Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

sciencedirect.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 436 posts

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

#401

Post by effie »

GavinMcG wrote: post #387
throwaway20875 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This paper is just saying there are reasonably estimable costs. That's all! Wrong. You make numerous comments in this thread asserting that the sole focus on this paper is quantifying externalities of crypto mining when that's plainly false. The paper is prescribing policy options for dealing with crypto externalities and birthing new loaded clinical terms to ascribe solely to those externalities: "cryptodamage". Re…

I did read it, before I made "numerous comments." Papers discuss the implications and applications of their work. That discussion is not the work itself ; it is meant to give a starting point for fitting the work with other research or doing new research that builds on the work. Thus, the authors "close by sharing our brief thoughts on policy implications of recognizing cryptodamages." That section mentions a wide ra…

> That section mentions a wide range of policy implications—several paragraphs that you didn't bother quoting—without advocating for anything in particular beyond reducing harm.

Yes but that is still propagating the unsubstantiated view that cryptocurrency mining is an important cause of societal harm worthy of mitigation/regulation. There is no comparison to other similar or bigger economic activities, no mention of the fact that the pollution happens at power plants and is under direct control of the power plant owners, not miners. It is inordinately focused on societal harms of cryptocurrency mining, it ignores the benefits beyond mining profit(which is uncertain but non-zero and hard to quantify in dollars). Limitation of the paper narrative to such a narrow topic shows bias.

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

#402

Post by GavinMcG »

effie wrote: post #401
GavinMcG wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did read it, before I made "numerous comments." Papers discuss the implications and applications of their work. That discussion is not the work itself ; it is meant to give a starting point for fitting the work with other research or doing new research that builds on the work. Thus, the authors "close by sharing our brief thoughts on policy implications of recognizing cryptodamages." That section mentions a wide ra…

> That section mentions a wide range of policy implications—several paragraphs that you didn't bother quoting—without advocating for anything in particular beyond reducing harm. Yes but that is still propagating the unsubstantiated view that cryptocurrency mining is an important cause of societal harm worthy of mitigation/regulation. There is no comparison to other similar or bigger economic activities, no mention of…

Not doing what you'd personally prefer isn't a bias. Tackling a problem at several levels is perfectly legitimate; it's just that a paper about clean power generation would be a totally different paper.

It's a single paper. One piece of information that's small enough to be digested and connected with other work. And frankly, if the result had been that each $1 created 1¢ of costs, you'd be celebrating it. Your only real criticism here is that you don't like the result.

If you're so concerned about the root cause of power generation, go focus on solving that problem.

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

#403

Post by GavinMcG »

effie wrote: post #399
GavinMcG wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a single paper. It responsibly limits itself to a manageable conclusion and responsibly points out where there are still open questions. Can you point out where in the paper the authors leap to "let's regulate" as you put it? There seems to be one small section about regulation, but it doesn't exactly advocate for it: it describes how their pricing research could be used in regulation. It describes challenges in…

The whole paper shows implicit interest in taxing/regulating cryptocurrency mining instead of unbiased dispassionate scientific analysis. You can see this explicitly in the last section, starting with > However, the ability to locate, and re-locate, cryptomining almost anywhere (e.g., following the cheapest, under-regulated electricity source) and fund mining camps from anywhere with complete or near anonymity create…

Do you think a discussion of policy implications should somehow ignore relevant policy considerations?

It's helpful for authors to point out how they think their work fits into the broader scheme of things. They correctly identify that a high cost to benefit ratio might make people interested in regulating it; they also correctly identify that practical concerns make that difficult. There is no advocacy there.

Even if there were, it wouldn't be inappropriate to say "hey, there's a downside to this; we recommend trying to fix that."

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

#404

Post by nostrebored »

CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #120
nostrebored wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well this something else is usually just nothing. Demand drives electricity production.

Yes this discussion has happened hundreds of times on HN at this point. > "Bitcoin uses too much energy[1]" > "It's only using surplus energy which would go to waste anyway[2][3]" > "But it still has an environmental impact [4]" I guess I'm just tired of seeing the same things repeated on every single thread about Bitcoin. When I saw a lazy comment like OPs, I overreacted, sorry. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technolo…

Your articles don't support your stance. I work with people who handle surplus electricity with mobile mining operations -- they're few and far between.

The use of bitcoin, a speculative good, as a sink for electricity creates less pressure for grids to manage electricity production (especially as the acceptable spot price trends towards the commercial price of electricity). It also ignores the innovative ideas that are geographically bound like storing potential energy by pumping water into dams.

