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Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

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Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#441

Post by ben_w »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #429
ben_w wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are my christmas lights that I put on during winter also everyone else's problem because they waste energy (that I bought with my own money)? Yes but too little to bother about . Transportation and inefficient heat management are the only common ones that matter. > they can simply be taxed in like for example a carbon tax On that we agree. I believe car fuel is taxed appropriately in the UK, but in general these ex…

People bought the energy with their own money, it's their own business what to do with it. Ie, not your business. Also christmas lights do consume huge amounts of electricity comparable to energy budgets of some countries. https://www.igs.com/energy-resource-center/energy-101/how-mu...

Until and unless the carbon taxes are in place, it is everyone’s business.

Thank you for the link, I will now update my world model to include that data.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#442

Post by reportgunner »

ben_w wrote: post #351
trickstra wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the point of view of the miner, they have a supply of electricity at a certain price and can decide what to do with it. They might run their TV, computer, heating, industrial machinery, datacenter, or a bitcoin miner. They have to compute what profits can each of the options give them. If running bitcoin miners at that electricity cost and at that profit they can get from selling the bitcoins is more profitable…

If bitcoin is the dominant currency, another option exists: 51% attack, double-spend to get free electricity. This is useful even when it makes an apparent loss by damaging trust in the currency: If you are, say, the USA president and you’re at war with Iraq, and Iraq uses bitcoin, you can outspend on energy until they surrender. Unless the whole world uses bitcoin, but then the first few nations individually face th…

> you can outspend on energy until they surrender

If you have unlimited money then yes. If you devalue your money every time you try to outspend more then no, since you're actually bleeding money.

You cannot simply throw more money at mining, the difficulty adjustment would destroy you very soon.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#443

Post by keymone »

konschubert wrote: post #433
keymone wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why?

Look, if you bring an anology into an argument then it’s in you to explain why it holds, it’s not on others to refute it. Ever heard of the bullshit asymmetry principle? Anyways, to answer your question: High cost of mining in gold is what limits the supply. High cost of mining in a cryptocurrency is not needed to limit supply.

> High cost of mining in a cryptocurrency is not needed to limit supply.

this is a bit backwards, high cost of mining is not needed, it's a consequence of demand in higher supply

analogy does hold: there is demand for gold which causes certain amount of mining which has environmental impact. there is demand for bitcoin which causes certain amount of mining which has environmental impact.

of course no analogy is perfect, bitcoin has another aspect with feedback loops to mining and demand - security. the more mining happens, the higher ledger security and the more valuable it is.

it's still completely misguided to think that bitcoin mining is some process done for no reason - it's integral part of what makes bitcoin valuable. and the more mining - the more valuable bitcoin is.

lastly, blaming energy consumers in environmental impact is wrong too, it's producers that use environmentally damaging means for energy production who should bear the blame.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#444

Post by noxer »

keymone wrote: post #394
noxer wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why exactly aren't you fine with that? You run a node and you decide which nodes you want to connect your node to. If such a node gets a Tx it will be relayed to your node and the other way around. It's not like your node would copy their validation and just agree with what they agree. Every node always enforces all the rules. So your node checks if a Tx is valid anyway and if you get invalid Tx from a node you trust…

> Why exactly aren't you fine with that? because i don't want to trust anyone. XRP is not trustless or decentralized enough. > Every node always enforces all the rules. So your node checks if a Tx is valid anyway and if you get invalid Tx from a node you trust it wont make your node accept that Tx. as i said - validity is trivial. i asked you to not bring it up but you did anyway. > majority of the validators say Tx…

Trust can not be removed it can only be spread. If you use BTC you also have to trust that most miners/pools act honest. You can't even choose which miners you think are trust able. You have to just hope (trust) that at least 50% are honest an cant be compromised at the same time. How is that any better than (optional, yes completely optional) choosing trusted Nodes?

You can very reliably define the "majority of validators" its defined as 80% it doesn't matter if or how many validators colluded. If Tx X was actually first but Tx Y reaches majority this simply means that either Tx X was not relayed fast enough to all the nodes OR it could mean that a lot colluded nodes voted for Tx Y.

