need to withdraw some wealth in the future". The best option out there seems to be ETFs. The dirty secret about the stock market though is that companies don't issue new stock nearly as much as one might think, and therefore the stock market is basically counter-parties playing off each other.
There are plenty of people out there with good, useful ideas and skill sets that really ought to be funded. And no, not all will generate VC like returns.
Figuring out how to link your minor excess now to your needs in the future in a way that isn't a net negative could very well be the defining problem of a generation.
But I do agree that it is too hard for the average person to save in the sense of "I will need to withdraw some wealth in the future". The best option out there seems to be ETFs. The dirty secret about the stock market though is that companies don't issue new stock nearly as much as one might think, and therefore the stock market is basically counter-parties playing off each other.
There are plenty of people out there with good, useful ideas and skill sets that really ought to be funded. And no, not all will generate VC like returns.
Figuring out how to link your minor excess now to your needs in the future in a way that isn't a net negative could very well be the defining problem of a generation.
> All people are looking for here is a safe way to store value over time.
There are ways to do so that don't involve scenarios literally as absurd as _buying power plants_ to do random equations.
Perhaps some of that desire for a safe value store should be invested in that direction.
There are ways to do so that don't involve scenarios literally as absurd as _buying power plants_ to do random equations.
Perhaps some of that desire for a safe value store should be invested in that direction.
There are plenty of inflation proof assets out there. Bitcoin's value lies in its immunity from government oversight and transportability.
It's most useful for transactions or transfers that are illegal somewhere. A government can deprive a criminal of a house more easily than a password.
I suspect it was embraced by western governments because it facilitates capital flight from the developing world to the developed world - especially from China.
It's most useful for transactions or transfers that are illegal somewhere. A government can deprive a criminal of a house more easily than a password.
I suspect it was embraced by western governments because it facilitates capital flight from the developing world to the developed world - especially from China.
lol, non-inflating is bad.
People aren't owed a risk-free return on thier capital and inflation is an incentive to invest. You're looking for a merged risk-free long-term store of value and medium of exchange. There's no reason to couple those two. It's actually counter-producive as they have different objectives. Money's job is to remain stable enough for as long as you hold it and cheap to transact. A long-term store of value's job is to go up.
Money is your short-term medium of exchange and lossy store of value. Which you use to buy long-term store of value. This is how capital is productively allocated while also creating a stable financial system.
The ability to adjust the money supply is crucial to reacting to shocks, to a changing population, and a changing economy. Taking away the knobs from the Fed removes their ability to create a stable monetary system in which business and individuals can operate.
If you actually look back in time you'll see under the gold standard, an attempt at this, boom/bust cycles were worse and more exaggerated. And much harder to control. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
This whole trope about the fed "stealing" 99% of money's value over the last 100 years is voodoo fringe economics. These are the people who used to hang out with megaphones at the corder of 5th and Market. Of course it went down, they told you it would, and they told you to buy something else with it.
People aren't owed a risk-free return on thier capital and inflation is an incentive to invest. You're looking for a merged risk-free long-term store of value and medium of exchange. There's no reason to couple those two. It's actually counter-producive as they have different objectives. Money's job is to remain stable enough for as long as you hold it and cheap to transact. A long-term store of value's job is to go up.
Money is your short-term medium of exchange and lossy store of value. Which you use to buy long-term store of value. This is how capital is productively allocated while also creating a stable financial system.
The ability to adjust the money supply is crucial to reacting to shocks, to a changing population, and a changing economy. Taking away the knobs from the Fed removes their ability to create a stable monetary system in which business and individuals can operate.
If you actually look back in time you'll see under the gold standard, an attempt at this, boom/bust cycles were worse and more exaggerated. And much harder to control. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
This whole trope about the fed "stealing" 99% of money's value over the last 100 years is voodoo fringe economics. These are the people who used to hang out with megaphones at the corder of 5th and Market. Of course it went down, they told you it would, and they told you to buy something else with it.
Once the gold is extracted how much energy is spent to transport it, turn it into jewellery and store/protect it throughout its lifetime?
Gold mining btc mining isn’t the best comparison. For your 5X number. You’ve still got to ship and store the gold which undoubtedly has additional environmental costs.
Jewelry is a surprisingly big chunk of global gold demand. Yes it is ultimately meaningless other than to impress other humans, however this meaningless activity is part of human nature. We derive joy from it.
Meanwhile Bitcoin is just a means to an end, getting rich quick. The fun doesn't happen because we have Bitcoin, but rather because we get rid of them for an unreasonable price.
Meanwhile Bitcoin is just a means to an end, getting rich quick. The fun doesn't happen because we have Bitcoin, but rather because we get rid of them for an unreasonable price.
It could be argued that people are flocking to Bitcoin not to increase wealth but to preserve it over a long period of time.
I don’t know where you live in the world but where I live wages haven’t risen in line with the cost of food and shelter.
Leaving money in the bank is like working to buy a block of ice only to watch it melt away. To argue that any store of value isn’t speculative to some degree is naive.
I don’t know where you live in the world but where I live wages haven’t risen in line with the cost of food and shelter.
Leaving money in the bank is like working to buy a block of ice only to watch it melt away. To argue that any store of value isn’t speculative to some degree is naive.
> To argue that any store of value isn’t speculative to some degree is naive.
Isn't there a difference between currency in general being speculative to some degree and cryptocurrencies specifically, whose main value proposition is speculation?
Isn't there a difference between currency in general being speculative to some degree and cryptocurrencies specifically, whose main value proposition is speculation?
I wasn’t referring to fiat currency since that is a terrible store of value. It is guaranteed to have less buying power in the future.
What I was referring to was stocks since they have outperformed government bonds and gold the last few years. Take Amazon for instance. I don’t think the share price is equal to total assets minus total liabilities divided by number of shares. Amazon doesn’t issue dividends so why did the shareholders pay so much for the shares?
What I was referring to was stocks since they have outperformed government bonds and gold the last few years. Take Amazon for instance. I don’t think the share price is equal to total assets minus total liabilities divided by number of shares. Amazon doesn’t issue dividends so why did the shareholders pay so much for the shares?
Maybe humans were created by an ET life as mining/purifying beings whose sole purpose is to be dropped on planets and left alone for a few millennia to do their thing.
The ETs come back once all the minerals are refined and purified and neatly stacked.
The ETs come back once all the minerals are refined and purified and neatly stacked.
I think Bitcoin (and crypto in general) has prooven to be disruptive in many areas (in a negative way) and has yet to deliver any tangible positives that would outweight the negatives.
It's basically becoming a unregulated comodity that big money institutions get to gamble with because there is just nowhere to put the money on the market right now. If bitcoin and crypto (ETH, etc.) was just a money dumping speculation comodities I wouldn't even bother thinking about it - but it's causing realworld problems (eg. hardware disruptions) and it's going to get worse and worse.
So I'm in favor of preventing institutional investors in crypto in some form, but unfortunately it's not going to happen - too many individual interests behind it at this point and nobody gives a fuck about the overall stability.
It's basically becoming a unregulated comodity that big money institutions get to gamble with because there is just nowhere to put the money on the market right now. If bitcoin and crypto (ETH, etc.) was just a money dumping speculation comodities I wouldn't even bother thinking about it - but it's causing realworld problems (eg. hardware disruptions) and it's going to get worse and worse.
So I'm in favor of preventing institutional investors in crypto in some form, but unfortunately it's not going to happen - too many individual interests behind it at this point and nobody gives a fuck about the overall stability.
ETH is on track to eliminate its hardware disruptions and energy consumption in less than a year.
"because there is just nowhere to put the money on the market right now"
For civilisation to survive we need renewables, electric cars/trucks/busses, nuckear power olants, grid scale storage and fusion power or hydrogen.
There are only two scenarion -there things are built and our society rewards them - or in the alternative money in your bank ceases to exist, along with moth of economy
For civilisation to survive we need renewables, electric cars/trucks/busses, nuckear power olants, grid scale storage and fusion power or hydrogen.
There are only two scenarion -there things are built and our society rewards them - or in the alternative money in your bank ceases to exist, along with moth of economy
> People mine because it is expensive, it isn't the other way around, so the real questions we should be asking in good faith are things like "Why it is profitable in the first place?"
FOMO, mining lotteries, and the guise of financial innovation are typical cover stories here. But all stocks and other publicly traded investments are basically making a bet that others will buy in after you do, raising the price higher. Most stock owners hope this very thing, though some stocks actually pay dividends on profits. The same is true with BTC with the added benefit of that novel mining lottery thing going for it.
> These are some of the questions among others which I think probably provide a better understanding of what is happening than the overly simplistic 'ponzi scam' explanation that has been repeated ad nauseam since its inception.
So what if the rich have too much money? That would explain a lot. It would explain why GME stock was shorted %140 of float.
It would also explain why politicians are so ineffective at regulation. If you were rich, would you want effective politicians? No. You would put your money behind the least effective politicians.
It would also explain why most institutions have become less trustworthy in the eye of the public, as big money has corrupted the system.
And finally it would explain the gold rush on BTC. Because they need new investment vehicles.
FOMO, mining lotteries, and the guise of financial innovation are typical cover stories here. But all stocks and other publicly traded investments are basically making a bet that others will buy in after you do, raising the price higher. Most stock owners hope this very thing, though some stocks actually pay dividends on profits. The same is true with BTC with the added benefit of that novel mining lottery thing going for it.
> These are some of the questions among others which I think probably provide a better understanding of what is happening than the overly simplistic 'ponzi scam' explanation that has been repeated ad nauseam since its inception.
So what if the rich have too much money? That would explain a lot. It would explain why GME stock was shorted %140 of float.
It would also explain why politicians are so ineffective at regulation. If you were rich, would you want effective politicians? No. You would put your money behind the least effective politicians.
It would also explain why most institutions have become less trustworthy in the eye of the public, as big money has corrupted the system.
And finally it would explain the gold rush on BTC. Because they need new investment vehicles.
> So what if the rich have too much money? That would explain a lot. It would explain why GME stock was shorted %140 of float.
How would it explain that?
> It would also explain why politicians are so ineffective at regulation. If you were rich, would you want effective politicians? No. You would put your money behind the least effective politicians.
Just because you'd want it that way doesn't mean you did it. Motive, but where's means and method? https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-c...
> It would also explain why most institutions have become less trustworthy in the eye of the public, as big money has corrupted the system.
As opposed to in the past, where big money hadn't corrupted the system?
How would it explain that?
> It would also explain why politicians are so ineffective at regulation. If you were rich, would you want effective politicians? No. You would put your money behind the least effective politicians.
Just because you'd want it that way doesn't mean you did it. Motive, but where's means and method? https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-c...
> It would also explain why most institutions have become less trustworthy in the eye of the public, as big money has corrupted the system.
As opposed to in the past, where big money hadn't corrupted the system?
> Just because you'd want it that way doesn't mean you did it. Motive, but where's means and method?
Pinky swear with me that you've seriously never heard of dark money. Koch brothers, Russian oligarchs. You've never ever heard of this? Really?
Pinky swear with me that you've seriously never heard of dark money. Koch brothers, Russian oligarchs. You've never ever heard of this? Really?
Heard of it, yes, heard of much reason to buy that it had an effect, no.
"Most stock owners hope this very thing, t"
Stocks imply ownership of assets.
Sure, in terms of 'hoping that someone willy buy' is similar to BTC, but the valuation is completely different.
A stock is valued based on the performance of it's actual profit generation.
BTC is just a made up number. It's what people think the crowd will buy it for. Granted, this mechanism itself can be useful in some scenarios, but BTC itself isn't useful, at least not right now.
Stocks imply ownership of assets.
Sure, in terms of 'hoping that someone willy buy' is similar to BTC, but the valuation is completely different.
A stock is valued based on the performance of it's actual profit generation.
BTC is just a made up number. It's what people think the crowd will buy it for. Granted, this mechanism itself can be useful in some scenarios, but BTC itself isn't useful, at least not right now.
> A stock is valued based on the performance of it's actual profit generation.
I'm not sure that's the case any more. I mean we've seen billion dollar companies that just can't reach profitability.
I'm not sure that's the case any more. I mean we've seen billion dollar companies that just can't reach profitability.
You still can't call it till they actually go bankrupt. And most of them don't - the underlying business and assets get sold off or absorbed somewhere else. And at the end of the day there's an actual service they provide - value is being created, just potentially not profitably.
Bitcoin is the opposite: what value it had (international transfers for Americans who live with one of the first world's worst banking systems) has been completely wiped out by the cost of transactions.
At the end of the day the hashes are valueless, no one has a product, or designs, or even any useful code.
Bitcoin is the opposite: what value it had (international transfers for Americans who live with one of the first world's worst banking systems) has been completely wiped out by the cost of transactions.
At the end of the day the hashes are valueless, no one has a product, or designs, or even any useful code.
The stock is valued of the basis the net present value of future earnings.
The obvious difficulty there is determining the future earnings (and discount rate).
But that doesn't mean they don't exist - it's a rational premise of valuation.
Amazon is worth a lot because it's a giant machine with $350B in revenues - so investors can quibble over their earnings and 'how much that is worth' in future earnings - but it's based on those numbers.
BTC valuation is just whatever the crowd wants to pay.
A BTC is a magic number, and that's it.
The obvious difficulty there is determining the future earnings (and discount rate).
But that doesn't mean they don't exist - it's a rational premise of valuation.
Amazon is worth a lot because it's a giant machine with $350B in revenues - so investors can quibble over their earnings and 'how much that is worth' in future earnings - but it's based on those numbers.
BTC valuation is just whatever the crowd wants to pay.
A BTC is a magic number, and that's it.
> But that doesn't mean they don't exist - it's a rational premise of valuation.
Some times they do and some times they don't. That means it's not a fundamental property for stock valuation.
What was the rational premise of valuation behind Gamestop? There was one, but it had little or nothing to do with Gamestop's future earinings.
Some times they do and some times they don't. That means it's not a fundamental property for stock valuation.
What was the rational premise of valuation behind Gamestop? There was one, but it had little or nothing to do with Gamestop's future earinings.
"That means it's not a fundamental property for stock valuation."
Sorry this is not true let me illustrate:
If there is a 9/10 chance that the profits will be $1, and a 1/10 chance that it will be $0, then we can value those profits in present terms at $0.9 (Edit: assuming no issues with cost of capital, time value of money etc. i.e. constant real dollars)
If we can reasonably calculate the profits and risk, then we can make a valuation.
GameStop was not a valuation, it was a stampede.
Also note that everything is subject to whims of speculation, fads etc. etc..
Sorry this is not true let me illustrate:
If there is a 9/10 chance that the profits will be $1, and a 1/10 chance that it will be $0, then we can value those profits in present terms at $0.9 (Edit: assuming no issues with cost of capital, time value of money etc. i.e. constant real dollars)
If we can reasonably calculate the profits and risk, then we can make a valuation.
GameStop was not a valuation, it was a stampede.
Also note that everything is subject to whims of speculation, fads etc. etc..
> If there is a 9/10 chance that the profits will be $1, and a 1/10 chance that it will be $0, then we can value those profits in present terms at $0.9 (Edit: assuming no issues with cost of capital, time value of money etc. i.e. constant real dollars)
Yes, you can do that. You can argue that that's the smart way of doing it. But you don't have to and that's the point.
Elon musk tweets can manipulate the stock market almost at will. There is no profit analysis there, just the mob following Musk.
So again, future profits have nothing to do with a stock valuation. So times it does, but sometimes it doesn't. And if some times it doesn't, then it's not a fundamental property of it.
Yes, you can do that. You can argue that that's the smart way of doing it. But you don't have to and that's the point.
Elon musk tweets can manipulate the stock market almost at will. There is no profit analysis there, just the mob following Musk.
So again, future profits have nothing to do with a stock valuation. So times it does, but sometimes it doesn't. And if some times it doesn't, then it's not a fundamental property of it.
Saying 'people can or cannot use it means that it's not a fundamental property' -> is not an argument.
Nobody has to use anything to value a stock - including current profits. Therefore even current profits would not be 'a fundamental property'.
And of course, nobody has to use any data or logic when valuing absolutely any financial asset anywhere, ergo - the statement is completely pointless.
Again: we value stock based on it's estimated book value, future earnings and other assessments. We can argue a little bit about all of that, fine, that's why we let the market decide.
BTC is just a fantasy speculation.
Nobody has to use anything to value a stock - including current profits. Therefore even current profits would not be 'a fundamental property'.
And of course, nobody has to use any data or logic when valuing absolutely any financial asset anywhere, ergo - the statement is completely pointless.
Again: we value stock based on it's estimated book value, future earnings and other assessments. We can argue a little bit about all of that, fine, that's why we let the market decide.
BTC is just a fantasy speculation.
> Nobody has to use anything to value a stock - including current profits. Therefore even current profits would not be 'a fundamental property'
Correct, so:
> A stock is valued based on the performance of it's actual profit generation.
Is incorrect. The correct sentence should be "Some times stock is valued based on the performance of it's actual profit generation."
> BTC is just a fantasy speculation.
Absolutely, jut like the stock of some companies.
Correct, so:
> A stock is valued based on the performance of it's actual profit generation.
Is incorrect. The correct sentence should be "Some times stock is valued based on the performance of it's actual profit generation."
> BTC is just a fantasy speculation.
Absolutely, jut like the stock of some companies.
"Anything can be valued at anything" is not an argument.
It's just some weird rhetoric you're using to somehow show a parallel between BTC and Stocks.
The material issue here is that stocks can be rationally valued by determining the underlying value of the implied asset ownership - and mostly are - whereas BTC cannot.
That someone can pay $1 Trillion for a pair of shoes, a BTC, or an Amazon shares is not relevant.
It's just some weird rhetoric you're using to somehow show a parallel between BTC and Stocks.
The material issue here is that stocks can be rationally valued by determining the underlying value of the implied asset ownership - and mostly are - whereas BTC cannot.
That someone can pay $1 Trillion for a pair of shoes, a BTC, or an Amazon shares is not relevant.
I think people with BTC FOMO forget that it was always some sort of "hype Ponzi scheme". Back in 2011, I worked in an office that had one guy who was really into BTC. Looking back now, everyone thinks "wow he was such a genius to get in so early", but back then it was not profitable to mine, even if the difficulty was far lower. We'd constantly roast this coworker over his seemingly loony efforts to put solar on his house to cover the cost of mining neglecting to consider the solar panels would (in our opinions back then) put him in the red for a long time. (good on him for at least going green with it). I must admit I'm quite jealous of his insistence despite us roasting him (he's probably a multimillionaire now on BTC), but anyone who says "Oh yeah I could totally tell that BTC would take off in 2011" is being disingenuous at best.
Unlike stocks which imply ownership of assets of a company, BTC is a pure hype machine, with the most hype given out by people who are already bought in.
If any product or service has ONLY people who use it hyping it up (e.g. BTC, and especially NFTs!) or only people who are NOT using it hyping it up (e.g. the myriad get-rich-quick schemes about some drop-shipping Amazon thing, real estate, or "hOw To BE aN eNTrePreNeUR" in a vague sense of the term (whatever the Gary V & friends stuff is); all those guys make money not by doing what they're telling you to do but by telling you what to do...), it's usually a bad sign.
Unlike stocks which imply ownership of assets of a company, BTC is a pure hype machine, with the most hype given out by people who are already bought in.
If any product or service has ONLY people who use it hyping it up (e.g. BTC, and especially NFTs!) or only people who are NOT using it hyping it up (e.g. the myriad get-rich-quick schemes about some drop-shipping Amazon thing, real estate, or "hOw To BE aN eNTrePreNeUR" in a vague sense of the term (whatever the Gary V & friends stuff is); all those guys make money not by doing what they're telling you to do but by telling you what to do...), it's usually a bad sign.
I also like to point out in these contexts that a trillion dollars a year flow back from the profits of the companies of the S&P to the investors in the S&P 500, in the form of dividends and stock buybacks.
It's not just a zero-sum game, making money off fellow investors who bet the stock will go one way when it goes the other.
It's not just a zero-sum game, making money off fellow investors who bet the stock will go one way when it goes the other.
Yep. Follow the money. Who benefits from weak ineffective democratic institutions?
Yes. Cryptocurrencies are used because they're the only market that hasn't yet been regulated to death. People come to Bitcoin for 2 reasons, mainly:
1. It's a practical way to store value without the government destroying it by monetary emission.
2. People are free to speculate.
The solution to the first point is that governments should stop pulling the rug from under people's feet. Monetary emission should be predictable in the short, medium, and long term, or be tied to some real world indicator, like the cost of consumer goods. Just stop with this inflationary nonsense.
Problem 2 will be partially solved by time. Relative price changes in Bitcoin are reduced each cycle, so by the year 2030 the incentive to speculate in the short term will be much smaller. We will see it more as a long term investment. Another solution is to deregulate other markets so that we can freely speculate in them and stop putting as much attention to Bitcoin, but I don't think politicians are very eager to do that, and it could also have some negative consequences.
1. It's a practical way to store value without the government destroying it by monetary emission.
2. People are free to speculate.
The solution to the first point is that governments should stop pulling the rug from under people's feet. Monetary emission should be predictable in the short, medium, and long term, or be tied to some real world indicator, like the cost of consumer goods. Just stop with this inflationary nonsense.
Problem 2 will be partially solved by time. Relative price changes in Bitcoin are reduced each cycle, so by the year 2030 the incentive to speculate in the short term will be much smaller. We will see it more as a long term investment. Another solution is to deregulate other markets so that we can freely speculate in them and stop putting as much attention to Bitcoin, but I don't think politicians are very eager to do that, and it could also have some negative consequences.
Monetary emission is already tied to the cost of consumer goods. Central banks make interest rate and reserve requirement changes that regulate growth in money supply. Those changes are aimed, in part, at achieving a price inflation target.
And price inflation, which is the relevant metric (as opposed to monetary inflation) in the context of a claim that the government destroys value, has been extremely predictable for 20 years.
This comes up again and again in bitcoin discussions. Money supply has to grow for price stability and to avoid deflation. This also applied even when there was gold convertibility.
What exactly is your issue with a growing money supply?
And price inflation, which is the relevant metric (as opposed to monetary inflation) in the context of a claim that the government destroys value, has been extremely predictable for 20 years.
This comes up again and again in bitcoin discussions. Money supply has to grow for price stability and to avoid deflation. This also applied even when there was gold convertibility.
What exactly is your issue with a growing money supply?
> What exactly is your issue with a growing money supply?
The primary issue is that simply sitting on a dragon's hoard of money should entitle me to a bigger share of the world's wealth, as time goes on, rather than a smaller share.
The primary issue is that simply sitting on a dragon's hoard of money should entitle me to a bigger share of the world's wealth, as time goes on, rather than a smaller share.
Socially, why? I could see making the argument for 'the same share, in perpetuity' as that is kind of the whole idea of what money is: parking value in some way.
Why bigger, exactly? What is the justification?
Why bigger, exactly? What is the justification?
Sarcasm (I presume) doesn't transfer well on the internet. The parent is pointing out the absurdity of the whole idea of deflationary currency: sit and do nothing, and force the next generation to turn over more of their productivity then you ever produced.
> The solution to the first point is that governments should stop pulling the rug from under people's feet. Monetary emission should be predictable in the short, medium, and long term, or be tied to some real world indicator, like the cost of consumer goods. Just stop with this inflationary nonsense.
That's literally exactly how it works right now lol.
> Freedom to speculate.
Have you seen the options market.
That's literally exactly how it works right now lol.
> Freedom to speculate.
Have you seen the options market.
> 1. It's a practical way to store value without the government destroying it by monetary emission.
> 2. People are free to speculate.
