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Tesla spent $1.5B in clean car credits on Bitcoin

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

#71

Post by z77dj3kl »

Capira wrote: post #59

Bitcoin subsidizes renewable energies because it offers a base price for excess energy at any time at any place.

The price of energy used to mine Bitcoin is very low. It does nothing to provide a real base price for excess energy in countries and areas that have robust environmental protections.

There are some niche cases that the Bitcoin crowd love to showcase where energy is truly very cheap (they tend to be saturated sources), but mostly Bitcoin is mined on illicit energy contracts in developing areas where that energy can be had for dirt cheap.

Bottom line is that it absolutely does not advance renewable energy production anywhere where that is taken seriously.

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

#72

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Apocryphon wrote: post #52
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One assumes that air and water purity was fairly better pre-Industrial Revolution.

I'm not so sure. No water systems at all. Lack of covered drains. Firewood for heat in any population center. Tuberculosis and cholera. Unrefrigerated meat.

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

#73

Post by XorNot »

api wrote: post #37
p1necone wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do you think that the international links, data centres and facilities full of ASIC miners are not dependent on military protection?

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

#74

Post by bpodgursky »

centimeter wrote: post #51
bpodgursky wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully everyone with move to Ethereum and other Proof of Stake coins. (Both for the environment, and my wallet since I'm already deep in Eth)

Proof of stake is not secure in the same way as proof of work. Miner collusion attacks are free in PoS, expensive in PoW.

It's only "free" if you get a substantial fraction of the coin's total wealth backing your attack.

And it's not really "free", because you'd instantly devalue the currency itself (and thus your own stake).

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

#75

Post by danhak »

01100011 wrote: post #64

What this tells me is that Tesla has too much cash and doesn't think investing that cash in its main business would produce gains comparable to BTC. Tesla believes in the profitability of BTC more than its own profitability or the profitability of one of Musk's other ventures. Sure, maybe they want to diversify but that's a hell of a lot of money to throw at such a volatile commodity.

All large enterprises keep cash reserves. Whether you agree or not, the prevailing thesis behind keeping cash reserves in BTC is not that it will turn a profit, but that it will avoid devaluation like USD.

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

#76

Post by Capira »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #43
kd913 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is the greenest form of finance that gets greener over time? What nonsense is this? Already ONE transaction consumes as much power as an entire American household uses for a week.That is 215 kwh of energy for one transaction. It's using the equivalent of 2.26 million American homes worth of energy for just 330k transactions. A significant chunk of that is wash trading, ie people buying and selling to themselv…

Indeed. If bitcoin was more energy efficient, its transaction fees would be lower since the price floor is the basic cost of the inputs. Visa fees can be only a few cents, and they're raking in the profit at that price. Bitcoin fees are currently $13.50.

Bitcoin fees can be much cheaper. Even if you pay only $0.25 your transaction will probably be mined within a day.

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

#77

Post by Apocryphon »

ForHackernews wrote: post #23
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…

You can't "solve" the energy consumption of Bitcoin - deliberate waste is built into the Proof-of-work protocol by design.

Makes me wonder if someone can create a cryptocurrency where the mining is for distributed computing research for achieving nuclear fusion power. Crypto-mining that does SETI@home/BOINC work.

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

#78

Post by tal8d »

loceng wrote: post #3
nickgrosvenor wrote: post #2

I always wondered what will happen when the environmentalists find out about the energy consumption requirements of Bitcoin.

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…

The counterargument has been the same for years: the present financial system consumes for more energy, to the point where people complaining about it look like they're either trying to deceive others, or they've just put so little thought into it that they should be ignored.

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

#79

Post by 60secz »

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.

Just for clarification: How many watts does gold need?

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

#80

Post by villasv »

synaesthesisx wrote: post #66
danhak wrote: post #53

Here's my wild speculation on why Musk did this (and why it's brilliant) He knows there is a large and growing community of Bitcoin speculators and enthusiasts out there. By "endorsing" Bitcoin in this way, he not only moved the market--further enriching these folks--but also signaled that he is an ally to them, significantly boosting positive sentiment toward him and increasing the likelihood that they will purchase…

I don't think it's just a simple stunt. Apparently, the onboard computer on the latest Teslas is capable of mining BTC profitably at the current prices (allegedly). It would be amusing to have cars mine when idle/plugged in, or better yet have any unsold inventory mining 24/7 (since electricity can be written off as operational expenses). I wouldn't put it past Elon.

If by amusing you mean reducing battery life / beefing my electricity bill while giving the impression of “generating” money.

Miss me with this new kind of planned obsolescence.

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