Either way the consensus can "fail" because of technical reasons (slow relaying) or "fail" trough colluded nodes both "fails" do not lead to changed rules. No invalid Tx can happen this way. No Tx can be reversed this way. The whole situation can only ever happen if 2 Tx are valid signed but try to send the same funds (double spend attempt) and are inserted into the network nearly at the same time. Only one Tx will be processed. Enough colluded validators could effect which one but its completely irrelevant. Who cares which Tx of a double spend attempt is processed?

If you try to pay 2 persons with 100 bucks each by placing just one 100 dollar bill on the table in front of them, you don't know which one is gonna pick it up but clearly you have not fooled anyone into thinking you payed both.

>i don't care how small you think this problem is. i want to never rely on having to select "correct" validators to ensure my financial future isn't at risk.

You completely misunderstood, you don't have to choose "correct" validators to make it work correctly it can only work correctly! Bad validators don't "hurt" they just don't contribute.

Assuming 50% of all validators are bad and suddenly start censoring Txs or reordering non final Txs that would have the same effect as if these validators would just shut down. It does NOT produce a wrong output. Worst case is that the network halts and that is wanted because if 50% go offline at the same time there is probably something seriously wrong like a global internet collapse. Something humans have to fix first before resuming.

>i want universally objective measure by which i can compare competing chains.

By "universally objective measure" you mean you choose the longer chain? Fully aware that this can later change? Whats point? Having just one chain that is final doesn't need "universally objective measure" doesn't need comparing and makes final a binary option instead of "final" but better wait some more blocks to be sure.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#445

Post by noxer »

trickstra wrote: post #401
noxer wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's word juggling whether the miners pay with bitcoins or sell bitcoins and pay with fiat is totally irrelevant. Fact is, mining is paid with the block reward. Bitcoin pays itself by "printing" itself. The value that goes to whom sells the energy/hardware is extracted from every bitcoin in existence via inflation. Unlike with Fiat the inflation rate is hard-coded and declines so hyperinflation isn't a problem but…

If you are so sure, you are welcome to make some money on it by shorting bitcoin before the halving which is in May. And no, it's not word juggling, the value of money comes from the people who exchange things for money. Here they exchange either electricity, or USD for it. Miners are paying their bills by selling virtual tokens, if those tokens didn't have any value for anybody, they wouldn't be able to sell them. W…

Maybe I do that already? Or maybe not because I stated above that the crash could very well come after the next halving but it could also take another few more halving each coupled with price waves as we have seen in the past. I have no clue how long this self fueling will work. Anyway the whole "if you sure about xxx why you don't yyy" isn't an argument.

You don't seem to understand where the value from new minted BTCs comes from. How they are exchanged is completely irrelevant. Mined BTCs change the supply and that changes the price of all other BTCs. Any additional BTC makes all other BTCs a little bit cheaper/less worth. And that is where the value form the new BTCs come from.

Printing controlled by math avoids hyperinflation like I said above. Printing isn't the problem, that the printing stops is the problem. Or that the whole system was self fueling in the first place.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#446

Post by sobani »

londons_explore wrote: post #382
btcd wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. I used to be a professional market maker in Bitcoin. This year, Bitcoin market is relatively calm in at least half of the time, meaning 12 hours out of a 24-hour day, longer than most established equity market. Under these normal conditions, trading $1m worth of Bitcoin moves the market by less than 0.01%.

Citation needed. Checking the bitfinex order book: https://www.bitfinex.com/order_book A trade of $10M, or 1250 bitcoins, would move the market by 6%

Maybe pick an exchange that isn't #60 based on transaction volume?

https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#447

Post by noxer »

maxerickson wrote: post #398
noxer wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTC can survive if the price at lest doubles before or after the halving. This is what happened in the past. It can happen again maybe even multiple times but certainly not forever.

A doubling leads to the rewards staying about the same. Whether that needs to happen for bitcoin to survive is not at all obvious. It would likely be sufficient for bitcoin to survive, it just isn't clear that it is necessary, maybe ⅓ of the reward would keep folks interested.

It probably needs more than doubling in the long run. For the following reasons.

Price is measured in USD and USD is inflationary so its purchasing power drops and BTC needs double the purchasing power not double the USD "value number"

The reward being constant would in the long run reduce the margins used as profit but also stop the re-investing of said profit to creating new hardware (ASICs) etc. That would stop or slow down the growth of hash/energy ratio which would make 51% attacks cheaper over time if we assume all other hardware on this planet keeps getting better and more.