So it's a store of value that's destroyable by speculation. That's, if anything, worse than the US Dollar.
> 2. People are free to speculate.
So it's a store of value that's destroyable by speculation. That's, if anything, worse than the US Dollar.
Doesn't look destroyable in the long-term
If some flaw is discovered in SHA-256 or other parts of the algorithm, like how MD-5 and SHA-1 had weaknesses, overnight the value goes to zero. Or if a basic widespread exploitable bug was found in most bitcoin stacks like Heartbleed, that went unnoticed, boom, value evaporated overnight.
You can based the entire world monetary economy on a single point of failure like this.
You can based the entire world monetary economy on a single point of failure like this.
This is true, it is also true that no implementation breaking bugs have been found for a long time and you can also be sure that there are any number of people constantly looking for ways in which to exploit bitcoins codebase to either steal, destroy or create new coins.
Neither do tulips, doesn’t make them “a good unit of currency” or “not a massive bubble”.
But the core point bb88 was making is that it can serve at most one of those two goals: “store of value” and “good for speculation” are mutually exclusive. Something can be neither, nothing can be both.
But the core point bb88 was making is that it can serve at most one of those two goals: “store of value” and “good for speculation” are mutually exclusive. Something can be neither, nothing can be both.
Oh come on. My portfolio is safer in a diversified basket of stocks, bonds, real estate and other holdings than it is in bitcoin.
> we can freely speculate
Right, because that worked oh so well for Long Term Capital Management, or the 2008 Housing Crisis, or the Great Depression, or Dutch Tulips, or...
This libertarian, nay, Austrian, fantasy that if only we would deregulate everything, these incredible damaging boom/bust cycles and disappear and everything would be smoothed out are a discredited zombie theory that never dies.
> we can freely speculate
Right, because that worked oh so well for Long Term Capital Management, or the 2008 Housing Crisis, or the Great Depression, or Dutch Tulips, or...
This libertarian, nay, Austrian, fantasy that if only we would deregulate everything, these incredible damaging boom/bust cycles and disappear and everything would be smoothed out are a discredited zombie theory that never dies.
While I agree with you on Bitcoin safety (your portfolio is safer because the only thing keeping BTC up is speculation), I don't think you can say the Austrian school is fantasy.
It hasn't been attempted and I think deregulation / decentralization of the economy has good chances of getting rid of boom/bust cycles.
Without a central bank playing with credit you wouldn't have boom / bust cycles: what's more likely is that you'll find smaller players doing boom / bust cycles in different industries with far less damaging effects.
I sympathise with the libertarian ideas behind BTC, but it's also the most inefficient and power hungry way of reaching the goal. This is a political problem and we need to solve it politically, not technically.
It hasn't been attempted and I think deregulation / decentralization of the economy has good chances of getting rid of boom/bust cycles.
Without a central bank playing with credit you wouldn't have boom / bust cycles: what's more likely is that you'll find smaller players doing boom / bust cycles in different industries with far less damaging effects.
I sympathise with the libertarian ideas behind BTC, but it's also the most inefficient and power hungry way of reaching the goal. This is a political problem and we need to solve it politically, not technically.
Boom/bust cycles preceded central banks.
And they were a lot worse when no tools existed to mitigate.
Sure, but the problem was similar: unbacked money printed by banks and used to prop up the economy.
Doesn't that make it a target for regulation, at which point it's value is likely to go down?
How is this related to the comment you replied to? It was about pollution and introduction of a carbon tax.
As long as we are having this kind of "discussion" I can see why fantasies about leaving earth and colonizing space are popular.
As long as we are having this kind of "discussion" I can see why fantasies about leaving earth and colonizing space are popular.
The parent highlighted that carbon tax may do little to nothing to stop proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. The relevant quote is:
> People mine because it is expensive, it isn't the other way around, so the real questions we should be asking in good faith are things like "Why it is profitable in the first place?"
> People mine because it is expensive, it isn't the other way around, so the real questions we should be asking in good faith are things like "Why it is profitable in the first place?"
> why have the greater financial markets become so wonky, why has the behavior of investors changed so radically
Since the global saving glut (1), the best question to ask of crazy asset valuations is not "does it reflect the fundamental value?", but "does the money have anywhere else to go?"
(1) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_saving_glut
Since the global saving glut (1), the best question to ask of crazy asset valuations is not "does it reflect the fundamental value?", but "does the money have anywhere else to go?"
(1) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_saving_glut
Loss of trust. Trust in society creates enormous efficiencies. We're seeing the loss of those efficiencies as society splits apart into more and more tribes.
Bitcoin, in part, is a marker for loss of trust in governments. Trust in their motives and/or ability to responsibly steward currencies.
Bitcoin, in part, is a marker for loss of trust in governments. Trust in their motives and/or ability to responsibly steward currencies.
I think the problem with the whole economy right now is wealth inequality. You have a lot of people really struggling, which keeps overall prices low, but the top 10% or so of earners have more money than they know what to do with. The pandemic cut my expenses by probably $1000/mo in addition to the huge bonus I got last year, I literally have money burning a hole in my pocket.
Where do I invest that cash? Equities are obviously overvalued as an asset class, and treasuries return basically zero, so people are buying up real estate and crypto instead, and using some cash on the side to gamble in the options market. But this really only exacerbates the wealth inequality problem.
Where do I invest that cash? Equities are obviously overvalued as an asset class, and treasuries return basically zero, so people are buying up real estate and crypto instead, and using some cash on the side to gamble in the options market. But this really only exacerbates the wealth inequality problem.
> "why many institutions, both social and political in nature, appear to have become less trustworthy in the eye of the greater public?"
It sounds like you're saying that bitcoin is like a hedge against trust in government. A sort of financial measurement of conspiracy theorism. This is a fascinating perspective, but I'm not sure who is financially exposed to that form of risk. It seems like a great vehicle for speculation ("do I think people will trust institutions more or less in the near future?") but not much else. I'm sure there's someone who stands to lose money if public faith in government erodes. but its difficult to imagine that investor
It sounds like you're saying that bitcoin is like a hedge against trust in government. A sort of financial measurement of conspiracy theorism. This is a fascinating perspective, but I'm not sure who is financially exposed to that form of risk. It seems like a great vehicle for speculation ("do I think people will trust institutions more or less in the near future?") but not much else. I'm sure there's someone who stands to lose money if public faith in government erodes. but its difficult to imagine that investor
Many institutions are exposed.
Most university loans are federally backed. All home loans are understood to be federally backed since '08 and most low income home loans are officially federally insured as well.
US Treasury bonds which make up a significant portion of pensions and corporate debt are essentially federally insured as well since it is know that the Fed will simply print the dollars needed to cover those debts.
So far higher education, home ownership, pensions, and corporate debt; and those are just the financial exposure. There is not a single financial instrument that doesn't in some way depend on these financial bases working properly other than crypto and perhaps some commodities.
Most university loans are federally backed. All home loans are understood to be federally backed since '08 and most low income home loans are officially federally insured as well.
US Treasury bonds which make up a significant portion of pensions and corporate debt are essentially federally insured as well since it is know that the Fed will simply print the dollars needed to cover those debts.
So far higher education, home ownership, pensions, and corporate debt; and those are just the financial exposure. There is not a single financial instrument that doesn't in some way depend on these financial bases working properly other than crypto and perhaps some commodities.
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No, this is really quite upside down.
"People get too caught up on bitcoin because it is new and nobody understands it"
We understand it quite well thank you (and it's not new!) - far far more often than not, it's the BTC proponents who don't really grasp what it is, and it's not the 'technical aspects' that are the most salient factors.
Bitcoin creates no value.
It's 'profitable' to an individual, but not the system as a whole - and because it has negative externalizations in the form of CO2 emissions etc. - it's actually a net negative.
Making magic digital baseball cards and trading them does not help us make roads, bridges, iPhones, software, drugs, vaccines, clothing, homes - it just makes all of that a little bit harder actually.
Much like residents of Easter Island using all their resources competing to make Giant Heads. Those heads may have mad some people very powerful, they did not help them grow food, make boats.
If all BTC mining stopped right now, not a single thing would change, other than the price of electricity would be a little cheaper in some places.
BTC isn't going to 'end the world' but the energy consumption is a really negative artifact of this purely speculative activity.
There's not so much wrong with people wanting to exchange digital baseball cards if they want to do that - fine - but with the externalizes it's a problem.
"People get too caught up on bitcoin because it is new and nobody understands it"
We understand it quite well thank you (and it's not new!) - far far more often than not, it's the BTC proponents who don't really grasp what it is, and it's not the 'technical aspects' that are the most salient factors.
Bitcoin creates no value.
It's 'profitable' to an individual, but not the system as a whole - and because it has negative externalizations in the form of CO2 emissions etc. - it's actually a net negative.
Making magic digital baseball cards and trading them does not help us make roads, bridges, iPhones, software, drugs, vaccines, clothing, homes - it just makes all of that a little bit harder actually.
Much like residents of Easter Island using all their resources competing to make Giant Heads. Those heads may have mad some people very powerful, they did not help them grow food, make boats.
If all BTC mining stopped right now, not a single thing would change, other than the price of electricity would be a little cheaper in some places.
BTC isn't going to 'end the world' but the energy consumption is a really negative artifact of this purely speculative activity.
There's not so much wrong with people wanting to exchange digital baseball cards if they want to do that - fine - but with the externalizes it's a problem.
> Bitcoin creates no value.
Bitcoin creates a "source of truth" which has lots of value for people. For example, working at an organization where everyone wants to cooperate to deliver a product, figuring out who should own, update, and report on sources of truth takes lots of effort. But those sources of truth within organizations help people coordinate their collective efforts.
Out here in the regular world where we cannot trust each other, having a ready-made source of truth has lots of value because it lets people all over the cooperate who otherwise could not.
Bitcoin creates a "source of truth" which has lots of value for people. For example, working at an organization where everyone wants to cooperate to deliver a product, figuring out who should own, update, and report on sources of truth takes lots of effort. But those sources of truth within organizations help people coordinate their collective efforts.
Out here in the regular world where we cannot trust each other, having a ready-made source of truth has lots of value because it lets people all over the cooperate who otherwise could not.
That's a good idea, but in practice, no value is created by BTC.
And of course, there are a ton of ways of having a 'source of truth'.
So BTC is not a good currency, and it's not a very good store of value either. But we knew that going into it, because it's obvious from the start. It's just a speculative instrument.
If you get paid in a regular currency, then you're good. If you don't want to hold it, than buy an ETF or real estate or whatever and you good.
And of course, there are a ton of ways of having a 'source of truth'.
So BTC is not a good currency, and it's not a very good store of value either. But we knew that going into it, because it's obvious from the start. It's just a speculative instrument.
If you get paid in a regular currency, then you're good. If you don't want to hold it, than buy an ETF or real estate or whatever and you good.
Value is created by having an asset that cannot artificially be inflated at will. It is a protocol that is open source, decentralized, permissionless, and censorship resistant.
Central banks have monopolized money and obliterated the concept of sound money when they began manipulating the interest rate. They allowed fractional reserve banking, where you can give out money you don't have. They created and spent trillion of dollars they didn't have to prop up markets through quantitative easing.
And now you have housing markets and stock markets in bubbles. Inflation that is inevitably coming.
Mortgage rates only ever go down to support the housing market.
http://www.fedprimerate.com/mortgage_rates_chart-graph.htm
Treasury yields only ever go down to support the stocks market.
https://www.macrotrends.net/2016/10-year-treasury-bond-rate-...
Debt to GDP ratio only ever goes up:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S
Ask yourself why this is happening, and how we return to sound money.
Central banks have monopolized money and obliterated the concept of sound money when they began manipulating the interest rate. They allowed fractional reserve banking, where you can give out money you don't have. They created and spent trillion of dollars they didn't have to prop up markets through quantitative easing.
And now you have housing markets and stock markets in bubbles. Inflation that is inevitably coming.
Mortgage rates only ever go down to support the housing market.
http://www.fedprimerate.com/mortgage_rates_chart-graph.htm
Treasury yields only ever go down to support the stocks market.
https://www.macrotrends.net/2016/10-year-treasury-bond-rate-...
Debt to GDP ratio only ever goes up:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S
Ask yourself why this is happening, and how we return to sound money.
"Value is created by having an asset that cannot artificially be inflated at will."
That is not value.
You can do that with Gold.
We could do that with an arbitrary fixed currency that someone invents.
BTC 'has not value' because it can't be used for anything - as a currency it's useless, and as a store of value it's next to useless (there are better stores of value).
Your comments about 'money' don't necessarily relate:
1) Currency is not supposed to be a hard store of value. It's there to grease the economy, not for you to hold large quantities. If you want to store value there are plenty of ways to do that.
2) Inflexible currency i.e. 'hard money' makes no sense, and that's why nobody uses it.
3) You say 'inflation is coming' - well if we have such bad currency, why hasn't inflation already taken root in the last 20 years? It really has not.
Again - BTC creates zero value, there's no point to it - it can't be used as currency and it's not a better a store of value than rare comic books.
That is not value.
You can do that with Gold.
We could do that with an arbitrary fixed currency that someone invents.
BTC 'has not value' because it can't be used for anything - as a currency it's useless, and as a store of value it's next to useless (there are better stores of value).
Your comments about 'money' don't necessarily relate:
1) Currency is not supposed to be a hard store of value. It's there to grease the economy, not for you to hold large quantities. If you want to store value there are plenty of ways to do that.
2) Inflexible currency i.e. 'hard money' makes no sense, and that's why nobody uses it.
3) You say 'inflation is coming' - well if we have such bad currency, why hasn't inflation already taken root in the last 20 years? It really has not.
Again - BTC creates zero value, there's no point to it - it can't be used as currency and it's not a better a store of value than rare comic books.
You can do that with Gold.
Yes, we had gold as a monetary standard for quite some time.
1) Currency is not supposed to be a hard store of value. It's there to grease the economy, not for you to hold large quantities. If you want to store value there are plenty of ways to do that.
Money is supposed to be sound. Your notion that currency should not be a hard store of value is a new one, an idea created to support fiat. From first principles, money is a store of energy (creative work, physical work), which is then utilized for efficient exchange of goods and services. Money is not a tool for "greasing the economy", this was only possible when governments confiscated gold and declared all money to be paper that they controlled. Furthermore, buying stocks/houses/gold etc. is indeed a way of escaping USD into assets. However, someone else has to be willing to take that USD. It will still exist, and whoever holds it will be losing value over time. It is a problem when your base asset becomes toxic and no one wants it.
2) Inflexible currency i.e. 'hard money' makes no sense, and that's why nobody uses it.
We used gold and other rare metals for thousands of years. It was literally the global standard for trade.
3) You say 'inflation is coming' - well if we have such bad currency, why hasn't inflation already taken root in the last 20 years? It really has not.
The USD's buying power has fallen dramatically over time. Inflation has been very visible in home prices and stock prices.
https://howmuch.net/articles/rise-and-fall-dollar
Yes, we had gold as a monetary standard for quite some time.
1) Currency is not supposed to be a hard store of value. It's there to grease the economy, not for you to hold large quantities. If you want to store value there are plenty of ways to do that.
Money is supposed to be sound. Your notion that currency should not be a hard store of value is a new one, an idea created to support fiat. From first principles, money is a store of energy (creative work, physical work), which is then utilized for efficient exchange of goods and services. Money is not a tool for "greasing the economy", this was only possible when governments confiscated gold and declared all money to be paper that they controlled. Furthermore, buying stocks/houses/gold etc. is indeed a way of escaping USD into assets. However, someone else has to be willing to take that USD. It will still exist, and whoever holds it will be losing value over time. It is a problem when your base asset becomes toxic and no one wants it.
2) Inflexible currency i.e. 'hard money' makes no sense, and that's why nobody uses it.
We used gold and other rare metals for thousands of years. It was literally the global standard for trade.
3) You say 'inflation is coming' - well if we have such bad currency, why hasn't inflation already taken root in the last 20 years? It really has not.
The USD's buying power has fallen dramatically over time. Inflation has been very visible in home prices and stock prices.
https://howmuch.net/articles/rise-and-fall-dollar
I think you make a good observation when you say that we have many kinds of sources of truth. People want to create many different kinds of sources of truth because people find sources of truth very very valuable. The fact that we can agree that bitcoin gives us a source of truth proves that bitcoin creates value because, as we know, people find them so valuable.
" The fact that we can agree that bitcoin gives us a source"
'Sources of Truth' are a commodity.
There are any number of ways to do that.
There's no reason to have a $50B source of truth.
And FYI there is no value merely in a 'source of truth' it has to be put to use in some way, and BTC has zero uses.
'Sources of Truth' are a commodity.
There are any number of ways to do that.
There's no reason to have a $50B source of truth.
And FYI there is no value merely in a 'source of truth' it has to be put to use in some way, and BTC has zero uses.
gverrilla(2)
Since the cryptos electricity usage, at least that part which is generated by fossils, is a real problem (it is) - it would be nice to see this problem addressed with blockchain technologies.
Carbon offset tokens, or some token that will increase in value when cryptos global electricity usage goes up, and offsets with renewable projects. If it were funded by governments in billions of dollars it would make an impact, and everyone could participate in funding the token.
The problem must be addressed in altering the fossil/non-fossil energy mix. You are not going to control the financial incentive to mine, or kindly ask ppl to use less electricity please. Carbon taxes have been proposed but you would have to get that done globally, they are certainly working on that from a political perspective but you never know there are always resistance to a new tax.
Carbon offset tokens, or some token that will increase in value when cryptos global electricity usage goes up, and offsets with renewable projects. If it were funded by governments in billions of dollars it would make an impact, and everyone could participate in funding the token.
The problem must be addressed in altering the fossil/non-fossil energy mix. You are not going to control the financial incentive to mine, or kindly ask ppl to use less electricity please. Carbon taxes have been proposed but you would have to get that done globally, they are certainly working on that from a political perspective but you never know there are always resistance to a new tax.
"What about the climate change impact of things that aren't Bitcoin"?`
Literal whataboutism.
Literal whataboutism.
Mining difficulty tends to be a lagging indicator of price, not the other way around. I doubt that a price increase in power would have much affect on the price of the currency itself.
We 100% need massive carbon taxes right now. It's really telling how the energy industry is trying to push blame to consumers, especially cryptocurrency miners, in order to distract from the discussion of real carbon taxes to force polluters to pay for the damage they're causing.
I'm sure I'm one of the largest supporters of cryptocurrency in this thread so far, and I'm perfectly comfortable stating the obvious that mining with fossil fuels is an abomination. It's going to keep happening though until regulators get serious about reigning in the fossil fuel industry.
We 100% need massive carbon taxes right now. It's really telling how the energy industry is trying to push blame to consumers, especially cryptocurrency miners, in order to distract from the discussion of real carbon taxes to force polluters to pay for the damage they're causing.
I'm sure I'm one of the largest supporters of cryptocurrency in this thread so far, and I'm perfectly comfortable stating the obvious that mining with fossil fuels is an abomination. It's going to keep happening though until regulators get serious about reigning in the fossil fuel industry.
Would you support a carbon import tariff for PoW cryptocurrencies mined outside of countries that implement a carbon tax? Because otherwise I can just imagine mining moving to countries without one, as is already happening with regards to other climate-based restrictions.
They can move, but that undermines confidence of the blockchain because then it's under the influence of fewer governments. Which makes me think that quite a few wont.
> if energy were priced correctly ... would BTC become higher in value? ... If energy were to become more expensive, the growth in supply would slow.
It doesn't work like that. The consensus algorithm targets 1 block mined every 10 minutes. If the amount of energy expended goes up (i.e. blocks are mined more frequently) then the difficulty increases to counteract it. If the rate of block production decreases, then the difficulty decreases to counteract it.
This page has more information: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty
(I've used "difficulty" here in the English-language way. Confusingly, "difficulty" is kind of backwards in Bitcoin - the "difficulty" is a number that a mined block hash must be below - it gets more "difficult" to mine a block if the "difficulty" number is lower. Maybe it should be called "easiness" instead of "difficulty").
It doesn't work like that. The consensus algorithm targets 1 block mined every 10 minutes. If the amount of energy expended goes up (i.e. blocks are mined more frequently) then the difficulty increases to counteract it. If the rate of block production decreases, then the difficulty decreases to counteract it.
This page has more information: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty
(I've used "difficulty" here in the English-language way. Confusingly, "difficulty" is kind of backwards in Bitcoin - the "difficulty" is a number that a mined block hash must be below - it gets more "difficult" to mine a block if the "difficulty" number is lower. Maybe it should be called "easiness" instead of "difficulty").
And this is exactly the problem with Bitcoin. Adding more computational power to the network changes absolutely nothing in terms of the amount of mining completed per unit time. Instead it just shuffles around the chances of being the one to succeed at a block.
This is something that I'm not sure many people actually understand. Because in the physical world, increasing your energy input into mining will result in more output of the resource you're mining. Adding another excavator to your mine doesn't reduce the effectiveness of every other excavator in the world.
This is something that I'm not sure many people actually understand. Because in the physical world, increasing your energy input into mining will result in more output of the resource you're mining. Adding another excavator to your mine doesn't reduce the effectiveness of every other excavator in the world.
It directly increases the difficulty of doing a 51% attack.
Yeah, the only point of the mining system is to secure the blockchain. As more and more energy is spent on it, the more energy is needed to attack it.
It just turns greed into security. As long as it's profitable to mine, it's practically impossible for someone to do a 51% attack.
It just turns greed into security. As long as it's profitable to mine, it's practically impossible for someone to do a 51% attack.
We know since many decades that a carbon price might be a good idea. But it's not that simple, because either you do it worldwide or you introduce lots of exceptions or you do something like carbon import tariffs (which the EU wants to do, but I think no such mechanism exists anywhere in the world right now).
Bottom line is: Most of the world has no carbon price, and the places that do have one (e.g. the EU ETS) there are so many loopholes that it is not very effective. It's not that it isn't worth trying to do better, but a carbon price is definitely not a short term solution.
So I'm inclined to think whoever proposes a carbon price as "the one true solution" really doesn't want a solution at all.
Bottom line is: Most of the world has no carbon price, and the places that do have one (e.g. the EU ETS) there are so many loopholes that it is not very effective. It's not that it isn't worth trying to do better, but a carbon price is definitely not a short term solution.
So I'm inclined to think whoever proposes a carbon price as "the one true solution" really doesn't want a solution at all.
The age of the proposal for carbon tax mirrors the age of sophisticated "reasons" why it should not happen or why it's supposedly not a good idea "if you think about it".
Nonsense. It's lobbyism. In more drastic terms, corruption. Plain and simple.
We can have this "discussion" once significant industrial nations have implemented a carbon tax. Until then, it's all just excuses. Similar to all the bunch of nonsense people come up with why they can't start working out today or save money today or go to bed right now instead of after watching the next episode of whatnot-series.
Nonsense. It's lobbyism. In more drastic terms, corruption. Plain and simple.
We can have this "discussion" once significant industrial nations have implemented a carbon tax. Until then, it's all just excuses. Similar to all the bunch of nonsense people come up with why they can't start working out today or save money today or go to bed right now instead of after watching the next episode of whatnot-series.
I don't think it helps that carbon isn't the be-all, end-all in the polluting effects of general consumption (including crypto mining). Even if all these miners were 100% green energy, the green tech would still be a net pollution on the world. I wish we stopped thinking of things so simply.
It already worked in Australia until conservatives and vested interests ran an aggressive media campaign, facilitated by Newscorp.
Emissions dropped. Consumers didnt notice a hike in prices, or where they did, switched.
