Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Green hackers around the world, let’s destroy Bitcoin

franck-leroy.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 266 posts

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

#131

Post by CryptoUnchained »

thepete2 wrote: post #119
heckerhut wrote: post #35

Idea: Change BTC protocol to include a new field in coinbase transactions documenting the CO2 emissions of each block. Introduce an uncle block reward like ETH. Miners agree to audits of their reports. Make block reward dependent on carbon emissions. Use rest for offset programs.

Why not just use proof of stake and get it of all the useless nonce-calculations?

The nonce-calculations are what makes bitcoin an energy credit. It's why it's a valuable digital asset and commodity. If it cost ZERO dollars to create bitcoin it would just be fiat... useless inflation adding zero value to current shareholders.

Bitcoin are being traded by energy companies to subsidize their infrastructure and improve energy efficiency and capacity.

In some ways Bitcoin is a battery, because hydro dams don't idle generators as often they can sell their excess energy production and subsidize the dry season. Oil companies capture the natural gas flares and use it to power generators to mine bitcoin, etc. There really only needs to be one POW coin, and I think it's pretty obvious that Bitcoin is it.

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

#132

Post by outloudvi »

heckerhut wrote: post #56
outloudvi wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is not a protocol for honest people to reach spontaneous agreements. It uses algorithms to create consensuses, and audit might be powerless in this system.

My thinking behind this idea is that the sentiment of the author of this blog article is becoming more and more prevalent. Over the coming years pressure on bitcoin’s legitimacy will increase. To get ahead of this movement I propose to miners worldwide to create their own climate change accord and do this voluntarily. All it needs is a consensus to do so.

It's obviously good if worldwide miners all agree to protect the environment together. It's also right that many governments have paid a lot of attention to Bitcoin. However, Bitcoin is not to be strictly regulated by design.

A government strong enough might have the ability to control Bitcoin mining over the holders, but breaking decentralization in this way will kill Bitcoin in its fundamental, and it seems that no such government is going to do this for now, especially when the reason is "environmental problems", which is generally not in high priority. Beside this idea, maybe a BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) is the best way of achieving consensus, but I can't imagine such a proposal being approved based on its limited feasibility.

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

#133

Post by inter_netuser »

thepete2 wrote: post #119
heckerhut wrote: post #35

Idea: Change BTC protocol to include a new field in coinbase transactions documenting the CO2 emissions of each block. Introduce an uncle block reward like ETH. Miners agree to audits of their reports. Make block reward dependent on carbon emissions. Use rest for offset programs.

Why not just use proof of stake and get it of all the useless nonce-calculations?

because all that will do is just entrench the existing banking oligopoly.

proof of work is the only thing that maintains unforgeable costliness.

Every proof of stake system eventually centralized and failed.

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

#134

Post by inter_netuser »

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.

why use a blockchain if you want to rely on governance?

Just use USD.

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

#135

Post by inter_netuser »

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 huge in China. probably second largest part of the ecosystem is there, if not the largest (and no, not just mining.)

Speed of transactions has nothing to do with it, the answer is elsewhere.

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

#136

Post by inter_netuser »

tsimionescu wrote: post #70
yuvadam wrote: post #17

As a Bitcoin proponent who is also concerned about it's long term sustainability, this post is an embarrassing read. The author clearly has a very poor understanding of what value Bitcoin currently has in our current macro-economic situation, and why investors (and corporations) are choosing to allocate larger parts of their portfolios in cryptocurrencies. Calling out the BTC network on its energetic inefficiency com…

> Calling out the BTC network on its energetic inefficiency completely misses the point that the work put into the network is exactly the scarce digital asset, and hence the store of value. Why would that matter? The problem is the huge amount of greenhouse gases getting released because of this store of value. Whether it makes some economic sense or not is irrelevant to the discussion of whether it should be allowed…

The US just printed in one month the entire amount of dollars in existence prior to 2013.

Should Bitcoin allow USD to continue? We will see.

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

#137

Post by linschn »

medecau wrote: post #23
tluyben2 wrote: post #11

Better promote 'non-shit' shitcoins then instead? Because this 'plan' won't really work/do much.

I'm out of the loop on blockchain currencies. What would be a good 'non-shit' shitcoin?

Tezos is technically awesome, it uses proof of stakes, and use a non brain dead Turing complete language for its smart contracts.

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

#138

Post by inter_netuser »

ForHackernews wrote: post #26
yuvadam wrote: post #17

As a Bitcoin proponent who is also concerned about it's long term sustainability, this post is an embarrassing read. The author clearly has a very poor understanding of what value Bitcoin currently has in our current macro-economic situation, and why investors (and corporations) are choosing to allocate larger parts of their portfolios in cryptocurrencies. Calling out the BTC network on its energetic inefficiency com…

> the work put into the network is exactly the scarce asset that is being invested in. No! No it isn't! Gah! I'm sorry but it is so frustrating to hear this nonsense repeated over and over. Bitcoin is not valuable just because you wasted shedloads of energy to make a bitcoin! It's valuable because somebody else will exchange something of value for it. It's incredibly maddening how so many crypto-libertarians suddenly…

It's valuable because of unforgeable costliness.

And to make it difficult to forge transactions it asks you provably(!) burn some electricity.

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

#139

Post by inter_netuser »

jonhendry18 wrote: post #88
mckirk wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why are people willing to exchange something of value for it? Because they can trust in it serving as a secure way to transfer tokens of ownership. And that is only possible thanks to the PoW computations, which have to be expensive enough that attacking the system would be more costly than the value you could extract through an attack. So, in a sense its value indeed derives directly from the work put into the s…

Doesn't sound like it's worth torching the only inhabitable planet for.

It also happens to be a huge incentive for clean nuclear power.

I'm sure you don't want that though, because solar+batteries will power interplanetary civilizations somehow.

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

#140

Post by inter_netuser »

ggm wrote: post #22

Putting to one side if the attack would work, or have perverse outcomes, I do have concerns about the ludicrous amount of dirty energy used to mine coins. Proof of stake would terminate that problem?

It does not.

Proof of stake would quickly devolve into the system we have in place.

Post reply on HN