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

221–230 of 266 posts

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

#221

Post by effie »

isoprophlex wrote: post #209
effie wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes big players can buy electric energy cheaper than the small guy (or even be paid to consume). Impact on consumer prices or CO2 production is very small and the blame in CO2 production is shared with the producer. So if there is a problem here it is with big player consumers and big producers increasing total CO2 production. I agree that on a global scale, that is a problem. However, it's not a problem inherent to BTC. If you think you can get rid of big players building dirty plants and producing lots of CO2 by cancelling BTC then you are naive.

Storage of energy was and is very small / non-existent because of large investments needed to build it, and little profit to be gained. It's not BTC's fault.

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

#222

Post by zed88 »

LittlePeter wrote: post #97
zed88 wrote: post #32

The energy in mining is not being wasted, it's being converted into something of perceived value. The real waste of energy, one could argue is pornography, which hogs around 30% of the internet, with little value output. Imagine replacing those servers for something more productive for humanity as a whole.

Your argument is not even an argument, it's just: "In my opinion Bitcoin has value and porn does not". For the same reason Bitcoin has value, you could argue porn has value. At the very basic level, if someone is paying for it, who are you to decide it has no value to that person?

What I said is that Bitcoin is a perceived store of value, and like any currency it's valuable only if it's perceived by the masses to be so, no different than fiat. Bitcoin ticks that box and is scarce, as opposed to inflating fiat.

Porn doesn't creates value storages, except dopamine hits.

And am not making a personal judgement, but just making a contrasting argument for someone who says that mining bitcoin is a waste of energy.

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

#223

Post by pharmakom »

jonhendry18 wrote: post #96
pharmakom wrote: post #28

Don’t destroy Bitcoin. Invent a more efficient alternative for people to switch to.

Do destroy Bitcoin, to incent people to move to more efficient alternatives. Bitcoin should have died a decade ago.

How would that work exactly? Bitcoin would just get patched and relaunched.

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

#224

Post by grey-area »

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…

Let me relate for you how Bitcoin has been sold to me at various times in the past, because its entire history at this point seems to have been forgotten by bitcoin proponents.

First it was a revolutionary currency, which would replace fiat with a deflationary alternative. Then it was a revolutionary payment network which would displace evil incumbents (despite being fundamentally unsuited to this task). Then it was for micropayments. Then it was for selling drugs and doing things governments don't want you to do. Then there was the lightning network which would make it super fast and super distributed at the same time, solving all known problems by this time next year (in 2015). Then it was for transferring money across borders. Then it was a revolutionary technology called blockchain for building apps on top of, who cares about the currency. Then it was for tracing assets and proving ownership of every asset in the world with blockchains. Then it was for smart contracts - we're going to replace the law with the blockchain. Then it was going to the moon (in 2017), and who cares what it is used for, or even if anyone is using it, because it's going to make us all rich baby - we still appear to in that last phase because nobody seems to know or care about the value of it, only the price.

With apologies to Oscar Wilde, we currently seem to know the price of everything, but the value of nothing, and the rising price is what is driving current interest in Bitcoin, nothing else.

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

#225

Post by jasdine817 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #180
midjji wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value lies not in the energy but in its utility to facilitate transfers without the expressed permission of some authority. The energy isnt wasted though, the safety of the trustless transaction is proportional to the expended energy. While not the source of value, it is a necessity, not a waste.

> The energy isnt wasted though, the safety of the trustless transaction is proportional to the expended energy. While not the source of value, it is a necessity, not a waste. This would be somewhat true if Bitcoin were the only mechanism for trustless transactions, but there are others that consume far less energy, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala .

In what way is Hawala trustless?

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

#226

Post by jasdine817 »

_0ffh wrote: post #45

I think the best way to make bitcoin "green" is to make it more energy efficient by pushing the Lightning Network. As a nice side effect it also gets more practical.

That makes the system more efficient by allowing more transactions but doesn't lower the total energy expenditure.

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

#227

Post by mr_woozy »

tsimionescu wrote: post #216
yownie wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Art and entertainment are useful work, yes, obviously. why?

Because they bring enjoyment to people, and all that truly matters is the happiness of people. Money is only useful in so far as it can buy the things that people need, but making those things still requires energy in addition to money. Burning energy to make money when you can literary just will money into existence is completely absurd.

what fucking moron you are.

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

#228

Post by mr_woozy »

tsimionescu wrote: post #215
yownie wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

Why not sell that energy to other countries then, or put it to use to produce goods and services that people need? Maybe move a data center from a more polluting country to Iceland? There are many things that people actually need which could be done with that energy, but that would probably bring less money than burning it away on Bitcoin. And make no mistake, these things are still being done, just soemwhere else in…

looked at a map lately?

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

#229

Post by mr_woozy »

tsimionescu wrote: post #180
midjji wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value lies not in the energy but in its utility to facilitate transfers without the expressed permission of some authority. The energy isnt wasted though, the safety of the trustless transaction is proportional to the expended energy. While not the source of value, it is a necessity, not a waste.

> The energy isnt wasted though, the safety of the trustless transaction is proportional to the expended energy. While not the source of value, it is a necessity, not a waste. This would be somewhat true if Bitcoin were the only mechanism for trustless transactions, but there are others that consume far less energy, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala .

how could you possibly call Hawala trustless if you understand it?

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

#230

Post by mr_woozy »

pineaux wrote: post #114

I think it's mostly CCP strategy to control as much cryptospace as possible, be it via exchanges or miners. I believe china is in the game of using any method to undermine the western hegemony in the world. This is not even controversial. I'm even willing to believe that the whole covid-19 crisis is leveraged by them for relative power gains. There's not much evidence for this, but that's what I would do. I think the…

>. I think the cryptomining rigs could eventually be claimed by the government to house a large general AI

what? via hashing sha256?

what are you even talking about,nutter?

Post reply on HN