An increase in energy price wouldn't (in equilibrium) affect the Bitcoin price - it would affect the Bitcoin block difficulty, requiring less energy to mine the blocks (the mechanism being that miners unprofitable at the new energy price are driven out).
"No entity in the world can control the price of crypto."
If it were banned in the US/EU the price would crash.
Most major BTC backers have a lot of money and they can't be involved in something that is illicit.
For regular citizens, it's just not worth the risk.
That leaves quite a lot of people to play with it, but not enough to maintain the price.
Without constant headlines, Tesla's involvement, Coinbase IPO headlines etc. the price would suffer quite a lot.
It would maintain some price but not so much that people would be buying energy sources.
If it were banned in the US/EU the price would crash.
Most major BTC backers have a lot of money and they can't be involved in something that is illicit.
For regular citizens, it's just not worth the risk.
That leaves quite a lot of people to play with it, but not enough to maintain the price.
Without constant headlines, Tesla's involvement, Coinbase IPO headlines etc. the price would suffer quite a lot.
It would maintain some price but not so much that people would be buying energy sources.
Turkey - a minor economy - was able to crush the price of BTC by 15% with their recent ban. A large economy doing the same could have a major effect on price. Energy and hardware use is directly aligned with price.
If there are any Governments out there who desire to fight climate change - and it seems like there are a reasonable amount - then illegalising proof-of-work coins seems like a reasonable step at least from an energy use perspective.
If there are any Governments out there who desire to fight climate change - and it seems like there are a reasonable amount - then illegalising proof-of-work coins seems like a reasonable step at least from an energy use perspective.
The growth in supply would not slow - in Bitcoin every two weeks you have a rebalancing of difficulty, so if miners have less hashing power the difficulty of producing each block gets lowered to keep the supply stable.
Sure, but energy usage still goes down. Revenue from block rewards is limited. Costs can’t exceed revenue or unprofitable miners will drop out. More money spent on one expense (the carbon tax) would mean less can be spent on the electricity itself.
Or more likely they’re outcompeted by anyone who doesn’t have to pay the tax, such as miners using green energy or in a jurisdiction without the tax.
Or more likely they’re outcompeted by anyone who doesn’t have to pay the tax, such as miners using green energy or in a jurisdiction without the tax.
Wrt. your second question: Supply of Bitcoin is pretty much constant, regardless of energy expended, regardless of mining technology. The causation runs like this: demand -> price -> mining. Less demand, lower price, less mining. More demand, higher price, more mining. This is different than any other resource we are used to, because the supply of nothing else is as constant as with bitcoin. If the cost to mine Gold increases, the supply goes down and the price will rise.
Wrt your first question: The best argument against making energy more expensive is the same argument as it was 100 years ago:
If you use energy now, you build a more prosperous civilization for the future. Your grandchildren may have to deal with a warmer climate, but they will be much better able to do so than if they were more poor.
This argument stands and falls with your evaluation of the benefits of using more energy, the costs of a warmer climate and how you weigh these against each other.
Wrt your first question: The best argument against making energy more expensive is the same argument as it was 100 years ago:
If you use energy now, you build a more prosperous civilization for the future. Your grandchildren may have to deal with a warmer climate, but they will be much better able to do so than if they were more poor.
This argument stands and falls with your evaluation of the benefits of using more energy, the costs of a warmer climate and how you weigh these against each other.
> Seriously, what are the current best arguments against levying such a disincentive?
The best argument against it is: it's very hard to enforce it on everybody internationally, and if one country adopts it unilaterally, then production just moves to another country (making everyone worse off - same amount of pollution, but the production is presumably less economically efficient).
The second best argument against it is "the tax shouldn't be $x/ton, it should be $0.5x, which is a more accurate reflection of the external costs".
A distant third, but very effective in practice, is "the carbon tax is good, but it shouldn't apply to Special Interest Area X, because of these social/political/historical reasons..."
These aren't completely unsolvable problems, and people do try. But if your question was genuine, I hope you now see that there are some reasonable arguments not to just do this tomorrow.
The best argument against it is: it's very hard to enforce it on everybody internationally, and if one country adopts it unilaterally, then production just moves to another country (making everyone worse off - same amount of pollution, but the production is presumably less economically efficient).
The second best argument against it is "the tax shouldn't be $x/ton, it should be $0.5x, which is a more accurate reflection of the external costs".
A distant third, but very effective in practice, is "the carbon tax is good, but it shouldn't apply to Special Interest Area X, because of these social/political/historical reasons..."
These aren't completely unsolvable problems, and people do try. But if your question was genuine, I hope you now see that there are some reasonable arguments not to just do this tomorrow.
> The best argument against it is: it's very hard to enforce it on everybody internationally, and if one country adopts it unilaterally, then production just moves to another country
So tax imports (including the carbon cost of shipping)
It would likely require agreement between the US and EU to shift enough of the global consumer market to actually care, but with Poland and Texas that doesn't seem likely.
So tax imports (including the carbon cost of shipping)
It would likely require agreement between the US and EU to shift enough of the global consumer market to actually care, but with Poland and Texas that doesn't seem likely.
Absolutely agree, thanks for this reply. I was cognizant of the foreign policy implications (how would this possibly get implemented globally) but I hadn’t heard or considered your points 2 and 3.
Given how much lobbying I suspect there is, 3 probably isn’t all that distant of a concern. Especially in older industries, say railroads or trucking, I understand there could be a lot of contention.
And as others mention, I think there needs to be a separation of taxation by segments of polluting activities. Would burning fuel in a combustion engine count as taxable energy production? Only power plants? What about agriculture, construction, material production?
Given how much lobbying I suspect there is, 3 probably isn’t all that distant of a concern. Especially in older industries, say railroads or trucking, I understand there could be a lot of contention.
And as others mention, I think there needs to be a separation of taxation by segments of polluting activities. Would burning fuel in a combustion engine count as taxable energy production? Only power plants? What about agriculture, construction, material production?
I think you’ve stumbled on The Solution.
Like, in reality miners will use whatever power is cheapest, and solar is currently the cheapest. They are also extremely* agile and can shift location/power source in a handful of days which leads me to believe that they are currently driving adoption of solar, BUT: with miners being framed as The Big Threat, we might be able to finally use that perception as a crowbar to remove incentives for energy sources that pollute and even impose heavy taxes on those sources and end up completely digging out the oil/coal industries.
Win Win Win as far as I’m concerned.
*Apparently unless you can buy an entire power plant
Like, in reality miners will use whatever power is cheapest, and solar is currently the cheapest. They are also extremely* agile and can shift location/power source in a handful of days which leads me to believe that they are currently driving adoption of solar, BUT: with miners being framed as The Big Threat, we might be able to finally use that perception as a crowbar to remove incentives for energy sources that pollute and even impose heavy taxes on those sources and end up completely digging out the oil/coal industries.
Win Win Win as far as I’m concerned.
*Apparently unless you can buy an entire power plant
A carbon tax would be great, but I don’t know why you think governments couldn’t significantly discourage holding cryptocurrency?
A wealth tax on proof-of-work currencies would discourage legitimate businesses (that don’t cheat on taxes) from holding them.
A wealth tax on proof-of-work currencies would discourage legitimate businesses (that don’t cheat on taxes) from holding them.
Well that's fine, no legitimate businesses hold them. Seriously. Your suppliers are paid in dollars, your tax burden is in dollars based on the conversion price on receipt. To hold them on receipt is wildly irresponsible speculation, as a business.
I don't know whether you consider Tesla a legitimate business but they're holding bitcoins.
https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/bitcoin/tesla-up-1-billion-...
https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/bitcoin/tesla-up-1-billion-...
Tesla (and Time) hold them as a speculative asset. Keeping a percentage of a corporate treasury in bitcoin is speculation, but possible a reasonable one. Allowing the mixture of funds that people opt to pay you in to determine your corporate allocation of assets seems a bit careless.
Also Time Magazine: https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/bitcoin/time-magazine-to-ho...
Legacy media is a tough business. GBTC is paying Time in crypto produce shill content.
I consider Elon to be a troll, who's messing with people. He's named his CFO "Master of Coin".
> what are the current best arguments against levying such a disincentive?
I think the biggest hurdle is that it is a tragedy of the commons: the entire market needs it, not just a single country...
I think the biggest hurdle is that it is a tragedy of the commons: the entire market needs it, not just a single country...
We don't need a carbon tax.
What we need a get rid of all the print and spend politicians. The reason for the raise of bitcoin is a direct response to the trillions and trillions of dollars just printed out of thin air.
It is insane how much grocery cost nowadays. I was at the supermarket last week and was looking at lobster, I thought it was listed for $6.99/lb for those 1 to 1.25 lb size, but when I got closed, it was $16.99/lb. It is crazy. Blue Crab at $5/each.
What we need a get rid of all the print and spend politicians. The reason for the raise of bitcoin is a direct response to the trillions and trillions of dollars just printed out of thin air.
It is insane how much grocery cost nowadays. I was at the supermarket last week and was looking at lobster, I thought it was listed for $6.99/lb for those 1 to 1.25 lb size, but when I got closed, it was $16.99/lb. It is crazy. Blue Crab at $5/each.
Well less energy does have downsides, see: all the things we use energy for. We probably don’t want to tax that except to prevent terrible harm. So I can imagine an argument being along the lines “alternative energy production isn’t ready to meet demand yet, oh and also burning carbon is useful for figuring out alternative energy (see: Tesla and the coal in China that’s burned to make their batteries) so how about instead we greatly fund alternative energy”.
Are not renewables (that is, wind and solar) the cheapest energy sources today? If I understand correctly, that would mean that bitcoin mining has to use them (in order to stay competitive), and bitcoin is effectively subsidizing renewables (because it pays money for renewable power generation, especially at times with low other demand - which makes expensive storage of electricity less of an issue).
The only thing necessary would be to cancel ASAP any public subsidies for fossil-powered generation of electricity (which is a measure that is overdue anyways).
The only thing necessary would be to cancel ASAP any public subsidies for fossil-powered generation of electricity (which is a measure that is overdue anyways).
AFAIK No, BTC algorithm ensures fixed mining difficulty (so amount of mining&minners doesn't matter (only for overtaking network)). Actually if too much BTC will be mined by limited amount of miners whole coin my lose value, e.g. if we require that barier to entry is having own power plant BTC might get destroyed by too greedy miners.
IMO BTC existence is possibly good as it raises demand for cheap energy (and currently green energy is cheapest it seems), it's also good as forcing function for fiat.
IMO BTC existence is possibly good as it raises demand for cheap energy (and currently green energy is cheapest it seems), it's also good as forcing function for fiat.
> BTC existence is possibly good as it raises demand for cheap energy
As opposed to the rest of the economy, which only demands expensive energy?
It would be pretty funny though, if the world's various governments decide BTC is an existential threat to their legitimacy and institute a carbon tax to destroy it.
As opposed to the rest of the economy, which only demands expensive energy?
It would be pretty funny though, if the world's various governments decide BTC is an existential threat to their legitimacy and institute a carbon tax to destroy it.
> IMO BTC existence is possibly good as it raises demand for cheap energy (and currently green energy is cheapest it seems), it's also good as forcing function for fiat.
No. It increases demand for energy period. Increasing demand makes energy more expensive, not less.
No. It increases demand for energy period. Increasing demand makes energy more expensive, not less.
The carbon tax should be earmarked to be spent capturing carbon, and cover about 2x the emissions of the power generated.
A handy rule of thumb, for gasoline: A gallon of gas produces 20lbs of CO2. A ton is 2000lbs. If a carbon capture technology costs X dollars per ton, it costs X cents per gallon.
Most carbon capture technologies will be in the $15 to $85 per ton range when they scale.
Therefore, a $1/gallon gasoline tax (and equivalent for coal, etc), would be enough to solve climate change.
A handy rule of thumb, for gasoline: A gallon of gas produces 20lbs of CO2. A ton is 2000lbs. If a carbon capture technology costs X dollars per ton, it costs X cents per gallon.
Most carbon capture technologies will be in the $15 to $85 per ton range when they scale.
Therefore, a $1/gallon gasoline tax (and equivalent for coal, etc), would be enough to solve climate change.
> we can and already do regulate energy production.
True. If BTCUSD goes to $1m AND you have strict global regulation banning carbon energy, it will be a powerful incentive to harness green energy, which will be good for mankind in the long run.
True. If BTCUSD goes to $1m AND you have strict global regulation banning carbon energy, it will be a powerful incentive to harness green energy, which will be good for mankind in the long run.
The supply of Bitcoin is fixed, energy prices don’t feed back that way.
> I think we need a carbon tax
I think we need a carbon quota. Something grounded in the hard reality, not a tax you can bypass or finance indefinitely with a money printing machine (edit: or bitcoin :).
I think we need a carbon quota. Something grounded in the hard reality, not a tax you can bypass or finance indefinitely with a money printing machine (edit: or bitcoin :).
The price of bitcoin will only rise if it's more pricey to mine. Miners will never (or almost never) sell their new bitcoins against a lower price than they invested.
No it won’t, miners that are mining at a loss would just stop mining which would make the difficulty to drop.
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> No entity in the world can control the price of crypto.
Paolo Ardoino would like a word with you.
Paolo Ardoino would like a word with you.
> I think we need a carbon tax, that is specifically a financial disincentive towards any means of energy production that directly pollutes the atmosphere.
Then by all means lets ban video games which are an extreme waste of electricity polluting the atmosphere for no good reason.
You see how this reasonning can go?
Then by all means lets ban video games which are an extreme waste of electricity polluting the atmosphere for no good reason.
You see how this reasonning can go?
Let say carbon tax of $200/ton, or 20c/kg.
US co2 generation on the grid is about 0.5kg per kwH, so would add 10c/kWh.
That means that your PS5, using 200 Watts, costs an extra 2c per hour to play -- on top of the existing 15c/hr for normal electric costs.
A single bitcoin transaction of 780kWh would cost $78 and a transatlantic flight about $300, or $1.20 to a gallon of gas.
Make the tax $2k/ton, it raises your PS5 cost from 15c/hr to 25c/hr and a bitcoin transaction to $780 and take transatlantic flights back to the cost of the 70s
That sounds fine to me. The energy used by a PS5 is insignificant.
> You see how this reasonning can go?
Yes I do, it sounds really exciting.
The money raised would be spent on carbon reduction (which gives a financial incentive to Brazil to not chop down rainforest, or pays for other forms of carbon capture), and disincentivises carbon usage. Brilliant.
US co2 generation on the grid is about 0.5kg per kwH, so would add 10c/kWh.
That means that your PS5, using 200 Watts, costs an extra 2c per hour to play -- on top of the existing 15c/hr for normal electric costs.
A single bitcoin transaction of 780kWh would cost $78 and a transatlantic flight about $300, or $1.20 to a gallon of gas.
Make the tax $2k/ton, it raises your PS5 cost from 15c/hr to 25c/hr and a bitcoin transaction to $780 and take transatlantic flights back to the cost of the 70s
That sounds fine to me. The energy used by a PS5 is insignificant.
> You see how this reasonning can go?
Yes I do, it sounds really exciting.
The money raised would be spent on carbon reduction (which gives a financial incentive to Brazil to not chop down rainforest, or pays for other forms of carbon capture), and disincentivises carbon usage. Brilliant.
Video games don't produce any electricity. The idea is to disincentive electricity production.
Then people will switch to producing energy at home via sonar panel, disel engines etc. illegally, or some countries will just allow it and get rich (see corporate tax for similar mechanism)
That's absurd.
>I think we need a carbon tax, that is specifically a financial disincentive towards any means of energy production that directly pollutes the atmosphere.
Ok then lets end 2 biggest industries that pollute the planet the most. Construction and food production.
We can live in environmentally friendly uniform grey boxes and eat protein bars.
>I think we need a carbon tax, that is specifically a financial disincentive towards any means of energy production that directly pollutes the atmosphere.
Ok then lets end 2 biggest industries that pollute the planet the most. Construction and food production.
We can live in environmentally friendly uniform grey boxes and eat protein bars.
> I think we need a carbon tax
I get the concerns for the carbon issue of Bitcoin but I don't see why the solution should be governments profiting more from it.
I get the concerns for the carbon issue of Bitcoin but I don't see why the solution should be governments profiting more from it.
Carbon tax is unusual in that it has a major benefit simply by suppressing consumption.
If an alien civilization invaded earth and imposed a carbon tax, and took all of the proceeds back to their own planet, then we would still be better off.
If an alien civilization invaded earth and imposed a carbon tax, and took all of the proceeds back to their own planet, then we would still be better off.
Typically proponents of a carbon tax also support a carbon dividend.
Governments don't have to profit from it. In fact to get the desired effect (less carbon) the tax should be revenue neutral. It should be used to fund UBI or give everyone a tax credit.
Easy solution: tax carbon emissions.
Who cares if you’re using energy to mine Bitcoin? Or if you’re using it to play video games? Or to run the AC all day?
If it you’re internalizing the cost of any emissions, then you’ll use those resources efficiently.
Who cares if you’re using energy to mine Bitcoin? Or if you’re using it to play video games? Or to run the AC all day?
If it you’re internalizing the cost of any emissions, then you’ll use those resources efficiently.
Hard to do this when you can have other countries with much looser regulations allow Bitcoin miners run rampant.
What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. I have no delusions that this will halt activity in this sector entirely, but it will make it reasonably difficult to make any substantial money this way without raising some serious eyebrows.
What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. I have no delusions that this will halt activity in this sector entirely, but it will make it reasonably difficult to make any substantial money this way without raising some serious eyebrows.
> Hard to do this when you can have other countries with much looser regulations allow Bitcoin miners run rampant.
You tariff their imports and apply economic sanctions.
> What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime.
Why cryptocurrencies? There are plenty of things that pollute far more.
You tariff their imports and apply economic sanctions.
> What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime.
Why cryptocurrencies? There are plenty of things that pollute far more.
Why are you handwaving away my concerns? You do realize cryptocurrencies (and to be specific, PoW ones) aren't replacing any of these so called other things that pollute.
Speaking of which, can you quantify what things pollute more? At any rate, I get the feeling we are going to be talking past each other and wasting time and energy (heh) on this conversation.
Speaking of which, can you quantify what things pollute more? At any rate, I get the feeling we are going to be talking past each other and wasting time and energy (heh) on this conversation.
> Why are you handwaving away my concerns?
Calm down.
> Speaking of which, can you quantify what things pollute more?
You're all over the comments trying to pin the blame for CO2 emissions on the the existence of PoW cryptocurrencies. But if you stop and think about the problem for more than 5 seconds, you'll realize that it's the CO2 emissions, not cryptocurrencies, that are the problem. They were a problem before cryptocurrencies, and would continue to be a problem even if cryptocurrencies didn't exist.
I think you'll find that many cryptocurrency fans are also green-energy fans, and would love to live in a world where all energy was 100% renewable. Like, no one here wants to burn more fossil fuels.
Calm down.
> Speaking of which, can you quantify what things pollute more?
You're all over the comments trying to pin the blame for CO2 emissions on the the existence of PoW cryptocurrencies. But if you stop and think about the problem for more than 5 seconds, you'll realize that it's the CO2 emissions, not cryptocurrencies, that are the problem. They were a problem before cryptocurrencies, and would continue to be a problem even if cryptocurrencies didn't exist.
I think you'll find that many cryptocurrency fans are also green-energy fans, and would love to live in a world where all energy was 100% renewable. Like, no one here wants to burn more fossil fuels.
You didn’t answer their question. Can you quantify what things pollute more?
Here, let me Google that for you.
First, let's assume for a moment that this February 2021 CNBC source [1] is correct in that Bitcoin mining produces 36.94 megatons of CO2 per year. The original source the CNBC article cited can be found here: [3] (which currently pegs Bitcoin at 47.62 megatons/year).
According to the EPA, the US economy alone produced 6,558 megatons of CO2 [2] in 2019 (i.e. under pre-COVID emissions).
So, Bitcoin's CO2 annualized output as of February 2021 was 0.5% of the US economy's CO2 output from 2 years ago.
This works out to be:
* 5.6% of the US agricultural sector emissions, OR
* 4.3% of US commercial and residential building emissions (heating, cooling, waste), OR
* 2.4% of the US manufacturing industry, OR
* 2.2% of all US electricity generation, OR
* 1.9% of all US transportation emissions
According to this article from 2016 published in Environmental Research Letters [4], the US could save a combined 110 megatons of CO2 emissions simply by using better building insulation, since it would reduce heating/cooling energy expenditure. That's about 3x the Bitcoin CO2 emission rate I quoted above.
So, @SwimSwimHungry, I'll ask once again: why the outrage over cryptocurrencies? Can I expect you to have 3x the outrage over bad building insulation?
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/bitcoin-btc-surge-renews-wor...
[2] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
[3] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
[4] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/03...
First, let's assume for a moment that this February 2021 CNBC source [1] is correct in that Bitcoin mining produces 36.94 megatons of CO2 per year. The original source the CNBC article cited can be found here: [3] (which currently pegs Bitcoin at 47.62 megatons/year).
According to the EPA, the US economy alone produced 6,558 megatons of CO2 [2] in 2019 (i.e. under pre-COVID emissions).
So, Bitcoin's CO2 annualized output as of February 2021 was 0.5% of the US economy's CO2 output from 2 years ago.
This works out to be:
* 5.6% of the US agricultural sector emissions, OR
* 4.3% of US commercial and residential building emissions (heating, cooling, waste), OR
* 2.4% of the US manufacturing industry, OR
* 2.2% of all US electricity generation, OR
* 1.9% of all US transportation emissions
According to this article from 2016 published in Environmental Research Letters [4], the US could save a combined 110 megatons of CO2 emissions simply by using better building insulation, since it would reduce heating/cooling energy expenditure. That's about 3x the Bitcoin CO2 emission rate I quoted above.
So, @SwimSwimHungry, I'll ask once again: why the outrage over cryptocurrencies? Can I expect you to have 3x the outrage over bad building insulation?
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/bitcoin-btc-surge-renews-wor...
[2] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
[3] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
[4] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/03...
My response to you is quite simple. Unlike virtually every other technology that's been created (like computers, cars, smartphones, etc), Bitcoin simply exists in a form where the primary purpose is to waste energy, and the system inherently incentivizes it.
Also, the issue of bad building insulation does not in any manner invalidate my concern with the growing problem of Bitcoin now and in the future. Bad building insulation can also be fixed relatively easily, and the incentive for a fix would be an energy cost savings to the property owner. Bitcoin is the exact opposite of this. In order for the network to remain secure, it must burn copious amounts of energy.
That is my general outrage summarized there. And that doesn't even begin my issues pertaining to lack of user friendliness surrounding cryptocurrencies (not your keys, not your coins), how it suckers people into something they don't fully understand (people see $$$ and throw money at it without quantifying the proper risks - see the crashes from 2013 and 2017 and all the run on exchanges that left people empty handed), the absolutely awful existence of ransomware, and the constant tape painting with tethers (which by the way, we still can't get a proper audit on them and they are just about as opaque as the Fed is with regards to the Federal Reserve).
I believe I've made my points at this juncture. We may have to simply agree to disagree otherwise.
Also, the issue of bad building insulation does not in any manner invalidate my concern with the growing problem of Bitcoin now and in the future. Bad building insulation can also be fixed relatively easily, and the incentive for a fix would be an energy cost savings to the property owner. Bitcoin is the exact opposite of this. In order for the network to remain secure, it must burn copious amounts of energy.
