Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index • Hacker News Board

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#321

Post by derwiki » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

scottLobster wrote: post #309

Rallerbabs wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Follow the big money. Michael Saylor from Microstrategies: $1B. Elon Musk from Tesla: $1.5B. GrayScale: not sure how many dollars, but they own >550,000 bitcoins. Big money is of the opinion that bitcoin is an excellent store of value. Only a matter of time before it becomes a medium of exchange. And later on, a unit of account. By that time, you won't be asking yourself what 1 bitcoin is worth anymore. Things will b…

Big money can write it off as a business expense on their taxes if it goes down. The average individual doesn't have that upside.

Why wouldn’t an individual be able to claim a capital loss?

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#322

Post by dieortin » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

doctorwho42 wrote: post #313

baxtr wrote: post #265

Ok, I have to admit that I am one of those people who knew about BTC very, very early but never bought any. Now, of course I should have mined at least 100 back in the days, but anyways. The reason I have never mined nor bought into it is that I still, to this day struggle to come up with a real reason to do so. Am I getting too old? Do I not see the "huge potential" what it may become? Don't I want to get freaking r…

I'm in your boat, when it was first explained to me in a hacker space at college when it was first growing and priced at a few cents per 100++ Bitcoin. All I could see was a waste of energy and resources (time, energy, hardware). It will always be a drain on society, and it scares me that it hasn't failed because we see it draining our GPU industry to the point that market prices have gone insane and availability is…

It’s not draining the GPU industry. No one buys GPUs for mining Bitcoin anymore, they use ASICs.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#323

Post by blhack » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

anthonypasq wrote: post #304

blhack wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you understand what the purpose of money is? It allows you to abstract your work into a (near) universally acceptable intermediary. For instance: I am great at writing web APIs in golang, but unfortunately for me the people coming to my house today to deliver a dumpster (we're doing some spring cleaning) do not accept "golang apis" as a method of payment. So I find somebody wants "golang APIs", agree to exchange w…

what does this have to do with cryptocurrency? You already do that now. its called a job.

None of my customers pay me in potatoes, dumpsters, or iced coffee/chocolate chip scones. They pay my in money, which I then give to the person at the coffee shop and she gives me the coffee.

And then the coffee shop people give that money to their landlord, the power company, the coffee bean people, and also their employees.

---

It seems like such bad faith arguments to claim that bitcoin doesn't have a use. It has an obvious use. HNers might not agree that it solves the problem it claims to solve, but if that's what you think then argue that. Don't pretend like you "don't understand" what the purpose is.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#324

Post by MichaelApproved » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

tal8d wrote: post #285

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't and even BTC enthusiasts have given up on that. They narrative is now that BTC is a "store of value".

I haven't received my official enthusiast talking points memo, but the obvious solution was proposed years ago: off chain transaction that use smart contracts for settlement on the public ledger. I vaguely remember "store of value" being used for what would more accurately be described as "trust anchor" or "root authority".

As you've said, it's been years since that was proposed but it's still not helping because none of the off chain networks have gotten any traction.

Admittedly, my experience with BTC is limited so please enlighten me if I have this wrong. That’s not a sarcastic request. I’m being genuine.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#325

Post by blondie9x » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

Can we please regulate Bitcoin the way we regulate over heavy consumption and pollution industries? This doesn’t even take into account the production and mining of rare earth materials to power the super computers mining Bitcoin.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#326

Post by jakupovic » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #265

Ok, I have to admit that I am one of those people who knew about BTC very, very early but never bought any. Now, of course I should have mined at least 100 back in the days, but anyways. The reason I have never mined nor bought into it is that I still, to this day struggle to come up with a real reason to do so. Am I getting too old? Do I not see the "huge potential" what it may become? Don't I want to get freaking r…

The problem that you and others like you have is you don't have any BTC and now are struggling to understand why anyone else would have any. I think it's mostly from the fact you didn't get any when you should have and now there is no reason as it's expensive and again you don't have any. Simple really.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#327

Post by chrisco255 » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

TheCapn wrote: post #227

chrisco255 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof of stake is relatively simple. You agree to stake a minimum amount of tokens (decided on by the network) and you get to run a node and validate transactions. If you attest to a malicious block and other validators call you out on it, you get slashed (i.e. you lose some portion of your stake, if not all of it): https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/consensus-mechanisms... One of the problems with it is that it…

>no single holder owns more than 1% of ETH, for example Curious about this statement. Is this something that can be looked up online? I know wallets/transactions are entirely public so I guess its just a question of whether someone has made a tool to do this with ETH or other cryptos. How do other coins fair in the same regard? What's BTC distribution? LTC? Or any of their forks?

