Green hackers around the world, let’s destroy Bitcoin(franck-leroy.medium.com)
franck-leroy.medium.com
Green hackers around the world, let’s destroy Bitcoin
https://franck-leroy.medium.com/green-hackers-around-the-world-lets-destroy-bitcoin-725700434a8f
263 comments
As a Bitcoin proponent who is also concerned about it's long term sustainability, this post is an embarrassing read.
The author clearly has a very poor understanding of what value Bitcoin currently has in our current macro-economic situation, and why investors (and corporations) are choosing to allocate larger parts of their portfolios in cryptocurrencies.
Calling out the BTC network on its energetic inefficiency completely misses the point that the work put into the network is exactly the scarce digital asset, and hence the store of value.
The author clearly has a very poor understanding of what value Bitcoin currently has in our current macro-economic situation, and why investors (and corporations) are choosing to allocate larger parts of their portfolios in cryptocurrencies.
Calling out the BTC network on its energetic inefficiency completely misses the point that the work put into the network is exactly the scarce digital asset, and hence the store of value.
Let me relate for you how Bitcoin has been sold to me at various times in the past, because its entire history at this point seems to have been forgotten by bitcoin proponents.
First it was a revolutionary currency, which would replace fiat with a deflationary alternative. Then it was a revolutionary payment network which would displace evil incumbents (despite being fundamentally unsuited to this task). Then it was for micropayments. Then it was for selling drugs and doing things governments don't want you to do. Then there was the lightning network which would make it super fast and super distributed at the same time, solving all known problems by this time next year (in 2015). Then it was for transferring money across borders. Then it was a revolutionary technology called blockchain for building apps on top of, who cares about the currency. Then it was for tracing assets and proving ownership of every asset in the world with blockchains. Then it was for smart contracts - we're going to replace the law with the blockchain. Then it was going to the moon (in 2017), and who cares what it is used for, or even if anyone is using it, because it's going to make us all rich baby - we still appear to in that last phase because nobody seems to know or care about the value of it, only the price.
With apologies to Oscar Wilde, we currently seem to know the price of everything, but the value of nothing, and the rising price is what is driving current interest in Bitcoin, nothing else.
First it was a revolutionary currency, which would replace fiat with a deflationary alternative. Then it was a revolutionary payment network which would displace evil incumbents (despite being fundamentally unsuited to this task). Then it was for micropayments. Then it was for selling drugs and doing things governments don't want you to do. Then there was the lightning network which would make it super fast and super distributed at the same time, solving all known problems by this time next year (in 2015). Then it was for transferring money across borders. Then it was a revolutionary technology called blockchain for building apps on top of, who cares about the currency. Then it was for tracing assets and proving ownership of every asset in the world with blockchains. Then it was for smart contracts - we're going to replace the law with the blockchain. Then it was going to the moon (in 2017), and who cares what it is used for, or even if anyone is using it, because it's going to make us all rich baby - we still appear to in that last phase because nobody seems to know or care about the value of it, only the price.
With apologies to Oscar Wilde, we currently seem to know the price of everything, but the value of nothing, and the rising price is what is driving current interest in Bitcoin, nothing else.
Your grasp of bitcoin seems to be similar to a casual newspaper reader commenting on middle east peace without knowing any of the complex cultural differences. No worries it's the norm online. Even tech enthusiasts can be ignorant, after all bitcoin is a complex phenomenon a complex mix of social, economic and technical concepts.
Bitcoin never tried to be law, that's eth and other similar centralized scam blockchains. Being as it's "only" 12 year old money, Bitcoin does evolve and adjust as its users govern it via running their own nodes. Until 2017, major companies (miners/payment processors) tried to fit all kinds of narratives on it (as you mention) but it became clear that they COULD not make bitcoin what they wanted it to do.
Meanwhile users did a soft fork with segwit and kept the blockchain as small as possible while allowing Lightning to be developed on it. This means the decentralized network wanted to keep being sound money, keep being censorship resistant, decentralized and still be scalable.
Lightning Network is a very solid success, used amongst early adopters, major exchanges joining (Bitfinex, Kraken, OKCoin), multiple VISA backed startups building rewards programs and remittance applications on it.
Unlike a typical tech startup Bitcoin does not need to trick everyone to use it and get as many investors as soon as possible and figure out something later. It is what it is. It does not force anyone to join it or spend a single thought on it unless they choose to. It's completely voluntary.
While I understand the skepticism (which just comes across as "salty" as they say) one should consider a simple web search to see how Bitcoin adds value to financially underserved people, allows politically censored organizations to take donations anywhere in the world and protect tens of millions of people from rampant inflation in most of the developing world.
Bitcoin never tried to be law, that's eth and other similar centralized scam blockchains. Being as it's "only" 12 year old money, Bitcoin does evolve and adjust as its users govern it via running their own nodes. Until 2017, major companies (miners/payment processors) tried to fit all kinds of narratives on it (as you mention) but it became clear that they COULD not make bitcoin what they wanted it to do.
Meanwhile users did a soft fork with segwit and kept the blockchain as small as possible while allowing Lightning to be developed on it. This means the decentralized network wanted to keep being sound money, keep being censorship resistant, decentralized and still be scalable.
Lightning Network is a very solid success, used amongst early adopters, major exchanges joining (Bitfinex, Kraken, OKCoin), multiple VISA backed startups building rewards programs and remittance applications on it.
Unlike a typical tech startup Bitcoin does not need to trick everyone to use it and get as many investors as soon as possible and figure out something later. It is what it is. It does not force anyone to join it or spend a single thought on it unless they choose to. It's completely voluntary.
While I understand the skepticism (which just comes across as "salty" as they say) one should consider a simple web search to see how Bitcoin adds value to financially underserved people, allows politically censored organizations to take donations anywhere in the world and protect tens of millions of people from rampant inflation in most of the developing world.
> Calling out the BTC network on its energetic inefficiency completely misses the point that the work put into the network is exactly the scarce digital asset, and hence the store of value.
Why would that matter? The problem is the huge amount of greenhouse gases getting released because of this store of value. Whether it makes some economic sense or not is irrelevant to the discussion of whether it should be allowed to continue on environmental grounds.
Why would that matter? The problem is the huge amount of greenhouse gases getting released because of this store of value. Whether it makes some economic sense or not is irrelevant to the discussion of whether it should be allowed to continue on environmental grounds.
2 things are about to happen in the bitcoin space. The size of transistor in the bitcoin miners is hitting a wall. The bitcoin market will either drive alternative energy efficiency in the chase of profits, or it will drive new technologies to lower the node size. Both will be a benefit to mankind.
Or, much more likely, they will stagnate on those technologies and instead will drive the price of electricity up, hurting mankind greatly. Transistor density and energy efficiency are not niche problems that no one cared enough about to throw money on before bitcoin came along, they are some of the hottest areas of research from some of the largest companies in the world, from Apple itself to Amazon, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Huawei and many others.
PoW is voracious. There is no limit to how much energy that the bitcoin network will consume. As you add more computation to the network, the computation requirement to create new blocks grows.
You could invent a dramatically more efficient way to calculate hashes - after a short period of readjustment, the network would go back to consuming just as much power as it does now.
You could find a way of generating power more cheaply. The network will then use much more of it.
Energy requirements continue to grow until an equilibrium is reached. That equilibrium occurs when the energy cost to mine new blocks is commensurate with the value received from doing so.
However, miners who can externalise their energy costs will generally outcompete miners who cannot. Incentives to damage the environment and avoid taking resposnibility are built into the system.
You could invent a dramatically more efficient way to calculate hashes - after a short period of readjustment, the network would go back to consuming just as much power as it does now.
You could find a way of generating power more cheaply. The network will then use much more of it.
Energy requirements continue to grow until an equilibrium is reached. That equilibrium occurs when the energy cost to mine new blocks is commensurate with the value received from doing so.
However, miners who can externalise their energy costs will generally outcompete miners who cannot. Incentives to damage the environment and avoid taking resposnibility are built into the system.
>The problem is the huge amount of greenhouse gases getting
Really, you mean the huge amount of greenhouse gases we release here in Iceland where our energy is entirely from renewable sources and we mine 11% of the bitcoin network?
Really, you mean the huge amount of greenhouse gases we release here in Iceland where our energy is entirely from renewable sources and we mine 11% of the bitcoin network?
Why not sell that energy to other countries then, or put it to use to produce goods and services that people need? Maybe move a data center from a more polluting country to Iceland?
There are many things that people actually need which could be done with that energy, but that would probably bring less money than burning it away on Bitcoin.
And make no mistake, these things are still being done, just soemwhere else in the world with more polluting energy. The energy supply of the world is limited, so mobile use cases will often move around.
There are many things that people actually need which could be done with that energy, but that would probably bring less money than burning it away on Bitcoin.
And make no mistake, these things are still being done, just soemwhere else in the world with more polluting energy. The energy supply of the world is limited, so mobile use cases will often move around.
looked at a map lately?
It could be an opportunity to invest in new mechanisms of power distribution, and be on the forefront of research in this area. It could also find more productive uses of this electricity, such as supercomputing clusters or lasers used for research.
We are located too far from major client population centers for any Data hosting to make sense, you'd always deal with higher latency to either the US or European users vs hosting in those places. Few submarine cable connections (which cost hundreds of millions to run) mean high data costs versus well connected cities such as Hamburg or London or NYC.
You do realize that transmitting power via cable means moving it through large bodies of salt water (the ocean) that contribute to huge losses in EMF resistance. Not to mention a power cable from Iceland to anywhere else in the world would be 2x as long as the longest power transmission ever created.
It's more scary for me to realize you actually have no productive ideas for a country that mines BTC from renewables but STILL think you're insights are correct.
Did you know what we do with the electricity here before mining was popular?
Alcoa Aluminum smelting, Ever check out the environmental impact on smelting?
You do realize that transmitting power via cable means moving it through large bodies of salt water (the ocean) that contribute to huge losses in EMF resistance. Not to mention a power cable from Iceland to anywhere else in the world would be 2x as long as the longest power transmission ever created.
It's more scary for me to realize you actually have no productive ideas for a country that mines BTC from renewables but STILL think you're insights are correct.
Did you know what we do with the electricity here before mining was popular?
Alcoa Aluminum smelting, Ever check out the environmental impact on smelting?
There's also the option of just not generating the energy. I doubt the smelters were closed to make room for bitcoin miners. Reading more about this, it seems that environmental groups in Iceland are fighting the expansion of bitcoin because it is directly driving extra demand for electricity, not simply using the existing production[0] - another obvious problem if we start looking at the environment even beyond global warming. Bitcoin mining is not replacing the Aluminum smelters, it is competing with them for electricity[1], while currently not paying much of anything to the local government[2] and hiring next to no people, like most tech industries.
I'll add that I specifically mentioned scientific data centers, supercomputers, which would be much less affected by lag than an AWS region. For the power transfer issue, I specifically said that attacking the problem would mean being at the forefront of research on the matter.
And it is not my place to have productive ideas for how a country could use its natural resources. My claim was that bitcoin mining should be stopped as soon as possible, as it is driving an overall increase in power needs for the entire world, at a time we should be looking for every possible means to reduce our energy consumption. You came and brought up the extremely singular case of Iceland, as if it disproved anything. It's not like Iceland's economy is dependent on bitcoin, it's an extremely new industry that is not making a huge dent, while consuming more energy than the whole country's housing. In the end Iceland is irrelevant in the discussion of Bitcoin's impact on the world.
[0] https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2019/4/15/iceland-is-a-bi...
[1] https://grist.org/article/bitcoin-gobbles-up-clean-energy-ju...
[2] https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/02/14/iceland-bitcoin-ene...
I'll add that I specifically mentioned scientific data centers, supercomputers, which would be much less affected by lag than an AWS region. For the power transfer issue, I specifically said that attacking the problem would mean being at the forefront of research on the matter.
And it is not my place to have productive ideas for how a country could use its natural resources. My claim was that bitcoin mining should be stopped as soon as possible, as it is driving an overall increase in power needs for the entire world, at a time we should be looking for every possible means to reduce our energy consumption. You came and brought up the extremely singular case of Iceland, as if it disproved anything. It's not like Iceland's economy is dependent on bitcoin, it's an extremely new industry that is not making a huge dent, while consuming more energy than the whole country's housing. In the end Iceland is irrelevant in the discussion of Bitcoin's impact on the world.
[0] https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2019/4/15/iceland-is-a-bi...
[1] https://grist.org/article/bitcoin-gobbles-up-clean-energy-ju...
[2] https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/02/14/iceland-bitcoin-ene...
> it seems that environmental groups in Iceland are fighting the expansion of bitcoin because it is directly driving extra demand for electricity, not simply using the existing production
As someone who lives and works here I can assure you there is absolutely no environmental group fighting the expasion of btc mining here in Iceland, we are however viciously fighting the increasingly destruction tourism influx that has been happening since 2012. It does far more damage that the dams that were built here well before btc mining even existed.
>while currently not paying much of anything to the local government[2] and hiring next to no people, like most tech industries.
This is also untrue, construction and remote hands as well as grid infrastructures resulted from them, the companies that run the facilities also incorporate here and pay corp and employee tax here.
>And it is not my place to have productive ideas for how a country could use its natural resources. My claim was that bitcoin mining should be stopped as soon as possible, as it is driving an overall increase in power needs for the entire world, at a time we should be looking for every possible means to reduce our energy consumption.
If you followed your own citations you'd see one of them linked to https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption which shows est electric consumption going back as far as 2018. Notice the graph has not really changed since 2018 (since the last halving).
>You came and brought up the extremely singular case of Iceland, as if it disproved anything. In the end Iceland is irrelevant in the discussion of Bitcoin's impact on the world.
Again your OWN source has Iceland listed as one of the top mining locations in the world of course it's relevant. I've even read estimates that 40% of bitcoin mining is coming from renewable sources, most during off peak season where that electricity would be wasted otherwise.
You want to solve the energy efficiency problems of the world? Good, begin by linking the disparate energy grids amongst the world to eliminate peak usage and off peak waste, you'll save far more electricity just by that way.
Not by knee-jerk "I see no value in this so it must have no value" vague emotional appeals on the internet. All I see is you vaguely groping for why it should be treated differently than any other form of industry or innovation while insisting all the rest are somehow necessary and this not. You're not even consistent in your reasons from reply to reply.
As someone who lives and works here I can assure you there is absolutely no environmental group fighting the expasion of btc mining here in Iceland, we are however viciously fighting the increasingly destruction tourism influx that has been happening since 2012. It does far more damage that the dams that were built here well before btc mining even existed.
>while currently not paying much of anything to the local government[2] and hiring next to no people, like most tech industries.
This is also untrue, construction and remote hands as well as grid infrastructures resulted from them, the companies that run the facilities also incorporate here and pay corp and employee tax here.
>And it is not my place to have productive ideas for how a country could use its natural resources. My claim was that bitcoin mining should be stopped as soon as possible, as it is driving an overall increase in power needs for the entire world, at a time we should be looking for every possible means to reduce our energy consumption.
If you followed your own citations you'd see one of them linked to https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption which shows est electric consumption going back as far as 2018. Notice the graph has not really changed since 2018 (since the last halving).
>You came and brought up the extremely singular case of Iceland, as if it disproved anything. In the end Iceland is irrelevant in the discussion of Bitcoin's impact on the world.
Again your OWN source has Iceland listed as one of the top mining locations in the world of course it's relevant. I've even read estimates that 40% of bitcoin mining is coming from renewable sources, most during off peak season where that electricity would be wasted otherwise.
You want to solve the energy efficiency problems of the world? Good, begin by linking the disparate energy grids amongst the world to eliminate peak usage and off peak waste, you'll save far more electricity just by that way.