That is my general outrage summarized there. And that doesn't even begin my issues pertaining to lack of user friendliness surrounding cryptocurrencies (not your keys, not your coins), how it suckers people into something they don't fully understand (people see $$$ and throw money at it without quantifying the proper risks - see the crashes from 2013 and 2017 and all the run on exchanges that left people empty handed), the absolutely awful existence of ransomware, and the constant tape painting with tethers (which by the way, we still can't get a proper audit on them and they are just about as opaque as the Fed is with regards to the Federal Reserve).
I believe I've made my points at this juncture. We may have to simply agree to disagree otherwise.
> Bitcoin simply exists in a form where the primary purpose is to waste energy,
That's just your moral judgement. The people who use and make a living off of Bitcoin certainly don't see it as a waste.
> In order for the network to remain secure, it must burn copious amounts of energy.
First, this does not preclude PoW from existing in a world powered 100% renewable energy. Second, I've already outlined a way to economically penalize PoW miners for using fossil fuels here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26829269.
Please do not make the mistake of believing that your (rightful) concerns about CO2 emissions from PoW are being overlooked, and please do not make the mistake of thinking that they cannot be addressed. PoW does not require burning fossil fuels to work.
That's just your moral judgement. The people who use and make a living off of Bitcoin certainly don't see it as a waste.
> In order for the network to remain secure, it must burn copious amounts of energy.
First, this does not preclude PoW from existing in a world powered 100% renewable energy. Second, I've already outlined a way to economically penalize PoW miners for using fossil fuels here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26829269.
Please do not make the mistake of believing that your (rightful) concerns about CO2 emissions from PoW are being overlooked, and please do not make the mistake of thinking that they cannot be addressed. PoW does not require burning fossil fuels to work.
Look, I'll just say right here I do believe your heart is in the right place and you want there to be an alternative to the government run and controlled fiat. That said, gold technically exists already to meet this in my humble opinion as a proper hedge.
Also, to your point about greenifying Bitcoin, I just believe the assumption that bitcoin will just move over 100% to green energy sources is naive at best, and considering that is energy that isn't being used for activities I would argue as more productive (like powering homes, schools, electric cars), I just feel that it's a real opportunity loss.
I just think it's not as likely to happen. Maybe if nuclear power really starts to take off again, there might be hope, as the sheer amount of Gigawatts that such plants can produce could easily outpace other green energy technologies. Sadly we have some anti-nuclear sentiment that blocks progress in building new plants quickly.
Also, to your point about greenifying Bitcoin, I just believe the assumption that bitcoin will just move over 100% to green energy sources is naive at best, and considering that is energy that isn't being used for activities I would argue as more productive (like powering homes, schools, electric cars), I just feel that it's a real opportunity loss.
I just think it's not as likely to happen. Maybe if nuclear power really starts to take off again, there might be hope, as the sheer amount of Gigawatts that such plants can produce could easily outpace other green energy technologies. Sadly we have some anti-nuclear sentiment that blocks progress in building new plants quickly.
> you want there to be an alternative to the government run and controlled fiat.
I, uh, never said that. I don't see Bitcoin as a currency at all.
> That said, gold technically exists already to meet this in my humble opinion as a proper hedge.
No thank you. Gold-mining is way more ecologically disastrous. If Bitcoin replaces gold, the environment will be better off for it -- at least you can mine Bitcoin with nothing more than solar panels and wind farms.
> I just believe the assumption that bitcoin will just move over 100% to green energy sources is naive at best
One way or another, the world is going to need to move all its energy production to 100% renewables, or humanity is going to be in for a world of hurt. But, this is true with or without cryptocurrencies.
I, uh, never said that. I don't see Bitcoin as a currency at all.
> That said, gold technically exists already to meet this in my humble opinion as a proper hedge.
No thank you. Gold-mining is way more ecologically disastrous. If Bitcoin replaces gold, the environment will be better off for it -- at least you can mine Bitcoin with nothing more than solar panels and wind farms.
> I just believe the assumption that bitcoin will just move over 100% to green energy sources is naive at best
One way or another, the world is going to need to move all its energy production to 100% renewables, or humanity is going to be in for a world of hurt. But, this is true with or without cryptocurrencies.
>I, uh, never said that. I don't see Bitcoin as a currency at all.
I stand corrected.
>No thank you. Gold-mining is way more ecologically disastrous. If Bitcoin replaces gold, the environment will be better off for it -- at least you can mine Bitcoin with nothing more than solar panels and wind farms.
Well there's just one problem. You need gold as a component in the creation of systems that mine bitcoin. Oops! So we are kinda stuck with gold mining, which we need to do, just so bitcoin can be mined, which we don't have to do. With that in mind, why not just skip to just straight up owning gold?
>One way or another, the world is going to need to move all its energy production to 100% renewables, or humanity is going to be in for a world of hurt. But, this is true with or without cryptocurrencies.
On this point, I hope you are right. We do need to get off of coal and gas as soon as we can.
I stand corrected.
>No thank you. Gold-mining is way more ecologically disastrous. If Bitcoin replaces gold, the environment will be better off for it -- at least you can mine Bitcoin with nothing more than solar panels and wind farms.
Well there's just one problem. You need gold as a component in the creation of systems that mine bitcoin. Oops! So we are kinda stuck with gold mining, which we need to do, just so bitcoin can be mined, which we don't have to do. With that in mind, why not just skip to just straight up owning gold?
>One way or another, the world is going to need to move all its energy production to 100% renewables, or humanity is going to be in for a world of hurt. But, this is true with or without cryptocurrencies.
On this point, I hope you are right. We do need to get off of coal and gas as soon as we can.
>That said, gold technically exists already to meet this in my humble opinion as a proper hedge.
Moving gold from one country to another country on your is difficult.
Storing gold properly without getting robbed is difficult.
Try moving $5million dollar worth gold and you'll realize the advantage which bitcoin brings.
Moving gold from one country to another country on your is difficult.
Storing gold properly without getting robbed is difficult.
Try moving $5million dollar worth gold and you'll realize the advantage which bitcoin brings.
> Try moving $5million dollar worth gold
If I read the price correctly that would be something like 80kg. I can't be bothered to dig deeper, but that would be just a few gold bars, I suspect. Not very hard to handle, IMO...
If I read the price correctly that would be something like 80kg. I can't be bothered to dig deeper, but that would be just a few gold bars, I suspect. Not very hard to handle, IMO...
> I believe I've made my points at this juncture.
Very badly. Not saying your wrong, just that you're really bad at arguing.
You asked a question "Can you quantify what things pollute more?" and when the other guy gave you a list, you responded by saying it doesn't matter as the important thing is the purpose of the pollution.
Unless it just occured to you between typing the two responses that some types of pollution are the result of more useful work tha others, that is some bad faith argumentation. Asking a question you think is irrelavent just so you can later move the goal posts, is just silly.
Very badly. Not saying your wrong, just that you're really bad at arguing.
You asked a question "Can you quantify what things pollute more?" and when the other guy gave you a list, you responded by saying it doesn't matter as the important thing is the purpose of the pollution.
Unless it just occured to you between typing the two responses that some types of pollution are the result of more useful work tha others, that is some bad faith argumentation. Asking a question you think is irrelavent just so you can later move the goal posts, is just silly.
Fine. I may not be the best at arguing, and to be fair, being really good at debate and arguing points effectively takes tons of time and practice. I will make mistakes with my presentation, but the kernel of what I speak of is still unchanged.
I have no delusions of grandeur about convincing those entrenched in specific camps over to my side. Just the hope that those who are watching from the sidelines can see what I'm saying and hopefully they can take something away from it that is helpful and productive.
To the list of polluting concerns, I didn't say that it "doesn't matter", and that seems to be putting words in my mouth, if I'm being honest. In fact, to his point on building insulation, I noted that there can in fact be an incentive to correct this with a net savings, and we can encourage those around us to make such corrections wherever it is in their power to do so. Bitcoin from my view incentivizes the opposite kind of behavior. That's what I'm hopefully trying to get across.
I don't expect you to agree with my positions, but hopefully to at least understand my perspective.
I have no delusions of grandeur about convincing those entrenched in specific camps over to my side. Just the hope that those who are watching from the sidelines can see what I'm saying and hopefully they can take something away from it that is helpful and productive.
To the list of polluting concerns, I didn't say that it "doesn't matter", and that seems to be putting words in my mouth, if I'm being honest. In fact, to his point on building insulation, I noted that there can in fact be an incentive to correct this with a net savings, and we can encourage those around us to make such corrections wherever it is in their power to do so. Bitcoin from my view incentivizes the opposite kind of behavior. That's what I'm hopefully trying to get across.
I don't expect you to agree with my positions, but hopefully to at least understand my perspective.
Bitcoin does something very important which creating something that people trust without someone in background diluting value of your holdings. If that takes a lot to achieve in terms of energy well it speaks volumes about the society we live in
So if something really harmful speaks volumes that is ok?
I'd like to add electronics on standby to your list ("could be as high as 10% of total energy use"):
• https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/climate-change/ene...
As I've tried to argue with others before: I doubt climate change and energy waste are at the top of the agenda of these people so wound up against Bitcoin's energy waste otherwise we'd see a lot more people
• switching to a vegetarian, let alone vegan, diet
• using a bike instead of car for doing groceries
• taking the train instead of a plane for holidays
• voting for radical green parties
• unplug their fucking electronics
• https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/climate-change/ene...
As I've tried to argue with others before: I doubt climate change and energy waste are at the top of the agenda of these people so wound up against Bitcoin's energy waste otherwise we'd see a lot more people
• switching to a vegetarian, let alone vegan, diet
• using a bike instead of car for doing groceries
• taking the train instead of a plane for holidays
• voting for radical green parties
• unplug their fucking electronics
I do all that
Sealioning.
Last time I checked standby power consumption only in the US was an order of magnitude higher than Bitcoin mining all around the world, but it's hard to estimate the emissions of the latter due to its decentralised nature.
Oh boy, someone on the Internet wants me to calm down because I point out that they are making a lazy point. Sheesh, tough crowd!
Whether you realize it or not, you can want to not burn fossil fuels, but if there's a profit to be made doing it, believe me, enough miners will bend their morality to make a profit. You act like everyone involved in this experiment has pure intentions. I'd argue that's untrue.
Whether you realize it or not, you can want to not burn fossil fuels, but if there's a profit to be made doing it, believe me, enough miners will bend their morality to make a profit. You act like everyone involved in this experiment has pure intentions. I'd argue that's untrue.
You'd be a lot more convincing if you weren't in the throes of a hissyfit over something that's 0.5% of the US's total CO2 output in 2019. It's not great, but it's far from the worst problem. Like, bad building insulation in 2016 is responsible for _3x_ the CO2 emissions of Bitcoin _today_.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26829795.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26829795.
But Bitcoin is only going to continue to grow exponentially and the CO2 emissions by it will easily outpace building insulation problems.
And how is making points to the contrary of yours copping a hissie-fit? I'm just having a disagreement. Not everyone shares your world view.
And how is making points to the contrary of yours copping a hissie-fit? I'm just having a disagreement. Not everyone shares your world view.
> Calm down.
FYI this is the worst thing one can say during a discussion. The effect, regardless of intent, is always to annoy the other.
FYI this is the worst thing one can say during a discussion. The effect, regardless of intent, is always to annoy the other.
> The effect, regardless of intent, is always to annoy the other.
Combined with the further-down "Here, let me Google that for you.", it seems likely that that was the intended effect. It's pretty clear that negative value to the discussion was provided by both comments, in addition to the (subjective) dismissive attitude.
Combined with the further-down "Here, let me Google that for you.", it seems likely that that was the intended effect. It's pretty clear that negative value to the discussion was provided by both comments, in addition to the (subjective) dismissive attitude.
Perhaps this is just a difference in interpersonal communication styles, but if I were so chided in either case, I would have at least taken it to heart. Like, I don't ask questions whose answers can be Googled; I personally find it morally repugnant -- offensive even -- to ask a human to do a machine's job.
The problem at hand is that CO2 emissions exist and must be curtailed. This thread comes from a certain individual's repeated refusal to separate addressing electricity generation's CO2 emissions from moralistic opinions about the downstream use of that electricity. As if Mother Nature cared about our moralizing.
But thanks anyway for the tone-policing. Really adds to the discussion.
The problem at hand is that CO2 emissions exist and must be curtailed. This thread comes from a certain individual's repeated refusal to separate addressing electricity generation's CO2 emissions from moralistic opinions about the downstream use of that electricity. As if Mother Nature cared about our moralizing.
But thanks anyway for the tone-policing. Really adds to the discussion.
You're right, it is the CO2 emissions, but they're effectively unavoidable. We do not have enough renewable energy sources built right now to support even the current load. Additional load means dirty power plants stay online longer as we wait for enough green energy sources to come online.
Even if all the miners were running on entirely green energy, there's an opportunity cost. That green energy could be used to power homes and we could shut down coal power plants. I don't care that you bought 9,000 solar panels to power your mining farm, because that's 9,000 solar panels that could have been hooked up to the grid.
I don't want to rain on anyone's parade. I find cryptocurrencies interesting and would like for them to exist, but we're in a terrible position to be pissing away electricity right now. In the scheme of ways to use electricity, Bitcoin is a pretty frivolous use too. The electricity consumption is just so outsized compared to the actual physical gain (and I'm not talking about money made from speculating).
If I were the ruler of the world, I'd give it a transaction tax that was proportional to the percentage of load generation that isn't renewable. If 40% of our energy is still dirty, then there's a 40% transaction tax. If we can get that down to 5%, then there's only a 5% tax. I don't see a reason to ban them, we just need to cut power consumption and thus CO2 emissions wherever we can.
Even if all the miners were running on entirely green energy, there's an opportunity cost. That green energy could be used to power homes and we could shut down coal power plants. I don't care that you bought 9,000 solar panels to power your mining farm, because that's 9,000 solar panels that could have been hooked up to the grid.
I don't want to rain on anyone's parade. I find cryptocurrencies interesting and would like for them to exist, but we're in a terrible position to be pissing away electricity right now. In the scheme of ways to use electricity, Bitcoin is a pretty frivolous use too. The electricity consumption is just so outsized compared to the actual physical gain (and I'm not talking about money made from speculating).
If I were the ruler of the world, I'd give it a transaction tax that was proportional to the percentage of load generation that isn't renewable. If 40% of our energy is still dirty, then there's a 40% transaction tax. If we can get that down to 5%, then there's only a 5% tax. I don't see a reason to ban them, we just need to cut power consumption and thus CO2 emissions wherever we can.
Sure, and this is all true even if cryptocurrencies didn't exist. I'm old enough to remember the days before Bitcoin, where there was similar pearl-clutching about cloud computing.
I'm calling for people to separate the problem of CO2 emissions from moral arguments about the nature of downstream electricity consumption. Mother Nature doesn't give a single flying f*ck about our moralizing; the CO2 emissions are just as bad either way.
I'm calling for people to separate the problem of CO2 emissions from moral arguments about the nature of downstream electricity consumption. Mother Nature doesn't give a single flying f*ck about our moralizing; the CO2 emissions are just as bad either way.
What's your bias? You seem to have created your HN account 8 months ago and comment almost exclusively about trying to get cryptocurrencies banned.
We don't need a world with more Luddites trying to outlaw math. The future will be secured and cryptographically verified, and there's not anything you can do to stop it.
We don't need a world with more Luddites trying to outlaw math. The future will be secured and cryptographically verified, and there's not anything you can do to stop it.
We want to outlaw math now? Are we even arguing in good faith at this point?
And so what if my post history is mostly anti-cryptocurrency. This is a position I hold to strongly, and someone needs to give the other side so these four walls aren't filled with infinite circle jerks.
And so what if my post history is mostly anti-cryptocurrency. This is a position I hold to strongly, and someone needs to give the other side so these four walls aren't filled with infinite circle jerks.
You'll never be able to convince the other side of anything if you don't take the time to understand where they are coming from.
Shouting into the void may feel good, but does not change hearts and minds.
Shouting into the void may feel good, but does not change hearts and minds.
The problem with text based conversations like this is that you really aren't able to perceive my physical or emotional state easily over text. Using all caps and multiple punctuation marks are also not only extremely rude in polite company, but I'm sure HN has rules against that kind of thing. :)
And bawolff... my aim is to at least give those reading from the sidelines some things to think about. I am sure as heck unable to convince a hardcore proponent of Bitcoin to change in a 15-20 minute back and forth, not because my points are necessarily bad, but because human beings are a stubborn lot (I know I can be too!)
I think I did OK overall. I know some of my comments were reacted to negatively, but that's fine. I don't expect agreement easily.
And bawolff... my aim is to at least give those reading from the sidelines some things to think about. I am sure as heck unable to convince a hardcore proponent of Bitcoin to change in a 15-20 minute back and forth, not because my points are necessarily bad, but because human beings are a stubborn lot (I know I can be too!)
I think I did OK overall. I know some of my comments were reacted to negatively, but that's fine. I don't expect agreement easily.
> And bawolff... my aim is to at least give those reading from the sidelines some things to think about.
And are you under the impression that you're the only voice that people on the sidelines are going to hear? You need to understand the counter arguments so you can adapt your own arguments to counter them. You can't defeat an enemy you don't understand.
And are you under the impression that you're the only voice that people on the sidelines are going to hear? You need to understand the counter arguments so you can adapt your own arguments to counter them. You can't defeat an enemy you don't understand.
Right. I thought that was already obvious. Are you done pontificating to me?
[deleted]
> Hard to do this when you can have other countries with much looser regulations allow Bitcoin miners run rampant.
And yet we've done this for other pollutants. CFC's aren't destroying the ozone layer anymore.
And yet we've done this for other pollutants. CFC's aren't destroying the ozone layer anymore.
It is also hard to manage humanity if the temperature increases by 5 degrees celsius.
Yes, this is hard policy to get right. So what? We have the entire world to figure this out and we are on a timer. Any first attempt will have flaws and loopholes and need to be improved over time. But this is just an excuse for people to avoid acting.
We need to do something. A carbon tax is the least extreme solution that has any chance of functioning.
Yes, this is hard policy to get right. So what? We have the entire world to figure this out and we are on a timer. Any first attempt will have flaws and loopholes and need to be improved over time. But this is just an excuse for people to avoid acting.
We need to do something. A carbon tax is the least extreme solution that has any chance of functioning.
This would halt any legal activity and keep the illegal activity intact.
Or kill all people.
Both are effective at fixing the emissions problem. Both are also extremely oppressive and unjust.
Both are effective at fixing the emissions problem. Both are also extremely oppressive and unjust.
That's quite a stretch of a response.
Wiping out humans and curtailing bitcoin are not at all equitable. One is unconscionable. The other is the right thing to do, in my opinion.
Wiping out humans and curtailing bitcoin are not at all equitable. One is unconscionable. The other is the right thing to do, in my opinion.
Why taking the extremes? Maybe just a bit of this and a bit of that... :)
> What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime.
Lol.. and that will stop all crypto-world currency trading? Just like how making drugs illegal stopped all drug trade?
Lol.. and that will stop all crypto-world currency trading? Just like how making drugs illegal stopped all drug trade?
If you read past that next sentence, I admitted it won't actually cause such activities to completely cease. It just needs to be stunted so that the majority of such transactions are disincentivized.
Disincentivized enough that nobody would bother adding it to their retirement strategy or use it out in the open. The dark web will continue to do their own thing.
Disincentivized enough that nobody would bother adding it to their retirement strategy or use it out in the open. The dark web will continue to do their own thing.
A carbon tax won't halt activity but it could cause the price to drop. If Bitcoin drops to $300, it is no longer profitable to mine. I agree that making it illegal would help. Main street would be loathe to depend on wire transfers to Hong Kong to transfer in/out. However, given Coinbase just went public, there will (unfortunately) be way too much political pressure to kill the segment.
Why would the carbon tax drastically drop bitcoin price? If electricity price increases, the difficulty dicreases.
As far as the difficulty stays high enough to keep the network secure the markets don't have a reason to care.
As far as the difficulty stays high enough to keep the network secure the markets don't have a reason to care.
The problem with the difficulty decreasing is that it depends on how much and how fast. It depends on how much the tax is relative to the cost to mine. Also, it could also politically be positioned as a "bitcoin tax" instead of a climate change thing to make it bi-partisan. I personally think these are the things that causes Main Street to move on. If all of the commoners sell their BTC the price will drop.
An international carbon tax could not be surprisingly high (innitially) nor come fast enough to shock the markets.
birracerveza(3)
easy? How do you enforce it worldwide? If you impose it volutarily then how you don't lose competitive adventage?
It's only possible now because clean energy ia cheaper (but still cannot compete in emergency situations), so we should invest in fission and fusion research
EDIT: I'm in favor of carbon tax BTW, we can afford it now and will incentivise investment in green tech more
It's only possible now because clean energy ia cheaper (but still cannot compete in emergency situations), so we should invest in fission and fusion research
EDIT: I'm in favor of carbon tax BTW, we can afford it now and will incentivise investment in green tech more
Even easier solution. Tax all the coal that enters your country economy, either from earth or from neighbours.
Burning natural gas, as in the plant referenced by the article, also produces CO2.
Sure, that too. My point is coal and similar resorces don't have many other uses so you can safely tax the resource, mined or umported rather than the act of burning.
And if you have some specific application that you might want to be not affected you might make special tax breaks for it.
And if you have some specific application that you might want to be not affected you might make special tax breaks for it.
Ah, that's totally reasonable. Thanks for clarifying.
Why tax carbon emissions rather than directly taxing the manufacture of bitcoin? Carbon taxes increase costs for everything. Should we increase the cost of say, hospitals because some people _really_ want to mine bitcoin?
Yes, because everyone should pay the "real" price stuff costs unless deliberately subsidized. If hospital bills go up because of it (doubt it), then subsidize hospitals. The incentives will be much better in that world. Hospitals can for example optimize for using less energy, which would be a win for the world.
Just look at Europe and the effect of the carbon tax there. I don't have links (sorry), but there are lots of studies "proving" that that makes for a more efficient and optimized market aligned with the desired outcome.
Just look at Europe and the effect of the carbon tax there. I don't have links (sorry), but there are lots of studies "proving" that that makes for a more efficient and optimized market aligned with the desired outcome.
Why tax carbon emissions rather than directly taxing the manufacture of bitcoin?
Because carbon emissions do the same amount damage whether it's the result of bitcoin mining or running a hospital.
Carbon taxes increase costs for everything.
Everything that produces carbon, which is exactly the point.
Should we increase the cost of say, hospitals
To the extent that they are significant polluters, yes. Trying to micromanage "good" and "bad" emissions just encourages exploiting loopholes. (e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/cafe-lo...)
Because carbon emissions do the same amount damage whether it's the result of bitcoin mining or running a hospital.
Carbon taxes increase costs for everything.
Everything that produces carbon, which is exactly the point.
Should we increase the cost of say, hospitals
To the extent that they are significant polluters, yes. Trying to micromanage "good" and "bad" emissions just encourages exploiting loopholes. (e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/cafe-lo...)
Because Bitcoin is not the sole cause of climate change, carbon is.
You can try to play a game of whack a mole by taxing and regulating individual activities hoping to reduce carbon as a second order effect, or you can just target the root problem.
There's will always be another wasteful use of carbon intensive energy so long as carbon intensive energy remains cheap.
You can try to play a game of whack a mole by taxing and regulating individual activities hoping to reduce carbon as a second order effect, or you can just target the root problem.
There's will always be another wasteful use of carbon intensive energy so long as carbon intensive energy remains cheap.
Who is to say what is a valid use of energy? How much energy goes into watching television? The pollution tax should be levied such that it provides the government enough to "undo" the pollution.
Because carbon pollution is an externality no matter what its use case is.
The point of the tax is to make the carbon price correct so as to incentivize correct usage across all domains.
The point of the tax is to make the carbon price correct so as to incentivize correct usage across all domains.
