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Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

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Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#331

Post by ricardobayes »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #176
gitrog wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he did it on purpose, he's a supervillain, if he did it due to negligence, he's a hypocrite. No need to split hairs.

The way I understood GP they were explicitly insinuating he was a supervillain, so I don't think it's hairsplitting.

I'm not saying Elon's a supervillain, more of a wasted talent (so far). The non-solutions he presents to non-problems are weird to say the least. Hand on heart, do we really need space tourism and luxury cars affordable by wealthy middle-aged men? How does this contribute to a better society? Returning to the point at hand, both EV's and blockchain are non-solutions to difficult (and valid) problems. In my view, centralized money and climate change can only be only effectively solved at the origin and not the consumer level. The solutions offered are annoyingly superficial, like taking away our drinking straws and fake internet money that has no use other than to make more centralized money.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#332

Post by DennisP »

kryogen1c wrote: post #324
DennisP wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin mining effort is proportional to the cost per bitcoin times the number of bitcoins awarded per block. Since the number per block is constant over each four-year period, it makes sense to talk about the cost per $1 of BTC.

BTC proof of work doesnt determine the BTC/$ conversion. the price is non-scientific, highly speculative, and highly volatile.

The causation works in the other direction, due to the difficulty adjustment.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#333

Post by ufo »

kryogen1c wrote: post #324
DennisP wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin mining effort is proportional to the cost per bitcoin times the number of bitcoins awarded per block. Since the number per block is constant over each four-year period, it makes sense to talk about the cost per $1 of BTC.

BTC proof of work doesnt determine the BTC/$ conversion. the price is non-scientific, highly speculative, and highly volatile.

That's the reason why the paper is focusing on damages per dollar of mined bitcoin, instead of damages per mined bitcoin.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#334

Post by loceng »

ric2b wrote: post #321
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #126

While this is sad, this is a self correcting problem. Miners and other people using bitcoins are going to get tired at some point of the loss from buying all this energy to keep their bitcoin assets going. The most scary part of cryptocoins is the deflationary cycle that makes these crypto asset potentially displace productive investment on an economy wide scale. This is not self correcting. This is Moloch, it's a pr…

Gold already exists and has for millenia, what about crypto currencies doesn't apply to it as well? The existence of deflationary assets doesn't seem to crash the economy as predicted.

There's enough that's not similar to make them an apple to oranges comparison.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#335

Post by pwinnski »

throwaway20875 wrote: post #263
Certhas wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly haven't actually looked at how the damages are modelled have you? You just in your head inveneted a naive way in which to estimate damages and then argued that that doesn't work. There is a large and robust literature to assess these type of damages (search for Social Cost of Carbon). The methodological challenges are discussed really well in the paper actually. Much of the damages calculated here aren't…

The article is undermined by its arbitrary focus on crypto. The premise is that crypto mining drives consumption for power, and power production results in "health and climate damage". Are we going to police consumers of power now? Will we invest our time and energy in determining the "good" and "bad" consumers of power. Or are we going to invest our time and resources in building out a sustainable, clean, and effici…

If you're not just reacting to the focus on crypto mining, but actually interested in the answer to your question, then the answer is yes.

In fact, energy efficiency[0] is a large area of focus, especially with regard to ongoing climate change[1]. You might have noticed a shift in things like light bulbs building standards and so on. We've made progress[2], and so it is really hard for people celebrating that progress when they see a sudden boom in energy use to create wealth for a very tiny subset of people, a boom in use that threatens to undo all of our progress and then some.

0. https://www.energy.gov/science-innovation/energy-efficiency

1. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/why-investing-in-rene...

2. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/sheryl-carter/ramping-energy-ef...

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#336

Post by noxer »

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #300
noxer wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it would have anywhere near a direct effect on our daily life that alone would have such a negative effect on the price that it would instantly crash. The price and more so the ever increasing price is the only thing that keeps it alive and it directly correlates with the price expectation people have. There is no way enough people would think the price goes up if negative effects would become so real.

What if the effects of cryptocoins are expected to affect other assets more negatively (people reduce buying from businesses because they want to hoard tokens instead so all assets but cryptocoins lose value while tokens are gaining). Then cryptocoins increasingly seems like the only asset worth buying. This is what makes this a bad Nash equilibrium and vicious circle. Now I think central banks can prevent this from…

There where hugely popular deflationary assets in the past. Gold and Silver would also only go up in value over time if people would see it as more profitable than anything else. But reality kicks in at some point. PMs still goes up in value making new ATH every few year but they cant outperform stock. The people who still bet everything on gold or other PMs are the same who do so with bitcoin. They are attached to it. Its not a big problem because only a fraction of all people will get this kind of gold fever for a long period of time. The rest will move money to other assets and even short it.

All of that leaves out any "authoritarian" intervention which at some point would be guaranteed if bitcoin would come close to a global risk. An yes, I know they cant shut down the network but like I said in my last post its all about the price tag. They can crash the price without attacking the network at all. Merely stating the goal to suppress it should be enough. No institution would bet against the gov so they would sell instantly.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#337

Post by ric2b »

loceng wrote: post #334
ric2b wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold already exists and has for millenia, what about crypto currencies doesn't apply to it as well? The existence of deflationary assets doesn't seem to crash the economy as predicted.

There's enough that's not similar to make them an apple to oranges comparison.

Can you elaborate on some of those differences?

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#338

Post by permo-w »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #218
permo-w wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then none of his enterprises have been explicitly exploitative, unlike many billionaires, and he’s pushed the car industry into moving away from combustion engines, so personally I give him a pass

The people that inhabit the areas around the Bolivian lithium mines might disagree with you, as would former Bolivian president Morales.

It’s still not explicitly exploitative

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#339

Post by boomboomsubban »

permo-w wrote: post #338
boomboomsubban wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people that inhabit the areas around the Bolivian lithium mines might disagree with you, as would former Bolivian president Morales.

It’s still not explicitly exploitative

"I'm fine overthrowing your government to increase my companies profits" seems explicit to me. I guess that isn't their advertised line of business?

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#340

Post by pwinnski »

trident5000 wrote: post #153
jf22 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and all those things are harmful to the planet.

Many I just listed use more energy than btc...so yes, they are.

You mentioned five things, all of which are frequently focused on as contributors to global climate change. Well, I'm not sure I've seen "AI and video rendering" mentioned in that context, but I'm also not sure that they use more power than crypto mining. But definitely I've seen articles addressing idle electronics[0], big homes with AC[1], leisure travel[2], and "all the useless crap bought and manufactured in China with dirty coal"[3].

So it shouldn't be surprising that crypto mining is added to the list.

Any and all heavy users of energy are contributing to climate change in some way, and the cost/benefit analysis for some are more justifiable than others. Food production is energy-hungry, but without it, people die. Nobody would die if crypto mining ended tomorrow. Thanks to government standards, idle electronics are better now than they were, and will continue to improve in the future. Big homes with A/C is a largely American problem without anything to really address it yet, but there has been a lot of attention focused on the issue already.

In general a bad thing is bad whether there are worse things or not. Crypto mining is a big drain on energy resources with very little benefit, or with benefit to very few people, and it doesn't have to the biggest drain, or benefit the fewest number of people the least for that to be true.

0. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/keep-your-devices-wasting-energ...

1. https://www.ajc.com/news/local/are-air-conditioners-slowly-k...

2. https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/7/25/8881364/greta-th...

3. https://phys.org/news/2017-11-impact-climate-china-substanti...

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