Not by knee-jerk "I see no value in this so it must have no value" vague emotional appeals on the internet. All I see is you vaguely groping for why it should be treated differently than any other form of industry or innovation while insisting all the rest are somehow necessary and this not. You're not even consistent in your reasons from reply to reply.
You're so angry about the greenhouse gases that you're completely missing the logic behind an energy currency. You complain that the energy and dollars are spent speculating because you're flat out ignoring that miners are re-investing their profits to become more efficient and productive. Bitcoin mining is a rat race to develop efficiency in technology and energy deliverance.
Oil companies capturing the wasted natural gas, Hydro dams capturing the wasted water energy, etc. Bitcoin is a battery or energy credit where areas with abundant energy can benefit from their standing in the world and benefit the people of the region. Bitcoin has its ebbs and flows but eventually balances to where your typical american household cannot afford to mine bitcoin and profit.
Oil companies capturing the wasted natural gas, Hydro dams capturing the wasted water energy, etc. Bitcoin is a battery or energy credit where areas with abundant energy can benefit from their standing in the world and benefit the people of the region. Bitcoin has its ebbs and flows but eventually balances to where your typical american household cannot afford to mine bitcoin and profit.
> Bitcoin mining is a rat race to develop efficiency in technology and energy deliverance.
The cloud computing companies and EV companies and every other company that spends large amounts of its budget on buying electricity is doing the same thing. The difference is that (at least some of) cloud computing or driving is doing useful work with the energy being consumed, whereas 100% of energy going into bitcoin mining is simply getting converted to bitcoin, a speculative asset, and heat.
And the greenhouse gases are the largest problem the civilized world has ever faced, they are not some small aside. We need to figure out ways to produce less energy while still powering the important parts of our economy (transport, production of goods, research etc). Bitcoin is doing the opposite - it is creating a need for more energy production to create and exchange money, when we already have much more efficient ways of creating and exchanging money (the whole banking infrastructure of the world consumes less electrical energy than bitcoin, while doing orders of magnitude more transactions per second than bitcoin can hande in a year).
The cloud computing companies and EV companies and every other company that spends large amounts of its budget on buying electricity is doing the same thing. The difference is that (at least some of) cloud computing or driving is doing useful work with the energy being consumed, whereas 100% of energy going into bitcoin mining is simply getting converted to bitcoin, a speculative asset, and heat.
And the greenhouse gases are the largest problem the civilized world has ever faced, they are not some small aside. We need to figure out ways to produce less energy while still powering the important parts of our economy (transport, production of goods, research etc). Bitcoin is doing the opposite - it is creating a need for more energy production to create and exchange money, when we already have much more efficient ways of creating and exchanging money (the whole banking infrastructure of the world consumes less electrical energy than bitcoin, while doing orders of magnitude more transactions per second than bitcoin can hande in a year).
>doing useful work with the energy
yea is video games useful work?
youtube videos perhaps?
twitter?
It's nice that you have a sliding scale of what utility is that only you can define, you seem completely trustworthy.
yea is video games useful work?
youtube videos perhaps?
twitter?
It's nice that you have a sliding scale of what utility is that only you can define, you seem completely trustworthy.
Art and entertainment are useful work, yes, obviously.
But it is true and I pointed that out that there is a lot of waste going on in the cloud as well.
But it is true and I pointed that out that there is a lot of waste going on in the cloud as well.
>Art and entertainment are useful work, yes, obviously.
why?
why?
Because they bring enjoyment to people, and all that truly matters is the happiness of people.
Money is only useful in so far as it can buy the things that people need, but making those things still requires energy in addition to money. Burning energy to make money when you can literary just will money into existence is completely absurd.
Money is only useful in so far as it can buy the things that people need, but making those things still requires energy in addition to money. Burning energy to make money when you can literary just will money into existence is completely absurd.
what fucking moron you are.
HN is no place for this kind of comments. Either be civilized or go away. You're polluting this forum.
please provide a better worded response to such an inane generality then.
> Because they bring enjoyment to people, and all that truly matters is the happiness of people.
my response was actually the politest way I knew how to respond to someone pulling argument after argument out of their backside without any introspection whatsoever.
I honestly think they're just trolling at this point.
> Because they bring enjoyment to people, and all that truly matters is the happiness of people.
my response was actually the politest way I knew how to respond to someone pulling argument after argument out of their backside without any introspection whatsoever.
I honestly think they're just trolling at this point.
A better response would have been to come up with a different definition of what you understand by useful work. A better response would have been to turn my own definition around by saying that bitcoin also brings people happiness. A better response would have been to say nothing and down vote.
Calling me a fucking moron without anything at all to add, after I took the time to reply to your 1 word comment (or to someone else's comment? I'm not clear if you're mr_woozy as well or not; I'm not leto_ii) then I have nothing else to add.
Oh, and accusing me of spewing inane generalities when the real value of art and entertainment has been called into question and vindicated throughout all of economic theory is quite rich.
Calling me a fucking moron without anything at all to add, after I took the time to reply to your 1 word comment (or to someone else's comment? I'm not clear if you're mr_woozy as well or not; I'm not leto_ii) then I have nothing else to add.
Oh, and accusing me of spewing inane generalities when the real value of art and entertainment has been called into question and vindicated throughout all of economic theory is quite rich.
The US just printed in one month the entire amount of dollars in existence prior to 2013.
Should Bitcoin allow USD to continue? We will see.
Should Bitcoin allow USD to continue? We will see.
That you don't care to understand how and why the global monetary system works is not an excuse to start believing in "digital gold". There are good reasons why bad ideas, such as limited supplies of currency, have been abandoned.
The huge problems of the monetary system lie more in the direction of Bitcoin (the unbridled speculation of Wall Street) than fractional reserve banking and fiat money.
The huge problems of the monetary system lie more in the direction of Bitcoin (the unbridled speculation of Wall Street) than fractional reserve banking and fiat money.
What are the most important properties/goals of Bitcoin, in your view? I am genuinely interested in your view.
The attitude on this forum towards Bitcoin literally boggles my mind, at most maybe 5% truly understand it.
The attitude on this forum towards Bitcoin literally boggles my mind, at most maybe 5% truly understand it.
Fixed supply, algorithmic cryptographic validation of transactions, psuedonimity, no centralized control by a human-like entity.
Each of these turns out to be a net-negative in my view:
- fixed supply means that people are incentivized to hold bitcoin instead of spending/investing
- algorithmic transactions mean that there is no way to reverse a mistaken transaction or a fraud; it also means that losing the key to your wallet is irreversible destruction of the money contained in that wallet
- pseudonimity means that it is very hard to track money laundering and other illegal financial schemes
- lack of centralized control enforces all of the others and makes it impossible to prop up the currency based on the current needs of the economy
I also understand the distrust of fractional-reserve banking and most complicated financial manipulations, and I wouldn't deny in any way that these have been misused very often at the benefit of the rich and powerful. But, at least with the current system, citizens have some amount of democratic control over their financial system, which they wouldn't in a pure Bitcoin world.
Each of these turns out to be a net-negative in my view:
- fixed supply means that people are incentivized to hold bitcoin instead of spending/investing
- algorithmic transactions mean that there is no way to reverse a mistaken transaction or a fraud; it also means that losing the key to your wallet is irreversible destruction of the money contained in that wallet
- pseudonimity means that it is very hard to track money laundering and other illegal financial schemes
- lack of centralized control enforces all of the others and makes it impossible to prop up the currency based on the current needs of the economy
I also understand the distrust of fractional-reserve banking and most complicated financial manipulations, and I wouldn't deny in any way that these have been misused very often at the benefit of the rich and powerful. But, at least with the current system, citizens have some amount of democratic control over their financial system, which they wouldn't in a pure Bitcoin world.
Which is why Bitcoin isn't really considered a currency anymore. It's purely a digital asset, something like gold, a store of value and reserve currency used by large institutions. Once Visa/Bakkt/Paypal get on the custody train bitcoin transactions will be reversible, as they will transact paper bitcoin and settle several times a day, etc. I don't expect to actually spend my bitcoin just like I don't expect to spend my gold and silver, but when I'm ready to I know I won't have to pay a broker 10% fees.
"Calling out the BTC network on its energetic inefficiency completely misses the point that the work put into the network is exactly the scarce digital asset, and hence the store of value."
That's no excuse for the obscene waste of resources.
That's no excuse for the obscene waste of resources.
It's much cheaper than maintenance of a nuclear arsenal to enforce the USD reserve status around the globe.
What's the CO2 footprint of standing armies around the world? Have you tried cancelling that?
What's the CO2 footprint of standing armies around the world? Have you tried cancelling that?
So I just looked this up the 2017 footprint of the US army which I think accounts for more than half the worldwide military budget around the world was ~60 M tonnes. The numbers for bitcoin vary between 20 M and 60M per year (and are increasing). So both bitcoin and the US military are on the same order of magnitude.
Now regarding you imply that we should worry more about the emissions from armies than bitcoin, why is that an either or question? Yes we should worry about both wastes, but they are on the same order of magnitude. Moreover there is no evidence that bitcoin does reduce military spending or emissions, so again not making this an either or question.
Now regarding you imply that we should worry more about the emissions from armies than bitcoin, why is that an either or question? Yes we should worry about both wastes, but they are on the same order of magnitude. Moreover there is no evidence that bitcoin does reduce military spending or emissions, so again not making this an either or question.
It would be great to get rid of the armies of the world, but that's neither here nor there. Armies and military spending wouldn't go away if people dealt in Bitcoin.
Oh, the purpose of the US army and nuclear arsenal is not to "enforce the USD reserve status", it is to advance America's imperial goals, which vary a lot. The status of the US dollar is a second-order consequence of America's power.
Oh, the purpose of the US army and nuclear arsenal is not to "enforce the USD reserve status", it is to advance America's imperial goals, which vary a lot. The status of the US dollar is a second-order consequence of America's power.
As someone who made most of his wealth from BTC (really early proponent), I strongly believe there is no value to Bitcoin apart from the value people ascribe to it. There is no value in mining it and spending energy, just as there is no value in mining coal in a 100% green economy. If I put "work" to go into the bowels of the earth, only to mine a clump of dirt, does that make it valuable in spite of the amount of extraordinary effort it took?
If BTC were somehow linked to and used to solve some of the world's most pressing problems such as modelling protein folding or some equally significant problem, then that would make it partly energy efficient. I don't know of any such crypto, and I think I've heard of only one such crypto that's somewhat like that. And as recent evidence goes, no crypto gives you respite from the law - on the contrary, it will bind you in constant avoidance of the law.
If BTC were somehow linked to and used to solve some of the world's most pressing problems such as modelling protein folding or some equally significant problem, then that would make it partly energy efficient. I don't know of any such crypto, and I think I've heard of only one such crypto that's somewhat like that. And as recent evidence goes, no crypto gives you respite from the law - on the contrary, it will bind you in constant avoidance of the law.
> And as recent evidence goes, no crypto gives you respite from the law - on the contrary, it will bind you in constant avoidance of the law.
Even Monero?
Even Monero?
I suspect Monero is too privacy oriented to become a mainstream investment product like BTC. Tbh, I believe that, although it doesn't hurt you to hold it, any crypto currency only has actual fiat equivalence in a darknet market (elsewhere there is a nice substitute called cash/credit), which is the sole market that demands privacy by nature. All other markets solely use BTC as an investment class and explicitly require that you forgo your privacy in some form or the other. Monero's focus on the former might make it bitter-tasting for the regulators of the latter.
The scarcity has nothing to do with the complexity in proof of work. The complexity made it costly to attack it. The scarcity comes with the idea of the number of bitcoins will be available is a hard limit.
There's a second order effect IMO: people put specialized resources into mining it. Thus people have a sunk cost. In general, people also have a sunk cost fallacy which means that the sunk cost will stay into the object/subject it was sunk in.
Due to the sunk cost fallacy, Bitcoin has more value. I know this means I'm relying on the irrationality of humans, but why wouldn't I? It's more predictive than assuming humans will be rational with regards to this subject.
Due to the sunk cost fallacy, Bitcoin has more value. I know this means I'm relying on the irrationality of humans, but why wouldn't I? It's more predictive than assuming humans will be rational with regards to this subject.
> the work put into the network is exactly the scarce digital asset
Not even a little. The scarce digital asset is the slot on the distributed ledger. That you currently need a load of energy to reassign digital ledger slots is an accident of history - because it was the first way that anyone worked out how to run a secure distributed database across mutually distrusting nodes where you don't need to know the participants in advance.
The work is not the scarce asset. If you doubt this, consider: the 'work' required to mine a block (and so 'create' the block reward) changes based on how much hash power the network has, and varies quite substantially between the early blocks and now, yet the bitcoins mined then are worth the same as bitcoins mined now. If lots of miners stop mining BTC, then the amount of work required to mine the next blocks will reduce, yet the bitcoins created with the lower work requirement will be worth exactly the same as bitcoins created with higher work requirements.
Obviously, in a PoW blockchain, the work is extremely important, since a PoW blockchain can't remain secure without significantly more work being done by the network than an adversary can marshal to attack the network, but that's an entirely separate thing.
You can take a valuable painting, burn it down to ash and use the ash to make ink to do a stick figure drawing. The stick figure drawing doesn't magically become 'a store of value' because you destroyed a valuable painting to make it.
Not even a little. The scarce digital asset is the slot on the distributed ledger. That you currently need a load of energy to reassign digital ledger slots is an accident of history - because it was the first way that anyone worked out how to run a secure distributed database across mutually distrusting nodes where you don't need to know the participants in advance.
The work is not the scarce asset. If you doubt this, consider: the 'work' required to mine a block (and so 'create' the block reward) changes based on how much hash power the network has, and varies quite substantially between the early blocks and now, yet the bitcoins mined then are worth the same as bitcoins mined now. If lots of miners stop mining BTC, then the amount of work required to mine the next blocks will reduce, yet the bitcoins created with the lower work requirement will be worth exactly the same as bitcoins created with higher work requirements.
Obviously, in a PoW blockchain, the work is extremely important, since a PoW blockchain can't remain secure without significantly more work being done by the network than an adversary can marshal to attack the network, but that's an entirely separate thing.
You can take a valuable painting, burn it down to ash and use the ash to make ink to do a stick figure drawing. The stick figure drawing doesn't magically become 'a store of value' because you destroyed a valuable painting to make it.
> the work put into the network is exactly the scarce asset that is being invested in.
No! No it isn't! Gah! I'm sorry but it is so frustrating to hear this nonsense repeated over and over. Bitcoin is not valuable just because you wasted shedloads of energy to make a bitcoin! It's valuable because somebody else will exchange something of value for it.
It's incredibly maddening how so many crypto-libertarians suddenly turn into believers in some Marxist "labor theory of value"[0] when you press them on bitcoin's incredibly wasteful Red Queen's race[1] of ever-escalating wasted energy.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race
No! No it isn't! Gah! I'm sorry but it is so frustrating to hear this nonsense repeated over and over. Bitcoin is not valuable just because you wasted shedloads of energy to make a bitcoin! It's valuable because somebody else will exchange something of value for it.
It's incredibly maddening how so many crypto-libertarians suddenly turn into believers in some Marxist "labor theory of value"[0] when you press them on bitcoin's incredibly wasteful Red Queen's race[1] of ever-escalating wasted energy.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race
But why are people willing to exchange something of value for it? Because they can trust in it serving as a secure way to transfer tokens of ownership. And that is only possible thanks to the PoW computations, which have to be expensive enough that attacking the system would be more costly than the value you could extract through an attack.
So, in a sense its value indeed derives directly from the work put into the system. Which is not to say there aren't alternatives (I'm really curious how Proof of Stake will change the Crypto landscape), but at least for BTC, that's how it is currently.
So, in a sense its value indeed derives directly from the work put into the system. Which is not to say there aren't alternatives (I'm really curious how Proof of Stake will change the Crypto landscape), but at least for BTC, that's how it is currently.