Because carbon is what we want to discourage. Bitcoin would be fine if it was carbon free
let's just have a committee to decide what uses of electricity are and are not sufficiently meritorious!
Because climate change needs to be mitigated as much as possible.
yeah tax the little guy playing games or trying to be confortable in a hot day, that's a great plan man.
I'm pretty sure we can all afford yet one more tax.
I'm pretty sure we can all afford yet one more tax.
Who cares? Everyone is fixated on Bitcoin... there are tons of energy inefficient processes out there. The solution has nothing to do with Bitcoin... environmental impact needs to be priced into energy itself, whatever the application. This is a failure of the markets (and therefore ourselves). Bitcoin is a scapegoat.
Here's the problem with this sentiment. Bitcoin isn't replacing anything. Not pre-existing fiat currency, not banks, nothing. Bitcoin only adds to the problem at an alarming rate.
Bitcoin is certainly not a scapegoat. It's a massive problem and, largely, a symptom of human greed that must be put in check.
Bitcoin is certainly not a scapegoat. It's a massive problem and, largely, a symptom of human greed that must be put in check.
So, are you saying that new technologies must be considered wasteful if they don't wholly replace existing technologies and instead create new usages of their own?
For example would you say that smartphones are wasteful because they allow us to communicate more frequently than we could before, thus they don't strictly replace an existing consumption of energy?
That seems like a silly interpretation to me. Of course our energy demands rise as we develop and use new technologies. It's because we are doing more things with them!
Also, as I mentioned in another part of the thread, I don't think it's obvious that cryptocurrencies won't replace any existing usages of energy.
For example would you say that smartphones are wasteful because they allow us to communicate more frequently than we could before, thus they don't strictly replace an existing consumption of energy?
That seems like a silly interpretation to me. Of course our energy demands rise as we develop and use new technologies. It's because we are doing more things with them!
Also, as I mentioned in another part of the thread, I don't think it's obvious that cryptocurrencies won't replace any existing usages of energy.
The argument is not so much that cryptocurrencies don't replace anything as that they don't have a use case (this is something that we can observe, unlike "value" which is subjective), and therefore it could be argued they are objectively useless regardless of their actual value in the market.
Bitcoin certainly has a use case, just observe how it is being used today, every day. Not just to buy drugs online, but also for example to escape oppressive currency controls, defend against questionably ethical practices like civil forfeiture, etc.
If you are saying that it doesn't have intrinsic value, then yes of course that is true, but I don't see how that makes it useless (unless you think cash is also useless)
If you are saying that it doesn't have intrinsic value, then yes of course that is true, but I don't see how that makes it useless (unless you think cash is also useless)
It's true that a small minority of people actually have a use (legitimate or not) for bitcoin, but as far as the general public is concerned this is not the case.
And appropriately it represents a small minority of energy use (~0.6%)
0.6% is orders of magnitude larger than the percentage of people who have a legitimate use case. In my opinion it's not that coin does not have legitimate uses, it's that the cost of providing those uses far outweighs the benefit by design.
The current increase in value and ramping up of energy use is not due to an increase in the usefulness of the coin, but instead on a renewed interest in the game of hot potato that is speculation.
The current increase in value and ramping up of energy use is not due to an increase in the usefulness of the coin, but instead on a renewed interest in the game of hot potato that is speculation.
Exactly, hoarding bitcoin —not using it— is the problem. It leads to high prices and consequent high environmental impact.
You mean saving, which is actually a use contrary to what years of keynesian propaganda have made you think
Couldn't this be met with a proof of stake coin? I could at least tolerate a PoS cryptocurrency because it at minimum consumes orders of magnitude less energy than Bitcoin would.
Hopefully. I think proof-of-stake is a promising technology but I'm not certain yet whether it can fully replace the security guarantees provided by proof-of-work. But if it can, then of course that would be excellent. Not only would it reduce the consumption of cryptocurrencies but it might even offset some of the energy usage of traditional financial instruments.
Some possible issues with proof-of-stake though are: Does the ability to borrow money to stake (since you get it back after exiting) make it too easy to conduct an attack? And, since you can't stake if you have no coins, will it be too easy for entrenched stakers to control the supply later on?
Some possible issues with proof-of-stake though are: Does the ability to borrow money to stake (since you get it back after exiting) make it too easy to conduct an attack? And, since you can't stake if you have no coins, will it be too easy for entrenched stakers to control the supply later on?
It could. But so far, no PoS coin has ever survived a bear market. Look at Peercoin and Novacoin as examples.
And that right there is probably why Bitcoin is going to persist. They can't afford to become poor themselves easily. So it was never about the technology and all about keeping an entrenched position at all costs.
Things could be different this time around. Polkadot and Cardano are leading the way in PoS and Ethereum might conservatively copy the parts that work. But they could turn out to be just like NavCoin and PIVX after a few years — much lower on the marketcap chart. I don’t know what the winner will be in the future but I do know quite a lot of the past.
What a weird metric.
The international space station isn't replacing anything, i still think its valuable.
The international space station isn't replacing anything, i still think its valuable.
I can't tell you how many people I've seen defending the energy use of cryptocurrencies by saying in essence "yes, but it's nothing in comparison to the energy we waste on the banking sector so it'll actually become more efficient as it replaces that".
It has replaced things. You are just ignorant to it.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/15_...
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/15_...
? That's a list of cool new things related to the ISS, not a list of pre-existing things that the ISS has replaced.
I think that’s highly unlikely. Surely the people mining Bitcoin would be doing something else if Bitcoin didn’t exist. Or to think of it the other way, if there was some better way of making money with electricity then the Bitcoin miners would be doing that instead.
Have you considered that they wouldn’t be trying to turn electricity into money and might be making money some other way?
Making money without using electricity? I suppose that’s not impossible, but it sounds unlikely at any appreciable scale.
Turning electricity into money is different from using some electricity while you make money.
I fail to see the distinction. Bitcoin mining, just like farming, traditional mining, etc. doesn’t literally have electricity as its only input.
> I fail to see the distinction. Bitcoin mining, just like farming, traditional mining, etc. doesn’t literally have electricity as its only input.
If your are referring to the wasted hardware, then sure, but once the equipment is in place, Bitcoin mining itself does in fact have electricity as the only input.
If your are referring to the wasted hardware, then sure, but once the equipment is in place, Bitcoin mining itself does in fact have electricity as the only input.
And to your point, likely a way that doesn't have global implications? Even other bubbles of the past didn't have quite the reach that the likes of Bitcoin has (maybe with the exception of the entire stock market in the Roaring 20s leading right up to the crash of 1929). That's why this time, this is much more dangerous in the long run.
What about the hypotesis that a global shared ledger under no-one's control with thermodynamical guarantee of immutability actually has some value?
There is no thermodynamic guarantee in Bitcoin.
Last I checked too, Bitcoin is not quantum safe either.
> Bitcoin isn't replacing anything. Not pre-existing fiat currency, not banks
How in the world do you say this? It's made significant progress in replacing both of these things. Just because it hasn't 100% eliminated all extant currencies and banks doesn't mean it's not making meaningful progress in that direction.
How in the world do you say this? It's made significant progress in replacing both of these things. Just because it hasn't 100% eliminated all extant currencies and banks doesn't mean it's not making meaningful progress in that direction.
You should have said that Bitcoin is a bad solution to a problem. The mining algorithm is wasteful because it uses cpu/gpu cycles as much as it can to calculate useless math instead of doing something a lot less energy-intensive like proof of stake. I’m not gonna pretend to be up to date on crypto mining but useless math is useless.
Many things are symptoms of human greed, isn't that what capitalist societies are built on, after all? If carbon was taxed, you'd see a huge investment in green energy and nuclear from both BTC and everyone else then it wouldn't matter. Why should one industry pay for externalities and another not?
> This is a failure of the markets...
The failure is governments subsidize so much energy production they effectively take the market out of the equation. Remove government incentives for cheap power at all costs and then you'll see the action of the market.
The failure is governments subsidize so much energy production they effectively take the market out of the equation. Remove government incentives for cheap power at all costs and then you'll see the action of the market.
That's not going to help nuclear power very much.
Just to point out the obvious, the headline is heavily editorialized and misleading.
Current HN headline: "Bitcoin miners are buying power plants"
Actual headline: "A New Threat to New York’s Clean Energy Goals: Bitcoin Mining"
It's trying to imply that buying power plants is some hot new trend, but the article is about a single crazy dude in New York buying a single plant.
Current HN headline: "Bitcoin miners are buying power plants"
Actual headline: "A New Threat to New York’s Clean Energy Goals: Bitcoin Mining"
It's trying to imply that buying power plants is some hot new trend, but the article is about a single crazy dude in New York buying a single plant.
I have sources who have purchased hydro plants in South America and refineries with installed power production and use the excess capacity for mining. My feeling it’s more common than a single crazy dude.
> hydro plants in South America
Which?
Which?
The mods only force you to use the article's headline when it fits closer to their ideologies.
And we had imagined we'd all die in a flood of something vaguely cool, like nanotech grey goo. But no, it's going to be something as stupid as a conflagration of SHA-256 hashes.
It was always paperclip maximizers.
The Greenidge team told potential investors last month that the plant had mined 1,186 bitcoins at an average net cost of about $2,869 for the 12 months ending in February. At this week’s Bitcoin price, that would translate into a profit margin of about $60,000 per mined coin.
Surely this cannot last. This kind of outsize profit ought to be bringing online enough new mining capacity to increase the block difficulty until that margin erodes away - is it the worldwide chip shortage preventing that from happening?
Surely this cannot last. This kind of outsize profit ought to be bringing online enough new mining capacity to increase the block difficulty until that margin erodes away - is it the worldwide chip shortage preventing that from happening?
That's at 19 megawatts burning natural gas. So that means they spend about 140MWh of energy for one BTC. I calculate that comes to around $20/MWh, which seems to be on the low side of energy production. Coal is $40 to $143 per MWh.
Edited to add: That's roughly 60 tons of CO2 emissions per BTC mined. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11
The other aspect here is let's say you're a speculator and you think the price of BTC can go up another 50x or roughly $1M/BTC. Then even spending any amount less than the BTC spot price now is a bargain.
Edited to add: That's roughly 60 tons of CO2 emissions per BTC mined. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11
The other aspect here is let's say you're a speculator and you think the price of BTC can go up another 50x or roughly $1M/BTC. Then even spending any amount less than the BTC spot price now is a bargain.
This the correct calculation. The potential profit is much much higher than the current price levels. Until the mania ends, then it’s not.
Yes, the chip shortage must be preventing the manufacture of enough ASICs.
The same can be said for Ethereum. The shortage of GPUs is preventing the difficulty to raise fast enough. The profit margin has been like 5-10x the electricity cost for the last few months. If you bought a RTX 3080/3090 it would have paid itself and the electricity by now.
The same can be said for Ethereum. The shortage of GPUs is preventing the difficulty to raise fast enough. The profit margin has been like 5-10x the electricity cost for the last few months. If you bought a RTX 3080/3090 it would have paid itself and the electricity by now.
Could mining itself be a cause of this chip shortage?
Even in 2017 when AFAIK there wasn't a general chip shortage there was still a shortage of crypto ASICs because the lead time is months and Bitmain can't know how much demand there will be for mining. I doubt mining will ever reach an equilibrium.
Speculation in the value of cryptocurrency has forced the market into a regime of operation where neither the constraints of power & compute nor supply of semiconductors apply right now. The hierarchy of value constraints goes something like:
Speculation > silicon constrained mining > power & capital constrained mining
I believe the silicon constraints would instantly relax as soon as speculation falls into line based on how much hardware everyone has been stacking up on lately.
At the end of they day, the cost of energy & your ability to keep the machines operational will be the final constraint. This is the one that the long investors should anticipate. I.e. "How do I mitigate power cost in a power-cost-constrained market".
Right now at current market prices, owning an entire power plant to run your operation is folly. In a few more years when a delta of 2c/KWh is make-or-break on profitability, it makes perfect sense.
Speculation > silicon constrained mining > power & capital constrained mining
I believe the silicon constraints would instantly relax as soon as speculation falls into line based on how much hardware everyone has been stacking up on lately.
At the end of they day, the cost of energy & your ability to keep the machines operational will be the final constraint. This is the one that the long investors should anticipate. I.e. "How do I mitigate power cost in a power-cost-constrained market".
Right now at current market prices, owning an entire power plant to run your operation is folly. In a few more years when a delta of 2c/KWh is make-or-break on profitability, it makes perfect sense.
> is it the worldwide chip shortage preventing that from happening?
yes, feel free to start a new fabrication line to arbitrage away the margin lol.
yes, feel free to start a new fabrication line to arbitrage away the margin lol.
Turns out if you can make money burning stuff people will buy stuff to burn as long as the cost to burn is less than money earned.
Who knew! Of course this won’t be a problem until it is.
Who knew! Of course this won’t be a problem until it is.
This reminds me of the "Cash for Ash" scandal in Northern Ireland, where people were doing exactly that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Heat_Incentive_scand...
It felt like the lede is buried at the end of the article, and signals a deeper institutional issue. It looks like the Department of Environmental Conservation was petitioned to take a look at the permit for the plant claimed to be damaging lake’s environment. Meanwhile, DEC didn’t consider environmental damage when reviewing plant’s permit, wants to ignore (seemingly on a technicality) the evidence for one particular kind of damage, and furthermore last year it has discontinued the funding for tests for that kind of damage. Encouraging more coal plant construction seems strange in this age, even if we forget about this particular use case.
I'm starting to hope that crypto is a bubble and will burst soon... Massive environmental issues aside, I'd like to be able to buy a GPU at MSRP sometime in the next 5 years...
Isn’t just miners, car industry fucked it as well
What car companies are buying GPUs in large quantities?
Not GPUs specifically but shortage of chips as a whole is causing some problems
Some people throw hissy fits about how polluting cryptocurrencies supposedly are yet they remain silent about the perverse incentives that spurred their creation and use. It's the war on drugs all over again, and getting angry about crypto and trying to outlaw it is just treating a symptom and not the disease.
Can you elaborate on the perverse incentives that spurred cryptocurrencies?
The Fed failed to create inflation and that means low interest rates. The Bitcoin bugs are saying that the real reason is that the purchasing power of the dollar is eroding, but in reality it is too stable.
It seems stable if you measure with CPI inflation, but then check real estate prices, healthcare and education prices, stock prices.
Yeah so inflation is only on suff owned by rich (thus giving them more money) while normal folks have food and energy sources subsidised so they don't revolt and labor costs don't rise. Now you know who controls the government. This gap in real demand expression is skewing markets and might backfire.
IMO workers are beeing ripped off by finance class and recently quite hard. So I support some kind of better money.
Beside this higher land & property ownership tax and reduced work hours might help IMO.
IMO workers are beeing ripped off by finance class and recently quite hard. So I support some kind of better money.
Beside this higher land & property ownership tax and reduced work hours might help IMO.
I guess OP means long term declining interest rates and their effect on wealth distribution.
Many of the comments here are asking the wrong question - its not a matter of whether miners should be able to buy power plants and licences; so much as why it was cost effective for a disused coal plant to be acquired instead of a purchase of 25% of a specific wind farm's output, for example - the latter would drive renewable expansion, and the energy industry is already all over the fact this is the most cost effective way forward.
Bitcoin is making coal economical whereas a year ago coal was on the way out because it was not cheaper than wind and solar. So we are headed backwards. Very frightening
This might be a good thing. There are a few responses possible:
1. Do nothing, public gets angry.
2. Make bitcoin, or its mining, illegal. However, what is the criteria? All blockchains? Should google be illegal too? Both are just a digital product that the public wants.
3. Tax CO2 production by data centers, that might have a chance it can be coordinated broadly between nations, there is enough money there to tax, and bitcoin adds some urgency.
While doubtful CO2 can be taxed globally, without coordination, big companies play governments against each other.
1. Do nothing, public gets angry.
2. Make bitcoin, or its mining, illegal. However, what is the criteria? All blockchains? Should google be illegal too? Both are just a digital product that the public wants.
3. Tax CO2 production by data centers, that might have a chance it can be coordinated broadly between nations, there is enough money there to tax, and bitcoin adds some urgency.
While doubtful CO2 can be taxed globally, without coordination, big companies play governments against each other.
"Should google be illegal too?" is a pretty ridiculous extrapolation. Nobody would go that far, a regulation like that doesn't achieve any climate goals and would have massive economic impact. You can probably provide an example that isn't wholly implausible like online banking? Even then, it is possible to draw a line.
Who draws that line? Corrupt politicians? Million dollar lobbying? Lines are smokescreen in front of the real problem. They mostly serve to protect the establishment. Ok, no more bitcoin, but what about the heavily subsidized dairy industry, the oil industry, and all the other that pollute heavily?
If a solution requires a "line" or makes no sense at the extreme, it's most likely not a solution.
If a solution requires a "line" or makes no sense at the extreme, it's most likely not a solution.
The story kept getting worse when they explain that state grants covered all the money spent by lobbyists to help the new owners pay a tiny fraction of taxes compared to the old ones.
Is it possible for people to source or certify sustainable Bitcoin? Since there is a transaction chain, can you choose to buy or boycott “dirty coins”?
It's still on the same power grid. The renewable energy would have been used one way or another. It's still contributing to the burning of fossil fuels on the grid.
That's not exactly true because interconnection capacity is very limited. That's why quebec has rock bottom prices for electricity[1] but 250mi away in boston the electricity cost several times more.
[1] https://www.hydroquebec.com/data/documents-donnees/pdf/compa...
[1] https://www.hydroquebec.com/data/documents-donnees/pdf/compa...
The way it works is that your electricity provider company buys the amount of electricity you consume from renewable electricity producers. It balances out and it's equivalent on average to you using only renewable electricity.
Multiple providers are working like this in Europe at least. They partner with many local solar/hydro/wind producers. It's approximate of course they can't predict exactly the amount required in advance but in the grand scheme of things it works by supply/demand mechanics..
You could trace btc to a reward allocated to a miner on a renewable electricity contract. Then you know an equivalent amount of energy used to mine these coins was produced sustainably.
Multiple providers are working like this in Europe at least. They partner with many local solar/hydro/wind producers. It's approximate of course they can't predict exactly the amount required in advance but in the grand scheme of things it works by supply/demand mechanics..
You could trace btc to a reward allocated to a miner on a renewable electricity contract. Then you know an equivalent amount of energy used to mine these coins was produced sustainably.
There are times of day that solar and wind farms produce more energy than the grid can use. This excess energy has no marginal value to the grid. You can also have off-grid solar bitcoin farms that don't need interconnectivity.
I can't see why not. A government could require exchanges to prevent (or even just delay or tax) the sale of Bitcoins that originate from miners that cannot be shown to have used renewable energy to produce the block. The government could, for example, physically inspect the mining rig, certify it as renewable-powered, and require that the miner uses a particular keypair to sign their blocks in order to identify them as "green." Exchanges use this (government-issued) keypair to determine which Bitcoins are "green," and apply whatever restrictions are necessary on those that are not.
What do you mean? All transactions are verified by miners, so all transactions are equally "dirty".
It’s much much cheaper to verify than it is to mine. That’s kind of the whole point.
Verifying Bitcoin transactions is mining.
Mining is guessing a number that will give a given hash output. The verification part is simple, and only needs to be done once, the guessing and retesting bit is the intensive bit
So there is actually no such thing as "a bitcoin".
It's all just accounts with balances.
It's all just accounts with balances.
coin taint is a real thing but ultimately your wallet just looks at your inputs and writes outputs to other wallets.
There is a crypto called Monero that doesn't have this problem. it is growing fast.
AFAIK monero runs on POW as well so from an environmental impact level I don't see how it's any different. From a traceability perspective I don't see a difference either because mining can be done anonymously. You really can't track a mined block to a specific power plant. I guess you can set up some sort of voluntary program for green miners, and treat non-compliant blocks as "dirty", but with monero this wouldn't be possible so everything would be treated as "dirty".
To fix this person's comment, this comment makes sense if by "problem" they meant "defending your coins from boycotters"--Monero is (supposedly) untraceable so presumably it is impossible to boycott specific "dirty" sources of Monero.
Proof of stake is in or will be in just about every major crypto except bitcoin...
Monero uses PoW mining as well.
A simple move that would ban selling fossil power plants for cryptocurrencies mining purpose BUT allowing to do so for the carbon-neutral energy would be a win-win for both sides and will help the transition from carbon-heavy energy.
Simpler: ban banks and credit card companies from dealing with anything related to cryptocurrency
Heavy-handed control of fiat will only strengthen peoples' desire for an alternative.
What you really want instead is a non-mined cryptocurrency.
What you really want instead is a non-mined cryptocurrency.
In every jurisdiction of the planet. At the same time, otherwise it just gets more profitable elsewhere.
What about proof of stake or off chain transactions
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I'm wondering if 'carbon-neutral' energy production is really environmentally neutral, especially when channeled to cryptocurrency mining.
Take wind turbines: they've found that harvesting wind actually increases the temperature in an area. Do enough of this, coupled with channeling the energy into heat-producing machines, are we sure this isn't gong to contribute to global warming at scale? Not to mention the harm to avian wildlife, as the turbines kill 5 birds per year each on average.
Next you have the externalized costs of building the infrastructure. Producing the wind turbines, the power plant, and the GPUs. Is all of that really getting offset?
I'm very optimistic about the potential for cryptocurrency to change the world, but I'd like that to be for the better. And when we have emerging proof-of-stake platforms that have much less of an impact on the planet because they don't by design rely on energetically inefficient ways to secure their networks, I really don't understand how we can argue that proof-of-work cryptocurrencies have any place in the future.
Take wind turbines: they've found that harvesting wind actually increases the temperature in an area. Do enough of this, coupled with channeling the energy into heat-producing machines, are we sure this isn't gong to contribute to global warming at scale? Not to mention the harm to avian wildlife, as the turbines kill 5 birds per year each on average.
Next you have the externalized costs of building the infrastructure. Producing the wind turbines, the power plant, and the GPUs. Is all of that really getting offset?
I'm very optimistic about the potential for cryptocurrency to change the world, but I'd like that to be for the better. And when we have emerging proof-of-stake platforms that have much less of an impact on the planet because they don't by design rely on energetically inefficient ways to secure their networks, I really don't understand how we can argue that proof-of-work cryptocurrencies have any place in the future.
> Take wind turbines: they've found that harvesting wind actually increases the temperature in an area. Do enough of this, coupled with channeling the energy into heat-producing machines, are we sure this isn't gong to contribute to global warming at scale?
That's some anti-renewable energy FUD I hadn't seen before... Yes, we're sure that won't cause global warming. Wind turbine operation doesn't produce greenhouse gases or meaningful change the Earth's albedo.
That's some anti-renewable energy FUD I hadn't seen before... Yes, we're sure that won't cause global warming. Wind turbine operation doesn't produce greenhouse gases or meaningful change the Earth's albedo.
Any infrastructure that we build, renewable or not, has an environmental impact. We have to mine resources and disturb natural habitats. If the renewable energy is used to replace existing fossil fuel demand, then that's a great thing. If instead we're using renewables mainly to fill new crypto mining demand, then that's a bad thing.
There might be some positive impact by spurring more innovation in renewable research but I don't think it's possible to make such an analysis in a 2 paragraph Hacker News comment.
There might be some positive impact by spurring more innovation in renewable research but I don't think it's possible to make such an analysis in a 2 paragraph Hacker News comment.
Since I'm getting downvoted, here's a study on it: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511...
Your misunderstanding seems possibly intentional. I'm very much in favour of renewable energy as an alternative to nonrenewable energy. I'm just not in favour of wasting energy for very little purpose.
