Bill aims to halt Bitcoin mining until its environmental impact can be assessed(markets.businessinsider.com)
markets.businessinsider.com
Bill aims to halt Bitcoin mining until its environmental impact can be assessed
https://markets.businessinsider.com/currencies/news/new-york-ny-bill-bitcoin-mining-environment-assessment-2021-5-1030386497
44 comments
One creates a useful material and can potentially be optimized to be more efficient in the future, while the other uses by definition more and more energy for very questionable benefits.
Internet porn uses a tremendous amount of energy....is it useful material? What's the new criteria to cut off energy to paying customers?
Seems like censorship-happy people are creating a new weapon. Be careful when supporting measures like this.
Seems like censorship-happy people are creating a new weapon. Be careful when supporting measures like this.
How is banning Bitcoin censorship? Seems like a great law to me; laws are usually the best way to prevent a tragedy of the commons.
I’m also pretty burned out on all the crypto fans warning of a slippery slope to tyranny if crypto is not allowed to operate in a libertarian free market. Come on. Not everything is a road to tyranny. We live in a state of laws and sometimes those laws impact you. It doesn’t mean that’s you’re the victim of the early stages of a fascist regime. It’s childish to think so, in my opinion.
I’m also pretty burned out on all the crypto fans warning of a slippery slope to tyranny if crypto is not allowed to operate in a libertarian free market. Come on. Not everything is a road to tyranny. We live in a state of laws and sometimes those laws impact you. It doesn’t mean that’s you’re the victim of the early stages of a fascist regime. It’s childish to think so, in my opinion.
>How is banning Bitcoin censorship?
Financial transactions/trade is the most honest form of communication. Bitcoin enables unrestricted financial transactions aka free speech.
Financial transactions/trade is the most honest form of communication. Bitcoin enables unrestricted financial transactions aka free speech.
Ah yes. It was inspiring when Lucian expressed deep truths of human nature by paying an extra solidus for a sacrificial sheep.
I'm not sure you understand my point, I will expand a bit.
We rely on markets for information.
Falsely signaling to market participants demand for 1M sheep through a financial transaction costs you the price of 1M sheep. It is the most honest form of communication because the penalty for false/dishonest signaling is built in.
We rely on markets for information.
Falsely signaling to market participants demand for 1M sheep through a financial transaction costs you the price of 1M sheep. It is the most honest form of communication because the penalty for false/dishonest signaling is built in.
I believe I understand your point. In an important way, I don't disagree. A financial transaction is an inherently honest communication between buyer and seller - the clarity of the signal that buying and selling sends is the mechanism behind the efficiency of free markets. I agree with this. Is it close to your point?
My point is that there's not much value in this honesty beyond the efficiency of markets. It can't be used to express complex ideas, to make logical proofs, or create art. It may be honest, but it is not truthful.
Moreover, though communication in free markets is honest, it does not constitute "speech" in the sense of free speech. It is what it is: trade. Not all actions, even if the action expresses the actor's unique will, are speech.
Markets should not be optimized on the idea that participating in them is speaking freely. Free enterprise is its own good, separate from free speech, and with its own ends. Confusing the two grants undue protections to those with the ability to "speak" loudest via a financial transaction. Confusing the two allows us to turn our political civitas into a parody of a free market, openly allowing the will of public officers to be bought by the "speech" of the rich.
My point is that there's not much value in this honesty beyond the efficiency of markets. It can't be used to express complex ideas, to make logical proofs, or create art. It may be honest, but it is not truthful.
Moreover, though communication in free markets is honest, it does not constitute "speech" in the sense of free speech. It is what it is: trade. Not all actions, even if the action expresses the actor's unique will, are speech.
Markets should not be optimized on the idea that participating in them is speaking freely. Free enterprise is its own good, separate from free speech, and with its own ends. Confusing the two grants undue protections to those with the ability to "speak" loudest via a financial transaction. Confusing the two allows us to turn our political civitas into a parody of a free market, openly allowing the will of public officers to be bought by the "speech" of the rich.
There is some overlap between our discussion and the Citizens United v FEC case, and though I was adamantly against the idea upon first glance, after reading the arguments it became clear to me that money was in fact speech, especially in the US.
So I must disagree with your assessment.
So I must disagree with your assessment.
How does shutting something down for 3 years to find out information we already know not count as censorship? The environmental claim only really applies to Bitcoin, and yet it's a full moratorium on all cryptocurrency, even those that use PoS.