People also invested in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, and that one didn't cost as much energy as the Czech Republic. Even more interestingly, it seems likely that some people were investing in Bernie's scheme while knowning that it is fraud - they trusted that others trust it, not that it's secure.
Point being, trust and trust-worthiness are two separate things. Most people investing in Bitcoin have not in any way confirmed for themselves that the algorithm is trust-worthy, they just trust that others are also willing to buy it so that they won't be left defrauded. Hell, people have been defrauded by the likes of Mt Gox, and the network didn't collapse entirely.
Point being, trust and trust-worthiness are two separate things. Most people investing in Bitcoin have not in any way confirmed for themselves that the algorithm is trust-worthy, they just trust that others are also willing to buy it so that they won't be left defrauded. Hell, people have been defrauded by the likes of Mt Gox, and the network didn't collapse entirely.
True, when you break it down, people will ultimately invest in anything they "trust" (well, hope) to rise in value, no matter how trustworthy they inherently are. So you will indeed have a lot of people that invest in BTC simply because they see others doing the same, since that means they might be able to make a profit.
But there's also the people that invest long-term because they think crypto currencies have a lot of potential to be adopted more widely in the future, which entirely depends on their trustworthiness. Without that second group, any sufficiently negative news would cause the BTC price to collapse completely -- and to be fair, there's always the risk of that happening (Tether sends its regards), but the underlying "trust in the benefits of the system itself" at least gives a floor for its price that's above $0.
But there's also the people that invest long-term because they think crypto currencies have a lot of potential to be adopted more widely in the future, which entirely depends on their trustworthiness. Without that second group, any sufficiently negative news would cause the BTC price to collapse completely -- and to be fair, there's always the risk of that happening (Tether sends its regards), but the underlying "trust in the benefits of the system itself" at least gives a floor for its price that's above $0.
Doesn't sound like it's worth torching the only inhabitable planet for.
I see PoW more as a stepping stone to bootstrap a crypto currency, and I think it might just go away over time.
Ethereum has done it this way: First you build a stable blockchain, secured through tremendous amounts of power. Then, once your system has been widely adopted and people have "skin in the game", you switch to Proof of Stake to minimize power consumption while still maintaining security.
PoS is the better solution, environmentally speaking, but it necessarily depends on there already being value in the system that people can be held accountable with and thus kept honest. But to reach that state, people have to trust your system first, and if you're not an already trusted entity, PoW is one way of achieving that initial phase of trust building.
Ethereum has done it this way: First you build a stable blockchain, secured through tremendous amounts of power. Then, once your system has been widely adopted and people have "skin in the game", you switch to Proof of Stake to minimize power consumption while still maintaining security.
PoS is the better solution, environmentally speaking, but it necessarily depends on there already being value in the system that people can be held accountable with and thus kept honest. But to reach that state, people have to trust your system first, and if you're not an already trusted entity, PoW is one way of achieving that initial phase of trust building.
It also happens to be a huge incentive for clean nuclear power.
I'm sure you don't want that though, because solar+batteries will power interplanetary civilizations somehow.
I'm sure you don't want that though, because solar+batteries will power interplanetary civilizations somehow.
It's a huge incentive for more power, not for any particular kind of energy. In fact, the value of BTC is actually putting a floor on how efficient it is to close down a fossil-fuel plant.
The value lies not in the energy but in its utility to facilitate transfers without the expressed permission of some authority.
The energy isnt wasted though, the safety of the trustless transaction is proportional to the expended energy. While not the source of value, it is a necessity, not a waste.
The energy isnt wasted though, the safety of the trustless transaction is proportional to the expended energy. While not the source of value, it is a necessity, not a waste.
The energy is a pure waste. The "difficulty" of bitcoin blocks is continually increasing but the utility of being able to transact in bitcoin is not greater today than it was in 2015 (arguably less, since fewer merchants will sell goods in bitcoin)
Some authority could just demand your bitcoin on some gimmicky pretext (USA) or draft laws largely stymying its use (China). Also I've yet to find a reason to transfer $30k in one go for any reason - I've yet to fall victim to some kidnapper or blackmailer who wants cash by the evening without raising any alarms on my part.
> The energy isnt wasted though, the safety of the trustless transaction is proportional to the expended energy. While not the source of value, it is a necessity, not a waste.
This would be somewhat true if Bitcoin were the only mechanism for trustless transactions, but there are others that consume far less energy, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala.
This would be somewhat true if Bitcoin were the only mechanism for trustless transactions, but there are others that consume far less energy, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala.
In what way is Hawala trustless?
Oops, you're absolutely right, I was thinking of distributed payments and somehow confused that in my head with being trustless...
how could you possibly call Hawala trustless if you understand it?
Oops, you're absolutely right, I was thinking of distributed payments and somehow confused that in my head with being trustless...
I disagree, sunk cost fallacy and just plain miners needing to ROI their equipment, facilities, and energy costs sets a base psychological minimum price that is rising every year as the hash rises. Now that we've hit a wall at the 5nm process it's anyone's guess what kind of effect that will have on new entrants. I imagine China will take an even larger slice of the pie as energy costs will be the main deciding factor of profitability.
The reason Proof of work is set apart from its POS clones is because the inflation/emission brought to market every day has real costs to obtain... Fiat being printed cost 1% of its nominal value to create, which is devaluing every single dollar already in existence, POW psychologically adds more value to existing coins, because each new coin cost even more to mine than the one before it.
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> It's incredibly maddening how so many crypto-libertarians suddenly turn into believers in some Marxist "labor theory of value"[0] when you press them on bitcoin's incredibly wasteful Red Queen's race[1] of ever-escalating wasted energy.
What's also maddening is how subjective the term 'value' has on it's intended usecase that some can be so completely oblviius to make coax it into a specific farmework: cocoa beans and shells were also equally valuable to it's respective communities, but your forcing of modernity to this matter is equally marred by illogical and quite frankly lazy conclusions.
Bitcoin (lower case b, as in the token) does require a great deal of hashing power, but this model, proof of work, is what is required to ensure Bitcoin's immutability (the network capital B). And that is the cost of such a system which, if you aren't aware, is mainly operating on renewable energy [0].
That is just the cost of entry if you want to incentivize keep everyone honest and play by the rules, the fiat World is littered with countless stories of failed currencies and failed societies and cultures because man's inherit nature: greed and corruption.
0: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/study-74-percent-of-bit...
What's also maddening is how subjective the term 'value' has on it's intended usecase that some can be so completely oblviius to make coax it into a specific farmework: cocoa beans and shells were also equally valuable to it's respective communities, but your forcing of modernity to this matter is equally marred by illogical and quite frankly lazy conclusions.
Bitcoin (lower case b, as in the token) does require a great deal of hashing power, but this model, proof of work, is what is required to ensure Bitcoin's immutability (the network capital B). And that is the cost of such a system which, if you aren't aware, is mainly operating on renewable energy [0].
That is just the cost of entry if you want to incentivize keep everyone honest and play by the rules, the fiat World is littered with countless stories of failed currencies and failed societies and cultures because man's inherit nature: greed and corruption.
0: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/study-74-percent-of-bit...
It's valuable because of unforgeable costliness.
And to make it difficult to forge transactions it asks you provably(!) burn some electricity.
And to make it difficult to forge transactions it asks you provably(!) burn some electricity.
No, it's valuable because people trust that others will buy it. That trust is somewhat motivated by Satoshi's protocol, but it is much more motivated by simply seeing that others trust it.
Scarcity is the important thing here. Making Bitcoin hard to compute increases their scarcity.
The amount of work that was put in, does not directly drive the price.
The point of "Marxist" labor theory, is that you shouldn't pay workers less, than the value of what they produce. I don't think Bitcoin miners ever made that claim, unionized and found their class consciousness to get paid the real value...
The point of "Marxist" labor theory, is that you shouldn't pay workers less, than the value of what they produce. I don't think Bitcoin miners ever made that claim, unionized and found their class consciousness to get paid the real value...
[ x ] Make provocative statements about the uselessness and wastefulness of Thing A without real evidence. But make sure to at least link to some source that provides the illusion of evidence.
[ x ] Recommend Thing B that claims to solve the problems of Thing A. But you probably forgot to mention that you have a financial interest in Thing B succeeding.
[ x ] Finish with unclear call-to-action that requires others to take insane financial risks to support your made up "movement" (e.g shorting Bitcoin - great way to lose infinite money).
[ x ] Recommend Thing B that claims to solve the problems of Thing A. But you probably forgot to mention that you have a financial interest in Thing B succeeding.
[ x ] Finish with unclear call-to-action that requires others to take insane financial risks to support your made up "movement" (e.g shorting Bitcoin - great way to lose infinite money).
I supported bitcoin when it first came out because I support the idea of decentralised, trustless money. Far too much money is redirected into the hands of financial workers who are not adding any value to the economy. Finance is good and necessary, but the way it currently works is not.
But bitcoin simply does not work as money. There is really no doubt about this. Even the biggest proponents of bitcoin right now call it a "digital gold". But we don't need a digital gold. We have gold and gold has none of the same problems as money and is a far more stable storage of wealth. Today bitcoin proponents don't understand what Satoshi was trying to do. So I'm in agreement that this is all just a monstrous waste of resources at this point.
But bitcoin simply does not work as money. There is really no doubt about this. Even the biggest proponents of bitcoin right now call it a "digital gold". But we don't need a digital gold. We have gold and gold has none of the same problems as money and is a far more stable storage of wealth. Today bitcoin proponents don't understand what Satoshi was trying to do. So I'm in agreement that this is all just a monstrous waste of resources at this point.
We do need digital gold to be able to have market of cryptocurrencies that are actually in use and not just being speculated on with fiat. Sidechains enable that.
The whole waste argument is ridiculous on so many levels. I imagine these people shouting at people houses - turn off that AC! You are wasting energy for which you have paid! We could have made so many aluminum cans with that!
And if you say that sure, let's have digital gold, but not Bitcoin, let's use Foo. Then without sidechains all value in Bitcoin gets destroyed. And I assure that there will be Bar that's going to be pareto optimal to Foo. It just doesn't work. To have a currency, it needs to represent some value. If it's not coming from a government, then people must trust the value will stay there (there's almost always a lot of trust involved in our value assignments).
Bitcoin is sooo far from perfect. But you can't have crypto future without it if you think long enough about it. Also on the long run, with everything being connected to the Internet and silicon being cheap, I think many heating elements will also be doing some computation. The fact that they are not - that is a waste.
The whole waste argument is ridiculous on so many levels. I imagine these people shouting at people houses - turn off that AC! You are wasting energy for which you have paid! We could have made so many aluminum cans with that!
And if you say that sure, let's have digital gold, but not Bitcoin, let's use Foo. Then without sidechains all value in Bitcoin gets destroyed. And I assure that there will be Bar that's going to be pareto optimal to Foo. It just doesn't work. To have a currency, it needs to represent some value. If it's not coming from a government, then people must trust the value will stay there (there's almost always a lot of trust involved in our value assignments).
Bitcoin is sooo far from perfect. But you can't have crypto future without it if you think long enough about it. Also on the long run, with everything being connected to the Internet and silicon being cheap, I think many heating elements will also be doing some computation. The fact that they are not - that is a waste.
I get what you're saying. Energy price is set by the market so it's irrelevant what it gets used for. But the free market will happily destroy the environment. This is what you learn on day 2 of economics, which is after the majority of the population left the class, it seems. We account for externalities using governments which are able to "correct" the free markets using various strategies like taxation and regulation. Energy is not taxed anywhere near as highly as it should be because it's not taxed according to use. If it were taxed naïvely you'd find many people couldn't afford to boil water because others drove up the price with less essential usage, so that's just not possible. Bitcoin is taking advantage of this. If it were possible to tax energy according to use (and therefore taking into account the external costs), then I'd agree completely with your argument.
> I think many heating elements will also be doing some computation. The fact that they are not - that is a waste.
This is very interesting. But something doesn't seem quite right to me if everyone was passively mining Bitcoin by heating their home. This requires more thought.
The trouble with thinking about any of this too much, though, is it's all completely absurd in the end. All of this: money, gold, other elements we dig out of the ground just to store in vaults somewhere. Buying commodities we never intend to own, much less use. It's layers upon layers of absurdity just to make sure our neighbour doesn't get a larger slice of the pie than we do. Adults tell children to stop arguing and share their toys. This is surely the greatest source of hypocrisy there is.
The only way out of madness, I think, is just to accept that for whatever reason our current systems work somehow. We aren't cold or hungry. In fact, we have access to hundreds of times more than we really need. The only thing that really needs fixing is sustainability. That's the only thing! What we currently have isn't fair; some people do get bigger slices of the pie. But we all get enough. So just quit your whining, enjoy your pie, and work on sustainability. If we can make this whole thing sustainable, then you can start trying to hyper-optimise your pie allocation, but before that time you're just decorating a sinking ship.
> I think many heating elements will also be doing some computation. The fact that they are not - that is a waste.
This is very interesting. But something doesn't seem quite right to me if everyone was passively mining Bitcoin by heating their home. This requires more thought.
The trouble with thinking about any of this too much, though, is it's all completely absurd in the end. All of this: money, gold, other elements we dig out of the ground just to store in vaults somewhere. Buying commodities we never intend to own, much less use. It's layers upon layers of absurdity just to make sure our neighbour doesn't get a larger slice of the pie than we do. Adults tell children to stop arguing and share their toys. This is surely the greatest source of hypocrisy there is.
The only way out of madness, I think, is just to accept that for whatever reason our current systems work somehow. We aren't cold or hungry. In fact, we have access to hundreds of times more than we really need. The only thing that really needs fixing is sustainability. That's the only thing! What we currently have isn't fair; some people do get bigger slices of the pie. But we all get enough. So just quit your whining, enjoy your pie, and work on sustainability. If we can make this whole thing sustainable, then you can start trying to hyper-optimise your pie allocation, but before that time you're just decorating a sinking ship.
You're right that the cost moves to the consumer and that it hurts those most in need. Maybe UBI, maybe tax on consumers can be nonlinear and be higher when the usage is higher ("fake accounts" are not that simple in the real world). I don't know. I'd like to think that punishing those who produce energy from non-renewable resources should be enough to make those renewable ones become more popular and cost efficient, but it's true that in the real world there are some difficult problems to solve.
The last point would be beautiful if it only was true. I would be somewhat ok with banks and funds stealing poor people money through FED if it was the case. But it is not. We are not cold and hungry, but many people are. Even if you are not thinking globally, just US only, just look at COVID-19 and the overall state of healthcare.
But the last point brings one valid criticism of Bitcoin that I don't see mentioned practically ever. Money is a positive feedback loop. Bringing real money to the world, one that cannot be easily taken by force, can be scary (don't xkcd wrench me, I mean scenario that's much further, there were many entities throughout human history that acquired a lot of wealth giving them a lot of power, at some point other people become fed up enough that they just took it by force. But in this case, it would not be in any physical place, not necessarily associated with specific individuals). Fiat currencies system is rigged, but the problem is that money itself is somewhat rigged. When you don't have enough of it, you just sell your time and sell it cheap and you don't have enough of it left to find how you could sell it better. With enough money, it just works like a magnet. Better lawyers, research done for you, being able to take high risk bets etc.
I'd love to have a state of world that you described in your last paragraph. I wouldn't care much about Bitcoin in such scenario.
The last point would be beautiful if it only was true. I would be somewhat ok with banks and funds stealing poor people money through FED if it was the case. But it is not. We are not cold and hungry, but many people are. Even if you are not thinking globally, just US only, just look at COVID-19 and the overall state of healthcare.
