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Green hackers around the world, let’s destroy Bitcoin

franck-leroy.medium.com

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Re: Green hackers around the world, let’s destroy Bitcoin

#101

Post by idrae »

FlyingSnake wrote: post #85

Controversial opinions below: Feeling might be hurt. - Bitcoin is popular in the west and the US specifically because it lacks the cutting edge financial networks rest of the world has. Citizens in China, India, Kenya etc can do transactions in a jiffy using their existing bank accounts, whereas ACH clearance takes longer time. - The digital Gold-rush aspect, HODLing, and no regulation makes it more lucrative to play…

"Bitcoin is popular in the west and the US specifically because it lacks the cutting edge financial networks rest of the world has."

This only applies to the US, Europe has a instant bank transfer system.

Re: Green hackers around the world, let’s destroy Bitcoin

#102

Post by jonhendry18 »

comboy wrote: post #16
globular-toast wrote: post #10

I supported bitcoin when it first came out because I support the idea of decentralised, trustless money. Far too much money is redirected into the hands of financial workers who are not adding any value to the economy. Finance is good and necessary, but the way it currently works is not. But bitcoin simply does not work as money. There is really no doubt about this. Even the biggest proponents of bitcoin right now ca…

We do need digital gold to be able to have market of cryptocurrencies that are actually in use and not just being speculated on with fiat. Sidechains enable that. The whole waste argument is ridiculous on so many levels. I imagine these people shouting at people houses - turn off that AC! You are wasting energy for which you have paid! We could have made so many aluminum cans with that! And if you say that sure, let'…

A/C is useful, and can save lives. Bitcoin is speculative masturbation. And you could do that with a less obscenely wasteful crypto asset.

Re: Green hackers around the world, let’s destroy Bitcoin

#103

Post by herewegoagain2 »

globular-toast wrote: post #10

I supported bitcoin when it first came out because I support the idea of decentralised, trustless money. Far too much money is redirected into the hands of financial workers who are not adding any value to the economy. Finance is good and necessary, but the way it currently works is not. But bitcoin simply does not work as money. There is really no doubt about this. Even the biggest proponents of bitcoin right now ca…

Extracting gold is very wasteful, I'm not sure it is better than Bitcoin in terms of environmental impact.

And Bitcoin is much more useful than gold. You can easily send Bitcoin to your family at the other end of the world. With gold, not so easy. Even buying and selling gold is much more difficult. Storing gold is also much more complicated, you can not encrypt gold, so you need physical protection.

Re: Green hackers around the world, let’s destroy Bitcoin

#104

Post by TobyBrull »

primitivesuave wrote: post #33

I see Bitcoin like a 21st century Apollo project. While I agree the resources appear wasted, they are supporting a revolutionary concept that holds tremendous potential to change the way the world works. Also, consider the scale of resources used by the existing financial system, with its thousands of buildings staffed by millions of people who use energy to come into work every day to keep the whole centralized syst…

Not convinced this is a good analogy.

If we could have gone to the moon at a fraction of the cost, but people had still insisted on doing it the expensive way, just because the expensive approach came first, that would be a better analogy.

Re: Green hackers around the world, let’s destroy Bitcoin

#105

Post by effie »

azernik wrote: post #46
comboy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do need digital gold to be able to have market of cryptocurrencies that are actually in use and not just being speculated on with fiat. Sidechains enable that. The whole waste argument is ridiculous on so many levels. I imagine these people shouting at people houses - turn off that AC! You are wasting energy for which you have paid! We could have made so many aluminum cans with that! And if you say that sure, let'…

Cutting down A/C usage is , in fact, an important climate change mitigation.

It is not, because 1) it is quite a small part of total electricity consumption (around 1/30 in U.S.), and 2) it is unlikely to be cut down, due to more and more people on the planet and getting higher standard of living.

Important actions are those that are realistic and have an impact. For example, cancelling coal/gas power plants, building more CO2-free power plants, getting rid of combustion motors in naval transport, etc. Everybody can have an AC if we have CO2-free electric energy production.

Re: Green hackers around the world, let’s destroy Bitcoin

#106

Post by seaman1921 »

inter_netuser wrote: post #89

Proof of work exists maintain unforgeable costliness. It's a basic pre-requisite without which you cannot have digital scarcity, because it would be far too easy and too cheap to forge/create new coins. It's amazing how early we still are in Bitcoin after 12 years. Almost nobody on this forum understands why proof of work exists, and yet most people here are intelligent enough and have enough technical skill to figur…

Classic - assuming anyone who doesn't hold BTC is an idiot.

Followed by a 'Have fun staying poor' to stir some social anxiety and FOMO.

Unfortunately a lot of people keep falling for such statements and the price keeps going up - I have friends buying loads of dogecoin over the past week who told me they have literally no idea what crypto or doge is - but they know for sure that the prices are going to go up over the next month so they don't really care.

Re: Green hackers around the world, let’s destroy Bitcoin

#107

Post by outloudvi »

heckerhut wrote: post #59
outloudvi wrote: post #44

> ... Ethereum uses POS ... No, Ethereum is at least not using PoS for now.

But it’s clearly headed there. Unlike bitcoin, Ethereum has sufficient resemblance of governance to actually pull it off.

I would agree to your idea. Ethernum 2.0 is doing its work towards PoS, althought that is still in the future (maybe ~1.5 yrs). In the long run, Ethernum might become environmental friendly.

Re: Green hackers around the world, let’s destroy Bitcoin

#108

Post by jonhendry18 »

knuthsat wrote: post #18
john_alan wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. The core tenet has been lost. Monero is closer to digital private money than anything else right now. And in my view, worth the cost of POW.

Yeah, although a bunch of work on Monero is still a result of work from people that worked on Bitcoin. There's some independent research there but AFAIK Bitcoin people did not stop working on confidential transactions or fungiblity. Just explaining that the core tenet was not lost, but that it was still not researched. Bitcoin jump started a research movement that reaped all kinds of cryptocurrency variants as time w…

"Here's a paper whose coauthors belong to the Bitcoin team discussing efficient confidential transactions that were eventually implemented in Monero (not by the Bitcoin team)."

The knowledge held by the Bitcoin team wouldn't disappear if Bitcoin was shut down. They could still contribute to other crypto projects.

Re: Green hackers around the world, let’s destroy Bitcoin

#109

Post by nnx »

Bitcoin is actually a (if not the) great accelerator for cheap renewable energy (hydro, solar, etc) by being a market incentive. Even helps reducing methane emissions flaring from oil fields by putting that flaring to productive use (hashing) instead of releasing it into atmosphere, see https://gam.ai/ for instance.

Re: Green hackers around the world, let’s destroy Bitcoin

#110

Post by jonhendry18 »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #63

I'm no fan of Bitcoin, seeing the project as essentially coopted and sabotaged, but I see this 'green' criticism as totally baseless. As I wrote a couple weeks ago: If you want to take a Puritanical attitude, any luxury product/service can be argued to be wasting resources that could be expended on essentials. In other words, its alleged lack of utility doesn't provide a justification for destroying or banning it. It…

Except everything people do with Bitcoin could be done just as well with a less obscenely wasteful coin.
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