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Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

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Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#261

Post by jimnotgym »

briandear wrote: post #88
jimnotgym wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst I agree that it is a sinkhole, I also hold a fraction of a bitcoin just-in-case I am totally wrong! I don't want to say to my kids, "in my day you could still buy a bitcoin for only $7k."

The other side is that you paid $7,000 for a pet rock.

> a fraction of a bitcoin

Significantly less than $7k worth.

I paid £30 for a framed print and that sits on the wall doing nothing (it's resale value is probably a fiver on ebay), I have even bought a particularly pleasant rock on more than one occasion, pet or not. I have no use for them. Some are sat on the side because I like to look at the impressions of the creatures who died in it. Some are embedded in my wife's engagement ring (a pointless piece of bent metal), I'm not sure I get any value for them any more since we are married.

Why do we ascribe value to anything? I have a piece of paper in my wallet with a picture of the queen on. It's just a piece of paper, yet if I take it to the shop they will swap it for food! If I take it to the bank they will swap it for a number in a database (woop). Yet if I have a big number in that database or a lot of those special pictures I become a Big Man in society.

Yet, through no fault of my own, if I wanted to swap those pieces of paper for pieces with dead US presidents on, I would get 20% less than I would have 2 years ago! It would be worse but the value of dead-president-paper is not as high as it was. Holding Queen-paper or Dead-president-paper sounds like a huge risk.

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#262

Post by Fjolsvith »

tigershark wrote: post #226
asenna wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 majes…

Oh, and so cryptocurrency programmers are the only people who "fucked up in a majestic way"? Seems to me like there are times past where automobile makers had some spectacular recalls where they had to correct unforeseen situations.

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#263

Post by mark_edward »

dahdum wrote: post #235
mark_edward wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

As far as I know differential pricing is based on classes like industrial vs commercial and applied fairly. Incentives for development are super common of course, and controversial in themselves. This would be different though, targeting a business to pay more than other commercial enterprises. That's a targeted disincentive, and if not structured generically and applied fairly it's bad policy. Seems hardly different…

It's just the opposite of targeting a business to pay less than other enterprises, which happens all the times as development incentives. I don't think it's any worse policy than that, it's just the flipside.

In this case, due to the fact that by taking the town's total usage up, they raise the costs for everyone in the town, you could also just see as internalizing an externality.

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#264

Post by jake_the_third »

dror wrote: post #252
jake_the_third wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have and are using bitcoin in legal transactions. Legitimate companies accept it, legitimate customers pay using it, and legitimate products are traded for it. This is reality. If all you want to continue posting emotional comments on how much you hate bitcoin, then by all means I wont stop you. but to attempt to dismiss the currency as a toy strikes me as delusional and a bit sad. Approach this issue (and any…

What is the ratio of " Legitimate companies accept it, legitimate customers pay using it, and legitimate products are traded for it." to people using it for money laundering, ransomware and other illegitimate activities. Ransomware would probably not exist if it wasn't for cryptocurrencies. Add the power usage, the graphic card shortage and the illegal activities and I suspect you're two to three order of magnitude l…

All I'm saying is that, like it or not, cryptocurrencies are here to stay. It's far more constructive to focus on providing and improving legitimate services that accept or deal with these currencies than spending energy shouting at the clouds.

If you want to continue shouting, be my guest. The rest of use will continue accepting and transacting with these currencies.

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#265

Post by tw04 »

Rjevski wrote: post #144
tw04 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not even remotely accurate. Power companies oversubscribe just like everyone else. That's why they give you a discount for hooking up a device on your air conditioner they can remotely control during peak times to even out power usage. Also why you hear of rolling outages during extremely hot summer weather when everyone has their ac on at the same time. That's why they have a different service for business us…

Then maybe they shouldn’t be oversubscribing, or finally upgrade the infrastructure now that they milked out enough money from the oversubscription and the energy consumption is finally catching up. Another solution is to make a proper “burstable” tariff with the corresponding meter that would give you a baseline current allowance plus a peak current allowance for X seconds. As it stands however they are selling pack…

Right, 100 years of service that works perfectly fine should be thrown out the window. The rest of us should all pay a 10x increase so Bitcoin miners can abuse the system. And oh, btw, when the 10x increase occurs, the Bitcoin miners won't be able to afford it, so we'll have a glut of unused power that we'll all have to eat the cost of. Brilliant idea.