But the last point brings one valid criticism of Bitcoin that I don't see mentioned practically ever. Money is a positive feedback loop. Bringing real money to the world, one that cannot be easily taken by force, can be scary (don't xkcd wrench me, I mean scenario that's much further, there were many entities throughout human history that acquired a lot of wealth giving them a lot of power, at some point other people become fed up enough that they just took it by force. But in this case, it would not be in any physical place, not necessarily associated with specific individuals). Fiat currencies system is rigged, but the problem is that money itself is somewhat rigged. When you don't have enough of it, you just sell your time and sell it cheap and you don't have enough of it left to find how you could sell it better. With enough money, it just works like a magnet. Better lawyers, research done for you, being able to take high risk bets etc.
I'd love to have a state of world that you described in your last paragraph. I wouldn't care much about Bitcoin in such scenario.
Cutting down A/C usage is, in fact, an important climate change mitigation.
It is not, because 1) it is quite a small part of total electricity consumption (around 1/30 in U.S.), and 2) it is unlikely to be cut down, due to more and more people on the planet and getting higher standard of living.
Important actions are those that are realistic and have an impact. For example, cancelling coal/gas power plants, building more CO2-free power plants, getting rid of combustion motors in naval transport, etc. Everybody can have an AC if we have CO2-free electric energy production.
Important actions are those that are realistic and have an impact. For example, cancelling coal/gas power plants, building more CO2-free power plants, getting rid of combustion motors in naval transport, etc. Everybody can have an AC if we have CO2-free electric energy production.
1) 1/30 of total electricity consumption is a hell of a lot!
2) Yes, developing-economy per capita energy usage is going to go up while they catch up to developed-economy standards of living; that's happening in all categories. Developed economies still need to reduce their energy usage. e.g. we're not stopping our switch to electric cars just because half of India is getting their first gas-powered scooter.
Everyone can have A/C, but we need to keep our usage as low as is feasible.
2) Yes, developing-economy per capita energy usage is going to go up while they catch up to developed-economy standards of living; that's happening in all categories. Developed economies still need to reduce their energy usage. e.g. we're not stopping our switch to electric cars just because half of India is getting their first gas-powered scooter.
Everyone can have A/C, but we need to keep our usage as low as is feasible.
Agreed. But while BTC consumes a lot, so do hundreds of other kinds of activities that are also by themselves insignificant. The pain of CO2 production should be felt by every consumer proportionally to what they consume.
We need to fix overall energy policy, make everyone pay for their consumption just amount, and keep fixing the damn production to get carbon neutral.
We need to fix overall energy policy, make everyone pay for their consumption just amount, and keep fixing the damn production to get carbon neutral.
BTC is particularly egregious because it produces a lot less social value in exchange for its energy usage than A/C
Climate change doesn't care if I use my 1kWh for gaming on a console, using dryer, A/C or computing digits of pi which have already been computed because I wanted to do it on my super inefficient old computer.
There are many ways to mitigate climate change but I don't think that telling people what should they do with electricity is the way to go. Perhaps focus more on how the energy gets produced, not how it is consumed.
There are many ways to mitigate climate change but I don't think that telling people what should they do with electricity is the way to go. Perhaps focus more on how the energy gets produced, not how it is consumed.
> I don't think that telling people what should they do with electricity is the way to go.
If the advice is sound, maybe we should be telling people about it. For example, we could recommend to replace cheap ineffective ACs with effective but expensive heat pumps and some small percentage of people will do that. But this won't do much to mitigate CO2 production. AC energy consumption isn't a major driver of CO2 pollution, fossil-fueled transport and coal/gas power plants are.
If the advice is sound, maybe we should be telling people about it. For example, we could recommend to replace cheap ineffective ACs with effective but expensive heat pumps and some small percentage of people will do that. But this won't do much to mitigate CO2 production. AC energy consumption isn't a major driver of CO2 pollution, fossil-fueled transport and coal/gas power plants are.
Extracting gold is very wasteful, I'm not sure it is better than Bitcoin in terms of environmental impact.
And Bitcoin is much more useful than gold. You can easily send Bitcoin to your family at the other end of the world. With gold, not so easy. Even buying and selling gold is much more difficult. Storing gold is also much more complicated, you can not encrypt gold, so you need physical protection.
And Bitcoin is much more useful than gold. You can easily send Bitcoin to your family at the other end of the world. With gold, not so easy. Even buying and selling gold is much more difficult. Storing gold is also much more complicated, you can not encrypt gold, so you need physical protection.
Completely agree. The core tenet has been lost. Monero is closer to digital private money than anything else right now. And in my view, worth the cost of POW.
Yeah, although a bunch of work on Monero is still a result of work from people that worked on Bitcoin.
There's some independent research there but AFAIK Bitcoin people did not stop working on confidential transactions or fungiblity.
Just explaining that the core tenet was not lost, but that it was still not researched. Bitcoin jump started a research movement that reaped all kinds of cryptocurrency variants as time went on.
https://electroneropulse.org/public/doc/Bulletproof%20RingCT...
Here's a paper whose coauthors belong to the Bitcoin team discussing efficient confidential transactions that were eventually implemented in Monero (not by the Bitcoin team).
There's some independent research there but AFAIK Bitcoin people did not stop working on confidential transactions or fungiblity.
Just explaining that the core tenet was not lost, but that it was still not researched. Bitcoin jump started a research movement that reaped all kinds of cryptocurrency variants as time went on.
https://electroneropulse.org/public/doc/Bulletproof%20RingCT...
Here's a paper whose coauthors belong to the Bitcoin team discussing efficient confidential transactions that were eventually implemented in Monero (not by the Bitcoin team).
"Here's a paper whose coauthors belong to the Bitcoin team discussing efficient confidential transactions that were eventually implemented in Monero (not by the Bitcoin team)."
The knowledge held by the Bitcoin team wouldn't disappear if Bitcoin was shut down. They could still contribute to other crypto projects.
The knowledge held by the Bitcoin team wouldn't disappear if Bitcoin was shut down. They could still contribute to other crypto projects.
Yes, but saying that the core tenet was lost is a bit dramatic. The guys working on it were still interested in other aspects of cryptocurrencies that bitcoin does not implement. Bulletproofs coming out in 2017 meant that Monero had inefficient fungibility and confidential transactions before, bloating the blockchain before they implemented bulletproofs.
There's so much stuff that still had to be researched after Bitcoin came out.
One big example that comes to mind is SegWit.
The cryptography was still not there and I do not feel that something can be lost if it's not there.
There's so much stuff that still had to be researched after Bitcoin came out.
One big example that comes to mind is SegWit.
The cryptography was still not there and I do not feel that something can be lost if it's not there.
This post, aside from being very hopeful, misses one crucial point about bitcoin: its users don't give a shit about it being bad for transactions, or being slow. All they care about is that big number goes up and gets green.
The amount of bitcoin users that are truly excited about its potential for a decentralized currency are few. When 90% of the mining power is held by chinese farms... These guys do not care about decentralization.
As much as I wish we could destroy bitcoin because of how utterly fucking useless it is, the fact is, we now have to deal with people wasting this energy, forever.
The amount of bitcoin users that are truly excited about its potential for a decentralized currency are few. When 90% of the mining power is held by chinese farms... These guys do not care about decentralization.
As much as I wish we could destroy bitcoin because of how utterly fucking useless it is, the fact is, we now have to deal with people wasting this energy, forever.
> If a group of hackers (real or fake) announced an impending attack, the price of Bitcoin would likely collapse.
Look further: What would happen after the attacks failed, when not even the green hackers can do anything to their network ? Nobody can currently shut it down, that's also why it is valuable.
Look further: What would happen after the attacks failed, when not even the green hackers can do anything to their network ? Nobody can currently shut it down, that's also why it is valuable.
There's literally an internet requirement for it, to use it.
Also, using it locally has a delay of several days for being "up to date". So in practise, security for most people is dependant on 3rd parties.
Also, using it locally has a delay of several days for being "up to date". So in practise, security for most people is dependant on 3rd parties.
>Also, using it locally has a delay of several days for being "up to date".
what even?
what even?
So you propose shutting down the internet to end Bitcoin?
Putting to one side if the attack would work, or have perverse outcomes, I do have concerns about the ludicrous amount of dirty energy used to mine coins.
Proof of stake would terminate that problem?
Proof of stake would terminate that problem?
Yes it would solve the problem. Don't want to look like spam because I replied to a few other comments already but have a look at Cardano Ouroboros
It does not.
Proof of stake would quickly devolve into the system we have in place.
Proof of stake would quickly devolve into the system we have in place.
you're saying that it burns as much energy, to mine state? It is a form of blockchain which demands mining, and so incurs the energy cost?
not sure what you mean to be honest? "to mine state" ?
proof of stake just means the rich get to call the shots, at no expense to them. No disincentive to cheat. All previous attempts, and there were many - have failed to date.
Miners in PoW have to risk incredible amount of capital, and cheating is strongly disincentivized by that.
PoW stood the test of time.
proof of stake just means the rich get to call the shots, at no expense to them. No disincentive to cheat. All previous attempts, and there were many - have failed to date.
Miners in PoW have to risk incredible amount of capital, and cheating is strongly disincentivized by that.
PoW stood the test of time.
"mine state" -Bitcoin miners are hunting complex bit patterns from functions, by exhaustive search in a GPU or CPU farm. They are converting time and electricity into unique solutions to a problem, which then provides a mechanism to seal the chain in cryptographic signature. The "state" they create is the block they "mine".
The point at hand, is that PoW incurs energy costs which drive to cheapest which is to ignore externalities and burn brown coal in china. the problem is the ignored externalities: the CO2 pollution.
You're arguing "its the same" about the end outcome of the chain as a thing in itself. The point of my comment and I believe the article, is that PoW incurs a huge energy cost which is pointless: its make-work. It does not relate to the value of the chain.
I ask if PoS is "the same" IN THIS REGARD. Not in terms of what the end outcome as a chain is: if the energy inputs to achieve PoS are the same as PoW.
The point at hand, is that PoW incurs energy costs which drive to cheapest which is to ignore externalities and burn brown coal in china. the problem is the ignored externalities: the CO2 pollution.
You're arguing "its the same" about the end outcome of the chain as a thing in itself. The point of my comment and I believe the article, is that PoW incurs a huge energy cost which is pointless: its make-work. It does not relate to the value of the chain.
I ask if PoS is "the same" IN THIS REGARD. Not in terms of what the end outcome as a chain is: if the energy inputs to achieve PoS are the same as PoW.
Here to mention Chia (https://www.chia.net/) which is made by the creator of bittorrent Bram Cohen and is launching its mainnet soon! Uses proof of space instead of proof of work or proof of stake to make it use very little energy.
I dont see how that solves the energy problem. Presumably, if allocating X space gets you Y rewards, allocating 2X space gives you 2Y rewards. So, if the rewards are worth anything, there will be a race to install and run as much storage capacity as possible, which has an energy cost.
Definitely not an expert on this but the creators say that one thing that is helpful is that hard drive space is already massively over-provisioned which is helpful — individuals as well as institutions with space will be able to make use of existing space without needing to make a run on hard drives.
The author misses the point. The root of the problem is that electricity is not carbon free. What the electricity is used for is irrelevant. What the author suggests would be similar to saying, "let's stop climate change by minimizing our driving instead of transitioning to electric transport."
I think the point was that POW specifically is an inefficient method of verification. They weren't arguing against the notion of using energy to run a virtual currency, just that Bitcoin specifically is needlessly wasteful, so we should move to alternative cryptocurrencies. So actually I think they are arguing for 'switching to electric transport', to use your example.
No, even if the electricity were carbon-free there would still be an opportunity cost in wasting ever-increasing amounts of it doing bitcoin mining instead of, say, aluminium smelting, or powering electric trains, or any other useful thing.
Also just for the record, minimizing driving is a good way to combat climate change.
Also just for the record, minimizing driving is a good way to combat climate change.
But that's exactly the best way to reduce global warming, minimize consumption.
Obviously to minimize consumption you should cut away the things that provide the least value for the highest reduction. So for example turn of lights during the night in empty buildings is much better than using renewable energy to power the lights.
Obviously to minimize consumption you should cut away the things that provide the least value for the highest reduction. So for example turn of lights during the night in empty buildings is much better than using renewable energy to power the lights.
"What the author suggests would be similar to saying,"
No, because driving has a legitimate purpose.
No, because driving has a legitimate purpose.
In many cases it doesn't.
Yeah, and we should try (eg. the correct incentives) to reduce driving that has no purpose or value.
Just because it exists doesn't make it a good thing in the current circumstances.
Just because it exists doesn't make it a good thing in the current circumstances.
More legitimate than mining coins that'll be put in a wallet that ends up in a landfill.
It would be easier to target and lobby politicians to ban crypto exchanges. A stranded asset isn't worth much.
> Sadly, the proof of work (POW) principle makes Bitcoin not physically nor ecologically sustainable. Any cryptocurrency based on this principle suffers from the same problem.
Not to the same extent. A big contributing factor is the very high price of bitcoin that results from the FOMO on its finite supply, nearly 90% of which is mined already.
If Bitcoin had no halvings, then its inflation rate would come down much slower and its price would be much more reasonable.
Sadly, very few PoW coins follow that wide distribution model.
Not to the same extent. A big contributing factor is the very high price of bitcoin that results from the FOMO on its finite supply, nearly 90% of which is mined already.
If Bitcoin had no halvings, then its inflation rate would come down much slower and its price would be much more reasonable.
Sadly, very few PoW coins follow that wide distribution model.
If the Work is easy and doesn't consume much energy, than it's easy to forge. This is true even if 1 BTC were worth 1 cent - the cost (in Watts, not dollars) of mining doesn't depend at all on the price of BTC.
Instead, if BTC weren't worth much, people would likely just stop mining, and the transaction speed of the BTC network would grind to a halt, further driving down its value.
Instead, if BTC weren't worth much, people would likely just stop mining, and the transaction speed of the BTC network would grind to a halt, further driving down its value.
I have some green sensibilities, but I'm more of a Post-scarcity
Socialist. Backing a currency with a scarce resource serves no purpose
other than to keep us serfs "down on the manor" so to speak.
Standards of living didn't start rising significantly until fiat money
really took off. Societies and governments give currency value; it
has little to no inherent value on its own.
But the primary philosophy behind bitcoin is right-libertarian / Ayn Rand / a return to the 19th century with futuristic technology.
Go look up the Cyphernomicon for instance, where you'll find Tim May cheerleading for cryptocurrency-powered darknet murder marts. Here's a choice sample quote:
But the primary philosophy behind bitcoin is right-libertarian / Ayn Rand / a return to the 19th century with futuristic technology.
Go look up the Cyphernomicon for instance, where you'll find Tim May cheerleading for cryptocurrency-powered darknet murder marts. Here's a choice sample quote:
begin quote
end quote
Bitcoin is actually a (if not the) great accelerator for cheap renewable energy (hydro, solar, etc) by being a market incentive. Even helps reducing methane emissions flaring from oil fields by putting that flaring to productive use (hashing) instead of releasing it into atmosphere, see https://gam.ai/ for instance.
Except it hasn't been, instead places like China (the largest crypto mining market on the planet) has instead opted to open new coal plants to feed their state operated mining centers.
Bitcoin is the best bounty for clean fusion power.
Direct monetary incentives.
Direct monetary incentives.
> ... Ethereum uses POS ...
No, Ethereum is at least not using PoS for now.
No, Ethereum is at least not using PoS for now.
But it’s clearly headed there. Unlike bitcoin, Ethereum has sufficient resemblance of governance to actually pull it off.
I would agree to your idea. Ethernum 2.0 is doing its work towards PoS, althought that is still in the future (maybe ~1.5 yrs). In the long run, Ethernum might become environmental friendly.
why use a blockchain if you want to rely on governance?
Just use USD.
Just use USD.
Very different governance. Not all governance is bad unless you are a hardcore anarchist.
who do you think should govern the reserve currency of the world?
Nobody governs gold, seems to work just fine.
Nobody governs gold, seems to work just fine.