Build solar/wind energy to replace fossil fuels? Great! Obviously I'm in favour of that. Built an insane amount of infrastructure for producing renewable energy so that we can piss it away? That seems incredibly wasteful!
Even if renewable energy is much better, there are still externalities to producing energy.
Your misunderstanding seems possibly intentional. I'm very much in favour of renewable energy as an alternative to nonrenewable energy. I'm just not in favour of wasting energy for very little purpose.
Build solar/wind energy to replace fossil fuels? Great! Obviously I'm in favour of that. Built an insane amount of infrastructure for producing renewable energy so that we can piss it away? That seems incredibly wasteful!
Even if renewable energy is much better, there are still externalities to producing energy.
Regardless of whether it increases the local temperature, it's clearly not increasing the overall temperature because that energy in the wind would have ended up as heat, somewhere, eventually anyway.
That study says that if you replaced 100% of the power generation of the United States with wind farms concentrated in the middle 1/3rd of the country that it would create localized 0.50C rise in SURFACE temperatures at the wind farms and 0.24C rise in SURFACE temperatures across the whole USA.
The authors note very clearly that isn't a global rise in temperature and would be offset by the effects of GHG reduction. Furthermore the wind farm cost is "one time". The effects of GHGs are cumulative.
See:
https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/false-claim-wind-tur...
The authors note very clearly that isn't a global rise in temperature and would be offset by the effects of GHG reduction. Furthermore the wind farm cost is "one time". The effects of GHGs are cumulative.
See:
https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/false-claim-wind-tur...
But you're comparing this with nonrenewable energy! I'll state for the third time that I'm in favour of replacing non-renewable energy with renewable energy.
What I'm saying is that it's still wasteful, and not cost-free if we're producing insane amounts of energy that don't need to be produced in the first place.
What I'm saying is that it's still wasteful, and not cost-free if we're producing insane amounts of energy that don't need to be produced in the first place.
Your argument is a bit of a mess though.
It is easier to argue that the bitcoin energy expenditure should be turned off. That would lower energy demand and prices and we're now in a regime where that makes running carbon-burning plants less attractive and they'd get turned off while any renewables that bitcoin is using would become available.
And if I could snap my fingers and replace all the GHGs with wind I would and I wouldn't care about your concerns. And you're trying to argue that I can't make that comparison but I absolutely am. The issues you're bringing up aren't 1% of the problem that we have with GHGs so worrying about perfect renewable energy or overall dropping demand is so much less right now than worrying about getting off GHGs. The localized 0.5C surface warming of wind in that paper just isn't worth talking about at this point.
But it isn't totally perfect! Surely you must agree?
No. I. Do. Not. Care. About. Perfection.
It is easier to argue that the bitcoin energy expenditure should be turned off. That would lower energy demand and prices and we're now in a regime where that makes running carbon-burning plants less attractive and they'd get turned off while any renewables that bitcoin is using would become available.
And if I could snap my fingers and replace all the GHGs with wind I would and I wouldn't care about your concerns. And you're trying to argue that I can't make that comparison but I absolutely am. The issues you're bringing up aren't 1% of the problem that we have with GHGs so worrying about perfect renewable energy or overall dropping demand is so much less right now than worrying about getting off GHGs. The localized 0.5C surface warming of wind in that paper just isn't worth talking about at this point.
But it isn't totally perfect! Surely you must agree?
No. I. Do. Not. Care. About. Perfection.
> It is easier to argue that the bitcoin energy expenditure should be turned off
This is what I've been arguing the whole time. I'm not saying we shouldn't try to replace more impactful energy production with sustainable energy production. I'm saying we shouldn't be using energy on something as wasteful as proof-of-work, when we can have blockchain technology without it, because that energy production doesn't come without impact no matter how much the proof-of-work supporters and beneficiaries try to greenwash it.
This is what I've been arguing the whole time. I'm not saying we shouldn't try to replace more impactful energy production with sustainable energy production. I'm saying we shouldn't be using energy on something as wasteful as proof-of-work, when we can have blockchain technology without it, because that energy production doesn't come without impact no matter how much the proof-of-work supporters and beneficiaries try to greenwash it.
The earth is a closed system, in the sense that if you do not radiate energy out to space, or radiate energy from space to earth, the total energy on earth doesn't change, it just moves around.
The question is, how do wind turbines ensure that more energy radiates from space onto the earth? I consider this scenario highly unlikely.
The question is, how do wind turbines ensure that more energy radiates from space onto the earth? I consider this scenario highly unlikely.
I guess if we theoretically had enough wind turbines, climates could start being impacted due to winds being slowed down but not exactly sure if that would heat the earth more or not. Could an area with lots of turbines have slower wind speeds and have heat dissipate less quickly? It seems plausible, but would think it would even out with a different area getting a little cooler. But yea, don't see how that would cause the earth to warm overall.
Also, I assume wind turbines cause some emissions during manufacturing. Not sure going gang busters and making a ton to power bitcoin mining would be great for the planet.
Also, I assume wind turbines cause some emissions during manufacturing. Not sure going gang busters and making a ton to power bitcoin mining would be great for the planet.
> Also, I assume wind turbines cause some emissions during manufacturing. Not sure going gang busters and making a ton to power bitcoin mining would be great for the planet.
Yes, this is exactly what I'm talking about. If we're building wind turbines to replace energy usage that serves a purpose, that's wonderful! Building new infrastructure for energy production so that we can pass it to a bunch of computers that piss it away is still wasteful. Even if it's less wasteful than burning coal to power those computers.
Bitcoin and proof-of-work were revolutionary, but now that we have better cryptocurrency technology, we should be moving away from it.
Yes, this is exactly what I'm talking about. If we're building wind turbines to replace energy usage that serves a purpose, that's wonderful! Building new infrastructure for energy production so that we can pass it to a bunch of computers that piss it away is still wasteful. Even if it's less wasteful than burning coal to power those computers.
Bitcoin and proof-of-work were revolutionary, but now that we have better cryptocurrency technology, we should be moving away from it.
The impact of a wind farm is going to be very minimal compared to the waste heat generated by fossil fuel power plants. In my country (thanks to the Soviets!) a lot of the waste heat from electricity generation is captured and used to heat homes in nearby cities. One of the largest natural gas plants has a electricity output of 1800MW and a heat output of 5800MW - yet they still needed to build a massive artificial lake to provide additional cooling capacity.
Also, the propellers get used quickly and are not recyclable AFAIK.
agravier(1)
It's infrastructure that lasts 20 years, not a plastic cup containing yogurt that gets thrown away within 3 days.
I keep reading that coal is uncompetitive even to operate because of renewables.
So what’s the deal here? Is it the need for consistent base load electricity that caused them to choose coal?
So what’s the deal here? Is it the need for consistent base load electricity that caused them to choose coal?
No loss due to transmission by locating the equipment onsite. With that built in efficiency it probably skews the numbers in a way that utility consumers don't.
The plant was converted to natural gas (even before it started mostly powering bitcoin hashing).
It's now using natural gas:
> ...drawing power from the plant’s 106-megawatt generator now fueled by natural gas.
> ...drawing power from the plant’s 106-megawatt generator now fueled by natural gas.
It would be great if the gigantic Bitcoin energy demand leads to renewable energy breakthroughs.
... do we really need another energy demand to drive R&D? We're already working with an energy budget equivalent to 1/3 the decay that powers the Earth's fiery core. Is it really fair to credit any new breakthroughs to the last ~12 GW of demand, instead of the first ~18 TW?
You seem to be asking that rhetorically with the implication that the answer is obvious “no.” But that’s certainly not obvious to me. Seems to me that adding energy demand is a good thing for the advancement of renewable energy. Surely a decrease or stasis in energy demand would be devastating to the renewable energy industry.
Yes, building more solar panels and and batteries gives the industry more experience at doing so, which (for a time) will allow it to refine the tech through multiple iterations, making future capacity cheaper and better-quality.
EDIT: this is to say, renewable tech production is still following a learning curve (https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth)
EDIT: this is to say, renewable tech production is still following a learning curve (https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth)
We have plenty of work to do just replacing existing power generation with renewables, so it's not clear to me how additional demand accelerates such replacement.
(This is in answer to both you and tshaddox.)
(This is in answer to both you and tshaddox.)
It's faster and cheaper to build out new capacity and then later retire old capacity than it is to do an in-situ replacement. Build the battery-backed solar and wind farms now, and then watch the coal and gas plants go bankrupt.
Then bitcoin miners will buy the old coal plants and we are back to square one
Not if you make coal-fired plants illegal to operate. Easy to enforce, since you can see the CO2 emissions and just go seize and demolish the plant if it turns on. Can also seize the coal mines.
This will have to happen regardless of whether or not cryptocurrency exists.
This will have to happen regardless of whether or not cryptocurrency exists.
This is painted as a disaster, but I think all we're doing is cutting through to get at a consistent valuation for energy.
In order for Bitcoin to every achieve any long-term viability, in my opinion, it needs to stabilize its pricing. Practically speaking, the route to do that is through a combination of supply chain pricing and credit markets.
Pricing energy in Bitcoin (which is really all this is doing) is an interesting step towards the supply chain problem. This power plant, in all likelihood, would be happy to sell the power to another bidder if the price per Joule is higher than the expected price per Bitcoin per Joule. The natural next step is to just price electricity directly in Bitcoin.
The question then becomes how viable it is to move down the chain -- pricing natural gas or coal in Bitcoin, and putting pricing pressure on the supply chain for more complex energy products (turbines, solar panels, etc.) to match this pricing. If this is feasible (and that's a big "if") then there is a chance that we start to flip the equation -- energy prices in dollars are simply too volatile and Bitcoin becomes a standard option for international settlement.
In order for Bitcoin to every achieve any long-term viability, in my opinion, it needs to stabilize its pricing. Practically speaking, the route to do that is through a combination of supply chain pricing and credit markets.
Pricing energy in Bitcoin (which is really all this is doing) is an interesting step towards the supply chain problem. This power plant, in all likelihood, would be happy to sell the power to another bidder if the price per Joule is higher than the expected price per Bitcoin per Joule. The natural next step is to just price electricity directly in Bitcoin.
The question then becomes how viable it is to move down the chain -- pricing natural gas or coal in Bitcoin, and putting pricing pressure on the supply chain for more complex energy products (turbines, solar panels, etc.) to match this pricing. If this is feasible (and that's a big "if") then there is a chance that we start to flip the equation -- energy prices in dollars are simply too volatile and Bitcoin becomes a standard option for international settlement.
Do any bitcoin miners in this thread want to invest in my fusion reactor prototype?
Yo right here. What you got :-)
Remember, fusors are losers. I wanna see lattice fusion with metallic hydrogen cores embedded in 3D printed diamonds or I'm out.
Remember, fusors are losers. I wanna see lattice fusion with metallic hydrogen cores embedded in 3D printed diamonds or I'm out.
It's a completely new concept. I've got some stuff up at http://www.DDproFusion.com
I've got a bit of a simulation, not quite totally ready yet at http://www.ddprofusion.com/simulation/index.html that shows a bit of the physics.
It's totally new, so no prototype exists and it may not even really work, but I'm trying to raise funds right now... I'm trying to sell some stock and I've got some other things I'm doing to raise money to really give it a good try.
I've got a bit of a simulation, not quite totally ready yet at http://www.ddprofusion.com/simulation/index.html that shows a bit of the physics.
It's totally new, so no prototype exists and it may not even really work, but I'm trying to raise funds right now... I'm trying to sell some stock and I've got some other things I'm doing to raise money to really give it a good try.
Why not locate in Texas where oil wells are flaring off natural gas because they have no way to deliver it, but can still deliver the oil?
Some of us in Texas have already been cooking up some really fantastical energy market schemes involving crypto mining...
I've been thinking about putting together trailers that contain a 2MWe gas turbine genset, switch gear, ups and crypto mining system. These could be towed out to arbitrary locations and used to burn surplus gas supply. Remember, CO2 is much better than CH4 when dealing with greenhouse gasses. Might as well make some extra $$$ while we are converting it...
I've been thinking about putting together trailers that contain a 2MWe gas turbine genset, switch gear, ups and crypto mining system. These could be towed out to arbitrary locations and used to burn surplus gas supply. Remember, CO2 is much better than CH4 when dealing with greenhouse gasses. Might as well make some extra $$$ while we are converting it...
They have already been doing this in ND. There are shipping containers with mining equipment inside set up next to flares. The oil companies are catching on to how much they are making though and want in on the action (since they provide access to the flare). It's in the tens to hundreds of thousands per month in profit iirc.
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I enjoy the "bitcoin is a fuck you to the rich" but mining/management/use of bitcoin/crypto are not for poor people or even poor countries, they use both as a resource and as a get rich quick scheme, deliver a lot interest but have no actual value beyond a half billion dollar pizza.
Solution: Carbon emission tax.
If using a GPU to mine crypto is unethical shouldn't using a GPU to do things like videogames and rending hollywood super hero movies should also be taxed I mean they both run GPUs at 100% for hundreds of hours.
Perhaps computing power in general should be capped so it can only use small amounts of power.
Perhaps computing power in general should be capped so it can only use small amounts of power.
Carbon tax is not about making something illegal.
You playing a game 4h/day is nothing compared to 1000 gpus mining 24/7. One is pennies in tax and the other would (presumably) be way more significant.
You playing a game 4h/day is nothing compared to 1000 gpus mining 24/7. One is pennies in tax and the other would (presumably) be way more significant.
> You playing a game 4h/day is nothing compared to 1000 gpus mining 24/7.
Red Dead Redemption 2 sold 34 million, the game takes well over 100 hours to complete and runs GPUs to their limits.
I think even if just half or a quarter of the players completed it that's significant next to mining and needs to be looked at with the same level as criticism.
Red Dead Redemption 2 sold 34 million, the game takes well over 100 hours to complete and runs GPUs to their limits.
I think even if just half or a quarter of the players completed it that's significant next to mining and needs to be looked at with the same level as criticism.
That's not the point. The person playing the game would pay 10cents in carbon tax or something, which is insignificant to them. The person with a bitcoin farm would have to pay much much more, which is a disincentive.
And even if it is worth it to them to run with the carbon tax (as it would be for a gamer), the money that's being taxed can be used to offset their emission. That's the point of a carbon tax; pollute if you want BUT you pay for what you generate as pollution so that we can offset it in some other way.
And even if it is worth it to them to run with the carbon tax (as it would be for a gamer), the money that's being taxed can be used to offset their emission. That's the point of a carbon tax; pollute if you want BUT you pay for what you generate as pollution so that we can offset it in some other way.
Even today carbon taxes are the stupidest idea people from rich nations thought about.
Around 5BN from the developing world will laugh at this proposal.
They will not be able to trade with you? Oh well they might trade among themselves and dont have to face competition from rich countries.
I call this win win.
Around 5BN from the developing world will laugh at this proposal.
They will not be able to trade with you? Oh well they might trade among themselves and dont have to face competition from rich countries.
I call this win win.
Do you honestly believe (let's say) the USA cutting all economic ties/imposing tariffs is insignificant?
Of course they can trade with the others who don't care about pollution. That doesn't mean the costs of a carbon tax don't outweigh the benefits of having economic ties with the countries that have that tax.
Of course they can trade with the others who don't care about pollution. That doesn't mean the costs of a carbon tax don't outweigh the benefits of having economic ties with the countries that have that tax.
Since carbon taxes primarily benefit local production...yes?
Emerging nations are too far away from the US to care about it as much as you think.
>That doesn't mean the costs of a carbon tax don't outweigh the benefits of having economic ties with the countries that have that tax.
The only reason the world is not at war is globalization and even that is coming to an end.
>That doesn't mean the costs of a carbon tax don't outweigh the benefits of having economic ties with the countries that have that tax.
The only reason the world is not at war is globalization and even that is coming to an end.
If they use fossil-fuel plants, yes, though the tax would be applied to the energy generation, not energy use.
Should that apply to all digital computations?
Data centers? Youtube? Facebook?
Should they and bitcoin be seen on the same level?
Data centers? Youtube? Facebook?
Should they and bitcoin be seen on the same level?
None of those emit GHG by themselves, you usually tax emissions at the source: power plants. So yes, digital computations will be "taxed" if they use fossil-fuel energy.
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To every cryptocurrency advocate: This is YOUR fault. And we told you for years.
Are there any estimates on how much power Bitcoin consumed so far?
It makes me think of the billions that flooded into fiber optic networks to arbitrage the information asymmetry between markets across geographic areas. Maybe we'll be thanking these defunct Bitcoin farmers for invesing so much into the grid. I know the utilities are forcing the farms to put up all the money to tie into the grid. I guess this goes the same goes for the demand for silicon fab.
There are no signs that cryptocurrency mining will stop. As long as it is profitable, more and more miners will enter the mining industry. Each miner requires an extensive amount of electricity to successfully mine cryptocurrencies. I can say that mining cryptocurrencies are now profitable than ever. Thanks to the Bull Market, a lot of new players are going to enter this sphere.
Use solar, dudes. You can even run crypto rigs directly on 12 volts, which saves you the hassle of getting costly inverters and PSUs
All this talk about Bitcoin causing global warming is starting to feel like a targetted misinformation campaign.
Yes it's wasteful, and yes it's using a fair amount of energy at the moment. But all estimates show it's still a very small fraction of the problem.
It feels like we spend a disproportionate amount of time talking about bitcoins carbon footprint for its size.
Yes it's wasteful, and yes it's using a fair amount of energy at the moment. But all estimates show it's still a very small fraction of the problem.
It feels like we spend a disproportionate amount of time talking about bitcoins carbon footprint for its size.
How can it be interpreted as misinformation if the information is pretty solidly based? Everyone is looking for low hanging fruit in the race to slow down the climate disaster and it’s an easy target.
I’m glad online currencies exist as a technology but I’m not glad an energy intensive one is currently #1 when at the same time the entire tech is taken over by investors/speculators instead of users.
And if calculations about Bitcoin’s footprint are true it uses up as much energy as Argentina. An entire country. I don’t think that for the use Bitcoin gets in the developed world it justifies energy uses at that level. It’s far from a small little thing to not care about.
I’m glad online currencies exist as a technology but I’m not glad an energy intensive one is currently #1 when at the same time the entire tech is taken over by investors/speculators instead of users.
And if calculations about Bitcoin’s footprint are true it uses up as much energy as Argentina. An entire country. I don’t think that for the use Bitcoin gets in the developed world it justifies energy uses at that level. It’s far from a small little thing to not care about.
> And if calculations about Bitcoin’s footprint are true it uses up as much energy as Argentina. An entire country. I don’t think that for the use Bitcoin gets in the developed world it justifies energy uses at that level.
Compare for example with MGM's properties in Las Vegas which they claim consume 171 MW. That's not quite as much as Bitcoin, but it's still higher than 65 of the countries listed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...
So it's actually pretty easy to surpass the usage of "an entire country". And that to me seems like a much more useless waste than Bitcoin, which has significant uses besides entertainment
Compare for example with MGM's properties in Las Vegas which they claim consume 171 MW. That's not quite as much as Bitcoin, but it's still higher than 65 of the countries listed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...
So it's actually pretty easy to surpass the usage of "an entire country". And that to me seems like a much more useless waste than Bitcoin, which has significant uses besides entertainment
To rephrase that, Bitcoin uses more energy that all of MGM's properties in Las Vegas.
Yes, which seems reasonable to me. It would be more interesting if a global monetary system could use less than a bunch of casinos. (And maybe that will even happen with the adoption of proof-of-stake)
I don't have any of the calculations, but I would argue that we probably have one and it is the fiat global monetary system.
If bitcoin was a proof of stake and was the global monetary system I would have to re-think my opinions - at the moment it just seems like a cross between the worst aspects of Wall Street, the cookie clicker game, and the AI Paperclip Maximiser problem.
If bitcoin was a proof of stake and was the global monetary system I would have to re-think my opinions - at the moment it just seems like a cross between the worst aspects of Wall Street, the cookie clicker game, and the AI Paperclip Maximiser problem.
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I would caution you to make your own judgements with such a hyped technology as cryptocurrencies. Everyone tends to have strong opinions about the way it "seems", both positive and negative.
I guess misinformation isn't the right term. It's not _wrong_, it just feels like it gets a disproportionate amount of attention.
This is literally a bitcoin mining operating looking to bring a coal-burning powerplant back online. Pay attention.
Ban/tax coal. So long as coal is cheap, people will use it for something.
There's lots of ways to turn energy into money besides bitcoin mining. Gotta make carbon intensive energy not worth it.
There's lots of ways to turn energy into money besides bitcoin mining. Gotta make carbon intensive energy not worth it.
It feels like we spend a disproportionate amount of energy running the bitcoin network for its benefits.
That's the reason it comes up a lot in those debates. Sure, cars use more energy emitting more CO2 right now, but the benefit of all the cars worldwide is in an entirely different dimension compared to Bitcoin. Most people intuitively grasp that stuff having a huge benefit for a huge lot of people must be allowed to use up more energy in absolute terms than stuff that has a very minor benefit for a very small group of people.
That's the reason it comes up a lot in those debates. Sure, cars use more energy emitting more CO2 right now, but the benefit of all the cars worldwide is in an entirely different dimension compared to Bitcoin. Most people intuitively grasp that stuff having a huge benefit for a huge lot of people must be allowed to use up more energy in absolute terms than stuff that has a very minor benefit for a very small group of people.
The last time I looked into this it seemed like US junk mail might be roughly the same CO2-scale as Bitcoin.
Which isn't an argument against killing Bitcoin for its contributions to CO2 emissions, mind you, but it seems another similar low-hanging fruit of generating a huge amount of waste to benefit a small number of people economically, while being extraordinarily simple to "just stop doing it". (As opposed to, say, fixing all building insulation in the US, which is a larger problem, and should be done, but is non-trivial to fix.)
With the added benefit that a hundred million people actively hate the existence of junk mail, so I think "we need to ban junk mail because global warming" has legs.
Which isn't an argument against killing Bitcoin for its contributions to CO2 emissions, mind you, but it seems another similar low-hanging fruit of generating a huge amount of waste to benefit a small number of people economically, while being extraordinarily simple to "just stop doing it". (As opposed to, say, fixing all building insulation in the US, which is a larger problem, and should be done, but is non-trivial to fix.)
With the added benefit that a hundred million people actively hate the existence of junk mail, so I think "we need to ban junk mail because global warming" has legs.
Its pretty much a misinformation campaign just like the drugs and weapon dealers.
Wouldn't be surprised if they will use the terrorist and human rights angle next.
If you're a miner considering this, can I suggest you investigate decommissioned mothballed plants in new zealand. I don't know whats happening with wye creek plant, but my understanding is that there are hydro plants in nz that were built to provide power to alcoa aluminium smelters that are now unused.
Please can we regulate the carbon use of cryptocurrencies. This is getting out of control and governments are too slow. Bitcoin mining consumes more energy than the entire country of Argentina uses now.
I do not want to hate on Bitcoin but climate change is getting out of control and there is little time left to reverse course. Last year with a global pandemic CO2 still rose by near record amounts. Bitcoin mining does have something to do with this. There is a connection. Please be open to the idea that we need to regulate the energy that Proof of Work mining cryptocurrencies use. I don't want to stop crypto. I just want us to use types that require less energy to mine.
The planet is running out of time and this is FACT offsetting lots of progress on reducing emissions. https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/gr.html
Please don't downvote because you love crypto. I do too. I just want us to do better at preventing CO2 emissions from rising because of its mining.
