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Tesla spent $1.5B in clean car credits on Bitcoin

amycastor.com

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Re: Tesla spent $1.5B in clean car credits on Bitcoin

#31

Post by loceng »

ece wrote: post #5
loceng wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterargument is always that at some point in future the energy consumption problem will be solved, but isn't the rate of computation a or the main factor against 50%+ attacks? Else the solutions proposed seemed to relay on centralized services that don't actually play on the blockchain to reduce the actual amount of transactions and load, also then avoiding the delays - but then re-adding the supposed main iss…

Or PoS Ethereum or other PoS crypto currencies can take the place of exponentially energy-hungry PoW. They explicitly deal with the 50%+ attacks in their governance too.

How so - by central authority changes?

Re: Tesla spent $1.5B in clean car credits on Bitcoin

#32

Post by blhack »

p1necone wrote: post #15
freerobby wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll complain and then we'll show them the energy consumption of the finance industry.

Controlling for transaction volume the energy consumption of bitcoin is orders of magnitude higher than the rest of the finance industry.

How much energy does the rest of the finance industry use?

Re: Tesla spent $1.5B in clean car credits on Bitcoin

#33

Post by ForHackernews »

jude- wrote: post #26

Point of clarity: Bitcoin transactions take negligible energy to produce and validate. It's block production that's energy-intensive, and it's the same regardless of how big or full blocks are. Like any energy-intensive industry that could operate profitably via fossil fuel consumption, mining should be regulated to only use green energy. No different than power production and consumption today.

What would it mean for a bitcoin transaction to exist without ever being included in a block?

Re: Tesla spent $1.5B in clean car credits on Bitcoin

#34

Post by pasabagi »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #11
floor2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bit of an aside, but it's so wild that we label people as "environmentalists" and that anyone would place themselves NOT in that group. It seems like 100% of people should want air which is non-toxic, water which is non-toxic and food which is non-toxic. But of course, being an "abolitionist" was a political group in the 1800s but now it's just assumed that 100% of people are anti-slavery, so maybe the optimistic tak…

This black-and-white thinking ignores the spectrum of what constitutes non-toxic. There are those that accept nothing short of perfect purity in air, water and food, a condition which has never existed in a million years of human history. Others are less concerned about humans and more about ecology. Still others value the morals of human-animal relations above issues of nature. So no, we are not all 'ecologists', no…

There's as wide a gulf between our enviroment[1] and 'complete purity' as there is between slavery and 'complete freedom'.

[1](complete ecosystem collapse, widespread poisoning of populations worldwide, etc)

Re: Tesla spent $1.5B in clean car credits on Bitcoin

#35

Post by choward »

tanseydavid wrote: post #7

https://ark-invest.com/analyst-research/bitcoin-myths/ Claim: Bitcoin wastes too much energy. Counter-Claim: Bitcoin’s energy consumption is more efficient than that of gold and traditional banks.

Counter claim: Pretty much nobody uses the gold standard anymore.

Re: Tesla spent $1.5B in clean car credits on Bitcoin

#36

Post by gargara »

gargara wrote: post #29
api wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Internet is already damn hard to censor if you're tech-savvy, and Bitcoin isn't really censored very many places.

you mean in China ?

That's the thing, you wouln't have to be tech savvy. It will be basically free and accesible from everywhere.

Re: Tesla spent $1.5B in clean car credits on Bitcoin

#37

Post by api »

p1necone wrote: post #15
freerobby wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll complain and then we'll show them the energy consumption of the finance industry.

Controlling for transaction volume the energy consumption of bitcoin is orders of magnitude higher than the rest of the finance industry.

I'm on the fence about whether this is correct or not. The question in my mind is: do you include military spending in the cost of maintaining a fiat currency and if so to what extent?

Fiat currencies are backed in part by the power of the governments that issue them, so is defense spending a form of "proof of work" for them? If the US government disbanded its military would the USD hold any value for very long? Same goes for any other fiat... e.g. if the PRC disbanded the Chinese military would the Yuan retain much value?

If fiat currencies require a constant demonstration of credible military (and police) capability, that's a rather enormous cost and brings with it quite a bit of resource use and pollution.

(I would guesstimate that Bitcoin would still be less efficient than USD but that the margin would be smaller.)

Re: Tesla spent $1.5B in clean car credits on Bitcoin

#39

Post by ForHackernews »

ghego1 wrote: post #14

Genuine question: what's the end game here for Musk? He's been tweeting about dogecoin, and then Tesla invests a non insignificant amount of money in BTC. I smell something fishy.

I have no idea. Maybe it's just a pump-and-dump scheme but he's doing crypto to steer clear of the SEC this time? Maybe he's trolling? Maybe he really is going off the rails?
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