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Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

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Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#541

Post by TomSwirly »

keithtom wrote: post #407
Retric wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN seems wildly pro crypto compared to most places. It’s like Tesla which isn’t universally supported, but still gets a lot more coverage than Ford. People do bring up quite reasonable objections like environmental costs, but it stories get a lot of upvotes and suggesting many people are strong supporters.

Re environmental costs, I have yet to hear anyone make an analysis of the environmental cost of the banking system or an equivalent; that is, how much to warm all the offices, the computers and servers, the transportation costs of cars & planes for all the employees. Also, proof of stake will reduce 99% of the environmental cost.

> I have yet to hear anyone make an analysis of the environmental cost of the banking system

I immediately found this: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-26/is-bit...

"One Bitcoin transaction would generate the CO2 equivalent to 706,765 swipes of a Visa credit card,"

Another way to look at it:

Bitcoin uses over 0.5% of the world's electricity: https://interestingengineering.com/why-bitcoin-mining-consum...

With that, Bitcoin does about 300,000 transactions a day. https://www.statista.com/statistics/730806/daily-number-of-b...

But there are over a billion daily credit card transactions alone - 3000 times as much.

So if each credit card transaction were replaced by a Bitcoin transaction, we'd use 30 times as much electricity as the entire planet produces.

---

These numbers are so grossly lopsided and so widely bandied about that when I hear someone say, "I have yet to hear anyone make an analysis of the environmental cost" I think, "Perhaps you don't want to hear it."

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#542

Post by rudderz »

chowells wrote: post #531
rudderz wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These are the sort of real-world constraints that you can't just ignore. These constraints were drafted by a handful of rich white bankers in a secret meeting. I have no problem ignoring their constraints. It seems you do. Can you imagine all the hot-takes HN would generate if email were invented today? "You can't just encroach on the sovereignty of USPS like that" "Electronic Mail doesn't do anything the pony-expr…

While it's tempting to conflate the beneficiaries of our problems with those who created them, reality is not that simple. Blaming things on an all-powerful cabal of bankers is nearing QAnon levels of seeking a small number of people to blame for systemic issues. That sort of reductionism isn't useful. Action taken based on it is going to never touch any real problem. At most it'll change who benefits from them. I th…

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies," Jefferson wrote. "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around(these banks) will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

This Jeff guy, what a radical. Probably will never amount to anything.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#543

Post by TomSwirly »

Karunamon wrote: post #457
ohgodplsno wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The banking system _exists_. It's what powers all our daily transactions. It's what has been tried and tested for hundreds of years, and got regulated. Even if Ethereum or coin-of-the-week takes off, this existing banking system will not go away. What you're doing is a well known crypto-lover tactic to distract from the fact that cryptocurrencies are an ecological catastrophe. Meanwhile, we're burning coal to produce…

I strongly disagree with this loaded characterization of mining as "waste". Converting power into value is the opposite of waste, and that's not even addressing the network security that it provides. Mining provides useful work. If you don't like cryptocurrency, fine, but don't pretend that no value is being created or that no purpose exists. Waste would be an incandescent bulb that throws away the majority of its en…

It's a complete waste. It turns energy into nothing at all.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#544

Post by OldHand2018 »

charcircuit wrote: post #231
probably_wrong wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem as I see it is that such a system would be completely inaccessible to anyone who is not a software developer. With a paper-based system, all you need to understand is that your paper goes into a box and someone counts it later on. Everyone understands every step, including the steps required to secure that box. But once you require people to understand blockchain you are putting the intregrity of the…

I don't understand that system. I drop off a sealed ballot in a ballot box and then that's it. I just have to trust that the system works. I have to way to prove that my vote was counted. I have no way to count the votes for. I don't understand the process behind how my votes get counted and it would be fine if people didn't understand how blockchains work.

If you want to understand how your local elections work, just go volunteer when they ask for volunteers.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#545

Post by dbspin »

suikadayo wrote: post #323
dbspin wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetically, NFTs are amazing. They have the potential to revolutionise royalties and help artist directly profit from the success of their work. There are successful marketplaces like Nifty Gateway for visual NFT's and some under development for music NFTs. But... Right now, Etheriums soaring 'gas' prices are basically freezing new entrants into the market. The cost of 'minting' a token on the blockchain right no…

We don’t have to wait for Eth2, there are several L2 solutions in the works right now like Optimism and Polygon

They're not supported on any of the popular NFT trading / minting sites. That economy is currently built around ETH.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#546

Post by svachalek »

csa wrote: post #484
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. This has been resolved for years. See Celo and NEAR as examples of fully-programmable Proof of Stake blockchains that are live. 2. Yes. 3. It'll be a significant issue for decentralized exchanges and liquidity pools, but far from existential. The seasonal Tether FUD is generally overstated. (I have done a detailed analysis of this, but it exceeds the scope of this conversation.)

