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China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

reuters.com

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Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#261

Post by clarky07 »

ForHackernews wrote: post #145
nnq wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Red Queen effect ("running just to stand still") It would be good if it were actually and deliberately properly designed this way to create an arms race of "who can get more general-purpose computing power for less" because it would accelerate technology development with this Red Queen effect... Unfortunately they've missed the "general purpose part" - most mining todays is done by special-purpose hardware made…

Yeah, if it were designed in such a way as to incentivize general purpose computing, or to reward producing the results of some useful scientific or mathematical computation, then I would be less appalled by it. As it stands, brute-forcing SHA256 on ASICs is just a travesty.

there are lots of coins with algorithms designed to resist ASICs. Bitcoin just isn't one of them.

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#262

Post by clarky07 »

mikestew wrote: post #225
kaolti wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, point still stands though. There's pros and cons to everything. Why focus on the latter?

Thalidomide [0] has been demonstrated to reduce morning sickness in pregnant women. Oh, and it also produces a high rate of birth defects. But let's not focus on the latter, shall we? I'm sure there are pros to cryptocurrency. One of the cons is that it contributes to climate change. We've all heard plenty of cryptocurrency drum-beating over the years, it's not like "focusing on the latter" is some crazy imbalance of…

Not all crypto is based on mining, so not all crypto contributes to climate change. Suggesting all crypto is bad because bitcoin uses energy is silly.

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#263

Post by clarky07 »

looeee wrote: post #200
siwatanejo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're misinformed, please read https://blog.bitcoin.org.hk/bitcoin-mining-and-energy-consum...

Bitcoin.org is not likely to be an unbiased source when it comes to the negative aspects of Bitcoin.

I'm guessing nature.com is also not likely to be an unbiased source...

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#264

Post by keymone »

village-idiot wrote: post #259
keymone wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fiat's value is, at least partially, backed by an army that can defend/assert it. not having fiat eliminates the need for as much army.

There’s two issues here. First, the logic doesn’t work. Let “has fiat currency” be A, and “has a large army” be B. You’re asserting “If A then B; therefore if not A then not B”. This is a formal logic error called “denying the antecedent”, which means the argument is invalid. (You also don’t support A well, but that’s a side point because your logical assertion doesn’t work). Second, there are plenty of examples of r…

> Let “has fiat currency” be A, and “has a large army” be B. You’re asserting “If A then B; therefore if not A then not B”.

those are incorrect presumptions and therefore incorrect conclusion. A is "has fiat currency", B is "needs an army or other means to maintain fiat value".

of course army is not the only thing, but it's one of the things in many of the countries. whatever other things other countries have to assert fiat value - those too consume some energy-equivalent of resources. army is just the most obvious and easy to understand example.

and yes, there are also feedback loops, there is no strict causal relationship between the components of this system, which is yet another reason why you can't make these energy consumption comparisons without being intellectually dishonest.

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#266

Post by mikestew »

clarky07 wrote: post #262
mikestew wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thalidomide [0] has been demonstrated to reduce morning sickness in pregnant women. Oh, and it also produces a high rate of birth defects. But let's not focus on the latter, shall we? I'm sure there are pros to cryptocurrency. One of the cons is that it contributes to climate change. We've all heard plenty of cryptocurrency drum-beating over the years, it's not like "focusing on the latter" is some crazy imbalance of…

Not all crypto is based on mining, so not all crypto contributes to climate change. Suggesting all crypto is bad because bitcoin uses energy is silly.

What's silly is to swoop in all Captain Pedantic-like, cape flapping in the breeze, at the slightest mention of "cryptocurrency". Thanks for the correction, Cap', but the title at the top of the page says "Bitcoin" and the topic I'm replying to has to do with energy use.

Now where did I put that Cryptonite...

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#267

Post by nfin »

ThomPete wrote: post #167
nfin wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not an expert on that field, but reading this I would say that Germany has reduced CO2 emissions: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/klima/treibhausgas-emis... Renewables are the biggest increase in new power supply in Germany.

They havent and they increased the cost of electricity. You need to factor in what they get from other countries too.

the increase of electricity cost was because of 20 years of high subsidy of renewables. The 20 years are ending soon (1-2 years) for the first who got those subsidies in the year 2000. Gradually electricity cost should become cheaper again, as the subsidy has become low enough (maybe in 10-15 years).

Improvments in renewable technology should make renewable energy cost effective even without subsidy (at least the newer ones).

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#268

Post by tradertef »

throwaway32366 wrote: post #253
rtpg wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>* The Chinese miners will move their operations overseas, leading to higher geographical/jurisdictional decentralization. I feel like you really don't get the... particulars of being a Chinese national, on multiple levels

There are many places in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and probably most of Africa where a Chinese national can easily get a business visa to set up shop there. Heck, given the amount of money invested, a visa for a first world country might be possible too.

Anyone can buy a real estate property for $250,000 and get citizenship in Turkey. This includes Chinese nationals as well.

https://extraproperty.com/turkish-citizenship-buying-propert...

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#269

Post by ThomPete »

nfin wrote: post #267
ThomPete wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They havent and they increased the cost of electricity. You need to factor in what they get from other countries too.

the increase of electricity cost was because of 20 years of high subsidy of renewables. The 20 years are ending soon (1-2 years) for the first who got those subsidies in the year 2000. Gradually electricity cost should become cheaper again, as the subsidy has become low enough (maybe in 10-15 years). Improvments in renewable technology should make renewable energy cost effective even without subsidy (at least the new…

I would love to see any evidence that renewable energy is cost-effective on any relevant scale. The true cost of solar and wind both with regards to externalities and actual cost is much higher than the current politically and marketing driven claims.

The number of misleading claims when it comes to the current state of batteries the cost-effectiveness of wind and solar etc is staggering.

Don't forget calculating the price and consequences of ex CO2 of wind and solar does not include things like true cost of production (the entire vertical stack), decommission, the fact that it makes other energy types more expensive (like coal used ex at night when the sun don't shine), doesn't include the cost of digging for rare-earth materials etc.

Don't forget that solar and wind require huge areas to work because the density of wind and solar is so low compared to nuclear, oil or coal.

Sun and wind combined cover less than 1% of the worlds energy needs. The high percentages some claim like when Denmark claim 40% comes from wind are misleading as they only compare to electricity, only talks about the energy that's produced in the country (an excludes energy imported for ex when there is no wind)

There is so much disingenuous information out there it's quite astounding.

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#270

Post by chrisco255 »

capsulecorp wrote: post #72
chrisco255 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, China is not the only place you can mine Bitcoin...

Correct, just as California isn't the only place you could mine gold. But you were making a correlation between Bitmain and the goldrush tool vendors. The goldrush happened for a larger part in California and there is pretty much zero dispute who bitmain/china is in that analogy. Why are you backpedaling?

I'm not backpedaling. You're desperately trying to mold the 1849 Gold Rush analogy onto Bitcoin, which can be mined from anywhere there's electricity...so basically anywhere within range of civilization. This is an absurd argument. Gold is only found within certain mineral deposits. BTC can be mined in Russia, USA, Mexico, Iceland, Britain, or Outer Space.
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