I see Bitcoin like a 21st century Apollo project. While I agree the resources appear wasted, they are supporting a revolutionary concept that holds tremendous potential to change the way the world works. Also, consider the scale of resources used by the existing financial system, with its thousands of buildings staffed by millions of people who use energy to come into work every day to keep the whole centralized system running.
I see this call to destroy it as akin to the 1969 Apollo mission protests, when civil rights leaders argued that the space mission resources would be better used on Earth.
https://www.history.com/news/apollo-11-moon-landing-launch-p...
I see this call to destroy it as akin to the 1969 Apollo mission protests, when civil rights leaders argued that the space mission resources would be better used on Earth.
https://www.history.com/news/apollo-11-moon-landing-launch-p...
I think this is a very bad comparison, for several reasons.
1. With the Apollo missions, the money being put into the project was going into research and development, so there was at least some expectation of getting new science and technology out of it. With Bitcoin,nthe money put in is going into speculation or mining, which only fuels the network. There is no reason to expect new technologies to come out of this, and certainly not any new science.
2. The Apollo project was a big consumer of money, of which there exist plenty in the world and we can create more. Bitcoin is a huge consumer of electricity, the production of which is generally accelerating global warming, the single biggest threat to our survival as a civilized society that has ever existed in history.
We already know that Bitcoin itself is not even remotely close to being a solution to the problem you're thinking about (decentralized money), even IF I agreed that this is a real problem (I don't, I believe Bitcoin is going in the wrong direction compared to fiat money). You could make a decent argument for investing in developing scalable crypto coins, maybe Ethereum or maybe something else, but proof-of-work crypocoins and Bitcoin in particular are an obvious dead end, and can be decommissioned entirely without much loss (especially if the bitcoin holders were compensated somehow).
1. With the Apollo missions, the money being put into the project was going into research and development, so there was at least some expectation of getting new science and technology out of it. With Bitcoin,nthe money put in is going into speculation or mining, which only fuels the network. There is no reason to expect new technologies to come out of this, and certainly not any new science.
2. The Apollo project was a big consumer of money, of which there exist plenty in the world and we can create more. Bitcoin is a huge consumer of electricity, the production of which is generally accelerating global warming, the single biggest threat to our survival as a civilized society that has ever existed in history.
We already know that Bitcoin itself is not even remotely close to being a solution to the problem you're thinking about (decentralized money), even IF I agreed that this is a real problem (I don't, I believe Bitcoin is going in the wrong direction compared to fiat money). You could make a decent argument for investing in developing scalable crypto coins, maybe Ethereum or maybe something else, but proof-of-work crypocoins and Bitcoin in particular are an obvious dead end, and can be decommissioned entirely without much loss (especially if the bitcoin holders were compensated somehow).
1. Bitcoin mining is a race to cheap power, it's of course going to lead to more efficient power delivery technologies.
Excess energy being created by hydrodams is being sold to fund infrastructure and to subsidize energy costs during dry seasons. Oil companies are capturing energy once wasted:
https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-helps-oil-companies-reduce-...
Bitcoin is an energy currency.
Bitcoin is an energy currency.
There are already plenty of incentives for improving energy generation, reducing waste, and getting better at efficient delivery: people are willing to spend money for electricity for useful purposes other than speculation.
If anything, bitcoin mining is a disincentive in making a more energy efficient green economy: instead of reducing waste and reducing power production as needed, we now have a way to turn excess power production into money directly. While a carbon tax could have shut down a coal plant, now the coal plant could instead get a bitcoin mining rig and power that, as long as the carbon tax is lower than the (extremely volatile) value of bitcoin.
To avoid the most apocalyptic effects of global warming, we have to close down most fossil-fuel based energy generation today, literally. Bitcoin is actively working against that by driving up the price of electricity to fuel a speculative bubble.
If anything, bitcoin mining is a disincentive in making a more energy efficient green economy: instead of reducing waste and reducing power production as needed, we now have a way to turn excess power production into money directly. While a carbon tax could have shut down a coal plant, now the coal plant could instead get a bitcoin mining rig and power that, as long as the carbon tax is lower than the (extremely volatile) value of bitcoin.
To avoid the most apocalyptic effects of global warming, we have to close down most fossil-fuel based energy generation today, literally. Bitcoin is actively working against that by driving up the price of electricity to fuel a speculative bubble.
> Bitcoin is an energy currency.
Not a currency, but a digital asset that wastes enormous amounts of energy.
Not a currency, but a digital asset that wastes enormous amounts of energy.
Last year it transacted more than a trillion dollars in transactions.
It's in the top 20 or so of world currencies, and it's still in its infancy (thus volatility etc).
It's in the top 20 or so of world currencies, and it's still in its infancy (thus volatility etc).
"It's in the top 20 or so of world currencies,
and it's still in its infancy (thus volatility etc)."
My question, then, is how do we go about drowning Baby Bitcoin in the metaphorical bathtub?
My question, then, is how do we go about drowning Baby Bitcoin in the metaphorical bathtub?
Sardines were also involved in transactions amounting trillions of dollars, but that doesn't mean sardines are a currency.
[deleted]
Wastes enormous amounts of energy... The energy is literally being stored in the value of bitcoin. It's an energy credit. People are transforming excess electricity into bitcoin. Period.
What do I do with my profits from mining bitcoin? Send my kids to college, buy groceries, remodel my bathroom, etc. It's an entire ecosystem, speculatively mining bitcoin by consuming electricity is just as evil as driving 1.5hrs to work because you're too lazy to find something near your house for example. People expend trillions of dollars in energy "mining" fiat.
What do I do with my profits from mining bitcoin? Send my kids to college, buy groceries, remodel my bathroom, etc. It's an entire ecosystem, speculatively mining bitcoin by consuming electricity is just as evil as driving 1.5hrs to work because you're too lazy to find something near your house for example. People expend trillions of dollars in energy "mining" fiat.
In a very real physical sense, the energy is not stored, it is getting converted to waste heat.
Sure, the monetary value of that energy may be getting stored, but we can't buy lower temperatures with money, unfortunately.
When you store energy by pumping water for example, you can later let that water flow to get back the energy itself (with some inevitable waste, of course). When you're converting energy to bitcoin and later require energy again, you have to use the bitcoin to buy more energy (either from the market or by building a new power plant or something), you can't just physically convert the bitcoin back to energy.
Sure, the monetary value of that energy may be getting stored, but we can't buy lower temperatures with money, unfortunately.
When you store energy by pumping water for example, you can later let that water flow to get back the energy itself (with some inevitable waste, of course). When you're converting energy to bitcoin and later require energy again, you have to use the bitcoin to buy more energy (either from the market or by building a new power plant or something), you can't just physically convert the bitcoin back to energy.
You make a very compelling argument, especially #1 that there can't be an expectation of any new technology or science to come out of money spent on speculation or mining. Equivalently, any progress in blockchain technology doesn't require the existence of the Bitcoin network to be implemented.
I now see some holes in my Apollo analogy (also government vs individual spending). I am lucky there is always someone on HN who will make a better point :)
I now see some holes in my Apollo analogy (also government vs individual spending). I am lucky there is always someone on HN who will make a better point :)
I actually think there is an expectation that increased trust/acceptance in Bitcoin will help the success of future improved cryptocurrency technologies.
Bitcoin gives users a trustworthy decentralized store of value today that they could easily move to another cryptocurrency in future using some kind of decentralized exchange based on smart contracts. It provides liquidity for all future cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin gives users a trustworthy decentralized store of value today that they could easily move to another cryptocurrency in future using some kind of decentralized exchange based on smart contracts. It provides liquidity for all future cryptocurrencies.
That is a different argument than the comparison with the Apollo mission, and entirely relies on believing that the end-goal itself, a crypto-currency based financial system, is a net good in itself.
The Apollo argument was more compelling because it didn't require any value-judgement of the end-goal (but it was less appealing to me for the reasons I outlined). It is an argument about the process, regardless of the results (in the end, the lunar landings in themselves were a symbolic victory more than any great advancement of science - the science happened on the way).
We can go into arguments on why I think the end-goal of crypto-currency believers a la Satoshi would be a net negative, but others have covered it pretty well (deflation, fraud, money laundering, having your life savings destroyed by a hack etc).
The Apollo argument was more compelling because it didn't require any value-judgement of the end-goal (but it was less appealing to me for the reasons I outlined). It is an argument about the process, regardless of the results (in the end, the lunar landings in themselves were a symbolic victory more than any great advancement of science - the science happened on the way).
We can go into arguments on why I think the end-goal of crypto-currency believers a la Satoshi would be a net negative, but others have covered it pretty well (deflation, fraud, money laundering, having your life savings destroyed by a hack etc).
To a point, but that trust by the public can be easily swayed and destroyed - see Biden pick Janet Yellen and her recent comments about how BTC is used for and good for nothing but criminal activity including that by state sponsors of terrorism.
For #1, there is no actual evidence to counter that, but, the logic doesn't stand either, just, why not?
https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/1348094702550216707
https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/1348094702550216707
> There is no reason to expect new technologies to come out of this, and certainly not any new science
Proof-of-stake coins are one obvious counterexample. Would proof-of-stake technologies have been developed if proof-of-work didn't come along first to incentivise development and build trust in cryptocurrencies?
Proof-of-stake coins are one obvious counterexample. Would proof-of-stake technologies have been developed if proof-of-work didn't come along first to incentivise development and build trust in cryptocurrencies?
Proof-of-stake is not an iteration on proof-of-work, it is a lateral idea. There is no reason why the first popular crypto-coin wouldn't have been proof-of-stake, except that it didn't occur to Satoshi (or it did and they didn't like it for other reasons).
Firstly that's not completely true: proof-of-stake doesn't solve the initial wealth distribution problem so often proof-of-work is still necessary in some capacity even in proof-of-stake coins.
Furthermore it's possible that a purely proof-of-stake currency would have never gained the widespread trust that proof-of-work did at a time when cryptocurrencies were a new idea. Or maybe not... but people did have ideas about proof-of-stake quite early on and it took much longer for those ideas to gain the same level of acceptance that proof-of-work did.
Furthermore it's possible that a purely proof-of-stake currency would have never gained the widespread trust that proof-of-work did at a time when cryptocurrencies were a new idea. Or maybe not... but people did have ideas about proof-of-stake quite early on and it took much longer for those ideas to gain the same level of acceptance that proof-of-work did.
Inventing the technology and getting it adopted are two different things.
For example, I happen to believe that decentralized coins are a horrible idea in and of themselves, even without proof-of-work also helping to increase global warming. So, from my point of view, any adoption of a crypto-currency is a net-negative, and I would be happy to know that the technology exists, but is staying abandoned as long as we have no use for it other than non-centralized money.
For example, I happen to believe that decentralized coins are a horrible idea in and of themselves, even without proof-of-work also helping to increase global warming. So, from my point of view, any adoption of a crypto-currency is a net-negative, and I would be happy to know that the technology exists, but is staying abandoned as long as we have no use for it other than non-centralized money.
> I happen to believe that decentralized coins are a horrible idea in and of themselves, even without proof-of-work
Sure, but that is a much different argument than proof-of-stake vs proof-of-work.
With the assumption that having a successful proof-of-stake cryptocurrency is a net good, then what I am saying is maybe our usages of proof-of-work up until the future widespread adoption of proof-of-stake actually will contribute more positively to that end than negatively.
Sure, but that is a much different argument than proof-of-stake vs proof-of-work.
With the assumption that having a successful proof-of-stake cryptocurrency is a net good, then what I am saying is maybe our usages of proof-of-work up until the future widespread adoption of proof-of-stake actually will contribute more positively to that end than negatively.
My original claim is that new technology is not getting funded by dumping energy into bitcoin mining. Proof-of-stake was proposed as a counter example, but as discussed it may actually predate bitcoin's adoption. It may be true that dumping energy into bitcoin can fund the adoption of a proof-of-stake coin, but that is no longer a new technology, it is simply adoption.
So I stand by my original point - the resources going into bitcoin are not fueling technology research.
They may be fueling PoS Ethereum adoption, but that is another argument entirely.
So I stand by my original point - the resources going into bitcoin are not fueling technology research.
They may be fueling PoS Ethereum adoption, but that is another argument entirely.
You are speaking in absolute terms. It goes against all logic that new technology wouldn't be funded by dumping energy into bitcoin mining.
Simple logic.. Billions of dollars in miners are bought by speculators, Bitmain orders new 5nm chips from TSMC... TSMC uses money for R&D.
Either you're being willfully ignorant or you're trolling us.
Simple logic.. Billions of dollars in miners are bought by speculators, Bitmain orders new 5nm chips from TSMC... TSMC uses money for R&D.
Either you're being willfully ignorant or you're trolling us.
> It may be true that dumping energy into bitcoin can fund the adoption of a proof-of-stake coin, but that is no longer a new technology, it is simply adoption.
I'm not sure that's true. Proof-of-stake is established as a concept but there is still lots of room for technological improvements in the implementation and user experience. New proof-of-stake coins can compete more effectively because of the trust which Bitcoin established.
I'm not sure that's true. Proof-of-stake is established as a concept but there is still lots of room for technological improvements in the implementation and user experience. New proof-of-stake coins can compete more effectively because of the trust which Bitcoin established.
> change the way the world works
Change how exactly? To me bitcoin seems like this:
Expectation: the world ditches banks, dollars, euros, etc. People switch to bitcoin and everyone lives happily, paying for everyday stuff with bitcoin.
Reality: people do not use bitcoin to buy groceries. In fact, people do not use bitcoin per se - people are only interested in buying and holding (speculating).
Change how exactly? To me bitcoin seems like this:
Expectation: the world ditches banks, dollars, euros, etc. People switch to bitcoin and everyone lives happily, paying for everyday stuff with bitcoin.
Reality: people do not use bitcoin to buy groceries. In fact, people do not use bitcoin per se - people are only interested in buying and holding (speculating).
I don't think any technology will ever be adopted in a drastic switch, but I can definitely see it happening gradually. Consider some future cloud hosting provider that accepts payment in cryptocurrency (not necessarily Bitcoin) - someone building a SaaS product could charge customers in that currency, and take advantage of financial instruments that are much more difficult to implement with traditional banking (micropayments, smart contracts, etc).
Bitcoin is not going to be able to scale to the world's population. A more accurate expectation at least for the US is that the financial system is rebuilt on web3. Every day people will be holding stable coins pegged to the USD in their bank accounts. The average Joe will not be able to tell the difference. He can still deposit dollars into his bank account and cash checks. He can still withdraw USD, or use a debit card / credit card to buy things.
We are still in the very early days of decentralized finance.
We are still in the very early days of decentralized finance.
The idea that Bitcoin can only be useful if it completely replaces all existing financial instruments is a strawman
Its also popular as a means to withdraw resources from dictatorships, basically improving private property protections at the expense of state ability to control their population.
You mean "withdraw resources by dictatorships", not "from" dictatorships.
As a dictator, my goal is to fill my bank accounts for when I get deposed. In most cases, countries who have their resources fleeced have lawful means to go after former dictators. Bitcoin removes that.
As a dictator, my goal is to fill my bank accounts for when I get deposed. In most cases, countries who have their resources fleeced have lawful means to go after former dictators. Bitcoin removes that.
How exactly someone can "withdraw resources from a dictatorship" using bitcoin?
People actually use Bitcoin - to transfer money across the world where other options are unavailable or too expensive. It's very popular in Africa.
> It's very popular in Africa.
Source? Africa has mPesa which is vastly superior than BTC
Source? Africa has mPesa which is vastly superior than BTC
Remittances by traditional methods fell by 97% in Nigeria. Central bank had to ban Bitcoin.
Look it up. It's real.
Look it up. It's real.
It's not revolutionary. For almost every use case, blockchain solution are almost always inferior to the alternatives. As a payment system, it's sluggish, wasteful, and in 2021 STILL poorly adopted.