> 2. Yes. This is sadly a non-answer to the question posed. I am asked this question all the time by people I know, and the best I can come up with is illegal activities, super niche tech applications (e.g., DNS name reg), and libertarian fantasies. You have an audience here at HN who is more than willing to advocate for cryptocurrencies if they/we can be shown a compelling use case. “Yes” is not an obvious compellin…

Check out UniSwap and Aave if you haven't before. If those aren't compelling use cases, tell your friends to stay away.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#547

Post by wallacoloo »

parliament32 wrote: post #413
albntomat0 wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an outsider missing context, what are the answers to the following? They are all valid questions that come up every time, and aren't well answered, given my research into them. - Is the long term alternatives to PoW actually viable, given the huge power consumption of cryptocurrency currently? - Are the valid use cases (other than drugs, ransomware and speculation) worth the valuation? - If Tether collapses, due t…

- Is there anything actually wrong with PoW? It's fun to say it's "wasted" electricity, but we "waste" more power, resources, and man-hours in other trivialities (eg. video games) without really caring. - Read the whitepaper of whichever crypto you're asking about. The answer is "it depends", because each one exists to fill a different niche. - Nobody really cares about Tether, so probably nothing.

> Is there anything actually wrong with PoW?

There’s more wrong with PoW besides just environmental effects. PoW creates different incentives for a blockchain’s miners than for its users. Often these are conflicting, and have a tendency to gridlock the protocol development. This is especially pronounced today in Ethereum where the majority of users are in favor of certain protocol upgrades that would scale throughput, but miners are opposed to it because it comes at an economic cost to them.

There’s no inherent reason for this dichotomy between users and miners: if it’s the same people using the protocol as securing it, you’d expect to have better outcomes for everyone. PoS makes it so that the users are also the ones securing the protocol. It’s not _perfect_ alignment, but it is much more aligned than the miner/user split in POW.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#548

Post by svachalek »

shuckles wrote: post #466
keithtom wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re environmental costs, I have yet to hear anyone make an analysis of the environmental cost of the banking system or an equivalent; that is, how much to warm all the offices, the computers and servers, the transportation costs of cars & planes for all the employees. Also, proof of stake will reduce 99% of the environmental cost.

This whataboutism ignores the logic of the question: the banking system is not incentivized to burn power. You would expect each node to try to minimize their input costs to maximize returns. For a given unit of compute, putting in more energy does not increase profits for any participant in the traditional banking system. This isn’t the case for cryptocurrencies, so they are asked a fair question.

This isn't the case for Proof of Work cryptocurrencies. Many newer networks are moving away from the POW model.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#549

Post by dbspin »

peter_l_downs wrote: post #354
dbspin wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetically, NFTs are amazing. They have the potential to revolutionise royalties and help artist directly profit from the success of their work. There are successful marketplaces like Nifty Gateway for visual NFT's and some under development for music NFTs. But... Right now, Etheriums soaring 'gas' prices are basically freezing new entrants into the market. The cost of 'minting' a token on the blockchain right no…

Couldn't agree more that NFTs are theoretically very interesting but the way they work right now is absolute garbage. See this experience report: https://freezine.xyz/4/nfts/index.html

I don't think this is particularly an issue with the way NFTs work - except in regard to their choice of Ether, and Ether's current issue with gas prices. I think there's a lot of potential in the existing markets. It's really specifically a problem with the economics of trading them, caused by the inflation in transaction costs of Ether.

Article you linked the artists issue is that he couldn't find a market for his art. Which kind of misses the point.

"Then I asked around if anyone wanted to buy it. The boys in the groupchat weren't interested. Neither were any of my twitter followers. Damn."

Sure you could get lucky with being early into a highly speculative market, but by and large this is like patreon or kickstarter or anything else online. If there's a potential market for what you're making or doing, it's a new (and potentially lucrative) way to tap into it. It doesn't generate a new demand for work that doesn't have (or can't generate) an audience on its own. NFTs aren't a form of advertising, certainly not a particularly effective one.

Also the artist initially used Zora (which I've never heard of), rather than Rarible or Opensea, or Mintable or Snark or any of the better known open markets.

On rarible he set his royalties to 25% (rather than the usual 10%) which obviously discourages speculative investment. He also set the cost of his first art piece to 1 ETH! Crazy high for an unknown artist.

The article kind of seems like a snarky joke, but if it is one I'm not sure what the punchline is, given he really did spend the money and really does seem to want to sell the NFTs. I think it's more likely a case of irony employed as a defence mechanism.

We have someone who self confesses he doesn't understand the market, making a remix piece quickly and half assedly, selling it at a high rate across multiple markets, without an audience or any interest in what is popular there. I mean I get it, who wants to miss the gold rush? But it's not a useful barometer of NFTs.

Currently all the real money is being made by selective services who primarily work with digital artists who have an existing following, or make work they think will reach an audience - sites like niftygateway.com or superrare.co

The work that's selling well is generally excellent. And sure, there is something inherently ridiculous in the idea of 'owning' a piece of digital art. But no more so that owning a numbered print or piece of video art by a renowned artist, or hell a cardigan owned by Kurt Cobain. All of which have real, established and ongoing value.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#550

Post by AlwaysRock »

jcpham2 wrote: post #477
AlwaysRock wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crypto killer app is using the money to buy illegal drugs. It always has been. Most of the people I knew who were into crypto early used it to buy weed online, not as an investment.

Mining/Trading BTC over the counter since 2011. I've never used a darknet market. I read an article on slashdot in 2011 called "Bitcoin Mining for fun and profit" I bought a graphics card, it paid itself off in 21 days. I bought 12 more graphics cards and sucked down 3kW for 24 months. I do not regret this and every single person here that doesn't understand proof of work, doesn't understand a deflating asset with 8…

I don't think one could claim mining bitcoin is the killer app of bitcoin. That's a reason why people would support bitcoin.
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