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Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

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Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#81

Post by runeks »

XorNot wrote: post #68
esimov wrote: post #37

I cannot recommend enough for everyone who has a minimal sensibility towards the climate impact to read this thread: https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1350869944888664064 . Since we are inevitable heading over to a climate catastrophe it's really the time to advocate against bitcoin.

This reply to that thread addresses the better comparison of power usage I've seen ( https://twitter.com/ipvkyte/status/1350922562935681024 ): (in response to a single BTC transaction consuming 621 kwh) A Tesla gets 4.1 miles per KWh. So one transaction costs 2,546 miles. Seattle to Boston is 3k miles. Paying for a burger with bitcoin has the same environmental cost as driving that burger to you from the other coast.

Bitcoin mining on a block secures not just this block's transactions, but the transactions in all previous blocks as well. For each block that is added to the blockchain more transactions are secured by the following blocks. Consequently, these "power usage per transaction"-figures are misleading.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#82

Post by headmelted »

skohan wrote: post #42
headmelted wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is a shame, as the technology always has been as impressive as claimed. There was for a long while talk of whether or not the blockchain would ultimately be adopted for state currencies going forward but it's not clear that this is even an ideal use case. As an example, I would personally view it as a good thing (and I know others have different views on this) that the government for tax and law enforcement pur…

I would argue that claims about the revolutionary potential of blockchain as a technology have been largely exaggerated, but I agree that it's hard to imagine it replacing the financial system in its current state. It just doesn't seem like it could possibly scale to the number of transactions which have to be made globally every second. That's not to say there aren't technical solutions to some of these problems, bu…

I thought about how it would be good for voting in the past - again though, not as a public transaction log (how you vote being public could get you killed in some places).

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#83

Post by gorgoiler »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #66
gorgoiler wrote: post #38

I don’t understand Bitcoin. If I make bread and you grow potatoes, we can barter, but it’s much easier to use some intermediary to track the value that we exchanged. The intermediary facilitates this with tokens (coins, notes, cards.) Bitcoin seems perverse. It puts all the value in the tokens themselves and at the same time I can’t even use it to buy bread or potatoes. About the only thing I hear that you can buy wi…

It sounds like the reason is that you don’t understand money, which is generally regarded as having 3 core functions. Acting as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account. Bitcoin does all of those things. Your issue seems to be that it’s not widely accepted enough as a medium of exchange to properly facilitate that function? The problem with that view is that it is widely accepted enough to drive…

I don’t think I really understand money, no.

What makes much more sense to me is agreeing on a central authority (or a distributed one, if we have the math to be able to do that securely) to track the exchange of things with actual value.

Bitcoin-the-tech feels like it’s partly that, but also it’s partly some side-wheeze for the initial Bitcoin folks to print their own money.

Bitcoin would make sense if the inflation (deflation?) component was removed because at least you then actually had to do something to gain Bitcoin wealth — namely buy computers and burn electricity. If you want $15,000 of Bitcoin then you buy an ASIC and pay your power bills in time.

That seems extremely wasteful. Wouldn’t a global tally of IOUs satisfy the same requirements, without having to have this centralised coin stuff?

Of the two things it represents — a global ledger, and a money printing machine — all I hear about are people focused on the latter.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#84

Post by disruptalot »

XorNot wrote: post #68
esimov wrote: post #37

I cannot recommend enough for everyone who has a minimal sensibility towards the climate impact to read this thread: https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1350869944888664064 . Since we are inevitable heading over to a climate catastrophe it's really the time to advocate against bitcoin.

This reply to that thread addresses the better comparison of power usage I've seen ( https://twitter.com/ipvkyte/status/1350922562935681024 ): (in response to a single BTC transaction consuming 621 kwh) A Tesla gets 4.1 miles per KWh. So one transaction costs 2,546 miles. Seattle to Boston is 3k miles. Paying for a burger with bitcoin has the same environmental cost as driving that burger to you from the other coast.