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#266

Post by andirk »

civilitty wrote: post #146
andirk wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People trade stocks like they do Pokemon but we call them 'shares'. Does that make it less like Pokemon than calling them 'coins'? Also, you trade coins all the time. It's called coins. Fiat coins.

Yes, it does make it less like coins, because lying about the assets backing a share's value is a quick way to end up in low sec Federal prison for 5 to 20 years.

I completely agree that there are regulations that enforce a somewhat honest economy. But look at 2008. A bunch of cheaters and the only people penalized were the ones who believed in it the most, such as homebuyers at the time. Bitcoin is much more chaotic, but that has its advantages too. For example, it is not tied to a single country's government.

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#267

Post by andirk »

hourislate wrote: post #236
andirk wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a basis to this claim that Bitcoin is a lie?

Is there a basis to the claim that it isn't? At this time it's anyone's guess. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet along with a handful of others seem to think it is, who am I to disagree with them. I'm indifferent since I don't have a dog in the fight.

Bill Gates Oct 2014: "Bitcoin is better than currency in that you don’t have to be physically in the same place and, of course, for large transactions, currency can get pretty inconvenient." And financial transactions will eventually “be digital, universal and almost free.” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2014-10-02/bill-gates-...

Bill Gates May 2018: "I would short bitcoin if I could." Elon Musk also said on stage that Bitcoin is mainly for illegal use. Based on what? https://youtu.be/7WMJs1v63C0?t=2m50s

He barely knows anything about crypto, and neither do these other guys, and they talk like they do. They DO have a horse in this race, and it's clearly in fiat USD. They're not omniscient and neither are we, so let's keep our eyes and ears open.

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#269

Post by sobani »

tigershark wrote: post #223
beagle3 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

The Netherlands is taxing (my) Bitcoin holdings as well. The way they do that, is by depending on my honesty. The reason I'm honest is because I don't want any troubles when I'm going to buy my lambo (no, not serious).

Afaik Bitcoin is handled the same as cash: they don't really check how much you have, but they will come down hard when you start spending more than you should be able to.

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#270

Post by beagle3 »

tigershark wrote: post #223
beagle3 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

> so I don’t see a single reason why a malicious government cannot confiscate them.

Technically, how can they confiscate them? They cannot.

They can tax them 100% or 150%, true. And they can imprison or kill their taxpayers if they with. true.

But if I managed to cross the border from (hypothetically) malicious Sweden to (hypothetically) benevolent Liberia, with the private key in my head, what can they do about it?

They can, and money governments in the past have, deny me passage with anything of value but my clothes - it is often the case that anything of value gets taken at the border (hell, it is likely the US will take anything above $10,000 on your person unless you are very well equipped legally). But there is no technical way for them to do that with bitcoin, and for that matter to even know that you carry the private key of a $1B wallet in your head, unless they have researched it before hand -- which, at last for now, is hard to do for the entire population.

> To me it seems more like a digital crap honestly and I can’t wait for the day when it finally disappears.

Art pieces that go for >$1M feels like analog organic crap. But the value is determined by the market, not but our feeling.

> Sadly it will be in any case too late given the massive amount of energy and co2 thrown away..

I agree bitcoin is likely wasting significant energy and co2, but ...

Have your ever seen a rough estimate of the costs (in resources / energy / co2) that our existing monetary system imposes? It is certainly not free, and e.g. in a lot of places more than 1% of real-estate / energy is consumed by financial entities, many of which have usefulness to society arguably comparable to bitcoin.

I have looked for a study as such and has not found one.

(sidenote: some estimates are that 1% of global energy use goes towards clothes drying. probably provides even less value to society than bitcoin)

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