Etherscan is the standard tool for looking up Ethereum wallet balances without having to run your own node: https://etherscan.io/ .

Top Accounts by ETH Balance: https://etherscan.io/accounts

#1 has 5%, but it's the wETH ("wrapped ETH") smart contract, that allows people to deposit ETH as the native token and receive wETH in return. wETH is more easily used for things like decentralized exchanges (https://weth.io/). So that's really a utility contract used by many applications and users.

#2 is the ETH2 Deposit contract, with 2.6% of supply. These are stakers receiving mining rewards for participating in ETH2 beacon chain validation.

#3 is Binance, with 2.5% of supply. They are the largest centralized exchange, so that 2.5% represents Binance's customer accounts.

#4, #5, #6, are also exchanges.

#7 is Compound Ether (@1.08% of supply). Compound is a decentralized finance savings & loan protocol, so again, that 1.08% represents tens of thousands of Compound users.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#328

Post by wil421 » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

tmoravec wrote: post #310

baxtr wrote: post #265

Ok, I have to admit that I am one of those people who knew about BTC very, very early but never bought any. Now, of course I should have mined at least 100 back in the days, but anyways. The reason I have never mined nor bought into it is that I still, to this day struggle to come up with a real reason to do so. Am I getting too old? Do I not see the "huge potential" what it may become? Don't I want to get freaking r…

Bitcoin is a potentially revolutionary technology in a very early stage. The important new part, the consensus algorithm, is ground breaking. Now, the very first implementation (Bitcoin) kinda sucks, like most technologies in their first versions. But there are newer generations, each more interesting, and each unlocking more possibilities. We are for example getting: * No-autority enforcement of contracts (Ethereum)…

Bitcoin is over a decade old by now. It’s certainly not become a revolutionary technology and is not in its infancy.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#329

Post by Rallerbabs » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

janvanbergen wrote: post #302

Rallerbabs wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Follow the big money. Michael Saylor from Microstrategies: $1B. Elon Musk from Tesla: $1.5B. GrayScale: not sure how many dollars, but they own >550,000 bitcoins. Big money is of the opinion that bitcoin is an excellent store of value. Only a matter of time before it becomes a medium of exchange. And later on, a unit of account. By that time, you won't be asking yourself what 1 bitcoin is worth anymore. Things will b…

Bitcoin will never become a standard currency, it's slow, it has zero privacy (if I send you money once you can see ALL my transactions), it is EXTREMELY energy inefficient. Even if you believe crypto will one day become the standard (which I dont), it won't be bitcoin because there are better alternatives; proof of work is dumb, bitcoin has a finite supply of bitcoins, etc.

These are all the same uninformed arguments that every newcomer thinks of. It's all incorrect, and if you'd want to learn correct info, then you'd be able to do so.

It's important that you do it yourself. Because when I tell you it, it isn't going to land.

Your ideologies don't matter. The world won't let you force them onto it. The reality of the situation, is that all the big money believes bitcoin has a large role to play in the future of the world economy.

And this is true.

Screenshot this. Message me in 2030. Let's reevaluate.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#330

Post by snickms » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

dstick wrote: post #7

Question that came to mind after reading the headline: could this become a future reason for governments to criminalise the trading / use of Bitcoin because of negative environmental effects? On the surface it seems the value of Bitcoin is directly tied to its energy consumption and thus environmental harm. I get that Bitcoin itself is decentralised and cannot be banned outright. But could it be neutered in such a wa…

I think both the article and this comment miss the point. If we generated power cleanly in the first place, there would be far less environmental damage everywhere.

The fact that Bitcoin now uses half the power of Youtube (from a terribly unreliable estimate) should not be such a distraction from the real problem IMHO.

Terribly unreliable estimate:

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+total+power+cons...