I do not want to hate on Bitcoin but climate change is getting out of control and there is little time left to reverse course. Last year with a global pandemic CO2 still rose by near record amounts. Bitcoin mining does have something to do with this. There is a connection. Please be open to the idea that we need to regulate the energy that Proof of Work mining cryptocurrencies use. I don't want to stop crypto. I just want us to use types that require less energy to mine.
The planet is running out of time and this is FACT offsetting lots of progress on reducing emissions. https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/gr.html
Please don't downvote because you love crypto. I do too. I just want us to do better at preventing CO2 emissions from rising because of its mining.
I don't know. Eth is switching to PoS. Tezos, cardano and many others are PoS. Is there any plan for bitcoin to switch to PoS? When there are a lot of more environmental friendly crypto alternatives, what should stop governments to ban bitcoin mining?
How do you distribute the initial coins with PoS? Like who gets the first coin? The person who gets the first one will also get all the subsequent ones since he controls all the supply until he sells? How would that even work?
The tezos foundation for example made a crowdfunding some years ago. People who donated in the project received an amount written in the genesis block. The foundation started the mainnet in a beta phase with some initial validators. Holders started to participate in the PoS process until it was decentralized.
HN logic:
Berlin rent cap => market always wins, let the market rule
Mining bitcoin => let's regulate
Berlin rent cap => market always wins, let the market rule
Mining bitcoin => let's regulate
I wouldn't say HN is generally libertarian leaning (calls for regulation of everything are quite common among well educated techies) - rent caps are probably such an authoritarian and foreign concept that even HN is rebelling to it.
As a libertarian (pro free market, pro private property for everything), I'm in favour of removing rent caps.
On pollution, that's a bit harder. The problem is that the environment is a resource shared by everyone and everyone should privately own a little part of it. Polluting is damaging everyone's stake in the environment and the individuals living in it should have a right to compensation.
I think the best model should be leaving it up to the communities to establish what the limits are in each community. Some can have no limits, some will have higher limits.
It will be a tradeoff between cheaper cost of living / profitability, after all.
Then we would see places with higher or lower limits according to what people wish and need.
As a libertarian (pro free market, pro private property for everything), I'm in favour of removing rent caps.
On pollution, that's a bit harder. The problem is that the environment is a resource shared by everyone and everyone should privately own a little part of it. Polluting is damaging everyone's stake in the environment and the individuals living in it should have a right to compensation.
I think the best model should be leaving it up to the communities to establish what the limits are in each community. Some can have no limits, some will have higher limits.
It will be a tradeoff between cheaper cost of living / profitability, after all.
Then we would see places with higher or lower limits according to what people wish and need.
The more I see stories like this, the more I've come to realize that we really screwed up by allowing this technological experiment to get out of hand.
Not to sound pedantic, but our future generations are going to come to regret this when our planet is a toasted marshmallow, because we couldn't stop being greedy.
Not to sound pedantic, but our future generations are going to come to regret this when our planet is a toasted marshmallow, because we couldn't stop being greedy.
It's reasonably likely that there will be a run on dollars at some point.
If/when it happens, the bitcoin network collapsing is a pretty likely outcome.
(what I mean by a run on dollars is that lots of people may decide they want dollars instead of bitcoin, so the people with dollars won't have to pay as much for bitcoin, and then the people who want dollars will have to accept less for their bitcoin, and then…)
If/when it happens, the bitcoin network collapsing is a pretty likely outcome.
(what I mean by a run on dollars is that lots of people may decide they want dollars instead of bitcoin, so the people with dollars won't have to pay as much for bitcoin, and then the people who want dollars will have to accept less for their bitcoin, and then…)
There's an outside possibility that mining will drop off so quickly that the 2016 block difficulty recalculation will struggle to happen, but honestly if that happens there will be a consensus fork.
Thankfully what will happen if the price collapses is that mining will reduce.
Bitcoin has been through a cycle of a "run on dollars" before, it has never died before.
Thankfully what will happen if the price collapses is that mining will reduce.
Bitcoin has been through a cycle of a "run on dollars" before, it has never died before.
In the article or discussion here someone states that $2000 of electricity is used per bitcoin in the block reward.
If the price collapses to $100 that's a lot of hardware that isn't running.
If the price collapses to $100 that's a lot of hardware that isn't running.
@maxerickson
That ultimately will be the end game. I'd argue that most of the folks that bought into Bitcoin do not, in fact, share in the an-cap libertarian utopia of an economy entirely detached from the US Dollar. Folks are going to want their payday, even folks like Michael Saylor and Elon Musk.
These guys aren't HODLing for charity. They want to exit before the rest of the peanut gallery does.
That ultimately will be the end game. I'd argue that most of the folks that bought into Bitcoin do not, in fact, share in the an-cap libertarian utopia of an economy entirely detached from the US Dollar. Folks are going to want their payday, even folks like Michael Saylor and Elon Musk.
These guys aren't HODLing for charity. They want to exit before the rest of the peanut gallery does.
I philosophically believe, to my core, that one of the greatest evils ever perpetuated on humanity was allowing governments to print money whenever they wanted. With very few exceptions, every single fiat currency has experienced periods of high or extremely high inflation (including USD in the 70s). Giving those in power the ability to dilute everyone else’s wealth and direct new money to their favored people / projects is a major reason why inequality has spiked and everything good in the world (high quality housing, education, healthcare, food) has become very expensive relative to wages.
The relatively brief experiment with fiat currencies has been a disaster. We need something like gold (bitcoin) to bring government back into check and reward savers once again.
The relatively brief experiment with fiat currencies has been a disaster. We need something like gold (bitcoin) to bring government back into check and reward savers once again.
First, I will say, I do agree that fiat does have its flaws, and certainly the Fed is an institution that is run in great secrecy.
To that end, why not use actual gold as a hedge? Why reinvent the wheel with a technology that burns ridiculous levels of energy, and doesn't at least have some additional side utility, like how gold is used in electronics or jewelry?
To that end, why not use actual gold as a hedge? Why reinvent the wheel with a technology that burns ridiculous levels of energy, and doesn't at least have some additional side utility, like how gold is used in electronics or jewelry?
I fundamentally disagree that mining bitcoin is a “waste”. Bitcoin accomplishes what it takes all governments, their banks, their courts, their payment networks, and a huge amount of human labor and energy to accomplish in a single platform. Secondly, the value that bitcoin provides - an unhackable, incorruptible, un-bannable form of wealth preservation and transfer - is so useful that the energy is worth it.
Finally, I don’t play any video games. I don’t watch any Twitch or Tiktok. I honestly think video games as a concept are a waste of time and energy. But I don’t think they should be banned, despite their enormous cost of electricity.
Similarly, you shouldn’t advocate for a ban based on electricity use. Just regulate the use of electricity, or don’t be surprised when everything else some dipshit politician hates is banned on the same grounds.
And why bitcoin over gold? Gold can’t be sent natively over the internet. It’s expensive to store and transfer. Metal-as-currency is old and bypassed by superior monetary technology (bitcoin).
Finally, I don’t play any video games. I don’t watch any Twitch or Tiktok. I honestly think video games as a concept are a waste of time and energy. But I don’t think they should be banned, despite their enormous cost of electricity.
Similarly, you shouldn’t advocate for a ban based on electricity use. Just regulate the use of electricity, or don’t be surprised when everything else some dipshit politician hates is banned on the same grounds.
And why bitcoin over gold? Gold can’t be sent natively over the internet. It’s expensive to store and transfer. Metal-as-currency is old and bypassed by superior monetary technology (bitcoin).
I agree a finite supply to limit the endless ambition of capitalists and imperialists.
From what I gathered gold, silver and salt(why your work income is called salary) was used as currencies so empires could fine tune their supply lines and empires better. The bigger the empire and ambitions the more likely coin clipping and debasing took place.
From what I gathered gold, silver and salt(why your work income is called salary) was used as currencies so empires could fine tune their supply lines and empires better. The bigger the empire and ambitions the more likely coin clipping and debasing took place.
You need endless printing to finance endless wars.
While I completely agree with you philosophically, an unbacked, power hungry store of value like bitcoin is not a solution.
It's a political problem, let's rise and kick the government and central banking out!
David Friedman argues in The Machinery of Freedom to use a currency backed by a set of commodities (wood, iron, etc: a set of resources to stabilise the price).
I don't understand why that's not a solution - probably because it doesn't let governments and banks to profit off people easily.
It's a political problem, let's rise and kick the government and central banking out!
David Friedman argues in The Machinery of Freedom to use a currency backed by a set of commodities (wood, iron, etc: a set of resources to stabilise the price).
I don't understand why that's not a solution - probably because it doesn't let governments and banks to profit off people easily.
The utopia is so mind boggling far fetched.
Suppose I have a weapon and I want to kill you unless you give me your bitcoin. How do you stop me? You either have your own weapons to defend yourself or go to an authority for help.
So unless everyone wants to build their own personal military the end game is the same.
All of these arguments boil down to one possibility that could work. Bitcoin somehow brings about world peace, which seems unlikely.
Bitcoin as an experimental protocol is interesting, as a serious currency or asset it is an environmentally dangerous joke.
Suppose I have a weapon and I want to kill you unless you give me your bitcoin. How do you stop me? You either have your own weapons to defend yourself or go to an authority for help.
So unless everyone wants to build their own personal military the end game is the same.
All of these arguments boil down to one possibility that could work. Bitcoin somehow brings about world peace, which seems unlikely.
Bitcoin as an experimental protocol is interesting, as a serious currency or asset it is an environmentally dangerous joke.
"its price has risen from $3,729 in December 2018 to more than $62,000 this week."
Nice advertising. How about: "its price has risen from $19,650 in December 2017 to more than $62,000 this week."
Nice advertising. How about: "its price has risen from $19,650 in December 2017 to more than $62,000 this week."
Its price was $19,650 only for a brief moment. Why pick that particular moment for the range instead of the minimum and maximum as per "range" definition?
Because min/max per range is for complete suckers, who think it is feasible to buy at minimum and sell at maximum price. Definitely not practical for mere mortals trading a volatile "asset".
I chose a biased $19,650 value to make a point. Anyone who bought Bitcoin in the month of December 2017 or January 2018 paid over $10K a piece. The price was over $6K for more than one year, before it dropped shortly to $4K neighborhood. $3,729 is not a representative number.
BTW, 3 days after my comment "more than $62,000" is no longer there, either.
I chose a biased $19,650 value to make a point. Anyone who bought Bitcoin in the month of December 2017 or January 2018 paid over $10K a piece. The price was over $6K for more than one year, before it dropped shortly to $4K neighborhood. $3,729 is not a representative number.
BTW, 3 days after my comment "more than $62,000" is no longer there, either.
I'm surprised nuclear isn't used more here.
My understanding that one of the problems of nuclear is you cant turn it on/off quickly. So why not just mine crypto at low load times?
My understanding that one of the problems of nuclear is you cant turn it on/off quickly. So why not just mine crypto at low load times?
People are already thinking about using over capacity for mining. I think some ideas were being thrown around of using run off gas during pumping oil to power crypto mining.
I think most miners (i.e Chinese ones) are using hydro which is already more sustainable and flexible than nuclear or coal.
Can Bitcoin make sustainable energy cheaper?
Buy solar panels, wind turbines, etc.
Mine Bitcoin, recover capital costs sooner. Then use the electricity for normal purposes.
This is already the case. Renewables are increasingly becoming the most popular option for mining, and not because of the Eco-positive effects of using renewables, but because they are getting cheaper to mine with than other sources. Regardless, my thoughts on pow is it is inefficient and wasteful. PoS is the future of consensus mechanisms.
The Scrub Grass Power Plant near me has been pushing Cryptomining for a while.
http://www.scrubgrass.com
http://www.scrubgrass.com
What technological innovation would disrupt bitcoin at this point? It feels like crypto reached a terminal state in its first iteration.
What is the advantage to owning your own power plants over just buying power from the grid?
Does the grid have substantial fees or taxes?
Does the grid have substantial fees or taxes?
Yeah, you typically pay for transfer and upkeep of that grid. It's included in your electtricity bill, sometimes even as a separate item.
But isn't the cost of that <5% of the generated power?
Sure, it's a benefit of not using the grid, but it seems a pretty small one.
Sure, it's a benefit of not using the grid, but it seems a pretty small one.
This makes a good deal of sense for plants that have considerable ramp up costs during times of off-peak demand.
I worked at a biomass plant once where it took hours to go from cold to get the boiler fired and get steam pressure up. They cut back production when power prices were low or negative, but they had to run at a minimum capacity all the time because they couldn't just stop and start on a dime.
I worked at a biomass plant once where it took hours to go from cold to get the boiler fired and get steam pressure up. They cut back production when power prices were low or negative, but they had to run at a minimum capacity all the time because they couldn't just stop and start on a dime.
Cool, who could have predicted this? /s
The governments of the world could shut it down. A drop in the bucket of their vast collective wealth could buy the majority of the network, legislation to criminalize mining and trading, and just wait until it becomes unprofitable.
There are plenty of good reasons to do it, environmental concerns being only (very good) one.
The governments of the world could shut it down. A drop in the bucket of their vast collective wealth could buy the majority of the network, legislation to criminalize mining and trading, and just wait until it becomes unprofitable.
There are plenty of good reasons to do it, environmental concerns being only (very good) one.
Maybe get rid of bitcoin before limiting everyone ability to travel. I don't hear Greta screaming about that, or population growth.
Vertical integration at its best.
the problem are externalities as such, bitcoin just makes the problem obvious
This crypto-currency nonsense is getting out of hands.
When profits are being made, who cares what happens to future generations.
Cryptocurrency is, for the most part, a contagion. We opened Pandora's box and the genie is out of the bottle. Short of some kind of cataclysmic black swan event, I'm not sure this insanity will end anytime soon. :(
Cryptocurrency is, for the most part, a contagion. We opened Pandora's box and the genie is out of the bottle. Short of some kind of cataclysmic black swan event, I'm not sure this insanity will end anytime soon. :(
This is one of the few energy consumers that has a pretty straightforward solution: switch to proof of stake. You can't magically switch all existing cars to be 100% electric, but you actually can kind of magically switch all cryptocurrencies to consume orders of magnitude less energy.
The question is if Bitcoin will ever try to switch to it. Unfortunately, it seems like they probably won't anytime soon.
The question is if Bitcoin will ever try to switch to it. Unfortunately, it seems like they probably won't anytime soon.
As much as I loathe cryptocurrency as a concept, a switch across the board to PoS would certainly be a welcome change to massively decrease this abhorrent waste in energy.
Ethereum 2.0 is POS apparently.
I haven't figure out how to get onboard yet though. I have to do a bunch of homework to figure out what the hell means what.
I don't have 32 ETH ($70k odd USD) so I have to join a staking pool but then that means I won't be running a validator I think.
In which case this seems like simply just buying some ETH2.0 but it clearly isn't... so I have no idea honestly...
More homework required on my part.
Anyone have a good link with an overview of the moving parts AND motivations of the ETH2.0 structure?
I haven't figure out how to get onboard yet though. I have to do a bunch of homework to figure out what the hell means what.
I don't have 32 ETH ($70k odd USD) so I have to join a staking pool but then that means I won't be running a validator I think.
In which case this seems like simply just buying some ETH2.0 but it clearly isn't... so I have no idea honestly...
More homework required on my part.
Anyone have a good link with an overview of the moving parts AND motivations of the ETH2.0 structure?
It is a bit funny how obtuse some of this cryptocurrency stuff can actually be, which honestly is a great thing, if it means less of the inexperienced can participate at all.
This lack-of-appropriate-carbon-tax nonsense is getting out of hand.
People will follow incentives. Fix those incentives.
People will follow incentives. Fix those incentives.
Every time I'm like "BTC is roasting the planet" people come out of the woodwork to remind me about renewable energy. Funny I don't see any of them here....
Please don't post supercilious dismissals, regardless of how right you are or feel you are. Especially not as a shallow one-liner. It leads to shallow, uninteresting discussion and we're hoping for better than that here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
"It's renewable therefore I can waste as much of it as I want."
Exactly. If you're on grid, unless and limiting yourself to times when there's a surplus, every KW of clean electricity you use is a KW of dirty, natural gas or coal peaker plant electricity someone else has to use. If you've got an off-grid solar set up, you're just bidding up the price of PV panels.
As the volume of panels has gone up over the last decade, the he price of panels has also gone down as production scales and efficiencies improve.
You would need enough demand to create a global shortage. That doesn't seem likely and would cause a short-term spike, not a long term price increase.
You would need enough demand to create a global shortage. That doesn't seem likely and would cause a short-term spike, not a long term price increase.
I would agree except for the fact that PV panels use rare earth metals and other natural resources
It's the ultimate in handwaveism.
It's true though. You can throw up a 1kw system for under 1k now.
Maybe at the hobby level that thinking works. At scale, though, it does not unless you're building a renewable power plant where it simply can't connect to the grid.
If you can get on the grid, then the power your plant produces and what you do with it are two separate things. Instead of e.g. mining crypto, you could sell the power generated. By using it instead of selling it, you're just pushing other users to use more fossil fuels.
The calculus IMO is power consumption * grid-wide average CO2 emissions. You can't just count using solar as 0 emissions, because using solar doesn't bring that average to 0. It reduces it slightly.
If you can get on the grid, then the power your plant produces and what you do with it are two separate things. Instead of e.g. mining crypto, you could sell the power generated. By using it instead of selling it, you're just pushing other users to use more fossil fuels.
The calculus IMO is power consumption * grid-wide average CO2 emissions. You can't just count using solar as 0 emissions, because using solar doesn't bring that average to 0. It reduces it slightly.
>The calculus IMO is power consumption * grid-wide average CO2 emissions.
This is also too simplified, because it doesn't factor in transmission costs and interconnection capacity. Electricty doesn't move frictionlessly throughout the grid, and this can be seen because north american electricity prices vary wildly by region[1].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26829186
This is also too simplified, because it doesn't factor in transmission costs and interconnection capacity. Electricty doesn't move frictionlessly throughout the grid, and this can be seen because north american electricity prices vary wildly by region[1].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26829186
Yes, and it also doesn't take into account the time of use.
There are times when renewables have to be curtailed in some regions, so using renewable sources at that time has a marginal CO2 impact of near zero.
There are times when renewables have to be curtailed in some regions, so using renewable sources at that time has a marginal CO2 impact of near zero.
Miners aren't building their own solar arrays right now and even if they were until we're throwing away wind or solar power constantly any energy burned to work on a coin is energy that could have just gone into serving existing loads.
It still generates heat, which warms the planet.
https://www.treehugger.com/ask-pablo-do-solar-panels-contrib...
"Cities and their expansive hardscapes are certainly to blame for the heat island effect and, since the hardscapes and solar energy-absorbing roofs are already there, solar panels may actually represent a reduction in heat absorbtion. Add to that the fact that solar panels produce renewable energy that does not contribute to climate change like conventional sources like coal. Adding to that, the soot particles in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels contribute a radiative forcing of 0.1 to 0.4 W/m2. Solar panels, on the other hand, are reducing the amount of climate change-causing emissions.
"So if you're wondering about the heat island effect before installing rooftop solar, don't. According to the numbers, the solar panels will not only produce energy, but keep your home slightly cooler, which means you'll be using less energy in the first place, which will keep us all a little cooler."
"Cities and their expansive hardscapes are certainly to blame for the heat island effect and, since the hardscapes and solar energy-absorbing roofs are already there, solar panels may actually represent a reduction in heat absorbtion. Add to that the fact that solar panels produce renewable energy that does not contribute to climate change like conventional sources like coal. Adding to that, the soot particles in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels contribute a radiative forcing of 0.1 to 0.4 W/m2. Solar panels, on the other hand, are reducing the amount of climate change-causing emissions.
"So if you're wondering about the heat island effect before installing rooftop solar, don't. According to the numbers, the solar panels will not only produce energy, but keep your home slightly cooler, which means you'll be using less energy in the first place, which will keep us all a little cooler."
Sorry, the "it" I was referring to was mining hardware, not solar generation. Crypto-mining, if it continues to grow unabated, at some point will start to increase the price of energy and encourage more energy production. Some of that might be somewhat neutral solar, but using basically any other energy source would increase thermal energy being generated.
Is heat generated by humans really a significant contributor to global warming compared to the warming effects of human generated greenhouse gases?
Not yet. Assuming continuous growth, it would be sooner than you might think:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
Of course that's more an illustration of why continuous growth is impossible than a prediction of what will happen.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
Of course that's more an illustration of why continuous growth is impossible than a prediction of what will happen.
It isn't. Anthropogenic heat is about 1% as strong as the greenhouse effect, according to this article in Nature.
https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata2017116
https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata2017116
The sun generates heat when it lands on the ground. One could say PV helps keep the ground cool!
Haven't done any math either ways, but it's not like sunlight doesn't already heat up the planet.
Haven't done any math either ways, but it's not like sunlight doesn't already heat up the planet.
[deleted]
ummm,
This case seems like an aberration, though? I think the logic goes something like this: bitcoin miners have a huge incentive to find the cheapest power in the world; renewable energy sources are cheaper than fossil fuels and getting cheaper all the time; therefore miners will prefer renewable power.
Renewables are getting cheaper and are in certain circumstances but in general they definitely are not cheaper than fossil fuels.
New renewables are cheaper than new fossil fuel plants.
https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth
That's enough to eliminate them over time, because the plants do get old eventually. And the trend is for renewables to get even cheaper - this means any study using current prices is going to be extremely pessimistic, it's going to get even cheaper and obsolete your results.
https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth
That's enough to eliminate them over time, because the plants do get old eventually. And the trend is for renewables to get even cheaper - this means any study using current prices is going to be extremely pessimistic, it's going to get even cheaper and obsolete your results.
At current prices why do they care if it's cheap? Coal seems to make sense for a bitcoin miner
Any energy mining bitcoin is clean by definition, because Bitcoin is good for whole mankind.
By definition.
By definition.
Seems like the fact people already own BTC is a minus for future users, if there's exponential adoption nobody has any reason to value the early users' claim and might just use a new currency.
That's not the One True Bitcoin (TM).
There can be only one bitcoin, all the others are false government shills.
There can be only one bitcoin, all the others are false government shills.
This is simply perverse.
It's perverse, just like almost every other form of economic activity on this planet, eg. farming (fertilizer/herbicide run-off), mining (tailing ponds), factories (air/ground/water pollution). The underlying reason is simple: externalities aren't being priced in, which allows the owners of such operations to make money while everyone pays the price.
None of what you listed are similar cases.
Farming produced food to eat. Mining produces minerals to build things with. Factories produce goods.
Bitcoin produces... A series of bits that some people will pay money for? It seems like bitcoin is basically fine art at this point.
Farming produced food to eat. Mining produces minerals to build things with. Factories produce goods.
Bitcoin produces... A series of bits that some people will pay money for? It seems like bitcoin is basically fine art at this point.
It goes back to what you mean by "perverse". For me it's "business reaping the benefits but passing the costs to someone else". For you it seems to be "pollution being generated but nothing 'useful' is being done". Is that an accurate characterization?
>Mining produces minerals to build things with
are you forgetting the yellow stuff that we hoard in vaults and hang on our bodies, or carbon crystals that we put on our fingers?
>Mining produces minerals to build things with
are you forgetting the yellow stuff that we hoard in vaults and hang on our bodies, or carbon crystals that we put on our fingers?
> Bitcoin produces...
trust.
It's only a moral judgement that bitcoin energy use is somehow worse than say, transport, or heating, or anything else that people pay money for.
trust.
It's only a moral judgement that bitcoin energy use is somehow worse than say, transport, or heating, or anything else that people pay money for.
Bitcoin doesn’t produce trust. It just produces a verified log.
which people trust to be unmodifiable and thus, dependable. That's what it means to trust it.
