This will probably crush Bitmain and other Chinese bitcoin mining giants and they will probably move elsewhere, however Chinese courts have said bitcoin itself is legally allowed. Probably what is going to happen is that you can own but you can't mine or even obtain more bitcoins in China. https://www.ccn.com/chinas-merchants-are-legally-allowed-to-...
You are under the mistaken assumption that the opinion of Chinese courts matters more than government officials, rather than the other way around.
"their mostly-non-renewable power generation" Actually, most crypto mines in China are located in Sichuan or Yunnan, precisely because of an oversupply of hydroelectricity. More than a quarter of the world's hydropower is generated in China (350 GW) and most of that is from Sichuan & Yunnan. 350 GW is more hydropower generated than the next three biggest hydro producers combined (US + Brazil + Canada.) Because of the…
Then why did they even build it there? You know what the demand is going to be in the near future and you know what capacity you're designing for. Was this built purely for mining? Because if so, the money used to build this could have been used elsewhere. People often bring this up when talking about bitcoin mining but it makes no sense to me. How can this be true (and the whole truth)? It sounds like the kind of ar…
It's similar to new offices being built when there is enough empty office space in the city already.
If the government incentivises construction there will be big infrastructure projects.
The government might not need the actual project and its output but rather the construction itself for fueling employment and economic growth.
I wonder if bitcoin will try to go the Ethereum route and move to proof of stake [1] instead of proof of work. [1] https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-FAQ
It wouldn't be bitcoin anymore then... Being able to grandfather in the whole transaction log after rolling out a new system runs counter to the principle.
"their mostly-non-renewable power generation" Actually, most crypto mines in China are located in Sichuan or Yunnan, precisely because of an oversupply of hydroelectricity. More than a quarter of the world's hydropower is generated in China (350 GW) and most of that is from Sichuan & Yunnan. 350 GW is more hydropower generated than the next three biggest hydro producers combined (US + Brazil + Canada.) Because of the…
Then why did they even build it there? You know what the demand is going to be in the near future and you know what capacity you're designing for. Was this built purely for mining? Because if so, the money used to build this could have been used elsewhere. People often bring this up when talking about bitcoin mining but it makes no sense to me. How can this be true (and the whole truth)? It sounds like the kind of ar…
They built it there because the river was there... you don’t choose where is hydropower. That the damm was built before the adequate power grid is operational will be totally irrelevant in a few years. Maybe they seize the opportunity to mine crypto in the meantime as a very profitable joke against crypto-investors...
From an energy-consumption standpoint, I'm not too surprised at this. They have better uses for their mostly-non-renewable power generation. This will probably continue the push towards bitcoin mining in places with stable renewables (like hydro and geothermal). That being said, I just found https://www.coindesk.com/norway-ends-power-tax-subsidy-for-b... , which makes me wonder if current prices would be able to supp…
It is actually other way around. No one mines cryptos where energy in less supply because energy prices tend to be high. The current mining rigs in China are almost exclusively located in regions where energy is cheap and in oversupply. China has many power-plants that must run at certain capacity floor and despite of that the demand is much lower. It makes so much sense to let that energy be used to mine cryptos whi…
It appears to me that inhibiting mining does not really have a lot to do with usage of Bitcoin as a currency. Even if they managed to completely wipe out mining in China, that would have zero impact on the utility of Bitcoin as a currency in China.
But it still doesn't waste as much energy as the standing armies fiat currencies rely on. And if your country doesn't have a large standing army then your currency is being subsidized by those you ally with who do have standing armies of significance. And the good it brings to the world in being a non-nation state controlled currency is obvious. From enabling continuation of money transfer in failing or restrictive g…
Why should Fiat money use more energy than global bitcoin adaption? Bitcoin already used as much energy as medium-sized countries (I believe it was as much as Ireland last year or the year before) and nearly no one uses it for daily payments. Compared to that, I'm not aware that the Swift Network or Visa/Mastercard would run whole power plants to support their energy needs. They just need a medium sized data center t…
Agreed. I'd like to add that even if Swift/Visa/etc. combined use power plants worth of energy (which I actually assume they do, though it's hard to tell), they do orders of magnitude more payments with it.
From an energy-consumption standpoint, I'm not too surprised at this. They have better uses for their mostly-non-renewable power generation. This will probably continue the push towards bitcoin mining in places with stable renewables (like hydro and geothermal). That being said, I just found https://www.coindesk.com/norway-ends-power-tax-subsidy-for-b... , which makes me wonder if current prices would be able to supp…
from planet's perspective. everyone can be thankful
The planet doesn’t care, it will go on. With climate change, humans are at risk, not the planet.
"their mostly-non-renewable power generation" Actually, most crypto mines in China are located in Sichuan or Yunnan, precisely because of an oversupply of hydroelectricity. More than a quarter of the world's hydropower is generated in China (350 GW) and most of that is from Sichuan & Yunnan. 350 GW is more hydropower generated than the next three biggest hydro producers combined (US + Brazil + Canada.) Because of the…
Then why did they even build it there? You know what the demand is going to be in the near future and you know what capacity you're designing for. Was this built purely for mining? Because if so, the money used to build this could have been used elsewhere. People often bring this up when talking about bitcoin mining but it makes no sense to me. How can this be true (and the whole truth)? It sounds like the kind of ar…
> Then why did they even build it there?
Because China. The country is/was flooded with cheap capital and the result is infrastructure projects everywhere. Some make sense, some not so much.
Then why did they even build it there? You know what the demand is going to be in the near future and you know what capacity you're designing for. Was this built purely for mining? Because if so, the money used to build this could have been used elsewhere. People often bring this up when talking about bitcoin mining but it makes no sense to me. How can this be true (and the whole truth)? It sounds like the kind of ar…
They built it there because the river was there... you don’t choose where is hydropower. That the damm was built before the adequate power grid is operational will be totally irrelevant in a few years. Maybe they seize the opportunity to mine crypto in the meantime as a very profitable joke against crypto-investors...
That's where China has water.
In addition, China has also been trying to shove people to the interior provinces as a policy for quite a while now.
from planet's perspective. everyone can be thankful
The planet doesn’t care, it will go on. With climate change, humans are at risk, not the planet.
Humans are at risk of resource shortages. Many species are facing extinction. Nothing bad will happen to the dirt, but if 'planet' means 'biosphere' then it's at the most risk.