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Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

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Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#141

Post by astalwick »

tromp wrote: post #119
astalwick wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin currently consumes roughly the energy used to power one quarter of CANADA. I'm optimistic that there is a better way to store a ledger as you describe. Perhaps a database?

Not better in terms of Bitcoin's goals of decentralization and censorship resistance...

We've decided to solve that problem by consuming very nearly the entire residential power consumption of Canada, a country of 38 million people.

We've done this with a network that can process 400k transactions per day (at $20/transaction in fees), as compared to visa, which does 150 million per day.

Surely, we can do better?

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#142

Post by rawtxapp »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #127
rawtxapp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value they created is a currency that's not controlled by a select few people.

1) Not a currency, 2) Debateable that it's value at all, and 3) "controlled by a select few people" is a remarkably paranoid/conspiracy way to frame that central banking is a necessary function of government.

1) I can use it to transfer monetary value, which is good enough for me, 2) the market puts it's current value at 45k$, 3) doesn't change the fact that central planning has created a very fragile economy.

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#143

Post by hhjj »

coralreef wrote: post #46

Funny trend: solar and wind power are now cheaper than coal. https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/11/Price-of-electric... Here's a hot take: Bitcoin subsidizes clean energy development. Miners buy cheap energy; clean energy infrastructure gets profitable return. Cost of development and manufacturing lowers further because of scale; pollution and externalities reduced; humanity wins. Bitcoin saves humanity?

Bitcoin makes infinite resource finite, promote environmental protection?

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#144

Post by rybosworld »

junippor wrote: post #66
rybosworld wrote: post #10

"The value of Bitcoin is negative if we applied a carbon tax to it" (paraphrased). Can't this be said about literally anything? Bitcoin and cryptos in general are actually worth more than $0 because people are tired of seeing their cash devalued on the whim of politicians and bankers.

> Bitcoin and cryptos in general are actually worth more than $0 because people are tired of seeing their cash devalued on the whim of politicians and bankers. How do you justify this, given that inflation is so low? (at least in the EU it's been oscillating between 0 and 2% for a very long time) https://tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/inflation-cpi Is this what people are so tired of? 1% inflation? I'm just trying to…

It's an open secret that inflation is purposefully miscalculated.

As another commenter notes, CPI leaves out many of the most major expenses, e.g. housing.

There are estimates as high as 8% annually when you account for everything.

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#145

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

rawtxapp wrote: post #142
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Not a currency, 2) Debateable that it's value at all, and 3) "controlled by a select few people" is a remarkably paranoid/conspiracy way to frame that central banking is a necessary function of government.

1) I can use it to transfer monetary value, which is good enough for me, 2) the market puts it's current value at 45k$, 3) doesn't change the fact that central planning has created a very fragile economy.

Transferring monetary value at only 7 tps, while burning resources like a forest fire.

Visa is not worried.

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#146

Post by coralreef »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #139
coralreef wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Costs go down with scale; scale comes from demand. Energy on earth is not a finite, limited resource. Fossil fuels are finite, but energy is not. The earth is bombarded with more potential energy every day then we could ever spend, aka solar energy.

At this point you’re just tossing out unrelated statements without even trying to tie them back to an argument. Yes, the Earth is bombarded with a lot of sunlight. So what? Doesn’t change the fact that Bitcoin is consuming existing electricity infrastructure that we could be using for something else.

Electricity gets generated and either consumed or wasted. Bitcoin eats excess available supply.

What problems do you want to throw energy at that is economically viable?

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#147

Post by rybosworld »

lordnacho wrote: post #53
rybosworld wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deduce just a bit more, and see that I meant you can tax literally anything until it is worthless. I think you already knew what I meant but just wanted to nitpick.

It's not a nitpick, he's referring to Pigovian Taxes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax It's obvious that you can tax anything by some amount to eat up the value. He means if you tax it according to the amount of unaccounted-by-the-market negative value, it comes out negative.

Right, that's fair to say.

But the economist in OP is essentially ignoring where bitcoin actually get's it's value from and only focusing on it's electrical consumption.

Bitcoin means different things to different people. But many see it as the single best hedge against modern monetary policy.

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#148

Post by coralreef »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #130
coralreef wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Costs go down with scale; scale comes from demand. Energy on earth is not a finite, limited resource. Fossil fuels are finite, but energy is not. The earth is bombarded with more potential energy every day then we could ever spend, aka solar energy.

There is already massive demand for energy, and massive investments in reducing the cost of energy, especially green energy. Scaling benefits come from order of magnitude increases in demand, not single digit percentage increases in demand.

So then does that make Bitcoin a huge energy wasting problem to worry about, or an insignificant toy in the bigger picture?

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#149

Post by dumbfounder »

r00fus wrote: post #50
Geee wrote: post #45

Most of bitcoin is mined with clean energy. Also, deflationary money is the best thing that can happen to environment. It's time to stop destroying savings in order to accelerate pointless consumption (and production).

> Most of bitcoin is mined with clean energy Do you have a cite for this?

This article says by overall consumptions it's about 39%:

https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/36672/renewable-energy-...

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#150

Post by rawtxapp »

rawtxapp wrote: post #142
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Not a currency, 2) Debateable that it's value at all, and 3) "controlled by a select few people" is a remarkably paranoid/conspiracy way to frame that central banking is a necessary function of government.

1) I can use it to transfer monetary value, which is good enough for me, 2) the market puts it's current value at 45k$, 3) doesn't change the fact that central planning has created a very fragile economy.

@sideburns, Visa is not worried because they are going to start offering crypto payments.
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