I'm not arguing anything about the current system of doing financial transactions. But the environmental disaster that is BTC has to die.
If there is truly a need for innovation in the digital currency space, it should be replaced with something less wasteful. Too bad all the pundits and hodlers are too invested to admit this.
I'm not arguing anything about the current system of doing financial transactions. But the environmental disaster that is BTC has to die.
If there is truly a need for innovation in the digital currency space, it should be replaced with something less wasteful. Too bad all the pundits and hodlers are too invested to admit this.
If BTC mining and related operations were halted right now as you wish, by what percentage would the CO2 production decrease? By 0.1%, inconsequential.
We need to focus on decomissioning coal/gas power plants and combustion motors for transport. That will get us at least 60%.
We need to focus on decomissioning coal/gas power plants and combustion motors for transport. That will get us at least 60%.
> We need to focus on decomissioning coal/gas power plants and combustion motors for transport.
Bitcoin is actively working against that. By increasing the energy demand from the network, it makes it harder to simply stop producing energy. It doesn't matter if miners are directly buying only from renewable sources (as some claim), they are still likely out-bidding someone else, who then has to go to a fossil fuel plant for their electricity.
Bitcoin is actively working against that. By increasing the energy demand from the network, it makes it harder to simply stop producing energy. It doesn't matter if miners are directly buying only from renewable sources (as some claim), they are still likely out-bidding someone else, who then has to go to a fossil fuel plant for their electricity.
The energy consumption of BTC is minuscule when compared to total electric consumption and its physical/economic effect on power networks is similarly minuscule. Yes, it consumes and contributes to CO2. So do other electric energy consumers, like big companies like Amazon, Google. So do, orders of magnitude more than BTC, consumers of fossil fuels. BTC is just an easy inconsequential scapegoat.
BTC consumes more electricity than many individual countries in the world. It is something like 0.1% of the electrical energy consumption of the entire world. That is not insignificant, it is a huge chunk that could be stopped with virtually 0 impact on the world economy (unlike all your other examples).
0.1% percent is pretty insignificant, it is 1/1000 of the world electric energy production, and that contributes only around 30% to total world C02 production.
Blaming and cancelling insignificant activities leads nowhere. And it's absurd, considering the main CO2 contributors are elsewhere - it is the transport and power plants which need this attention.
If we are talking about affecting CO2 production via electric energy policies, more just way (and more effective way) to introduce "CO2 sanctions" on various activities is to factor the damage in the energy price. That way everybody feels the pain proportionally, not just few random scapegoats like BTC. I agree that price does not need to be the same for everyone. Maybe BTC activities should pay much more for electric energy than a normal (non-BTC oriented) household does.
Blaming and cancelling insignificant activities leads nowhere. And it's absurd, considering the main CO2 contributors are elsewhere - it is the transport and power plants which need this attention.
If we are talking about affecting CO2 production via electric energy policies, more just way (and more effective way) to introduce "CO2 sanctions" on various activities is to factor the damage in the energy price. That way everybody feels the pain proportionally, not just few random scapegoats like BTC. I agree that price does not need to be the same for everyone. Maybe BTC activities should pay much more for electric energy than a normal (non-BTC oriented) household does.
Last part: sure, agreed.
First part: bullshit. Shutting down BTC would be highly consequential.
BTC is the perfect peak shaver to have on your grid. This is what makes it so perverse. With a mining rig, you can shave excess production peaks on any of the energy markets: long-term, cover intraday swings, or frequency stabilization where you have to react in seconds.
If BTC ceases siphoning green energy away from hydro plants, etc, the grid operators and their governments will be forced to look into storing surplus production instead of turning it into waste heat and crypto hashes.
First part: bullshit. Shutting down BTC would be highly consequential.
BTC is the perfect peak shaver to have on your grid. This is what makes it so perverse. With a mining rig, you can shave excess production peaks on any of the energy markets: long-term, cover intraday swings, or frequency stabilization where you have to react in seconds.
If BTC ceases siphoning green energy away from hydro plants, etc, the grid operators and their governments will be forced to look into storing surplus production instead of turning it into waste heat and crypto hashes.
Yes big players can buy electric energy cheaper than the small guy (or even be paid to consume). Impact on consumer prices or CO2 production is very small and the blame in CO2 production is shared with the producer. So if there is a problem here it is with big player consumers and big producers increasing total CO2 production. I agree that on a global scale, that is a problem. However, it's not a problem inherent to BTC. If you think you can get rid of big players building dirty plants and producing lots of CO2 by cancelling BTC then you are naive.
Storage of energy was and is very small / non-existent because of large investments needed to build it, and little profit to be gained. It's not BTC's fault.
Storage of energy was and is very small / non-existent because of large investments needed to build it, and little profit to be gained. It's not BTC's fault.
Bitcoin already went to the moon and back.
We learned about blockchain, we learned cryptocurrencies are possible. Now it's continuing to burn tons of rocket fuel for no further benefit... Saturn V served it's purpose, there is a good reason we don't continue building rockets this way. We learned a lot from Bitcoin, critically, we learned it is _not_ the solution to a sustainable decentralized digital currency.
We learned about blockchain, we learned cryptocurrencies are possible. Now it's continuing to burn tons of rocket fuel for no further benefit... Saturn V served it's purpose, there is a good reason we don't continue building rockets this way. We learned a lot from Bitcoin, critically, we learned it is _not_ the solution to a sustainable decentralized digital currency.
Not convinced this is a good analogy.
If we could have gone to the moon at a fraction of the cost, but people had still insisted on doing it the expensive way, just because the expensive approach came first, that would be a better analogy.
If we could have gone to the moon at a fraction of the cost, but people had still insisted on doing it the expensive way, just because the expensive approach came first, that would be a better analogy.
If we're going to follow this analogy, what are the beneficial side effects from bitcoin?
Better ASICs that do nothing but calculate sha256 hashes? Easier money-laundering? New venues for tax evasion?
I guess censorship-resistant online value transfer is worth something, but I'm not sure it outweighs all the negatives.
Better ASICs that do nothing but calculate sha256 hashes? Easier money-laundering? New venues for tax evasion?
I guess censorship-resistant online value transfer is worth something, but I'm not sure it outweighs all the negatives.
Power over other people is intoxicating. It attracts those who value it over virtue, and the virtuous reject it.
For their wicked thirst for power, some will do anything. In our age there is an unholy alliance between the worlds greatest power ever and its military industrial complex, where the incentives for government leaders is to wage war in strange faraway lands, and to bribe the population at home with dependence on the state, in exchange for votes. This is all funded by printing money - inflating its supply. In effect, this is devaluing the salaries and savings of anyone who earns their living, and who can not do anything about it, as they are forced to trade in this currency created by fiat.
By creating Bitcoin, Satoshi took gold to the internet, and we can now trade in a currency which no one can inflate to fund wars, or to in essence steal productivity from every earner.
A sound system of ethics must contain the right to ownership of your property - you body, your money, and other possessions. Bitcoin practically gives us this in the Information Age.
For their wicked thirst for power, some will do anything. In our age there is an unholy alliance between the worlds greatest power ever and its military industrial complex, where the incentives for government leaders is to wage war in strange faraway lands, and to bribe the population at home with dependence on the state, in exchange for votes. This is all funded by printing money - inflating its supply. In effect, this is devaluing the salaries and savings of anyone who earns their living, and who can not do anything about it, as they are forced to trade in this currency created by fiat.
By creating Bitcoin, Satoshi took gold to the internet, and we can now trade in a currency which no one can inflate to fund wars, or to in essence steal productivity from every earner.
A sound system of ethics must contain the right to ownership of your property - you body, your money, and other possessions. Bitcoin practically gives us this in the Information Age.
> This is all funded by printing money - inflating its supply.
> By creating Bitcoin, Satoshi took gold to the internet, and we can now trade in a currency which no one can inflate to fund wars, or to in essence steal productivity from every earner.
Utter bullshit. The power of the US government doesn't stem from its ability to print money. Rather, it's the other way around essentially: its ability to print money stems from its power. The US government controls the most successful economy and army in the world's history, by far.
If it had a reason to, the US government could, with resources it entirely owns, out-mine the entire bitcoin network and print its own bitcoin as well, in violation of the protocol. What's more, assuming it were done publicly and with a commitment to maintain it, people all over the world would use the newly printed US-bitcoin.
More realistically, it could easily lend bitcoin that don't exist yet and create a fractional-reserve system right on top of bitcoin.
The problems of today's economy stem much more from "free market" systems like the officially-sanctioned speculation happening every second on Wall Street. Workers are hurt much more by so-called "free trade" agreements that allow US companies to own other parts of the world and exploit those for cheap labor at the cost of both US workers and the foreign economy. And wars get started not because the US has money, but because the US doesn't allow enough democratic control of its workings.
> By creating Bitcoin, Satoshi took gold to the internet, and we can now trade in a currency which no one can inflate to fund wars, or to in essence steal productivity from every earner.
Utter bullshit. The power of the US government doesn't stem from its ability to print money. Rather, it's the other way around essentially: its ability to print money stems from its power. The US government controls the most successful economy and army in the world's history, by far.
If it had a reason to, the US government could, with resources it entirely owns, out-mine the entire bitcoin network and print its own bitcoin as well, in violation of the protocol. What's more, assuming it were done publicly and with a commitment to maintain it, people all over the world would use the newly printed US-bitcoin.
More realistically, it could easily lend bitcoin that don't exist yet and create a fractional-reserve system right on top of bitcoin.
The problems of today's economy stem much more from "free market" systems like the officially-sanctioned speculation happening every second on Wall Street. Workers are hurt much more by so-called "free trade" agreements that allow US companies to own other parts of the world and exploit those for cheap labor at the cost of both US workers and the foreign economy. And wars get started not because the US has money, but because the US doesn't allow enough democratic control of its workings.
> Utter bullshit.
HN is such a rare place on the internet. I am writing in good faith - let’s not fall so low as to speak like this.
The power over currency and the power over arms go hand in hand.
The “officially sanctioned” exploitation you speak of - who is the “official” in question? The sins you and I refer to stem from the monopolistic use of violent force by the state. “Wall steeet” is far from a free market, and so if the dollar, euro, pound, and other state currency markets
HN is such a rare place on the internet. I am writing in good faith - let’s not fall so low as to speak like this.
The power over currency and the power over arms go hand in hand.
The “officially sanctioned” exploitation you speak of - who is the “official” in question? The sins you and I refer to stem from the monopolistic use of violent force by the state. “Wall steeet” is far from a free market, and so if the dollar, euro, pound, and other state currency markets
From the ASIC perspective, what I see personally is a massive waste of engineering talent. Why build ASICs for boring but important tasks (especially bioinformatics) when you can cash in on Bitcoin mining while the going is good.
With regards to tax evasion, my opinion is that it will simply force taxation to occur in other ways like VAT. People are quite capable of evading taxes in the present system, so wide adoption of online value transfer would simply democratize access to tax evasion (and force governments to rethink how they collect taxes).
Money laundering makes me think of the dangerous flip side, where anyone can covertly accumulate and use resources without scrutiny - e.g. Ali Alexander using Bitcoin to finance the transport and lodging of groups that took part in the January 6th riot.
With regards to tax evasion, my opinion is that it will simply force taxation to occur in other ways like VAT. People are quite capable of evading taxes in the present system, so wide adoption of online value transfer would simply democratize access to tax evasion (and force governments to rethink how they collect taxes).
Money laundering makes me think of the dangerous flip side, where anyone can covertly accumulate and use resources without scrutiny - e.g. Ali Alexander using Bitcoin to finance the transport and lodging of groups that took part in the January 6th riot.
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Some people think the internet should be beyond the control of a single government, and perhaps by extension so too should the financial system. There are a lot of caveats to this idea.
Even for those that do, a network capable of handling maybe a few million transactions per day while consuming more energy than many small countries is so obviously useless in that regard that it should be abandoned entirely.
I don't disagree with the weaknesses you point out, but I do think "abandon entirely" is an extreme stance. It's completely possible for bitcoin to lose while some other crypto (or basket of crypto coins) wins.
It's important to remember that Bitcoin (and other proof-of-work coins) have a very real and direct environmental cost. Given the state of global warming and how urgent it is to stop it, I believe that letting miners continue to waste energy is a much more extreme stance than stopping them today (with some kind of compensation program for their and others' investments in bitcoin, of course you can't just delete a trillion dollars worth of people's money in a minute).
Forcing budget reform because the government wouldn't be able to rely on printing money.
You would still need a lending infrastructure outside of bitcoin to handle the economy, and then it would be trivial to return to fractional reserve banking with bitcoin instead of dollars. As long as people don't all call in their debts at the same time, which would be catastrophic either way, the system would work with bitcoin just like it works today (if bitcoin weren't so ridiculously slow and expensive to register a transaction, that is) .
.. but should instead increase austerity, cut social programs, and raise taxes?
Besides, the seignorage revenue is pretty tiny in western economies..
Besides, the seignorage revenue is pretty tiny in western economies..
The Nazi and Stalinist regimes also stood to change the world too, you know. That didn't make them like the Apollo project. To be clear, I'm not trying to liken Bitcoin to either of those, just to point out that there's a spectrum from good to bad. I'm glad Apollo succeeded, but I'm also glad fascism didn't succeed. French Revolution changed the world too, in the short term, for the worse, but probably had a net positive in the long run.
Bitcoin? I'm not so sure. Bitcoin definitely stands to change the world, but I'm not sure for the better. Bitcoin would:
* By design, have exploding deflation
* Allow insane inter-generational wealth accumulation and disparity
* Block most of the controls used by central banks to stabilize the economy
* Allow a disk failure or hacker to wipe out someone's life savings
... and so on.
I'd actually liken it to the /early/ fascist, communist, and democratic regimes, which had a lot of good ideas for how to replace monarchies, a lot of bad ideas, and perhaps a 25% hit rate. The US worked out fairly well, at least once it got past the Articles of Confederation bit. France didn't work for a long time, but eventually worked out okay. Fascism and Soviet Communism /appeared/ to work better than what came before for a few years, and then imploded into horrors. The jury is still out on where the Chinese form of government lands.
At this point, we don't quite know which track we're on with Bitcoin. I was optimistic at the beginning, and now I'm more pessimistic, but it's too early to tell. In either case, we've learned a lot, and we could probably design a better system without many of Bitcoin's flaws.
Bitcoin? I'm not so sure. Bitcoin definitely stands to change the world, but I'm not sure for the better. Bitcoin would:
* By design, have exploding deflation
* Allow insane inter-generational wealth accumulation and disparity
* Block most of the controls used by central banks to stabilize the economy
* Allow a disk failure or hacker to wipe out someone's life savings
... and so on.
I'd actually liken it to the /early/ fascist, communist, and democratic regimes, which had a lot of good ideas for how to replace monarchies, a lot of bad ideas, and perhaps a 25% hit rate. The US worked out fairly well, at least once it got past the Articles of Confederation bit. France didn't work for a long time, but eventually worked out okay. Fascism and Soviet Communism /appeared/ to work better than what came before for a few years, and then imploded into horrors. The jury is still out on where the Chinese form of government lands.
At this point, we don't quite know which track we're on with Bitcoin. I was optimistic at the beginning, and now I'm more pessimistic, but it's too early to tell. In either case, we've learned a lot, and we could probably design a better system without many of Bitcoin's flaws.
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Proof of work exists maintain unforgeable costliness.
It's a basic pre-requisite without which you cannot have digital scarcity, because it would be far too easy and too cheap to forge/create new coins. It's amazing how early we still are in Bitcoin after 12 years. Almost nobody on this forum understands why proof of work exists, and yet most people here are intelligent enough and have enough technical skill to figure out why.
It is much greener than: napalm, nuclear weapons, etc. Trillions are spent every year on war to maintain the reserve currency status.
