Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#91

Post by yrgulation » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

reedf1 wrote: post #14

I am so conflicted about the environmental impact of Proof-Of-Work. In many ways it feels like an arbitrary energy spend - but I think criticizing cryptocurrency for it seems a little disingenuous when we don't apply the same logic to other areas. What's the environmental impact of better refresh rates on monitors? What's the environmental impact of large scale cctv systems? What's the environmental impact of western…

I see a lot of whataboutism when debating crypto currency issues. We assess the env impact of everything you just listed - monitors and cctv have energy ratings, and if you google for eco friendly mattresses you will see there is a lot going on in that area as well. So, really, whats the issue with making sure cryptos are energy efficient?

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#92

Post by minitoar » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

solosoyokaze wrote: post #78

analog31 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The military budget also props up the energy supply for bitcoin mining.

Bitcoin can be mined with any available resource, even by hand (although that's clearly not ideal).

How many people would use Bitcoin in this scenario? I reckon so few as to render it worthless. Ergo, Bitcoin requires the same expensive infrastructure as our fiat banking.

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#93

Post by hahahahe » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

markkat wrote: post #20

I expect that once Ethereum completes the switch to PoS, this issue is going to loom large for Bitcoin.

This is why I think a big land grab will happen for ETH. And even though I think bitcoin is grossly overvalued, ETH could accelerate and possibly surpass bitcoin in terms of paid-in capital. PoS, at least in theory, creates future cash flow. Not a fan of crypto but Vitalik is one of very few people in the crypto space with genuine good intentions and intellectual curiosity.

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#94

Post by viklove » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #84

solosoyokaze wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can already do many things with crypto that you cannot do with the traditional banking system. Can you open 10,000 bank accounts right now? I can make 10k wallets. There are so many new things we can do with crypto that it's going to take decades for people to discover them.

The number of times such an activity would be useful to me is zero. However calling my bank and having cash recalled from fraudulent (or even just bankrupt) merchants, that's happened. Who do I call at Bitcoin?

Bitcoin isn't a bank, it's a currency. You can't do that with the USD either, and you could build a banking platform on top of bitcoin to allow for chargebacks and credit lines.

The benefit of BTC is that when your bank mismanages their assets a la 2008, resulting in a bank run, you know your assets are safe instead of having to rely on the Fed to bail out your bank. Your money is in your control, not in the control of someone else.

If you don't want that, it's easy -- just don't buy bitcoin. But don't discredit it by comparing it to a credit card which it is not trying to be. The strawman is disingenuous and shows how little you understand the topic.

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#95

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

Cryptocurrency is still something that legacy financial systems could easily out-compete given an appropriate regulatory environment.

There are things Bitcoin is better at than e.g. credit cards. If you're a trusted merchant with shady customers, once the transaction posts you don't have to worry about scammers fraudulently disputing the charge or your bank cutting you off because that happened too often. You can get Bitcoin under a pseudonym and use it to buy something (e.g. banned or controversial books, VPN for dissidents) that you don't want tied to your meatspace identity. Things like that.

None of this would be impossible to do with ordinary financial systems except that existing regulations prohibit it. But if anybody can do it with Bitcoin regardless then there is no point in that and you might as well allow it in general. At which point, why are we burning all this energy on Bitcoin?

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#96

Post by londons_explore » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #72

Glench wrote: post #6

Worth mentioning the cryptocurrency that Bram Cohen (inventor of bittorrent) is creating that is explicitly designed to be low-energy usage and more distributed: https://www.chia.net/ It uses "Proof of Space" (proof that you're allocating a certain amount of storage space) instead of Proof of Work or Proof of Stake. Pretty interesting and they're coming out of beta into their mainnet in the next few weeks. Their on-c…

If that takes off, aren't we liable to see a rocketing demand for storage, doing to the storage market what PoW does for the graphics card market? And while it may be low energy to run, creating hard drives just to prove you have space seems a less than environmentally friendly activity. It looks just like another proof of waste

The main cost of compute is electricity.

The main cost of hard drives is intellectual property (ie. Paying for the R&D, patents and licenses for all the tech inside).

It isn't clear that "wasting" intellectual property is in any way bad for the wider economy. In fact, it probably just subsidies storage for the rest of us in the long term.

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#97

Post by solosoyokaze » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #84

solosoyokaze wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can already do many things with crypto that you cannot do with the traditional banking system. Can you open 10,000 bank accounts right now? I can make 10k wallets. There are so many new things we can do with crypto that it's going to take decades for people to discover them.

The number of times such an activity would be useful to me is zero. However calling my bank and having cash recalled from fraudulent (or even just bankrupt) merchants, that's happened. Who do I call at Bitcoin?

> The number of times such an activity would be useful to me is zero.

You say that now, but it's the kind of innovation that will require some time to develop use-cases. I use it as an example of where crypto is just a lot more powerful than traditional banking. There's the ability to scale without "permission". Think a 12 year old opening an "account".

> However calling my bank and having cash recalled from fraudulent (or even just bankrupt) merchants, that's happened. Who do I call at Bitcoin?

Escrow accounts and merchant layers are in development. There's a lot of interesting DeFi (decentralized finance) services being developed on Ethereum.

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#98

Post by Rallerbabs » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

cableshaft wrote: post #64

Rallerbabs wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bear market was actually closer to 3 years. But that ended a while back. It's now solidly in a bull market. Bitcoin is fantastic. But even fantastic assets can become overvalued. And indeed, this will happen again. There will be another bear market. I keep myself up to date on the market sentiment every day. I have been doing this for years now. The current sentiment is that we are in the middle of the bull marke…

Yeah I don't really think we're actually in disagreement here. I pretty much share your thoughts in this comment.

Wasn't arguing.

Except for whether we're in a bear or bull market. It's definitely a bull currently.

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#99

Post by solosoyokaze » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

minitoar wrote: post #92

solosoyokaze wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin can be mined with any available resource, even by hand (although that's clearly not ideal).

How many people would use Bitcoin in this scenario? I reckon so few as to render it worthless. Ergo, Bitcoin requires the same expensive infrastructure as our fiat banking.

"This scenario" being the complete disbanding of the US military? I imagine everyone would be using crypto at that point since there would be no USD.

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#100

Post by torben-friis » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #95

Cryptocurrency is still something that legacy financial systems could easily out-compete given an appropriate regulatory environment. There are things Bitcoin is better at than e.g. credit cards. If you're a trusted merchant with shady customers, once the transaction posts you don't have to worry about scammers fraudulently disputing the charge or your bank cutting you off because that happened too often. You can get…

Presumably, forcing illegal actions to happen through bitcoin adds friction to the process.

But more importantly, as far as I know bitcoin is not designed to guarantee anonymity in money transfers, and the fact that every transaction is set in stone publicly in the blockchain makes it relatively easily traceable. Am I wrong in that area?