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Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

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Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#101

Post by londons_explore »

dwieringa wrote: post #15
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…

I mined BURST for a while, another PoS coin. It's been around for 7 years, works great, and solves the PoW power problem. It's got a lot of functionality built in for the nodes, like messaging and marketplace functions. And nobody cares. If I had to guess, I'd say the attractiveness of mining the PoW coins is that it's very expensive, but accordingly very rewarding. When the coins are cheap and easy to secure as a no…

Any of these coins could have linked themselves to bitcoin. Ie. They could have issued coins at the start to all bitcoin holders.

If they did that, they'd get over the "we're not bitcoin" hurdle, assuming the tech was any good.

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#102

Post by Rallerbabs »

ForHackernews wrote: post #86
Rallerbabs wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is at all time high, meaning just about everybody who ever bought bitcoin is currently in profit. There are very few bagholders.

Yeah, and I was a paper multimillionaire around the time of the first dot-com boom. We'll see how it shakes out when the music stops.

I'm dedicated to learning to recognize bottoms & tops. I successfully bought the bottom. Now only to successfully sell the top.

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#103

Post by sneak »

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…

I don't think we will get existing planet-scale financial regulatory authorities to give up their dream of ubiquitous financial surveillance and point-and-click, shoot first and ask questions later financial censorship/DoS abilities simply by there being an alternative.

Already they have practically banned p2p bitcoin transactions in the US. They're closer to their goal than we are to ours.

In 2011 I gave a halfway tongue-in-cheek talk called "Financing the Revolution" about digital payment systems, with a focus on bitcoin and the new possibilities it enabled. It is still, all these years later, not really possible to finance a revolution with bitcoin.

I don't think that's in any way an accident.

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#104

Post by viklove »

ashtonkem wrote: post #88
solosoyokaze wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really also need to include the entire military budget (and eco damage) as that's what props up the state, which backs the fiat.

This is such a silly counter argument. First of all, countries secure energy because people want energy. Even in a world where we use Bitcoin, people are still going to want HVAC, cars, cell phones, and all the other things that we use/buy that consume energy and damage the environment. The idea that a country will magically stop wanting oil because it's using Bitcoin is just laughable. Second, Bitcoin uses a ton of…

This take is like reacting to the Ford Model T by saying how much energy it uses, how you can't access fuel to put in it, etc. BTC isn't the end-all crypto solution. It's the first attempt. It will continue to evolve and mature into something better like a Ford Fiat you can buy today.

I don't really care about the USA, and I want to be in control of my own money. Maybe from your perspective of being able to control the citizens of a country, USD is better. But from my perspective of protecting my own interests, BTC is a compelling solution.

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#105

Post by solosoyokaze »

ashtonkem wrote: post #88
solosoyokaze wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really also need to include the entire military budget (and eco damage) as that's what props up the state, which backs the fiat.

This is such a silly counter argument. First of all, countries secure energy because people want energy. Even in a world where we use Bitcoin, people are still going to want HVAC, cars, cell phones, and all the other things that we use/buy that consume energy and damage the environment. The idea that a country will magically stop wanting oil because it's using Bitcoin is just laughable. Second, Bitcoin uses a ton of…

You have the cause and effect reversed. One of the reasons I want to move from USD to crypto is because I don't want to invade countries for their oil. I'd rather my currency not be tied to imperialistic warmongering.

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#106

Post by blueblob »

cableshaft wrote: post #62
blueblob wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my mind this comparison isn't exactly the right way of looking at it. Most of the early buyers who held on bought full shares of bitcoin before fractional shares were an option. The people buying it at 48,000 are likely buying fractional shares. So they're not necessarily invested at the full risk of losing such a significant amount of money. I think this is part of the reason it's going up.

Pretty sure it's always had fractional shares. I was following it somewhat back then. Granted, it was worth so little that most people didn't bother except for maybe the fees, but it was fractional by design from the start, I'm pretty sure. Regardless of people buying fractional shares, I see plenty of people on the bitcoin subreddit going "I'm a noob at bitcoin, and FOMO bought 0.1/0.2/0.4 coin yesterday for $46k, d…

Fair enough

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#107

Post by ravenstine »

How does this compare to the environmental impact of the millions of people constantly surfing sites like Reddit all day? I always hear about how bad Bitcoin is in terms of energy consumption, but nobody seems to perform similar analysis on actually frivolous activities we all accept in our society.

Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare

#110

Post by ashtonkem »

solosoyokaze wrote: post #105
ashtonkem wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a silly counter argument. First of all, countries secure energy because people want energy. Even in a world where we use Bitcoin, people are still going to want HVAC, cars, cell phones, and all the other things that we use/buy that consume energy and damage the environment. The idea that a country will magically stop wanting oil because it's using Bitcoin is just laughable. Second, Bitcoin uses a ton of…

You have the cause and effect reversed. One of the reasons I want to move from USD to crypto is because I don't want to invade countries for their oil. I'd rather my currency not be tied to imperialistic warmongering.

I’m asserting that a country that used Bitcoin would still warmonger for oil.
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