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Used GPUs flood the market as Ethereum's price drops below $150

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Re: Used GPUs flood the market as Ethereum's price drops below $150

#201

Post by walterstucco »

acchow wrote: post #173
dx034 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[1] has a chart comparing Bitcoin energy consumption to that of the Visa payment network. Bitcoin is magnitudes higher. [1] http://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

This is only Visa's datacenter costs. What about all the employees working at banks to support all these credit card holders? What about all the physical snail mail being carried around by actual vehicles and driven by humans? What about the entire debt collection system?

Programmers are humans too

Re: Used GPUs flood the market as Ethereum's price drops below $150

#202

Post by jayd16 »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #75
abalone wrote: post #63

All I can think of is the careless environmental impact of all that dirty electricity consumption. For, let's be honest, a mostly speculative activity. One cryptocurrency crashes, another gets hyped up, and the computational cycle repeats. When will it end.

Is the energy expended in crypto currency mining less valuable than that expended by the traditional financial sector?

The whole concept is underpinned by enforced, auto-scaled busywork.

Re: Used GPUs flood the market as Ethereum's price drops below $150

#203

Post by walterstucco »

fulafel wrote: post #198
tomjen3 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The energy isn't wasted, it is converted. The closest analogy I can come up with is that gold used to back currency isn't wasted because it is stored in an underground vault rather than being used for jewelry or as a component in electronics. If you are creating a currency, then it has to be backed by something: gold, silver the cost of electricity, people's faith that the currency is worth something. A currency not…

Gold takes untold amounts of natural resources, energy, capital and human labor to dig up just to sit in a vault. That seems the definition of waste.

It fits more with the definition of treasure

Re: Used GPUs flood the market as Ethereum's price drops below $150

#204

Post by aerique »

a_imho wrote: post #195
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read your arguments and unfortunately most don't hold water. > 1. Miners currently use approximately only 0.0012% of the energy consumed by the world. This doesn't change the fact that you're using energy. The second argument is basically the same, just extrapolating into the future. > 3. Mining would be a waste if there was another more efficient way to implement a Bitcoin-like currency without proof-of-work. This…

1. Miners currently use approximately only 0.0012% of the energy consumed by the world. Actually if that number is accurate, is quite shocking.

I assume you mean shockingly high?

Re: Used GPUs flood the market as Ethereum's price drops below $150

#205

Post by notgood »

rspeer wrote: post #144
notgood wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data centers need security regardless of cryptocurrency, you can't say the same about money and banks; so your point is moot. To install rootkits you need to know where the computers are or some way to get to them, and that's 100% impossible with bitcoins unless you reveal your own info some other way (e.g. a security mistake)

I certainly can say the same about money and banks. I am saying it. You want money and banks to run on cryptocurrency, right? Then you need security for it. "Haha, you don't know which computer to steal" is the worst security-by-obscurity idea I've ever heard of.

That's like saying passwords are security-by-obscurity.

I never said I wanted banks to run on crypto.

Overall it is a bit sad your arguments reached this low quality; I was expecting some interesting counter-arguments instead of these slippery slopes, not to mention all the downvotes you poured onto me.

Re: Used GPUs flood the market as Ethereum's price drops below $150

#206

Post by herpdorplarp »

DanBlake wrote: post #7

Just took a quick look at this. If you are located in the 'mining valley' of Washington where power is ~2c/kwh you are still getting healthy profits. A computer with 7 GTX 1070 graphics cards should produce ~230 mh/s and draw 1 kw. This would cost approximately $30/month in power factoring in kw demand + cooling. The above setup will currently generate $385/month in ETH. So basically for miners who are in the right s…

But that's still break even in about 10x July 2017. How many times will difficulty double until July 2018?

Re: Used GPUs flood the market as Ethereum's price drops below $150

#207

Post by Sholmesy »

a_imho wrote: post #195
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read your arguments and unfortunately most don't hold water. > 1. Miners currently use approximately only 0.0012% of the energy consumed by the world. This doesn't change the fact that you're using energy. The second argument is basically the same, just extrapolating into the future. > 3. Mining would be a waste if there was another more efficient way to implement a Bitcoin-like currency without proof-of-work. This…

1. Miners currently use approximately only 0.0012% of the energy consumed by the world. Actually if that number is accurate, is quite shocking.

Agreed. This is a non-trival amount of energy. Given the infancy of the technology, it is likely to grow.

Edit: non-significant -> non-trivial

Re: Used GPUs flood the market as Ethereum's price drops below $150

#208

Post by legulere »

mrb wrote: post #148
nodamage wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cryptocurrency enthusiast would tell you that the energy consumed is not "wasted" because it is necessary to secure the block chain. Personally I find this argument unconvincing and somewhat tautological. 1) Surely we can come up with a less wasteful solution to this and 2) why should we assume that securing the block chain is a actually good use for the energy spent? Especially if you consider that the process of…

1) No there is no other way. (An alternative, proof-of-stake, is still an active research area. Even Ethereum abandoned the idea of completely switching away from proof-of-work because they realized PoS isn't completely workable.) 2) Because a permission-less censorship-resistant decentralized financial system has the potential to truly improve society, hence worth spending energy on it. I have presented multiple arg…

How are bitcoin and ethereum censorship-less and permission-less? Most cubans for instance don't have access to the internet without a permission. China could shut down the bitcoin easily by simply blocking bitcoin traffic.

Re: Used GPUs flood the market as Ethereum's price drops below $150

#209

Post by peteretep »

stouset wrote: post #131
flashman wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Resale value on the GPUs is also worth monitoring. While it remains high enough, you can discount much of the capital cost because you'll get a high fraction back if you decide to sell the cards.

I doubt resale values on GPUs running at 100% for months on end is going to be high.

You are much more optimistic that me if you think they'll come with a usage disclosure. There's a reason cars have immutable(ish) odometers.

Re: Used GPUs flood the market as Ethereum's price drops below $150

#210

Post by austenallred »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #135
DanBlake wrote: post #7

Just took a quick look at this. If you are located in the 'mining valley' of Washington where power is ~2c/kwh you are still getting healthy profits. A computer with 7 GTX 1070 graphics cards should produce ~230 mh/s and draw 1 kw. This would cost approximately $30/month in power factoring in kw demand + cooling. The above setup will currently generate $385/month in ETH. So basically for miners who are in the right s…

Call me naive, but am I the only one who looks at mining as one of the worst inventions for consuming energy possible? Almost all of society functions on energy, some of the largest breakthroughs in society have been on sudden abundance of cheap energy and the machines, vehicles products they can create. Entire economies can be crippled by rising costs in energy (oil shocks of the 70s) and boom by sudden drops in cos…

Consider that the alternative is all of the banking infrastructure that exists.

The energy that banks and their employees consume is orders of magnitude less efficient.

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