Would you really rather prefer to spend trillions on standing armies, rather than incentivize cheap fusion reactors?
It's a basic pre-requisite without which you cannot have digital scarcity, because it would be far too easy and too cheap to forge/create new coins. It's amazing how early we still are in Bitcoin after 12 years. Almost nobody on this forum understands why proof of work exists, and yet most people here are intelligent enough and have enough technical skill to figure out why.
It is much greener than: napalm, nuclear weapons, etc. Trillions are spent every year on war to maintain the reserve currency status.
Would you really rather prefer to spend trillions on standing armies, rather than incentivize cheap fusion reactors?
Classic - assuming anyone who doesn't hold BTC is an idiot.
Followed by a 'Have fun staying poor' to stir some social anxiety and FOMO.
Unfortunately a lot of people keep falling for such statements and the price keeps going up - I have friends buying loads of dogecoin over the past week who told me they have literally no idea what crypto or doge is - but they know for sure that the prices are going to go up over the next month so they don't really care.
Followed by a 'Have fun staying poor' to stir some social anxiety and FOMO.
Unfortunately a lot of people keep falling for such statements and the price keeps going up - I have friends buying loads of dogecoin over the past week who told me they have literally no idea what crypto or doge is - but they know for sure that the prices are going to go up over the next month so they don't really care.
You are exactly correct, everyone who ignores does so at their own cost.
Close to one _trillion_ in foregone profits at the moment.
You think this is a fad?
Close to one _trillion_ in foregone profits at the moment.
You think this is a fad?
I think that it is a target. And apparently so does the original article's author.
"This isnt so bad, because war exists" is one of the thinnest arguments in favor of something I've ever seen. In this hypothetical future where cryptocurrencies replace national ones, couldnt wars still be fought over the mining infrastructure or the resources needed to run it?
Standing armies is how we secure the reserve currency status today, that is all.
Nothing to do with "war exists"
Nothing to do with "war exists"
Total nonsense, but I'll let Antonopoulos respond:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvFqEofdAZ0
That video includes a lot of whataboutisms (e.g., Christmas lights) and speculation (e.g., Bitcoin mining will fund the construction of green power plants). I wouldn't call it total nonsense though. But I suppose I might be tempted to do so if I were the founder of, oh lets say, a decentralized e-commerce platform for Christmas lights.
I think the best way to make bitcoin "green" is to make it more energy efficient by pushing the Lightning Network. As a nice side effect it also gets more practical.
That makes the system more efficient by allowing more transactions but doesn't lower the total energy expenditure.
Should probably destroy all technology that uses energy for the same reason, using the same methodology. Ie, ignore every conceivable benefit and focus only on energy usage as the singular and all-pervasive critical factor.
I guess humans even without technology might use energy too, simply by existing, so we should probably attack and end us as well.
This is surely humanity's only sensible path to a sustainable future, and one that everyone can and must get on board with. Right?
I guess humans even without technology might use energy too, simply by existing, so we should probably attack and end us as well.
This is surely humanity's only sensible path to a sustainable future, and one that everyone can and must get on board with. Right?
Controversial opinions below: Feeling might be hurt.
- Bitcoin is popular in the west and the US specifically because it lacks the cutting edge financial networks rest of the world has. Citizens in China, India, Kenya etc can do transactions in a jiffy using their existing bank accounts, whereas ACH clearance takes longer time.
- The digital Gold-rush aspect, HODLing, and no regulation makes it more lucrative to players who would love to cash out big on it. Greed trumps it all.
- Most of the BTC mining has been cornered by big mining, and it's way out of reach of regular Joe. This doesn't look democratic to me.
- The hugmongous energy wastage of the network should be the biggest cause of concern, but most proponents shoo it away by buzzwords like lightning network etc.
- Bitcoin is popular in the west and the US specifically because it lacks the cutting edge financial networks rest of the world has. Citizens in China, India, Kenya etc can do transactions in a jiffy using their existing bank accounts, whereas ACH clearance takes longer time.
- The digital Gold-rush aspect, HODLing, and no regulation makes it more lucrative to players who would love to cash out big on it. Greed trumps it all.
- Most of the BTC mining has been cornered by big mining, and it's way out of reach of regular Joe. This doesn't look democratic to me.
- The hugmongous energy wastage of the network should be the biggest cause of concern, but most proponents shoo it away by buzzwords like lightning network etc.
My understanding of the space contradicts each of your points. So without either of us providing citations, both of our opinions are pretty useless to the casual reader. But I will add some thoughts here.
> The [humongous] energy wastage of the network should be the biggest cause of concern, but most proponents shoo it away by buzzwords like lightning network etc.
Lightning Network is a second layer payment network that is working today. Its goal is to take the transaction pressure off of the base layer (blockchain). Its design has privacy built-in, so it's not possible to generate statistics [3] on its total transaction thru-put. That's also why articles like the one on which we are commenting are so disingenuous. The source they cite makes a direct comparison of the total transaction volume of the Visa network with the Bitcoin blockchain while completely ignoring layer 2 networks built on-top of Bitcoin.
> Bitcoin is popular in the west and the US specifically because it lacks the cutting edge financial networks rest of the world has. Citizens in China, India, Kenya etc can do transactions in a jiffy using their existing bank accounts, whereas ACH clearance takes longer time.
Bitcoin is not "popular" anywhere. The total number of Bitcoin ATMs [1] and physical shops/vendors [2] transacting with Bitcoin is still quite limited. The vast majority of commerce occurs online. But what I do see is that there is slow, steady growth globally. The infrastructure is still developing to support larger volumes of users - and with more diverse levels of computer skills.
[1] https://coinatmradar.com/
[2] https://coinmap.org/
[3] https://1ml.com/
> The [humongous] energy wastage of the network should be the biggest cause of concern, but most proponents shoo it away by buzzwords like lightning network etc.
Lightning Network is a second layer payment network that is working today. Its goal is to take the transaction pressure off of the base layer (blockchain). Its design has privacy built-in, so it's not possible to generate statistics [3] on its total transaction thru-put. That's also why articles like the one on which we are commenting are so disingenuous. The source they cite makes a direct comparison of the total transaction volume of the Visa network with the Bitcoin blockchain while completely ignoring layer 2 networks built on-top of Bitcoin.
> Bitcoin is popular in the west and the US specifically because it lacks the cutting edge financial networks rest of the world has. Citizens in China, India, Kenya etc can do transactions in a jiffy using their existing bank accounts, whereas ACH clearance takes longer time.
Bitcoin is not "popular" anywhere. The total number of Bitcoin ATMs [1] and physical shops/vendors [2] transacting with Bitcoin is still quite limited. The vast majority of commerce occurs online. But what I do see is that there is slow, steady growth globally. The infrastructure is still developing to support larger volumes of users - and with more diverse levels of computer skills.
[1] https://coinatmradar.com/
[2] https://coinmap.org/
[3] https://1ml.com/
> My understanding of the space contradicts each of your points.
I am a casual observer and have no investment in BTC and the comments are what I feel based on the news that reaches me. For me the most critical aspect is the energy waste, and the lack of regulation. I know crypto-anarchists distrust the govt, but if I've to choose between the r/WSB like extreme evangelism (HODL!) and Fed, I would chose the later safe option.
> Bitcoin is not "popular" anywhere.
But it is quite popular in the technological discourses and it comes up often as the future of payments. That's quite a big mindshare IMO.
> The infrastructure is still developing to support larger volumes of users - and with more diverse levels of computer skills.
I would love to be proven wrong and learn something new about the sector that increases my confidence.
I am a casual observer and have no investment in BTC and the comments are what I feel based on the news that reaches me. For me the most critical aspect is the energy waste, and the lack of regulation. I know crypto-anarchists distrust the govt, but if I've to choose between the r/WSB like extreme evangelism (HODL!) and Fed, I would chose the later safe option.
> Bitcoin is not "popular" anywhere.
But it is quite popular in the technological discourses and it comes up often as the future of payments. That's quite a big mindshare IMO.
> The infrastructure is still developing to support larger volumes of users - and with more diverse levels of computer skills.
I would love to be proven wrong and learn something new about the sector that increases my confidence.
> I would love to be proven wrong and learn something new about the sector that increases my confidence.
That's great. Having an open mind is a good thing. What areas are you specifically interested in? The industry is vast with deep niches and history - mining, exchanges (online/offline/p2p), scripting ("programmable money"), private key security (software/hardware/multi-sig), BIPs/forks/governance, ATMs, end-user apps, scams and shills, cypherpunk history and lore, and so on.
That's great. Having an open mind is a good thing. What areas are you specifically interested in? The industry is vast with deep niches and history - mining, exchanges (online/offline/p2p), scripting ("programmable money"), private key security (software/hardware/multi-sig), BIPs/forks/governance, ATMs, end-user apps, scams and shills, cypherpunk history and lore, and so on.
There are some things I would like to know more:
1. Energy efficiency of the transactions and the network 2. How democratic the process to mine new coins is. 3. What steps are taken to manage frauds, speculations bubbles etc. to protect malicious actors from gaming the system.
1. Energy efficiency of the transactions and the network 2. How democratic the process to mine new coins is. 3. What steps are taken to manage frauds, speculations bubbles etc. to protect malicious actors from gaming the system.
Those are not really specific questions. But I will try my best to somehow provide useful information.
> 1. Energy efficiency of the transactions and the network
If by "transaction" you mean a single economic exchange between two agents, then the energy cost of a single transaction is impossible to measure. Many of the on-chain transactions in Bitcoin today are "batched" to reduce their total size thus saving on fees. Each of these batched on-chain transactions can easily represent dozens of individual economic exchanges. Lightning Network (LN) takes this even further with bi-directional payment channels now representing potentially tens of thousands of transactions over the lifetime of a single channel. It requires one on-chain Bitcoin transaction to "open" a bi-directional payment channel, and another transaction to "close" it. Closing is not strictly necessary and will be less so as infrastructure and tooling improves.
Bitcoin is not really one single network. It is a few different networks operating in their own niche with their own specific optimizations. Miners can operate as dumb hashing computers with no visibility or knowledge about the blockchain other than the next chunk of data to hash. Full-nodes are typically operated by the "users" that wish to carry on the mantra of "don't trust, verify"; value their personal privacy; or are a large commercial entity. The last estimates that I saw were about 10,000 publicly reachable full-nodes and another 100,000 private or non-reachable. There are also mobile wallets that can be custodial or "light clients". Then the Lightning Network (LN), which consists of public and private nodes, mobile and custodial apps, nodes backed by full-nodes and LN's version of light clients.
> 2. How democratic the process to mine new coins is.
Mining appears much more centralized than it is - due to the success of mining pools. Mining pool operators do not control all the hash power that congregates in their pool. Instead the owners of mining rigs/operators can point their rigs at the mining pool that offers them the best ROI. Of course sometimes other reasons override the profit motive but usually only temporarily - see the SegWit political / governance drama from a few years ago. Corporations (and governments) have already started investing in mining equipment in an effort to secure their own interests in the space. They will compete with each other here just as they have competed with each other over territory and natural resources for hundreds of years.
> 3. What steps are taken to manage frauds, speculations bubbles etc. to protect malicious actors from gaming the system.
Bitcoin is governed today by the same laws and rules as other systems. Fraud is fraud is fraud. Criminals, scammers, and fraudsters use banks and cash too. From the sound of it, you would prefer to err on the side of institutions and regulation. I disagree, and would prefer that individuals take personal responsibility for their own education and finances. The world is a messy place and there is no answer for 100% of the people 100% of the time.
> 1. Energy efficiency of the transactions and the network
If by "transaction" you mean a single economic exchange between two agents, then the energy cost of a single transaction is impossible to measure. Many of the on-chain transactions in Bitcoin today are "batched" to reduce their total size thus saving on fees. Each of these batched on-chain transactions can easily represent dozens of individual economic exchanges. Lightning Network (LN) takes this even further with bi-directional payment channels now representing potentially tens of thousands of transactions over the lifetime of a single channel. It requires one on-chain Bitcoin transaction to "open" a bi-directional payment channel, and another transaction to "close" it. Closing is not strictly necessary and will be less so as infrastructure and tooling improves.
Bitcoin is not really one single network. It is a few different networks operating in their own niche with their own specific optimizations. Miners can operate as dumb hashing computers with no visibility or knowledge about the blockchain other than the next chunk of data to hash. Full-nodes are typically operated by the "users" that wish to carry on the mantra of "don't trust, verify"; value their personal privacy; or are a large commercial entity. The last estimates that I saw were about 10,000 publicly reachable full-nodes and another 100,000 private or non-reachable. There are also mobile wallets that can be custodial or "light clients". Then the Lightning Network (LN), which consists of public and private nodes, mobile and custodial apps, nodes backed by full-nodes and LN's version of light clients.
> 2. How democratic the process to mine new coins is.
Mining appears much more centralized than it is - due to the success of mining pools. Mining pool operators do not control all the hash power that congregates in their pool. Instead the owners of mining rigs/operators can point their rigs at the mining pool that offers them the best ROI. Of course sometimes other reasons override the profit motive but usually only temporarily - see the SegWit political / governance drama from a few years ago. Corporations (and governments) have already started investing in mining equipment in an effort to secure their own interests in the space. They will compete with each other here just as they have competed with each other over territory and natural resources for hundreds of years.
> 3. What steps are taken to manage frauds, speculations bubbles etc. to protect malicious actors from gaming the system.
Bitcoin is governed today by the same laws and rules as other systems. Fraud is fraud is fraud. Criminals, scammers, and fraudsters use banks and cash too. From the sound of it, you would prefer to err on the side of institutions and regulation. I disagree, and would prefer that individuals take personal responsibility for their own education and finances. The world is a messy place and there is no answer for 100% of the people 100% of the time.
oh look. he didn't actually.
"Bitcoin is popular in the west and the US specifically because it lacks the cutting edge financial networks rest of the world has."
This only applies to the US, Europe has a instant bank transfer system.
This only applies to the US, Europe has a instant bank transfer system.
Yeah I was just gonna say, it's been instant for a while now. I think outside of my country it can still take a workday though. But then again it doesn't cost anything, where BTC can cost a few dollars per tx.
Bitcoin is huge in China. probably second largest part of the ecosystem is there, if not the largest (and no, not just mining.)
Speed of transactions has nothing to do with it, the answer is elsewhere.
Speed of transactions has nothing to do with it, the answer is elsewhere.
It's less controversial and more flat out wrong.
I am very surprised people that frequenting HN are still this misinformed about BTC.
Where are you reading that BTC is focused in US? Where are you reading that BTC is supposed to be used for fast transactions?
I am very surprised people that frequenting HN are still this misinformed about BTC.
Where are you reading that BTC is focused in US? Where are you reading that BTC is supposed to be used for fast transactions?
Idea: Change BTC protocol to include a new field in coinbase transactions documenting the CO2 emissions of each block. Introduce an uncle block reward like ETH. Miners agree to audits of their reports. Make block reward dependent on carbon emissions. Use rest for offset programs.
Bitcoin is not a protocol for honest people to reach spontaneous agreements. It uses algorithms to create consensuses, and audit might be powerless in this system.
My thinking behind this idea is that the sentiment of the author of this blog article is becoming more and more prevalent. Over the coming years pressure on bitcoin’s legitimacy will increase. To get ahead of this movement I propose to miners worldwide to create their own climate change accord and do this voluntarily. All it needs is a consensus to do so.
It's obviously good if worldwide miners all agree to protect the environment together. It's also right that many governments have paid a lot of attention to Bitcoin. However, Bitcoin is not to be strictly regulated by design.
A government strong enough might have the ability to control Bitcoin mining over the holders, but breaking decentralization in this way will kill Bitcoin in its fundamental, and it seems that no such government is going to do this for now, especially when the reason is "environmental problems", which is generally not in high priority. Beside this idea, maybe a BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) is the best way of achieving consensus, but I can't imagine such a proposal being approved based on its limited feasibility.
