Tesla spent $1.5B in clean car credits on Bitcoin • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by jlawer » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 11:23 PM UTC

lambdaba wrote: post #82

jlawer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no effort to bring these to the same base. The global banking system is massive. The article is factoring retail banking, stock & bonds, finance, derivatives, payment processing and a lot more in to "Global Banking". Even if bitcoin was to replace the dollar and gold all at once, much of that infrastructure would still be needed. Add to this bitcoin does an infinitesimally small number of transactions compar…

Do you really think a startup running on Bitcoin can't be do a better job than the legacy banking system? And by startup I mean a group of people that write software in a competitive environment. Those already exist (Lightning Labs) and there's so much more to do with a secure programmable distributed database.

At retail banking... No I don't think they can more effectively manage my grandmothers retirement account.

This requires people, and locations. Software isn't going to solve this problem. The only way I think this will be solved is by becoming very similar to what already exists.

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

#92

Post by danhak » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 11:23 PM UTC

nexthash wrote: post #85

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…

Do you seriously think that Bitcoin enthusiasts are Elon Musk's target market? Bitcoin is useless and inflexible as a currency, and the massive risk definitely won't help bring Tesla any profit. Sounds more like market moving on his part designed to get publicity. Musk is known for making controversial decisions to increase his notoriety.

There is close to $1 Trillion worth of bitcoin out there, largely held by futurist / technology enthusiast types. If that's not his target market then who is?

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

#93

Post by lambdaba » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 11:24 PM UTC

kd913 wrote: post #16

anm89 wrote: post #9

Yeah this narrative is played out. Yes bitcoin uses a lot of energy. Almost certainly less than the things it is competing against. And over time it has the potential to decrease that consumption drastically with other protocols, an option traditional banking doesn't possess. Bitcoin is already the greenest form of finance and will get much cleaner in the future.

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…

Bitcoin transactions are not equivalent to payment card transactions - they are settled. Layer 1 will not be where payment card type transactions will be made in a Bitcoin based financial system.

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

#94

Post by tal8d » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 11:25 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #77

ForHackernews wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This has been wondered for years, usually by people who don't know the purpose of hashing functions. If nuclear fusion models + protein folding were easily verifiable, then there would be no point in leveraging distributed computing for them - we'd have the same level of understanding for them as we do for contrived hashing functions. If they somehow also ended up with the difficulty directionality intentionally designed for in cryptography, then that would be fine. But that is pretty unlikely, and in that event your currency is totally hacked and useless.

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

#95

Post by mfgs » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 11:26 PM UTC

How would a company like Tesla "store" such a large amount of cryptocurrency? Who would hold the private key(s)? Surely not one person, and if not, how would they be distributed in a safe way that both prevented insider theft and provided redundancy to prevent lock out?

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

#96

Post by danhak » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 11:26 PM UTC

nexthash wrote: post #87

danhak wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a ridiculous assumption to make. Bitcoin's value comes from speculation, not from anything of value in the real world. The price could tank to $500 tomorrow, because there is no government, no trust, and nothing in the real world backing it up other than hype. In light of this USD devaluation seems like a way less risky alternative.

It is nonetheless the prevailing thesis behind BTC, and many highly-regarded fund managers are starting to allocate serious portions of their reserves to cryptocurrency.

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

#97

Post by Apocryphon » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 11:28 PM UTC

tal8d wrote: post #94

Apocryphon wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This has been wondered for years, usually by people who don't know the purpose of hashing functions. If nuclear fusion models + protein folding were easily verifiable, then there would be no point in leveraging distributed computing for them - we'd have the same level of understanding for them as we do for contrived hashing functions. If they somehow also ended up with the difficulty directionality intentionally desi…

It's still nice to dream of all this distributed computing activity going towards tangible real world benefits.

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

#98

Post by lambdaba » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 11:29 PM UTC

krona wrote: post #68

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…

That is 215 kwh of energy for one transaction. Nope. The marginal cost of a transaction is next to nothing. Just take a step back and think about what you're saying: that a bitcoin transaction would cost £3.40 in the UK. Obviously nobody would be using bitcoin if that were true. Proof of work is where the value of the coin is derived. How much energy do you think it takes to mint a physical coin? Now compare that to…

Exactly. Ensuring that no party can unilaterally issue new coins is the value proposition of Bitcoin.

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

#99

Post by lambdaba » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 11:31 PM UTC

rspeele wrote: post #58

anm89 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many skycrcapers are there in the world constructed for financial institutions. Want to go down the rabbit hole of calculating that CO2? Also, cite your sources

Do you think financial institutions, and skyscrapers they inhabit, would not exist in a BTC-powered world? People won't want to use their BTC to invest in companies on the stock market, trade commodities futures, or issue loans?

That's a bad example but one thing that wouldn't happen is a government manipulating its currency to finance wars.

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

#100

Post by rspeele » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 11:31 PM UTC

technotony wrote: post #60

Energy is the largest cost in bitcoin mining. Mining moves to the cheapest electricity locations. Renewables are already the cheapest energy source globally, and getting better. So in the mid-term bitcoin mining will move to renewable energy sources, problem solved.

Explain to me this. How can proof-of-work NOT result in massively expensive energy consumption, regardless of where the energy is obtained?

Suppose I wanted to conduct a 51% attack against Bitcoin. If I succeed, I stand to benefit monetarily, for example by shorting BTC on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange -- since a successful 51% would massively damage trust in bitcoin. Alternatively I could double-spend, though reaping the rewards without getting caught might be harder. Let's put the details aside and just agree that if you had the power to 51% bitcoin, you could make a lot of money off it.

What stops me from doing this is that the energy required for 51% of the mining power would be ludicrously expensive, even for just the half-hour[1] or so it would take to execute a damaging attack.

At least, it must be more expensive than the amount of money I could gain via my short position and/or double-spends. Otherwise it would be worth doing, right?

But for that to be the true, it must mean that the whole rest of the network is currently expending at least that much energy, every half hour or so, to constantly stop somebody from doing this.

So doesn't that put a dollar-amount floor on Bitcoin energy consumption, equal to [maximum amount one could stand to gain from crashing Bitcoin] repeated every [minimum duration of 51% attack to destroy confidence in bitcoin]?

Whether the mining is occurring with cheap energy in Iceland or expensive energy in California doesn't change that enough of that energy must be used to make it too expensive for an adversary (who could also be operating in Iceland or wherever) to attack.

[1]I say half-hour because 3 confirmations are considered sufficient for Coinbase to accept a BTC deposit, so I think it would make big waves if 3 blocks got reversed by a 51% attack.