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Actually Bitcoin miners are more likely to use renewable energy. Renewable energy is cheaper (mainly hydro) and miners can easily move to the cheap engery. Fossil fuels (coal, oil, LNG) are transportable and sells for a higher price
Are they going to halt activity at the legacy financial institutions such as banks, credit unions, brokerages, hedge funds, credit card companies and the like? Those things have an environmental impact many times greater than Bitcoin does.
I would find it hilarious if someone proposed a bill to halt transactions in dollars until its geopolitical impacts are assessed.
No it doesn't actually. The a banks electronic clearinghouse and transaction processing system can handle potentially billions of transaction per second. No cryptoshenanigans required aside from that required to secure data at rest.
You're making a claim that something predicated on everyone wasting tons of power to do hashing that just gets thrown away when the first person nails it and starts propagating, and all of that per 100 or so transactions, with at max maybe two to three dozen servers per bank, with full capability to reverse, adjust, reconcile, chargeback, so on, and so forth.
So no.
No, they won't shut down traditional financial processing. They don't need to.
You're making a claim that something predicated on everyone wasting tons of power to do hashing that just gets thrown away when the first person nails it and starts propagating, and all of that per 100 or so transactions, with at max maybe two to three dozen servers per bank, with full capability to reverse, adjust, reconcile, chargeback, so on, and so forth.
So no.
No, they won't shut down traditional financial processing. They don't need to.
Your argument is like claiming that a private jet is more economical than a 747 jumbo jet, because it burns less fuel. Energy consumption per transaction is what really matters, and Bitcoin really sucks there.
Yes, private jets are also wasteful And unnecessary. Yet there's no talk of banning them...
Good point. They are used by extremely powerful people. We better ban Bitcoin before it’s users and environmental impact are similarly socially entrenched!
yet they're trying to ban cars just about everywhere (if you've lived in urban areas for the last decade).
HN is particularly rabid about banning cars for some reason. I got absolutely mobbed by cyclists the other day when I said that there are legitimate reasons to use a car in a city, with someone even going as far as claiming my car is too big. When I pointed out that the cars he suggested as smaller alternatives were actually bigger than what I drive...nothing.
The anti-car movement is truly insufferable, because, at least online, it seems it's mostly spearheaded by people from Europe who have never seen how spread-out America is. I'm not about to bike 30 miles each way to work every day, rain or shine, and yet I get looked at as the villain for suggesting people stop going outside when the weather sucks.
Rant over. I hate people.
The anti-car movement is truly insufferable, because, at least online, it seems it's mostly spearheaded by people from Europe who have never seen how spread-out America is. I'm not about to bike 30 miles each way to work every day, rain or shine, and yet I get looked at as the villain for suggesting people stop going outside when the weather sucks.
Rant over. I hate people.
2000 btc transactions are processed by btc every 10 minutes and the miners get the btc equivalent of 300.000$ for that.
That is enormous.
All other things you mentioned deliver real value for much much less.
And btc is not yet even used practically in any real world scenario in any relevant scale
That is enormous.
All other things you mentioned deliver real value for much much less.
And btc is not yet even used practically in any real world scenario in any relevant scale
Like the Australien Government, they blame the consumers of electricity(EVs are bad because they charge from our dirty 19th century generation tech we've ensured most people have to use, like it or not), not the market and ridiculous policies keeping the dirty energy generators at the forefront of the energy market.
Same applies to indoor cannabis growing power consumption.
So utterly and hopelessly dishonest
Same applies to indoor cannabis growing power consumption.
So utterly and hopelessly dishonest
I've had a contrarian thought about Bitcoin and energy lately. I am not convinced it's right so it's just a speculation.
A lot of people have scratched their heads about Elon's backing of cryptocurrency while at the same time apparently being concerned about climate change.
What if it actually does make sense? What if increasing energy demand actually will help transition toward lower carbon emissions?
When demand is stable or falling, industries become very conservative. Why invest in anything new if demand is static? Just run that old clunky coal burner plant as long as possible.
But if demand is rising you have to expand. That means deploying new stuff. What new stuff do you build now? Well there's gas, which is mostly lower carbon than coal, but most new capacity being built is solar and wind. So you build that, then you build storage to back it.
Once that's done, then why invest more money in stringing along those ancient coal burners?
A lot of people have scratched their heads about Elon's backing of cryptocurrency while at the same time apparently being concerned about climate change.
What if it actually does make sense? What if increasing energy demand actually will help transition toward lower carbon emissions?
