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BitTorrent inventor announces eco-friendly Bitcoin competitor Chia

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Re: BitTorrent inventor announces eco-friendly Bitcoin competitor Chia

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value of a product is equivalent to the amount of labour exerceted in its production.

"The value of a product is equivalent to the amount of labour exerceted in its production" This is one of the most problematic statements ever made in Econ. The 'value' of a product is different for everyone, and it's what you (or anyone else) will pay for it. The idea that 'work = value' is one of the most distortionary ideas in business, even today. Just had a discussion today about pricing a product, and it was de…

This isn't a problematic statement in economics, its a problematic statement in capitalism where the equation is "value=labor+profit." Subjective value isn't a problem as finding someone who values it a certain amount takes more labor.

Re: BitTorrent inventor announces eco-friendly Bitcoin competitor Chia

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read someone’s estimate — rough, I’ll grant you — that mining bitcoin (just bitcoin) consumes as much total electrical energy as an entire medium-sized nation . Divide network hashrate into how much power the most efficient ASICs use, and I don’t think it’s an unfair estimate. You can’t dismiss the argument that maybe we can do better as “naysaying,” nor that there is something about cryptocurrency that the people…

straw man. I was responding to the statement that the computation is doing nothing, and not arguing one way or another that the energy used is reasonable for the benefits gained.

Try responding to the most charitable interpretation of others' comments. It's clear that nerdponx is referring to the same thing that jsmthrowaway went into greater detail about.

Try this as a habit: If in response to something someone else has said, you find yourself thinking, "That would be ridiculous! Who would think that?", then follow up by answering your own question: "That would be ridiculous, so the person I'm responding to probably doesn't think that."

Pondering how ridiculous it would be for you to choose to believe that someone else actually believed the first ridiculous thing is an exercise you can pursue at your own option.

Re: BitTorrent inventor announces eco-friendly Bitcoin competitor Chia

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up pinkapp. https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=the_stc https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15389364 https://medium.com/@PinkApp/pink-app-trading-latency-for-ano...

Your argument that bitcoin is worth wasting a large fraction of the worlds energy is that it lets you get a hooker easier?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

Re: BitTorrent inventor announces eco-friendly Bitcoin competitor Chia

#174

I understand the argument regarding power consumption. However, if we're going to green wash ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing ) a cryptocurrency, we need to focus on more than power consumption. Given that power is getting cheaper and cleaner through solar[1, 2], this is asking people to further accumulate more waste and precious metals in the form of fixed drives. This is not eco-friendly and it's dubiou…

The real problem is that when miners are competitive they'll always add cost (in electricity, equipment and whatever) up to the level of the revenues. So if you have a block reward - it will approximate the cost of the system. There is a famous post on this subject: Nothing is Cheaper than Proof of Work http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/ (even though I believe that Proof of Stake can be cheaper: https://medium.com/@zby/proof-of-stake-can-be-cheaper-than-p... - by reducing the block reward).

Re: BitTorrent inventor announces eco-friendly Bitcoin competitor Chia

#176
post #67

There are already blockchains that do not require proof of work (Lisk, Nav, Dash, NEO, etc) and already storage based blockchains (Filecoin, Storj, Sia, Maidsafe, etc). It is unclear to me what Chia brings to the table that is really new.

Filecoin and sia are not proof of storage. They are both proof of work, in fact filecoin runs on Ethereum. Not sure about Storj or Maidsafe.

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Re: BitTorrent inventor announces eco-friendly Bitcoin competitor Chia

#177
post #174

I understand the argument regarding power consumption. However, if we're going to green wash ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing ) a cryptocurrency, we need to focus on more than power consumption. Given that power is getting cheaper and cleaner through solar[1, 2], this is asking people to further accumulate more waste and precious metals in the form of fixed drives. This is not eco-friendly and it's dubiou…

The real problem is that when miners are competitive they'll always add cost (in electricity, equipment and whatever) up to the level of the revenues. So if you have a block reward - it will approximate the cost of the system. There is a famous post on this subject: Nothing is Cheaper than Proof of Work http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/ (even though I believe that Proof of Stake can be cheaper: https://med…

You can see Bram announce this a month ago at the local Crypto Builders Meetup[0]. He talks about it in depth.

Skip to 32m: https://www.facebook.com/hackdays4all/videos/533001907045477...

Re: BitTorrent inventor announces eco-friendly Bitcoin competitor Chia

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So instead of just using energy we'll be wasting physical resources on making hard drives? Doesn't sound eco-friendly to me. It does sound like a good way to drive up costs for the NSA to store everyone's data. That's a really clever way to fight mass surveillance.

One might make a general claim that as any coin stabilizes, the money spent on generating it will always approach the amount of money received. So for bitcoin, if miners get X on average to mine it, they will spend X-ε in electricity (in bitcoins case), where ε is a tiny profit margin (or perhaps paying back investment). This will remain true for any other coin and its proof scheme. The amount spent on generating it…

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Re: BitTorrent inventor announces eco-friendly Bitcoin competitor Chia

#179
post #109
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get your startup plan in order. In 20 years you can become the "Uber" of solar panel disposal. Because you can't even throw away a fluorescent bulb with most garbage collection services. Imagine the amount of toxic chemicals we will need to get rid of when these solar panels start to wear out en masse.

Why would you throw out a paid for PV system? It's a sunk cost unless you're running out of roof space and need more power. The efficiency only drops some 20% over 20 years. Also, they can be reasonably recycled... http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/06/solar-p...

Maybe because after some time they eventually die.
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