When it comes to public utilities, commonwealth, and natural resources, the more you use, the more you should pay per unit.
Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington
221–230 of 278 posts
Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington
#222It's hard to explain the levels of stupidity in this. - people trading 'coins' in the same way Pokemon / WWF kids trade cards. - thinking this is actually a long-term 'investment' strategy (well its idiots trading with each other ...) - to top it off, siphoning off electricity and giving a load of shitty excuses 'it could be like Seattle's. I don't know where to begin with this Bitcoin crap; it's gotten crazy that so…
This comment applies to any revolutionary technology. Let's substitute cryptocurrencies with "the internet" in 1999: - people trading 'stocks' in the same way Pokemon / WWF kids trade cards. - thinking this is actually a long-term 'investment' strategy (well its idiots trading with each other ...) - to top it off, siphoning off capital and giving a load of shitty excuses 'it could be like Detroit at the beginning of…
The key difference is there is no BitInternet craze. In a funny way, there was the craze around PetSmart and other dotcom 'crap' which is very similar to the FOMO-naivety that goes on in this Bitcoin world...
Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference is that the Internet had clear useful applications at that point and billions of dollars in real business (not just speculation) was happening annually. Yes, there were plenty VC misfires with no plausible path to profitability — my favorite was cement.com, with free shipping! — but there were tons of existing businesses finding significant value from it and new companies like Amazon, eBay, Travelocity…
Bitcoin, at this point in time (and for the last two years or so, though not really for the preceding eight) is digital gold. It's a version of gold that, with proper preparation, can be carried inside your head when you move from place to place, or transferred by voice or text message. Most people in the west have about the same use for gold[0] and bitcoin - speculation, gamble, "investment". However, people of Vene…
No, no and no. Sweden and Denmark are taxing bitcoin capital gains so I don’t see a single reason why a malicious government cannot confiscate them.
The beautiful story of “digital gold” is just a story.
To me it seems more like a digital crap honestly and I can’t wait for the day when it finally disappears.
Sadly it will be in any case too late given the massive amount of energy and co2 thrown away..
Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you missed the point I was trying to make; I was mentioning that OP has made a too broad of a statement which could apply to any successful technology too. I wasn't trying to make any comparisons, since these are two very different situations.
I think you were unclear - I also thought you were saying that bitcoin was like the successful tech you mentioned.
Thanks for pointing it out. Comparing the current bitcoin space to the '99 internet is a common so I should have been more clear. I think that the comparison to the 70s internet is better, but that doesn't work that well to explain current valuations.
Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
You seemed to have missed the point. There’s nothing to stop an oppressive government from preventing its people from buying bitcoin the same as they prevent them from buying pounds and wiring them to British banks. The dark hints about how any government may become oppressive is a red herring. The issue isn’t that bitcoin isn’t needed because my government isn’t currently oppressive, it’s that bitcoin’s utility in t…
I am looking at what is actually happening, not hypothesizing. > There’s nothing to stop an oppressive government from preventing its people from buying bitcoin the same as they prevent them from buying pounds and wiring them to British banks. There's also nothing to stop an oppressive government from killing its people (and some do). But oppressive is not binary, and people have used bitcoin to "smuggle" money out o…
So just to understand, you are doing an eulogy to Silk Road and to all the illegal ways of using bitcoin with your posts, or I’m missing something?
Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference is that the Internet had clear useful applications at that point and billions of dollars in real business (not just speculation) was happening annually. Yes, there were plenty VC misfires with no plausible path to profitability — my favorite was cement.com, with free shipping! — but there were tons of existing businesses finding significant value from it and new companies like Amazon, eBay, Travelocity…
> 10 years into Bitcoin there's still no reason for someone to buy in other than speculation If you're comparing with the Internet, I'd say 10 years is still quite early into the Bitcoin and Blockchain space. You could say the Internet of 1999 was almost 15-20 years of development from the time TCP/IP was introduced on the ARPANET. With the attention that Blockchain has received in the past year and the sheer number…
The smart people are the ones choosing an inherently unsafe language not that different from JavaScript on which to build “smart” contract for which the code is law just until the point a bug is found and they hard fork to avoid losing hundred of millions of dollars?
I’m honestly not very impressed by what I’ve seen.
They may be much smarter than me and I may be a complete idiot, but I never fucked up in a such majestic way honestly.
Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
That area of magical thinking just amazes me: look at the Chinese Great Firewall or Erdogan’s Turkey to see how this would actually work. People get arrested for visiting websites or having the wrong app on their phone and there’s no reason to believe that capacity wouldn’t be used the same way. This especially bad for Bitcoin since unlike cash they’d get your full history and quickly deanonymize everyone you know.
This area of magical thinking just amazes me: Look at the recent two years! The big run up in bitcoin value has happened because people were moving money out of China despite capital controls put in place. Is it still as easy? Probably not, I'm not up to date. Could people who have done that get in trouble for that in the future (thanks to bitcoins long memory)? possibly, if their opsec wasn't top notch and even if i…
That’s just telling us that it’s easier to get away with something before the authorities take it seriously. Once something grows big enough that window closes, which means it’s not much of a selling point for mainstream adoption.
Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington
#228Those bargain rates are possible largely because the Basin’s five dams generate around six times what the region can use locally. Much of the surplus is exported, at premium prices, to outside buyers such as Puget Sound Energy, and those outside sales subsidize local rates. But if the utilities are selling more of their power to local Bitcoin miners, they’re exporting less power at those premium prices, which makes i…
If you are going to forego energy neutrality, why stop with the bitcoin miners? Could they charge controversial businesses like adult entertainment more as well? Since they sell excess above local prices, all local usage drives up local prices.
Energy neutrality? Every utility has differential industrial and residential and commercial pricing, and energy discounts are super common for localities to lure development. China is the extreme end, where some places actually get free power, but even here there's all kinds of discounts our special rates. What do you think Amazon is trying to get cities to grovel for? Special tax discounts, energy rates, whatever they can get.
Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am looking at what is actually happening, not hypothesizing. > There’s nothing to stop an oppressive government from preventing its people from buying bitcoin the same as they prevent them from buying pounds and wiring them to British banks. There's also nothing to stop an oppressive government from killing its people (and some do). But oppressive is not binary, and people have used bitcoin to "smuggle" money out o…
So just to understand, you are doing an eulogy to Silk Road and to all the illegal ways of using bitcoin with your posts, or I’m missing something?
Certainly not. You are missing something.
I am not lamenting the downfall of Silk Road - I think it should have been shut down. I was pointing out that "an oppressive government can do everything" is a weak argument, because we have experience showing the limit and effort needed.
All I am saying that bitcoin has some of the same uses that gold has, albeit in an easier-to-carry-across-border and harder-to-confiscate way -- which was a response to G-G-..-G-P saying "bitcoin has found no use".
Now, "illegal" is a problematic word, because it is a technical definition that changes with time and location. It is now legal to own gold in the US, and it was legal in the 1920's but it was illegal to do so in the 1930s. Gold was confiscated, and (since USD was still denominated in gold at the time), it's value in USD was doubled overnight, or rather, the value of USD in gold was halved overnight.
It is still illegal for an unmarried couple to kiss, perhaps even hold hands in public, in the Saudi Arabia.
The technical legality of owning gold in this case is an interesting discussion, but I am interested in the properties and implications of an un-confiscatable store of value, which in some (limited) ways cryptocurrencies are. It keeps governments in check in a way that fiat currency cannot.
Unless you believe every single government anywhere in the world is, at all times, always "just" and "right" and "good" (for whatever definitions of those adjectives), then it is a good that some "illegal" acts in some places and some times have mitigations. And at this point in time, bitcoin provides these mitigations for the people of venezuela and iran, and has provided them earlier for the people of china.
Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
This area of magical thinking just amazes me: Look at the recent two years! The big run up in bitcoin value has happened because people were moving money out of China despite capital controls put in place. Is it still as easy? Probably not, I'm not up to date. Could people who have done that get in trouble for that in the future (thanks to bitcoins long memory)? possibly, if their opsec wasn't top notch and even if i…
That’s just telling us that it’s easier to get away with something before the authorities take it seriously. Once something grows big enough that window closes, which means it’s not much of a selling point for mainstream adoption.
You can keep moving the goal posts if you enjoy that. Yes, everything becomes harder once the authorities take note.
But if you have managed to acquire bitcoin, e.g. before a government crackdown, or some other way through help from people in other countries, it still provides the "cross border value store" function that gold cannot by virtue of being hard to move.