I have blind faith in the banking system (and blind faith that the gov't regulation keeps them honest), but i can trust the blockchain.
I have blind faith in the banking system (and blind faith that the gov't regulation keeps them honest), but i can trust the blockchain.
That’s a category error. The blockchain is a document. The banking system is people.
Do you trust people to always give you $60,000 in exchange for a Bitcoin?
Do you trust regulators not to tax Bitcoin or put onerous ‘anti-laundering’ conditions on its use?
Do you trust people to always give you $60,000 in exchange for a Bitcoin?
Do you trust regulators not to tax Bitcoin or put onerous ‘anti-laundering’ conditions on its use?
Bitcoin is proof that a thing can be a commodity without having a corporeal manifestation.
Bitcoin is obviously producing money for these miners, just like farms, mines, and factories. And wait, are you suggesting that we should also ban using electricity to create art?
Bitcoin produces money for the miners just like cigarette companies, kidnap for ransom, and muggings.
Just like those things? That sounds like a stretch. As far as I can tell, we’re talking about the externalities of the energy usage of Bitcoin miners, which are the same per unit of energy (given some generation method) as any other usage of energy. That’s not even remotely comparable to activities that directly earn money by stealing or getting people addicted.
> That sounds like a stretch.
No more of a stretch as comparing it to farming or art.
I’m not making a judgement here, just listing other activities that make money for people and which have externalities, since ‘making money for the miners’ is claimed as a good.
You be the judge.
No more of a stretch as comparing it to farming or art.
I’m not making a judgement here, just listing other activities that make money for people and which have externalities, since ‘making money for the miners’ is claimed as a good.
You be the judge.
> No more of a stretch as comparing it to farming or art.
Indeed, and that’s precisely my point. The externality problem ought to be addressed directly instead of creating a new regulatory body to decide which goods are “good” and thus allowed to have externalities and which goods are “bad” and thus are banned completely or banned from having externalities.
Indeed, and that’s precisely my point. The externality problem ought to be addressed directly instead of creating a new regulatory body to decide which goods are “good” and thus allowed to have externalities and which goods are “bad” and thus are banned completely or banned from having externalities.
> The externality problem ought to be addressed directly
What does ‘directly’ mean?
> instead of creating a new regulatory body to decide which goods are “good” and thus allowed to have externalities and which goods are “bad” and thus are banned completely or banned from having externalities.
How would you apply this direct approach to muggings or cigarette companies?
What does ‘directly’ mean?
> instead of creating a new regulatory body to decide which goods are “good” and thus allowed to have externalities and which goods are “bad” and thus are banned completely or banned from having externalities.
How would you apply this direct approach to muggings or cigarette companies?
> What does ‘directly’ mean?
Whoever is polluting ought to pay for the damage of that pollution. That’s my view. No different than pouring toxins into the river outside the factory.
> How would you apply this direct approach to muggings or cigarette companies?
Well, I don’t know if there’s a great analogy for muggings. I’m all for going after organized crime, and for local law enforcement for random unorganized robberies. For cigarette companies, well, I’m pretty on board with most or all the regulations they were hit with in the 20th century.
Whoever is polluting ought to pay for the damage of that pollution. That’s my view. No different than pouring toxins into the river outside the factory.
> How would you apply this direct approach to muggings or cigarette companies?
Well, I don’t know if there’s a great analogy for muggings. I’m all for going after organized crime, and for local law enforcement for random unorganized robberies. For cigarette companies, well, I’m pretty on board with most or all the regulations they were hit with in the 20th century.
In the case of Bitcoin the incentives of the system itself will drive miners to seek out and exploit locales where the externalities are least policed.
This is part of the design, and everyone who transacts in Bitcoin benefits from this.
Therefore the cost of those externalities should be borne by the network in the form of a transaction tax.
This is part of the design, and everyone who transacts in Bitcoin benefits from this.
Therefore the cost of those externalities should be borne by the network in the form of a transaction tax.
Well its the cost of a decentralized safe currency, at the end of the day its the users who pay for it, and I gladly pay for it. Keep using your fiat if you want.
Doesn't this example show that contributing to global warming makes everyone pay for that "decentralized safe currency" and not just the users of the currency?
Sorry my dude, but we are all paying for this in the ridiculous carbon emissions, whether we we are part of this experiment or not. Save the snark.
Its not BTC miners fault that energy is priced incorrectly. We shouldnt waste any energy into powering the armies of the world, lets just not fight, right? But here we are.
There it is, Bitcoin only makes sense when we have world peace. It’s amazing that this is always the end state of this argument.
I dont know how can you sleep at night in good conscience while using the US Dollar, so glad theres BTC, energy consumption is its only sin.
Ok, let me know how building your Bitcoin army and state to protect your Bitcoin purchases goes.
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I'm not fighting here. Your comment came off as dismissive to some growing and legitimate concerns.
And don't forget. Bitcoin is not replacing these other institutions that need energy. Stop handwaving away the problem, because it's inconvenient for you to hear.
And don't forget. Bitcoin is not replacing these other institutions that need energy. Stop handwaving away the problem, because it's inconvenient for you to hear.
BTC miners buy the energy to power their nodes and that cost is passed to the users in transaction fees.
The only legitimate criticism here may be that energy prices dont account for the externalities of carbon emissions. But thats irrelevant of how the energy is actually used
The only legitimate criticism here may be that energy prices dont account for the externalities of carbon emissions. But thats irrelevant of how the energy is actually used
You're missing the point. We shouldn't be using the energy period. Like, regardless of where we are getting our energy from, we should be making efforts to massively reduce consumption across the board. Bitcoin mining doesn't help this at all. Capitalism be damned.
I've realized that you likely have made up your mind on this and my arguments won't sway you. That's fine by me, as long as others that have read can get it.
I've realized that you likely have made up your mind on this and my arguments won't sway you. That's fine by me, as long as others that have read can get it.
>regardless of where we are getting our energy from
So you dont care about the actual real problem which is carbon emissions?
>we should be making efforts to massively reduce consumption across the board Why? Theres no problem with the consumption of renewable energies
When you want to trample on people's freedoms just because you dont deem them "worthy" of consuming energy its no wonder that people gives you the finger.
>we should be making efforts to massively reduce consumption across the board Why? Theres no problem with the consumption of renewable energies
When you want to trample on people's freedoms just because you dont deem them "worthy" of consuming energy its no wonder that people gives you the finger.
When the externalities of your actions cause undue harm to others, your activities are no longer appropriate. I consider the damage to the environment caused by all this mining to be an end game that results in misery for everyone.
Your responses are obviously hostile, so I'm going to bid thee adieu.
EDIT: Lest we forget, there's a thing in Libertarianism called the Non-Aggression Principle (aka NAP). If your actions are an aggression on the health and well-being of our planet and future generations, this would violate NAP.
Bitcoin violates NAP in the long run. Ergo, Bitcoin is a net negative. QED.
Your responses are obviously hostile, so I'm going to bid thee adieu.
EDIT: Lest we forget, there's a thing in Libertarianism called the Non-Aggression Principle (aka NAP). If your actions are an aggression on the health and well-being of our planet and future generations, this would violate NAP.
Bitcoin violates NAP in the long run. Ergo, Bitcoin is a net negative. QED.
> When the externalities of your actions cause undue harm to others, your activities are no longer appropriate.
And, according to you, which criteria should we use to define whether some externality causes "harm" or not and whether that harm is "undue" or not?
If I decide to spend all my days playing games on my computer (which is wasteful energy-wise and probably does not contribute meaningfully to humanity's welfare), am I causing harm to others? What if I decide to cut down trees in my plot of land: am I causing harm to others? What if I decide to shower using potable water, thereby depriving other people from that drinkable water?
Is this harm "undue"? Should I be punished for this? If yes, how are you going to punish me and by how much?
Who decides this? Based on which criteria?
> Lest we forget, there's a thing in Libertarianism called the Non-Aggression Principle (aka NAP). If your actions are an aggression on the health and well-being of our planet and future generations, this would violate NAP.
1) So, me using resources I acquired/paid for as I see fit is "aggressing" someone else? Under this logic, most human activities could be seen as an aggression, in one way or another (by applying resources in X, you are witholding them from being used in Y, thus "aggressing" everyone who benefits from Y happening over X).
2) Under a Libertarian framework, how exactly do you expect to enforce any sort of anti-NAP rule or law? Hope you brought your army with you.
Your general idea requires people to agree on what is "harmful" or not and whether that harm is "undue" or not. Good luck with having people agree on that.
TL;DR: Even if we assume "bitcoin mining" to lead to externalities that cause undue harm to others (not just normal harm, but undue harm), the same applies to many (most?) other human activities... you can always frame any resource allocation as "depriving someone from resources". Under this logic, we should ban anything I don't see as useful, because reasons.
And, according to you, which criteria should we use to define whether some externality causes "harm" or not and whether that harm is "undue" or not?
If I decide to spend all my days playing games on my computer (which is wasteful energy-wise and probably does not contribute meaningfully to humanity's welfare), am I causing harm to others? What if I decide to cut down trees in my plot of land: am I causing harm to others? What if I decide to shower using potable water, thereby depriving other people from that drinkable water?
Is this harm "undue"? Should I be punished for this? If yes, how are you going to punish me and by how much?
Who decides this? Based on which criteria?
> Lest we forget, there's a thing in Libertarianism called the Non-Aggression Principle (aka NAP). If your actions are an aggression on the health and well-being of our planet and future generations, this would violate NAP.
1) So, me using resources I acquired/paid for as I see fit is "aggressing" someone else? Under this logic, most human activities could be seen as an aggression, in one way or another (by applying resources in X, you are witholding them from being used in Y, thus "aggressing" everyone who benefits from Y happening over X).
2) Under a Libertarian framework, how exactly do you expect to enforce any sort of anti-NAP rule or law? Hope you brought your army with you.
Your general idea requires people to agree on what is "harmful" or not and whether that harm is "undue" or not. Good luck with having people agree on that.
TL;DR: Even if we assume "bitcoin mining" to lead to externalities that cause undue harm to others (not just normal harm, but undue harm), the same applies to many (most?) other human activities... you can always frame any resource allocation as "depriving someone from resources". Under this logic, we should ban anything I don't see as useful, because reasons.
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> I'm not fighting here.
I think their point was that militaries are doing the fighting as of right now, but nobody is talking about how that's a useless waste of energy and we could "just agree" to do things more efficiently by not fighting. Because in practice "just agreeing" isn't so easy.
> And don't forget. Bitcoin is not replacing these other institutions that need energy.
I don't think that's obviously true.
I think their point was that militaries are doing the fighting as of right now, but nobody is talking about how that's a useless waste of energy and we could "just agree" to do things more efficiently by not fighting. Because in practice "just agreeing" isn't so easy.
> And don't forget. Bitcoin is not replacing these other institutions that need energy.
I don't think that's obviously true.
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Since renewables are already cheaper than coal power and mining is inherently flexible load I think bitcoin miners will me building and building way more renewables. Especially when mining hardware stagnates and cost of mining bitcoin will be dominated by price of energy and of ensuring energy supply, as opposed to ensuring posession mining hardwarr.
Although I hope one day I read about Bitcoin miner building nuclear power plant and using it to mine bitcoin with all the spare power but selling energy into the grid when energy usage peaks and price rises above what mining can bring.
Although I hope one day I read about Bitcoin miner building nuclear power plant and using it to mine bitcoin with all the spare power but selling energy into the grid when energy usage peaks and price rises above what mining can bring.
What’s the bandwidth from a probe close to the sun with a Bitcoin miner on it? Beam back the coin, we can wait. Or, mine it near the sun and then bring it back. Could take 20 years, but the returns should be better than the SPY.
We’d need a spaceship I guess with the largest solar panels ever. Park it near the sun, mine Bitcoin, come back to earth.
We’d need a spaceship I guess with the largest solar panels ever. Park it near the sun, mine Bitcoin, come back to earth.
You have to sign blocks every 10 min. Since it takes 8 min for light from the sun, the mining station there would have 2 minutes to land a hash. You’d need to move most of the network to the sun station for this to be effective, I think.
Mining is a race. If you have X seconds latency because you are millions of miles away, you’ll loose $Y over the long run. You can figure out the function which ties X and Y together.
It depends how many of these minors are near the sun. If the minors near the sun start mining on top of blocks discovered near the sun, then they have the head start again.
This means there would me many more chain re-organisation, and that a 50.1% attack would be easier, so the network less secure.
You'd have to figure out the balance between distance from the sun impacting power generation and distance from Earth impacting the reward interval.
There should be an optimal distance for a given combination of solar panel + mining rig.
There should be an optimal distance for a given combination of solar panel + mining rig.
if you have more mining machines because it's powered by a "free" source of energy, the latency will be beaten easily by just increasing the amount of tries you get to do.
If you spend 8 minutes getting the next chunk of information to your machine, and then another 8 minutes returning the result, it does not matter how fast your machines are or how many of them you have. You're still going to lose to the machines on earth, because the Bitcoin network on earth can already mine blocks faster than 16 minutes.
Think of it this way. Say we're running a mile long race by foot, and it takes me an average of 10 minutes to run that mile. You want to bring a car onto the track that will be able to go a mile in 15 seconds, but it's going to take you 20 minutes to get the car to the starting line.
That's how latency works. It doesn't matter how fast your machines are, by the time you've sent the information to them, by the time you've told them what they need to do, everyone else has already finished with their work and moved on to the next problem.
Think of it this way. Say we're running a mile long race by foot, and it takes me an average of 10 minutes to run that mile. You want to bring a car onto the track that will be able to go a mile in 15 seconds, but it's going to take you 20 minutes to get the car to the starting line.
That's how latency works. It doesn't matter how fast your machines are, by the time you've sent the information to them, by the time you've told them what they need to do, everyone else has already finished with their work and moved on to the next problem.
but with bitcoin hashing, you're testing out random hashes to see if it works, and there's an equal chance of finding one for all parties. But if you spend more computational power, you have a higher chance of find one (because you got more tries).
Now, a satellite orbiting the sun has 8 mins of latency. Imagine if there was only 1 computer on earth, and 1 computer orbiting, and both "submit", it's the earth computer that's going to succeed first, if both finds a valid hash.
Suppose we keep the speed of the individual computers are the same - but now you double the amount of computers orbiting the sun. Now you are twice as likely to find a valid hash - even tho it still takes you 8 minutes to transfer the valid hash message to the earth network. In that 8 minutes, if somebody else on earth finds a valid hash, they will beat you. But they only have 1 machine, and so their chance of finding a valid hash _must_ be half.
So on average, the orbiting machines will get _some_ hashes through, because they get more tries. Some of their successful tries would just fail due to latency. At some point, there would be a tipping point where a large number of machines would be able to, due to sheer chance, always generate a correct hash! Now, of course, the latency will still be there, so the earth machines would have to rely on their luck to beat the 8 minute latency (which they will sometimes).
What that tippig point is - might be a very large number - is unknown to me of course...and if that tipping point is greater than 50% of the available hashing power, then you might as well just forge instead of doing it for real...
Now, a satellite orbiting the sun has 8 mins of latency. Imagine if there was only 1 computer on earth, and 1 computer orbiting, and both "submit", it's the earth computer that's going to succeed first, if both finds a valid hash.
Suppose we keep the speed of the individual computers are the same - but now you double the amount of computers orbiting the sun. Now you are twice as likely to find a valid hash - even tho it still takes you 8 minutes to transfer the valid hash message to the earth network. In that 8 minutes, if somebody else on earth finds a valid hash, they will beat you. But they only have 1 machine, and so their chance of finding a valid hash _must_ be half.
So on average, the orbiting machines will get _some_ hashes through, because they get more tries. Some of their successful tries would just fail due to latency. At some point, there would be a tipping point where a large number of machines would be able to, due to sheer chance, always generate a correct hash! Now, of course, the latency will still be there, so the earth machines would have to rely on their luck to beat the 8 minute latency (which they will sometimes).
What that tippig point is - might be a very large number - is unknown to me of course...and if that tipping point is greater than 50% of the available hashing power, then you might as well just forge instead of doing it for real...
> But they only have 1 machine, and so their chance of finding a valid hash _must_ be half.
No, Bitcoin's network is currently set up to guarantee that a new hash is found in roughly 10 minutes. It's not about how many computers you have in relation to the earth, you need there to be few enough computers on earth and structural enough changes to Bitcoin's technology that it takes the current network on Earth more than 16 minutes to find a hash.
Adding more computers to your orbital array will not change the hash rate on Earth, the network is set up to take the computing power into account and keep the hash rate at about 10 minutes.
Go back to my footrace analogy. What you're currently trying to do is to beat me in a race by getting a progressively faster and faster car, or by introducing 2 cars into the race instead of just 1. None of that matters unless you can get your cars onto the track in less than 10 minutes, because in 10 minutes I will be done with the race and have moved on to the next hash.
You're not pitting your computer network against the earth, you're just pitting it against the latency. You need the on earth hash rate to be slower than 16 minutes, which is not how Bitcoin is currently set up.
> and if that tipping point is greater than 50% of the available hashing power, then you might as well just forge instead of doing it for real...
To be fair, a 51% attack might actually be a feasible idea for your satellite network if you have enough computers there, but it would also come with the fun side effect of making all of your coins useless and crashing the bitcoin bubble.
I suppose the other thing you could maybe do is get so many computers in orbit accepted into the network that you actually drive up the hash difficulty until all of the computers on earth can't solve the problem in 10 minutes; purely because the built-in hashing requirements of Bitcoin become so high that your network's computing power is necessary to finish the transaction in a reasonable time at all. I vaguely suspect you'd need at least close to 50% of the network to do that, but I might be wrong, I haven't done the math.
The downside of that scenario is that you've now raised the hash rate for Bitcoin to 26 minutes, because the 10 minute hash rate is going to stay the same regardless of how many computers are on the network, even if 90% of them are orbiting the sun. But to be fair again, a 26 minute hash rate only matters if you're trying to build a working currency, which pretty much nobody in Bitcoin land seems to care about at this point.
No, Bitcoin's network is currently set up to guarantee that a new hash is found in roughly 10 minutes. It's not about how many computers you have in relation to the earth, you need there to be few enough computers on earth and structural enough changes to Bitcoin's technology that it takes the current network on Earth more than 16 minutes to find a hash.
Adding more computers to your orbital array will not change the hash rate on Earth, the network is set up to take the computing power into account and keep the hash rate at about 10 minutes.
Go back to my footrace analogy. What you're currently trying to do is to beat me in a race by getting a progressively faster and faster car, or by introducing 2 cars into the race instead of just 1. None of that matters unless you can get your cars onto the track in less than 10 minutes, because in 10 minutes I will be done with the race and have moved on to the next hash.
You're not pitting your computer network against the earth, you're just pitting it against the latency. You need the on earth hash rate to be slower than 16 minutes, which is not how Bitcoin is currently set up.
> and if that tipping point is greater than 50% of the available hashing power, then you might as well just forge instead of doing it for real...
To be fair, a 51% attack might actually be a feasible idea for your satellite network if you have enough computers there, but it would also come with the fun side effect of making all of your coins useless and crashing the bitcoin bubble.
I suppose the other thing you could maybe do is get so many computers in orbit accepted into the network that you actually drive up the hash difficulty until all of the computers on earth can't solve the problem in 10 minutes; purely because the built-in hashing requirements of Bitcoin become so high that your network's computing power is necessary to finish the transaction in a reasonable time at all. I vaguely suspect you'd need at least close to 50% of the network to do that, but I might be wrong, I haven't done the math.
The downside of that scenario is that you've now raised the hash rate for Bitcoin to 26 minutes, because the 10 minute hash rate is going to stay the same regardless of how many computers are on the network, even if 90% of them are orbiting the sun. But to be fair again, a 26 minute hash rate only matters if you're trying to build a working currency, which pretty much nobody in Bitcoin land seems to care about at this point.
If you drop beacon towers along the way to maintain bandwidth, why wouldn’t this work?
the speed of light (or radio waves) doesn't become any faster with beacons. it's latency that's the problem.
latency and bandwidth are two different things... speed of light is a constant.
these beacons are in worm holes, obviously
You already have the bitcoin blockchain on a satellite beaming back the state of the blockchain. It might work somewhere in the future if the tech is ready. You don't have day night cycles in space so solar could work 24/7 you do need to find something about the radiation.
You'd be far better off building floating wind turbines in the deep ocean, say in the roaring 40s.
GPUs get faster over time.
But it’s not free energy. I’m looking at it like fusion, the output needs to exceed the input (well I guess that’s how everyone is looking at it).
This is an area people should remain vigilante about. Although most bitcoin mining uses renewable energy[1][2] or reduces pollution from flaring sites by actually using the to-be-flared gas onsite, without vigilance that won't remain the case, especially if state actors begin competing.
[1] https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/centres/alternati... a Cambridge study which corroborates and reached the same conclusion as an industry [2] study https://coinshares.com/research/bitcoin-mining-network-june-...
[1] https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/centres/alternati... a Cambridge study which corroborates and reached the same conclusion as an industry [2] study https://coinshares.com/research/bitcoin-mining-network-june-...
The argument, that most Bitcoin mining uses renewabke energy isn't valid, because the renewable energy used for BitCoin mining could have been used for other things.
That's why they are talking about the flaring instead of hydroelectric, to sell the idea that it's using power that wouldn't be recovered otherwise.
Of course it is sort of likely that cheap hydroelectric is a much bigger component of the supply than gas power plants installed just to mine bitcoin.
Of course it is sort of likely that cheap hydroelectric is a much bigger component of the supply than gas power plants installed just to mine bitcoin.
they? Its not a cabal, just say whats not accurate about the statement and we’ll discuss that, states are desperate to reduce their flaring emissions and on-site miners are a big solution for them and its actually happening. If the percentages are currently wrong just say so
It's a singular they, not an imagined cabal.
It's a neat trick to not say anything specific and then demand people argue the specifics.
It's a neat trick to not say anything specific and then demand people argue the specifics.
Vigilant*
While someone going all Batman on a fossil fuel power plant would be interesting, it would probably end poorly.
While someone going all Batman on a fossil fuel power plant would be interesting, it would probably end poorly.
Most? The linked report says 39% or did I miss something?
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For all the pearl clutching about bitcoin, I find it humorous that computer games still consume more energy. [1]
[1] https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/introducing-cbei-a-new-...
[1] https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/introducing-cbei-a-new-...
Great. There is only so many plants to go around. The fast growing energy consumption from crypto may be that real push that we need to move to renewables as no other type of energy production can be built up that much more and that fast. Nothing moves things faster than war and/or straight economic interest. Once crypto energy consumption grows an order or two of magnitude more, it would produce a real interest in space and fusion. Push for progress is coming from an unexpected side :)
In the meantime i think we'll see something like large barges/platforms with wind turbines floating somewhere in windy international waters - cuts the costs of permits, etc. May be some startups around it ...
In the meantime i think we'll see something like large barges/platforms with wind turbines floating somewhere in windy international waters - cuts the costs of permits, etc. May be some startups around it ...
No entity in the world can control the price of crypto. But, we can and already do regulate energy production.
I think we need a carbon tax, that is specifically a financial disincentive towards any means of energy production that directly pollutes the atmosphere.
Seriously, what are the current best arguments against levying such a disincentive?
Moreover, if energy were priced correctly (its toll on the climate priced in) would BTC become higher in value? That is, we have a supply, increasing at a rate fixed between the arbitrage of energy and mining efficiency. If energy were to become more expensive, the growth in supply would slow. Assuming demand remains constant or continues to grow as well, the only way for price to go is up.