Also keep in mind that BTC "only" doubling ever 4 year would significantly under perform most peoples expectation so if it's even lower, interest probably goes down rapidly as well which could trigger the collapse.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#448

Post by trickstra »

arcticbull wrote: post #404
trickstra wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are so sure, you are welcome to make some money on it by shorting bitcoin before the halving which is in May. And no, it's not word juggling, the value of money comes from the people who exchange things for money. Here they exchange either electricity, or USD for it. Miners are paying their bills by selling virtual tokens, if those tokens didn't have any value for anybody, they wouldn't be able to sell them. W…

> If you are so sure, you are welcome to make some money on it by shorting bitcoin before the halving which is in May. Only suckers take positions in a rigged game, short or long. > Kinda ironic now after FED printed more money in one week than the whole Bitcoin economy is worth. I'd rather have the printing controlled by math, than any person. Obviously that math is defined by people, so you're just pointing at it a…

I'm really surprised to see so huge amount of misunderstanding of basic Bitcoin principles here on HN. These things were discussed 10 years ago. The Bitcoin Core team cannot change rules just like that, they are not the central bank of Bitcoin, while the elected group of economists have done that a couple of times before just to save their own asses. Talk about accountability...

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#449

Post by keymone »

noxer wrote: post #444
keymone wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why exactly aren't you fine with that? because i don't want to trust anyone. XRP is not trustless or decentralized enough. > Every node always enforces all the rules. So your node checks if a Tx is valid anyway and if you get invalid Tx from a node you trust it wont make your node accept that Tx. as i said - validity is trivial. i asked you to not bring it up but you did anyway. > majority of the validators say Tx…

Trust can not be removed it can only be spread. If you use BTC you also have to trust that most miners/pools act honest. You can't even choose which miners you think are trust able. You have to just hope (trust) that at least 50% are honest an cant be compromised at the same time. How is that any better than (optional, yes completely optional) choosing trusted Nodes? You can very reliably define the "majority of vali…

> You have to just hope (trust) that at least 50% are honest an cant be compromised at the same time. How is that any better than (optional, yes completely optional) choosing trusted Nodes?

51% attack exists for all cryptocurrencies. don't try to substitute "colluding 51% of selected validators" with "colluding 51% of global hashrate", you're being disingenious.

i don't have any trust in miners, all they do is send me block signatures and if the signature satisfies proof of work requirements i can be reasonably certain one would have to burn some amount of energy to override that.

you on the other hand have to trust third parties to know which chain is the "right" one exactly because PoS lacks this universally objective measure that is PoW.

> You can very reliably define the "majority of validators" its defined as 80% it doesn't matter if or how many validators colluded.

80% of what? 80% of the couple hundred ips that i will send you as "totally not colluding validator nodes"? you can't even know who's online at any point in time.

> By "universally objective measure" you mean you choose the longer chain? Fully aware that this can later change? Whats point?

universally objective measure is proof of work. you can't fake it without burning similar amount of energy.

> Having just one chain that is final doesn't need "universally objective measure" doesn't need comparing and makes final a binary option instead of "final" but better wait some more blocks to be sure.

who decides what's final? how much does it cost to bribe them? how much does human factor matter? how do they know they have quorum to make such decision? what if there's a network partition and two quorums have finalized two chains?

that's the thing with PoS - it's politics based currency. we've had that for thousands of years. it's not like some genius read satoshi's paper and thought "hey what if we just kind of like vote on which chain is the right one and lets name it proof of stake?", PoS was known long before PoW, it just doesn't solve the problem that bitcoin solves, that's it.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#450

Post by shsjxjbsbs »

iopq wrote: post #96
shsjxjbsbs wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t companies like TransferWise already do international payments electronically without the need for a blockchain? I definitely support lowering the amount of human labor required for payments, but I don’t see the need for many coal plants worth of computers randomly hashing a bunch of junk over and over again when a normal efficient server can do it. Every bitcoin exchange I’ve used required me to physically writ…

Maybe to sign up, but to actually make trades it's just taking orders off the book.

Sure, but why do I need a blockchain for that? Can’t the service trusted by the government to enforce KYC regulation also run a normal commodity server to process transactions, without burning the earth?
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