I honestly just can't buy into high energy usage as a criticism. I think we should be focusing our efforts on massively expanding our power generation, not cutting back usage.
Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare
201–210 of 242 posts
Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I cannot do this right now There is a difference between not being able to and not knowing how to. You can. There are no-minimum balance API banking interfaces. There just isn’t a common enough use case for them to be heavily advertised. We can move the goalpost again to an open API, but that’s another thing once more.
Go back and reread my original comment. I stand by my statement. Can you open 10k accounts right now? I'm sure you can't.
Can you go to the middle of Cambodia (Tonle Sap) where there's no electricity and buy fish with bitcoin? You can't.... and my use case is a lot more realistic than yours.
If you say you might be able to in a few years, then I can argue you might be able to open up as many accounts as you want at that time.
Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare
#203Earlier 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.
> You can already do many things with crypto that you cannot do with the traditional banking system OP meant legal things.
what is legal depends on where/ who you are. most agree with this on other issues, same sex marriage, abortion, even violence.
Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
he also has a %70 premine of this coin with his buddies. Eth also have a dynamic issuance schedule exactly like USD, EUR or any other fiat. Except instead of a Central Bank, a few devs decide it.
Well aware. Again, not a fan of crypto at this point but just on a relative basis it seems ETH is a logical choice to come out ahead.
Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
yes, I do. my grandgrandmother had no electricity, no running water, could not read, but could use that money. now do the same with bitcoins. anyway this sentence > you can not send money to anyone you want with fiat is not true. I don't know what bubble you live in, but the opposite is true: you can't send bitcoins to anyone you want.
it is easy to test this you know. send yourself something when abroad or from foreign bank. at the same time send some bitcoin. see what arrives first or at all. > I don't know what bubble you live in, but the opposite is true: you can't send bitcoins to anyone you want. the opposite to "you can not send money to anyone you want with fiat" is "you can send money to anyone you want with fiat". which is false. hence in…
> friendly advice. read more
thanks, I am a software engineer with 30 years of working experience, still find bitcoins the most obtuse way to send money, first of all because bitcoins are not money, secondly because 100% of those I would send money to don't know anything about bitcoins (why would they care?) and last but not least because it's easier and cheaper to convert money to gold and ship the gold (assuming I don't want to send real money)
buying prepaid credit is also an option, it works everywhere bitcoins work and it's free, immediate and it's money, directly spendable on goods and services
hell, even shipping banknotes in an envelope is better than sending bitcoins!
bitcoins are useless for this use case to anyone who really wants to send money to someone they care about
> "you can send money to anyone you want with fiat". which is false.
it's not.
I can send fiat money to anyone I want (emphasis on I)
but to prove me wrong you can send a couple bitcoins to my mom and I'll show you she doesn't know what to do with them.
if you're interested in proving me wrong, I can give you her wallet address.
in the end ask yourself this: why North Korea is disconnected from internet, but allows bitcoins?
are bitcoins really pro people and against oppressive regimes?
p.s. as much as I don't care about burn accounts, yours is actually really suspicious...
Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare
#206I honestly just can't buy into high energy usage as a criticism. I think we should be focusing our efforts on massively expanding our power generation, not cutting back usage.
As a counterargument, proof of work takes all the energy it can get: because bitcoin automatically makes the work to proof more difficult.
This means when there is more available energy it's lucrative for miners to put more energy in the system. However, no more bitcoins are outputted. The only extra output is heat from used hardware.
In some other related topic on HN, someone compared it to a car, where more energy would not just mean more miles driven, but an equally longer road.
Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the more confusing things about crypto is how many magical wishes get attached to it. It’s never actually explained why crypto will magically solve the problems listed, merely asserted that it would be so. There’s no reason that Bitcoin would magically eliminate the need for armies and oil consumption, at best it might change who has the armies, but not their presence. The funny thing is that we know that neit…
> The idea that replacing something that’s been around for ~50 years will solve a Millenia long problem of humanity’s is just funny. Is it? Communicating over distance was a problem we've had for millenia (or much longer) and it's now solved. Technology is amazing and we hit an inflection point last century. We're essentially already living in a post-humanity world, and crypto is the currency to match.
> Is it? Communicating over distance was a problem we've had for millenia (or much longer) and it's now solved.
There's a reason why I say that bitcoin fans participate in magical thinking, and this is a prime example. So the argument goes that because we've solved communication, bitcoin is supposed to solve war ... how again? There's not even a fig leaf of an argument here, only a blunt assertion that because we've solved other problems, therefore your preferred technology will solve other issues.
Maybe one day we'll solve war. But the burden of proof is on you to argue that your specific thing will solve that issue. And you're not even really trying.
> We're essentially already living in a post-humanity world, and crypto is the currency to match.
Lol, what? This is the intro to a cyberpunk novel, not an actual argument with testable claims. What the heck does "post-humanity" even freaking mean? As an actual human being living in this society, I'd argue that any claims that I'm "post" are objectively wrong.
This is always the issue with any sort of enthusiast; your enthusiasm does not scale. Just because you're really excited about a thing doesn't mean that anyone else will be; you have to actually find things that other people want and connect your interest to them persuasively (blunt assertions don't really work). "We're already living in a post-humanity world, and crypto is the currency to match" is the kind of thing that'll get you plaudits on crypto sub-forums, and worried looks from everyone else who has no idea what you're going on about.
Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare
#208I honestly just can't buy into high energy usage as a criticism. I think we should be focusing our efforts on massively expanding our power generation, not cutting back usage.
As a counterargument, proof of work takes all the energy it can get: because bitcoin automatically makes the work to proof more difficult. This means when there is more available energy it's lucrative for miners to put more energy in the system. However, no more bitcoins are outputted. The only extra output is heat from used hardware. In some other related topic on HN, someone compared it to a car, where more energy…
You're probably right that the incentives are misaligned. I suppose I'm just reacting against what I feel is an anti-progressive assumption, which is that reducing our carbon footprint to desirable levels will require a massive reduction in our energy footprint.
Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
A single bitcoin transaction (amortized) uses as much electricity as an entire house uses (on average) in more than 2 days. This is like saying why should a massive agricultural project worry about saving water when your uncle Steve leaves the sink running while brushing his teeth. Or complaining about a splinter while impaled on a 2x4. The scale of the inefficiency is so large as to be difficult to truly comprehend.
>A single bitcoin transaction (amortized) uses as much electricity as an entire house uses (on average) in more than 2 days. That could be true, but how much energy does the finance world consumes through all the quantitative easings and other shenanigans? I doubt it's even possible to burn that worth of energy in electricity.
BTC replaces currency and currency transmission. It does not replace all financial systems or policy. If you just compare what BTC does, it does it like five orders of magnitude less efficiently.
Re: Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You can already do many things with crypto that you cannot do with the traditional banking system OP meant legal things.
what is legal depends on where/ who you are. most agree with this on other issues, same sex marriage, abortion, even violence.
edgy, kid.