This is not how it works at all. A bitcoin block can have 0 transactions and still need the same energy to produce.

a) Sending payments is not the only purpose of the network, it's issuance, it's security, it's to make the ledger immutable.

b) No one's buying a burger with bitcoin. Bitcoin's production is a monetary base. Using the same block space you can have an infinite number of economic transactions happen with the same power consumption (block) on multiple layers, each with a degrading level of security. Of course you don't need the full force of the bitcoin network for a coffee or burger.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#85

Post by runeks »

kaonashi wrote: post #77
runeks wrote: post #75

I think the people who are critical of the wastefulness of Bitcoin fail to factor in the usefulness of a store of value. Whether you like it or not, human beings find a need to store value. In countries without a proper store of value -- due to e.g. government intervention -- they start hoarding commodities (e.g. wheat, cotton) or productive assets like cars. So the question becomes whether having something like Bitc…

Lots of things can be used as stores of value that don't require the electrical output of a medium sized country.

I disagree. The only asset that falls into this category is credit. And credit is not a good -- it's a promise that someone will deliver a good to you when you demand it. And this type of promise tends to be broken just when you need it the most.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#86

Post by alexmingoia »

gorgoiler wrote: post #38

I don’t understand Bitcoin. If I make bread and you grow potatoes, we can barter, but it’s much easier to use some intermediary to track the value that we exchanged. The intermediary facilitates this with tokens (coins, notes, cards.) Bitcoin seems perverse. It puts all the value in the tokens themselves and at the same time I can’t even use it to buy bread or potatoes. About the only thing I hear that you can buy wi…

People use Bitcoin to protect their wealth from inflation/debasement. It’s easier to own and protect than gold and real estate, easier to transact, etc.

Whether it’s widely used as a currency is irrelevant to whether it can be.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#87

Post by skohan »

headmelted wrote: post #82
skohan wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that claims about the revolutionary potential of blockchain as a technology have been largely exaggerated, but I agree that it's hard to imagine it replacing the financial system in its current state. It just doesn't seem like it could possibly scale to the number of transactions which have to be made globally every second. That's not to say there aren't technical solutions to some of these problems, bu…

I thought about how it would be good for voting in the past - again though, not as a public transaction log (how you vote being public could get you killed in some places).

I'm not an expert, but it seems as if you could make this process both anonymous and verifiable. I.e. the number and authenticity of votes is verifiable through cryptography, but the identity of the voter is not accessible.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#88

Post by Proven »

heckerhut wrote: post #43
gorgoiler wrote: post #38

I don’t understand Bitcoin. If I make bread and you grow potatoes, we can barter, but it’s much easier to use some intermediary to track the value that we exchanged. The intermediary facilitates this with tokens (coins, notes, cards.) Bitcoin seems perverse. It puts all the value in the tokens themselves and at the same time I can’t even use it to buy bread or potatoes. About the only thing I hear that you can buy wi…

Read Debt by Graeber so you can stop believing in the myth of barter. Then think again.

[dead]

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#89

Post by tappio »

illustriousbear wrote: post #67
esimov wrote: post #37

I cannot recommend enough for everyone who has a minimal sensibility towards the climate impact to read this thread: https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1350869944888664064 . Since we are inevitable heading over to a climate catastrophe it's really the time to advocate against bitcoin.

Nevermind traditional banks with their towering office buildings full of air conditioning/appliances, employees commuting to work, remote branches, sophisticated vaults and online infrastructure. I can never take the bitcoin climate change hysteria seriously. I wonder why the people who write these articles aren't calling out traditional banks? hmm.

Traditional banks pay their electricity bill, so they naturally need to account for that. On the other hand, bitcoin network pays for that collectively. No single entity pays the bill. If a single entity had to pay for 621KWh for every transaction, I don't think that bitcoin could exists. That is the main difference here: multiple parties are doing small contribution to the energy consumption, instead of a single entity. That is the reason why bitcoin networks ecological footprint is huge compared to traditional banking per transaction.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#90

Post by leadingthenet »

Quanttek wrote: post #69
crygin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a simple untruth. Vegetarianism is possible in specific ecological conditions (e.g. the Ganges Delta) and in those conditions it wins, economically, because as you note it is notionally ideal. In a non-tropic or desert environment, vegetarianism is a wasteful use of resources that typically involves transport of goods from remote locations in the service of performative consumption.

Vegetarianism outside such regions might be more wasteful, but it is still mich less wasteful and has a much smaller environmental impact than an omnivore diet

Citation needed.

It’s not entirely clear to me how that could possibly be the case, when pasture raised animals often graze land that is completely unsuitable for agriculture. They also eat tons of byproducts of agriculture that are not suitable for human consumption.

This thing about how vegetarianism is sooooo much better for the environment is such a meme. Especially when you take into account what a tragedy modern industrial agriculture really is, with its monocrops, deforestation, and so on.

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