When demand is stable or falling, industries become very conservative. Why invest in anything new if demand is static? Just run that old clunky coal burner plant as long as possible.
But if demand is rising you have to expand. That means deploying new stuff. What new stuff do you build now? Well there's gas, which is mostly lower carbon than coal, but most new capacity being built is solar and wind. So you build that, then you build storage to back it.
Once that's done, then why invest more money in stringing along those ancient coal burners?
This has been discussed a bunch on HN and elsewhere in recent months. I haven't seen any comprehensive analysis of it, but I have a few concerns:
If you create net new demand then fill it with renewables you haven't reduced emissions at all because the coal plants are still running.
In theory, higher demand can make new tech cheaper due to economy of scale but the effect isn't linear; it's probably like an S-curve. Where are renewables on that scale? Are they already large enough that diminishing returns are kicking in? How much crypto energy demand would move renewable costs? Would it need to be 10% of existing usage? Higher? Lower?
If you create net new demand then fill it with renewables you haven't reduced emissions at all because the coal plants are still running.
In theory, higher demand can make new tech cheaper due to economy of scale but the effect isn't linear; it's probably like an S-curve. Where are renewables on that scale? Are they already large enough that diminishing returns are kicking in? How much crypto energy demand would move renewable costs? Would it need to be 10% of existing usage? Higher? Lower?
What is too often left out of the discussion is the highly inefficient traditional establishment which are the alternative for currency trading and distributed financial activity. Most studies show that the traditional approach uses more energy.
More energy in absolute terms, or per financial transaction?
I mean, what matters is whether replacing the entire financial system with Bitcoin would produce more emissions through mining than the system currently does.
I mean, what matters is whether replacing the entire financial system with Bitcoin would produce more emissions through mining than the system currently does.
The current system is backed by the largest polluter on the planet, the US military. Bitcoin in comparison uses less energy but its too early for some to recognize this fact.
Bitcoin is the settlement layer, tools built on top of it (like 2nd/3rd layer tech that can achieve 100K-1M+ transactions per second) require very little additional energy.
Bitcoin is the settlement layer, tools built on top of it (like 2nd/3rd layer tech that can achieve 100K-1M+ transactions per second) require very little additional energy.
Rather than downvote how about telling us where you disagree? Seems silly to rob readers of a potentially useful rebuttal.
The very cynical (and imo correct view) is that he is very interested in the aggregate demand side and not particularly interested in the saving the planet side.
> If you create net new demand then fill it with renewables you haven't reduced emissions at all because the coal plants are still running.
There is a non-zero possibility that the public's perception of coal power plants being associated with Bitcoin mining increases to a point where the support to ban coal power plants reaches an actionable threshold. Consider who benefits from delivering a setback to Bitcoin and see if they enter the arena of public opinion on this issue.
There is a non-zero possibility that the public's perception of coal power plants being associated with Bitcoin mining increases to a point where the support to ban coal power plants reaches an actionable threshold. Consider who benefits from delivering a setback to Bitcoin and see if they enter the arena of public opinion on this issue.
Yes you do have a period when you have more renewables and the coal is still running. Then it ages out and you don’t build more.
Elon is an egoistic billionaire scammer, hardly caring about anything other than his wallet.
If he only cared about his wallet he would have gone into finance, not tried to build an aerospace company and do other absurdly hard things. Finance is where all the cushy easy money is.
He is definitely egotistical but he obviously has more complex motives.
He is definitely egotistical but he obviously has more complex motives.
Like enjoying playing with stocks?
And frankly, he would not be the richest person on Earth if finance was where the sweet old money is.
And frankly, he would not be the richest person on Earth if finance was where the sweet old money is.
Why a peaker plant? I thought those were the most expensive energy sources, only used during demand spikes because they can ramp up and down quickly.
A carbon tax would make more sense. Attack the root cause instead of the symptoms.
New York be like “what?! People running businesses in our state? Can’t have that...”
Running what kind of businesses?
Yes, no businesses running in NYC folks...
As much as I dislike BitCoin and it's evangelists, PC gaming alone consumes the same amount kW of energy. All for non productive entertainment purposes, Bill should rally the Microsoft board to release an update to put gaming on PCs to a halt until we can assess this enormous impact on environment and mental health.
"Bill" as in the US Congress, not Bill Gates.
Someone didn’t read the article...
If the price of electricity produced by e.g. coal plants doesn’t include externalities then we need to fix that. But it shouldn’t matter whether this power is used by a Bitcoin miner or an aluminum smelter.