A government strong enough might have the ability to control Bitcoin mining over the holders, but breaking decentralization in this way will kill Bitcoin in its fundamental, and it seems that no such government is going to do this for now, especially when the reason is "environmental problems", which is generally not in high priority. Beside this idea, maybe a BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) is the best way of achieving consensus, but I can't imagine such a proposal being approved based on its limited feasibility.
Interesting idea, but how exactly would you validate the CO2 emissions? If somebody mines a block and claims it only consumed x of CO2, how do you know it is true?
What seems possible is to check what miners mined a block, and externally verify their footprint. But I don't think there is a decentralized way to do it. An entity certifying "green miners" would be a centralized authority.
What seems possible is to check what miners mined a block, and externally verify their footprint. But I don't think there is a decentralized way to do it. An entity certifying "green miners" would be a centralized authority.
Big miners would agree to audits of their resource consumption. There’s no other way.
Why not just use proof of stake and get it of all the useless nonce-calculations?
The nonce-calculations are what makes bitcoin an energy credit. It's why it's a valuable digital asset and commodity. If it cost ZERO dollars to create bitcoin it would just be fiat... useless inflation adding zero value to current shareholders.
Bitcoin are being traded by energy companies to subsidize their infrastructure and improve energy efficiency and capacity.
In some ways Bitcoin is a battery, because hydro dams don't idle generators as often they can sell their excess energy production and subsidize the dry season. Oil companies capture the natural gas flares and use it to power generators to mine bitcoin, etc. There really only needs to be one POW coin, and I think it's pretty obvious that Bitcoin is it.
Bitcoin are being traded by energy companies to subsidize their infrastructure and improve energy efficiency and capacity.
In some ways Bitcoin is a battery, because hydro dams don't idle generators as often they can sell their excess energy production and subsidize the dry season. Oil companies capture the natural gas flares and use it to power generators to mine bitcoin, etc. There really only needs to be one POW coin, and I think it's pretty obvious that Bitcoin is it.
because all that will do is just entrench the existing banking oligopoly.
proof of work is the only thing that maintains unforgeable costliness.
Every proof of stake system eventually centralized and failed.
proof of work is the only thing that maintains unforgeable costliness.
Every proof of stake system eventually centralized and failed.
I'm no fan of Bitcoin, seeing the project as essentially coopted and sabotaged, but I see this 'green' criticism as totally baseless.
As I wrote a couple weeks ago:
If you want to take a Puritanical attitude, any luxury product/service can be argued to be wasting resources that could be expended on essentials. In other words, its alleged lack of utility doesn't provide a justification for destroying or banning it. It's up to others to decide how to spend their resources.
If CO2 emission, and its negative externality, is specifically the problem, then the principled position is to advocate that production of all non-essential/luxury products/services use non-CO2 emitting energy inputs.
Unless the measure is agnostic to what category of non-essential activity it targets, you'd just be singling out cryptocurrency, because it's not a non-essential that you personally believe is worthwhile enough to pollute the environment in order to produce, unlike say gaming, and the massive amounts of energy that gaming GPUs use.
As I wrote a couple weeks ago:
If you want to take a Puritanical attitude, any luxury product/service can be argued to be wasting resources that could be expended on essentials. In other words, its alleged lack of utility doesn't provide a justification for destroying or banning it. It's up to others to decide how to spend their resources.
If CO2 emission, and its negative externality, is specifically the problem, then the principled position is to advocate that production of all non-essential/luxury products/services use non-CO2 emitting energy inputs.
Unless the measure is agnostic to what category of non-essential activity it targets, you'd just be singling out cryptocurrency, because it's not a non-essential that you personally believe is worthwhile enough to pollute the environment in order to produce, unlike say gaming, and the massive amounts of energy that gaming GPUs use.
Except everything people do with Bitcoin could be done just as well with a less obscenely wasteful coin.
Then don't use Bitcoin.
Or you could just close the money faucet at the central bank and let the government invest that money into renewable infrastructure instead. You can even claim that this will create more jobs and thus helps with unemployment.
Don’t destroy Bitcoin. Invent a more efficient alternative for people to switch to.
Deliberately making bitcoin worse would incentivize users to switch to alternatives like Libra or Ethereum (which claims to be moving to proof-of-stake).
Making Bitcoin deliberately worse would also hinder the development of those future improvements in efficiency, perhaps actually leading to proof-of-work systems being around for even longer.
Er, no it wouldn't?
You don't need Bitcoin around to do that.
You don't need Bitcoin around to do that.
I didn't say you need it, but it incentivized the development of those more efficient cryptocurrency technologies by providing a decentralized store of value in which the market could build trust in the interim period where proof-of-stake technologies were still being developed.
What I am saying is that perhaps proof-of-work coins actually bootstrapped proof-of-stake technologies, thus leading to more rapid development of cryptocurrency technology in general.
What I am saying is that perhaps proof-of-work coins actually bootstrapped proof-of-stake technologies, thus leading to more rapid development of cryptocurrency technology in general.
Sure, but in that respect Bitcoin has been redundant for years.
You may say that, but given that proof-of-stake coins should be able to easily outcompete proof-of-work coins on a purely technical basis, and yet they have not achieved that success yet in practice (although they are growing rapidly), it seems the overall market still disagrees.
An alternative could be where a coin could be directly proportional to a tree planted! Its value would go up as the tree grew bigger. Think of a carbon sink. While it would come with its own loopholes like having invasive plants. Its an interesting way to have an alternate. One could even expand to other similar sources which could aid to a better future.
Have a look at Cardano Ouroboros: "An environmentally sustainable, verifiably secure proof-of-stake protocol with rigorous security guarantees."
Do destroy Bitcoin, to incent people to move to more efficient alternatives.
Bitcoin should have died a decade ago.
Bitcoin should have died a decade ago.
How would that work exactly? Bitcoin would just get patched and relaunched.
Yeah, good luck with that.
I'm a fan of bitcoin, but there are clearly serious environmental detriments, and i see it ultimately becoming another regulated entity (it's already happening in india).
How did this waste of time article even get popular on HN? I just want to assume that it's got popular so that it can be ditched.
This is so stingingly dumb it reads like satire
Better promote 'non-shit' shitcoins then instead? Because this 'plan' won't really work/do much.
I'm out of the loop on blockchain currencies.
What would be a good 'non-shit' shitcoin?
What would be a good 'non-shit' shitcoin?
I like Iota a lot. Decentralized, no fees (to get a transaction validated, you validate others) low energy requirements, lots of industrial partnerships. About to get smart contracts a-la Ethereum, but without the out of control costs for transactions.
IOTA arguably is not decentralized at the moment and has questionable history: https://www.coindesk.com/iota-being-shut-off-is-the-latest-c...
Have a look at Cardano Ouroboros: "An environmentally sustainable, verifiably secure proof-of-stake protocol with rigorous security guarantees."
Tezos is technically awesome, it uses proof of stakes, and use a non brain dead Turing complete language for its smart contracts.
The energy in mining is not being wasted, it's being converted into something of perceived value.
The real waste of energy, one could argue is pornography, which hogs around 30% of the internet, with little value output.
Imagine replacing those servers for something more productive for humanity as a whole.
The real waste of energy, one could argue is pornography, which hogs around 30% of the internet, with little value output.
Imagine replacing those servers for something more productive for humanity as a whole.
Your argument is not even an argument, it's just: "In my opinion Bitcoin has value and porn does not".
For the same reason Bitcoin has value, you could argue porn has value.
At the very basic level, if someone is paying for it, who are you to decide it has no value to that person?
For the same reason Bitcoin has value, you could argue porn has value.
At the very basic level, if someone is paying for it, who are you to decide it has no value to that person?
What I said is that Bitcoin is a perceived store of value, and like any currency it's valuable only if it's perceived by the masses to be so, no different than fiat. Bitcoin ticks that box and is scarce, as opposed to inflating fiat.
Porn doesn't creates value storages, except dopamine hits.
And am not making a personal judgement, but just making a contrasting argument for someone who says that mining bitcoin is a waste of energy.
Porn doesn't creates value storages, except dopamine hits.
And am not making a personal judgement, but just making a contrasting argument for someone who says that mining bitcoin is a waste of energy.
Bitcoin is the first generation blockchain. It has it's weaknesses. Ethereum the second generation. Watch out for the third. Little resources, low fees, more secure. Little hint: a few days ago we had the Ouroboros paper on the front page.
I think it's mostly CCP strategy to control as much cryptospace as possible, be it via exchanges or miners. I believe china is in the game of using any method to undermine the western hegemony in the world. This is not even controversial. I'm even willing to believe that the whole covid-19 crisis is leveraged by them for relative power gains. There's not much evidence for this, but that's what I would do.
I think the cryptomining rigs could eventually be claimed by the government to house a large general AI and destroy the crypto market in one swing. If I were the Chinese government I would at least entertain that idea. The fact that people don't care about crypto not being really decentralized makes me believe china would research such ploys.
They are growing their power in any domain they can get away with, this is one of them.
- south chinese sea islands
- HK annexation
- pressuring Taiwan and constructing infrastructure towards the island.
- hacking attacks
- tibet (making sure homeland security is maximal)
- the concentration camps with Uyghurs (making sure homeland security is maximal)
- the infrastructural projects in africa to gain access to resources
- the buying of as much european assets (like ports, factories, real estate) as possible.
- the state assisted development of large cyber start-ups/companies (jack ma didn't disappear for nothing)
- the state infiltration of big technology firms like huawei 5g and others.
It seems like a clear picture to me.
One of America's greatest strategical assets is the dollar being the world's reserve currency. It's basically a way to be able to print almost endless amounts of dollars without the punitive danger of inflation. Other countries will buy your excess money to make sure their reserves won't devalue.
If china wants hegemony, they would need to undermine this asset in a subtle way. If bitcoin becomes very mainstream and more stable, then this will become the new reserve currency. With the air of being unbiased. However, china controls many of the levers.
Just my three cents.
- south chinese sea islands
- HK annexation
- pressuring Taiwan and constructing infrastructure towards the island.
- hacking attacks
- tibet (making sure homeland security is maximal)
- the concentration camps with Uyghurs (making sure homeland security is maximal)
- the infrastructural projects in africa to gain access to resources
- the buying of as much european assets (like ports, factories, real estate) as possible.
- the state assisted development of large cyber start-ups/companies (jack ma didn't disappear for nothing)
- the state infiltration of big technology firms like huawei 5g and others.
It seems like a clear picture to me.
One of America's greatest strategical assets is the dollar being the world's reserve currency. It's basically a way to be able to print almost endless amounts of dollars without the punitive danger of inflation. Other countries will buy your excess money to make sure their reserves won't devalue.
If china wants hegemony, they would need to undermine this asset in a subtle way. If bitcoin becomes very mainstream and more stable, then this will become the new reserve currency. With the air of being unbiased. However, china controls many of the levers.
Just my three cents.
>. I think the cryptomining rigs could eventually be claimed by the government to house a large general AI
what? via hashing sha256?
what are you even talking about,nutter?
what? via hashing sha256?
what are you even talking about,nutter?
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Let us use Solar Power to mine the coins.
Go ahead. Won't really make a difference. There's no authority to force miners to go solar. And even if they did so, energy markets are very liquid, so increased demand overall increases the pollution produced by energy production market wide. If miners started building massive new solar installations, that would help, but again that's just clean energy someone else could have used for something else. There's no particularly compelling case for miners to go solar vs. other users of electricity.
If you spend the money to put up panels to fund your mining, you'll probably never make a profit from the mining.
a look a woke person.
TLDR: Troll-piece, that cannot actually be serious, written by self-professed green hacker whose fluttering and tenuous sense of meaning, value in life and connection to the universe are challenged by the existence of things like Bitcoin, the absurdity inherent in nature, Versace, and an artist’s shit in a can that sold for over 100k at Sotheby’s according to Wikipedia.
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Destroy yourselves and you won't have to live in a world where people use energy as they see fit.
This makes me lol, but it also makes me sad because some people really think like this.
I think its same group that thinks nuclear power will kill us all.
No joke, I want to apeal to the Greta Thunberg type activists/followers and Extinction Rebellion crowds; so, if Franck Leroy wants to have a chat (your misguided attack is absurd and BTC just hit another ATH in the time you wrote that) I extend a friendly open-invitation to discuss how as an environmentalist myself with a background in sustainable Ag, farmers rights, farm to table, and anti nuclear activism we can get to the bottom of this.
You have a clear misunderstanding of this matter and I see it as an opportunity to get other activists involved.
> This is so stingingly dumb it reads like satire
Perhaps, but its also an opportunity to settle this matter once and for all and get the aforementioned crowds into BTC.
In typical HN logic: downvoting doesn't disprove his absurd thesis, only coherent discourse does, but go ahead and downvote it because you don't want to hear your views challenged.
You have a clear misunderstanding of this matter and I see it as an opportunity to get other activists involved.
> This is so stingingly dumb it reads like satire
Perhaps, but its also an opportunity to settle this matter once and for all and get the aforementioned crowds into BTC.
In typical HN logic: downvoting doesn't disprove his absurd thesis, only coherent discourse does, but go ahead and downvote it because you don't want to hear your views challenged.
> so, if Franck Leroy wants to have a chat
I'm thoroughly convinced this author is a made up pseudonym. No other articles, no information on what development work they do for what project paired with a generalized emotional call-to-action while misunderstanding fundamentals.
I'm thoroughly convinced this author is a made up pseudonym. No other articles, no information on what development work they do for what project paired with a generalized emotional call-to-action while misunderstanding fundamentals.
Seems too early still.
It's amazing how nobody on this board understands it.
It's amazing how nobody on this board understands it.
Maybe people understand and just aren't buying what you're selling. Bitcoin is more than 10 years old.
Bitcoin advocates are fond of comparing BTC to WWW, but at the equivalent point in the web's development we had Yahoo, eBay, Paypal, Google, Facebook, Amazon...
The only "killer app" of bitcoin is HODL speculation.
Bitcoin advocates are fond of comparing BTC to WWW, but at the equivalent point in the web's development we had Yahoo, eBay, Paypal, Google, Facebook, Amazon...
The only "killer app" of bitcoin is HODL speculation.
There is fundamentally no way to reduce bitcoin or blockchain energy consumption, it is the very thing which enables decentralized trustless transactions and the quality required implies a minimum power use. Everything else uses authority in one way or another, and is vulnerable in ways btc is not.
Reducing energy use for environmental reasons is ridiculous, the sun gives plenty of power and we have fissile materials to last for many millennia. The problem isn't power use, its power production, which requires global enforcement of carbon emission laws.
Reducing energy use for environmental reasons is ridiculous, the sun gives plenty of power and we have fissile materials to last for many millennia. The problem isn't power use, its power production, which requires global enforcement of carbon emission laws.
"There is fundamentally no way to reduce bitcoin or blockchain energy
consumption, it is the very thing which enables decentralized trustless
transactions and the quality required implies a minimum power use."
Why would I want to engage in trustless transactions in the first place? All desirable social relationships are based on trust and always have been. I think a need for trustless transactions implies that one or more parties is not trustworthy, so why would I want to transact with them?
Why would I want to engage in trustless transactions in the first place? All desirable social relationships are based on trust and always have been. I think a need for trustless transactions implies that one or more parties is not trustworthy, so why would I want to transact with them?
because by assuming blind trust (or your ability to discern who is trustworthy to interact with) with mean statistically you will get burned eventually.
Better to build systems that assume on untrusted actors as the default start state and not regret it after.
Better to build systems that assume on untrusted actors as the default start state and not regret it after.
> If you’re not a green hacker, and you’re not doing it for the planet, you can also do it for the money: by speculating downward on the price of bitcoin before launching attacks.
Or the speculators make just laugh about the threats of script kiddies and the price will not change and you will loose money.