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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

#201

Post by fakedang »

mk4p wrote: post #188
fakedang wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who made most of his wealth from BTC (really early proponent), I strongly believe there is no value to Bitcoin apart from the value people ascribe to it. There is no value in mining it and spending energy, just as there is no value in mining coal in a 100% green economy. If I put "work" to go into the bowels of the earth, only to mine a clump of dirt, does that make it valuable in spite of the amount of ex…

> And as recent evidence goes, no crypto gives you respite from the law - on the contrary, it will bind you in constant avoidance of the law. Even Monero?

I suspect Monero is too privacy oriented to become a mainstream investment product like BTC. Tbh, I believe that, although it doesn't hurt you to hold it, any crypto currency only has actual fiat equivalence in a darknet market (elsewhere there is a nice substitute called cash/credit), which is the sole market that demands privacy by nature. All other markets solely use BTC as an investment class and explicitly require that you forgo your privacy in some form or the other. Monero's focus on the former might make it bitter-tasting for the regulators of the latter.

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

#202

Post by ac29 »

Glench wrote: post #187

Here to mention Chia ( https://www.chia.net/ ) which is made by the creator of bittorrent Bram Cohen and is launching its mainnet soon! Uses proof of space instead of proof of work or proof of stake to make it use very little energy.

I dont see how that solves the energy problem. Presumably, if allocating X space gets you Y rewards, allocating 2X space gives you 2Y rewards. So, if the rewards are worth anything, there will be a race to install and run as much storage capacity as possible, which has an energy cost.

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

#203

Post by Glench »

ac29 wrote: post #202
Glench wrote: post #187

Here to mention Chia ( https://www.chia.net/ ) which is made by the creator of bittorrent Bram Cohen and is launching its mainnet soon! Uses proof of space instead of proof of work or proof of stake to make it use very little energy.

I dont see how that solves the energy problem. Presumably, if allocating X space gets you Y rewards, allocating 2X space gives you 2Y rewards. So, if the rewards are worth anything, there will be a race to install and run as much storage capacity as possible, which has an energy cost.

Definitely not an expert on this but the creators say that one thing that is helpful is that hard drive space is already massively over-provisioned which is helpful — individuals as well as institutions with space will be able to make use of existing space without needing to make a run on hard drives.

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

#204

Post by ac29 »

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…

"This isnt so bad, because war exists" is one of the thinnest arguments in favor of something I've ever seen. In this hypothetical future where cryptocurrencies replace national ones, couldnt wars still be fought over the mining infrastructure or the resources needed to run it?

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

#205

Post by FranckLeroy »

herewegoagain2 wrote: post #103
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.

It was 3 times more in 2018. It might be 20x more now : https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/11/06/cryptocurrencies-...

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

#207

Post by yownie »

chill1 wrote: post #191
FlyingSnake wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My understanding of the space contradicts each of your points. I am a casual observer and have no investment in BTC and the comments are what I feel based on the news that reaches me. For me the most critical aspect is the energy waste, and the lack of regulation. I know crypto-anarchists distrust the govt, but if I've to choose between the r/WSB like extreme evangelism (HODL!) and Fed, I would chose the later safe…

> I would love to be proven wrong and learn something new about the sector that increases my confidence. That's great. Having an open mind is a good thing. What areas are you specifically interested in? The industry is vast with deep niches and history - mining, exchanges (online/offline/p2p), scripting ("programmable money"), private key security (software/hardware/multi-sig), BIPs/forks/governance, ATMs, end-user a…

oh look. he didn't actually.

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

#208

Post by yownie »

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 problem is the huge amount of greenhouse gases getting

Really, you mean the huge amount of greenhouse gases we release here in Iceland where our energy is entirely from renewable sources and we mine 11% of the bitcoin network?

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

#209

Post by isoprophlex »

effie wrote: post #150
isoprophlex wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not revolutionary. For almost every use case, blockchain solution are almost always inferior to the alternatives. As a payment system, it's sluggish, wasteful, and in 2021 STILL poorly adopted. I'm not arguing anything about the current system of doing financial transactions. But the environmental disaster that is BTC has to die. If there is truly a need for innovation in the digital currency space, it should be…

If BTC mining and related operations were halted right now as you wish, by what percentage would the CO2 production decrease? By 0.1%, inconsequential. We need to focus on decomissioning coal/gas power plants and combustion motors for transport. That will get us at least 60%.

Last part: sure, agreed.

First part: bullshit. Shutting down BTC would be highly consequential.

BTC is the perfect peak shaver to have on your grid. This is what makes it so perverse. With a mining rig, you can shave excess production peaks on any of the energy markets: long-term, cover intraday swings, or frequency stabilization where you have to react in seconds.

If BTC ceases siphoning green energy away from hydro plants, etc, the grid operators and their governments will be forced to look into storing surplus production instead of turning it into waste heat and crypto hashes.

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

#210

Post by yownie »

tsimionescu wrote: post #157
CryptoUnchained wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're so angry about the greenhouse gases that you're completely missing the logic behind an energy currency. You complain that the energy and dollars are spent speculating because you're flat out ignoring that miners are re-investing their profits to become more efficient and productive. Bitcoin mining is a rat race to develop efficiency in technology and energy deliverance. Oil companies capturing the wasted natur…

> Bitcoin mining is a rat race to develop efficiency in technology and energy deliverance. The cloud computing companies and EV companies and every other company that spends large amounts of its budget on buying electricity is doing the same thing. The difference is that (at least some of) cloud computing or driving is doing useful work with the energy being consumed, whereas 100% of energy going into bitcoin mining…

>doing useful work with the energy

yea is video games useful work?

youtube videos perhaps?

twitter?

It's nice that you have a sliding scale of what utility is that only you can define, you seem completely trustworthy.

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