161–170 of 436 posts
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Do you deny that hydro is cheap or do you claim that miners choose to use power in more expensive locations?
Miners don't care/get a choice. They plug their machines into the nearest wall socket.
I don't understand where all these "cryptocurrency vs the environment" posts are coming from recently. The core problem is energy use, no? Things using electricity - of which bitcoin is a huge one - are powered by environmentally damaging supplies. I don't care about BTC at all, but if it were to be wiped out of existence tomorrow it would prevent further damage to the environment in exactly the same way that getting…
Given all the smart minds and money devoted to crypto research, could humanity not benefit from other projects?
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Miners don't care/get a choice. They plug their machines into the nearest wall socket.
Patently false. I do a lot of contracting work for miners, they specifically tune their operations to the power cost of an area and in variable rate loads will switch off miners during peak costs. $/kWh is a big concern for actual mining operations, maybe not for people with one or two rigs in their basement.
Selection bias. I don't doubt that the miners who are investing god knows how much is necessary to _require a contractor_ will have scaled enough to need to concern themselves with cost of electricity, but the _majority_ of miners are not going to be those people, surely?
And every cent coin created in US and some other developed countries costs more than 1 cent and promotes harmful mining operations for copper and other metals. Also copper is harmful for environment. We should stop making money altogether. /s
You say this sarcastically, but it's spot on! Look at Sweden: nearly completely cash-less and we sure don't do our grocery shopping with bitcoin either! It's not for environmental reasons either: cash is just inconvenient when you think about it.
Try being an international. https://www.thelocal.se/20190624/the-locals-readers-how-swed...
> Bob, a United Kingdom resident but frequent visitor to Sweden, said this system is difficult for non-residents.
> “As a visitor I can't pay at places that only accept Swish because I don't have Swish. And without a Swedish bank account I can't get Swish. And without a Swedish residence, I can't get a bank account,” he explained.
> Howard Drobner, who is a frequent business traveller to Sweden, also proposed a tweak.
> “Some small vendors, like at flea markets and craft shows, only take Swish which I do not have and can not get due to the fact that I do not have a Swedish bank account or national number. I would therefore really like to have a Swish setup for frequent travellers to Sweden,” he said.
Those are people with money, doing ok but inconvenienced. There are things they can't buy.
Now imagine being homeless, or an "illegal" resident. People can't even help by giving you money any more. Friends have to buy food for you themselves instead of supporting you with cash. It gets harder and harder to obtain essentials. Human rights should transcend that, and the cashless systems falling into place in Sweden do not even attempt to be available for all persons.
It is year 2021 and people still think Bitcoin is boiling the oceans. Bitcoin is the greenest think on this planet. Economic empowerment it brings to individual together with energy extraction innovations is just beyond imagination of most people in this forum.
There are literally thousands of alternatives to Bitcoin, who bring the same "economic empowerment". I can get instant, zero comission transfers with Nano, without banks. I assume there are many other cryptos like this one. As skeptic I am about the survival of cryptos to regulators and big whales, I am actually using Nano to transfer money to people in LATAM, but as far as it becomes volatile or if it changed and ha…
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Still has usage as a potential store of value and a means of cheap global transfers. My mother in law use it monthly to transfer money to her home (third world) country, which is crazy easy and cheap compared to traditional means.
Any legitimate use of cryptocurrency will never materialize as long as people are gambling with them. The intrinsic value of Bitcoin is nowhere near the current price. When the speculators all sell and the only demand comes from people looking to actually use them, the price will drop by a lot. But, when that happens, the speculators/grifters will simply move to another coin. That other coin will see a similar bubble…
If gamblers and thieves dominate the crypto market and cannot be outcompeted by honest actors then by definition the market has decided it prefers gamblers and thieves to honest actors. If someone wants an economy with rules other than "lol Caveat Emptor" they shouldn't get into crypto.
What do the remaining 51% consist of? Benefits to human health?
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Whataboutism has no place in any intelligent discourse.
If you think this “scientific” study qualifies as a contributor to intelligent discourse think again.
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> Most of this electricity comes from the cheapest source of power, which is hydro. This has become almost a religious belief amongst cryptocurrency acolytes, but it's simply not true. -- Edit: please see my comment¹ and piplikoc's comment² below for more detail on this. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26342411 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26342366
If you're going to question the validity of an assertion please provide more than just a counterassertion.
Their research indicates that a minority of mining is done using renewable resources:
> The survey findings estimate that on average 39% of proof-of-work mining is powered by renewable energy, primarily hydroelectric energy.
It also specifically addresses this popular claim of mining being powered mostly by renewables:
> China’s oversupply of hydroelectric energy during the rainy season has often been used as evidence in claims that a vast majority of mining is powered by environment-friendly power sources. While it is true that the Chinese government’s strategy to ensure energy self-sufficiency has led to the development of massive hydropower capacity, the same strategy has driven public investments in the construction of large-scale coal mines. Like hydroelectric power plants, these coal power plants often generate surpluses. It should not come as a surprise then that a significant share of hashers in the region equally report using both hydropower and coal energy to power their operations.