The idea that bitcoin only uses surplus energy is disprovable just by looking at the regularity of block completion. If it were dependent on an irregular source like surplus electricity, you wouldn't see that.

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

#405

Post by FDSGSG »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #287
FDSGSG wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US military certainly consumes more energy than Ireland.

Is it your contention that the sole purpose of the US military is to back the value of a dollar? Because if that is the case, and you are still unable to see why people think you're silly, then there is little hope for you.

Of course not, why would you think that? It's just a necessary part of the USD-based financial system.

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

#406

Post by FDSGSG »

karpour wrote: post #271
FDSGSG wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US military certainly consumes more energy than Ireland.

Nice whataboutism. 10/10. And yes, the U.S. military should massively downscale.

I'm not sure you know what that word means. Pointing out a factual inaccuracy in the parent comment isn't "whataboutism". US military isn't a different issue, it's an integral part of the USD-based financial system.

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

#407

Post by Bluestein »

Henk0 wrote: post #146
Bluestein wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or come up with an eco-friendly, efficient, workable digital money substitute (improvement?) :) No need to throw the baby away with the bathwater ...

Third generation cryptos like Cardano/Ada, Polkadot and others using proof-of-stake instead of proof-of-work to generate new blocks are orders of magnitude less energy demanding and more efficient in terms of transaction speed and costs than bitcoin and ethereum. Bitcoin has, unfortunately, become synonymous with cryptocurrency in many people's minds. It will be interesting to see what happens with the value of bitco…

> Bitcoin has, unfortunately, become synonymous with cryptocurrency in many people's minds.

This. A problem. "One" of the things has become "the thing" itself, as a whole ...

> It will be interesting to see what happens with the value of bitcoin as these limitations relative to the new kids on the block [...] become more obvious.

Will it? (become obvious) ... at least by the general public. That concerns me ...

> (sorry, pun intended, showing myself out the door etc.)

One handed clap :)

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

#408

Post by throwaway20875 »

GavinMcG wrote: post #402
effie wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That section mentions a wide range of policy implications—several paragraphs that you didn't bother quoting—without advocating for anything in particular beyond reducing harm. Yes but that is still propagating the unsubstantiated view that cryptocurrency mining is an important cause of societal harm worthy of mitigation/regulation. There is no comparison to other similar or bigger economic activities, no mention of…

Not doing what you'd personally prefer isn't a bias. Tackling a problem at several levels is perfectly legitimate; it's just that a paper about clean power generation would be a totally different paper. It's a single paper . One piece of information that's small enough to be digested and connected with other work. And frankly, if the result had been that each $1 created 1¢ of costs, you'd be celebrating it. Your only…

>If you're so concerned about the root cause of power generation, go focus on solving that problem.

So ignore the root cause altogether, lol. And when we've banned crypto mining and accrued even worse social costs as a result, we'll rinse and repeat this process with the next ".*damage" power consumer. Totally sane!

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

#409

Post by BenoitEssiambre »

noxer wrote: post #336
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

While I won't argue with most of that and in reality it's the most likely scenario.

> 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.

When I see Tesla, one of the largest company in the US, buying 1.5B in Bitcoins. It goes a bit beyond a normal "fever". Now if this is just an isolated incident we should be in the clear. If this is the start of a trend for businesses, I can imagine a scenario where businesses add more and more Bitcoins to their balance sheet over some years which makes the price gradually go up, after years of prices going up, businesses start believing it's an always growing asset and over-weight their portfolio with it. Banks and financial institutions get in on the fun and eventually load up too. Now it's 2029 and we have lots of organisations with political power having incentives to keep this going and they also now have arguments that it's a new fundamental technological part of the financial system and it's systemically dangerous to let it become unstable. So instead of fixing the problem, the government caves, and against expert advice, tries to stabilize and prop up cryptocoins when corrections seem imminent. In doing so they severely destabilize the rest of the economy.

I mean it's low probability, but there were experts who knew better in 1929 too and politics meant they did the wrong things anyways.

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

#410

Post by GavinMcG »

throwaway20875 wrote: post #408
GavinMcG wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not doing what you'd personally prefer isn't a bias. Tackling a problem at several levels is perfectly legitimate; it's just that a paper about clean power generation would be a totally different paper. It's a single paper . One piece of information that's small enough to be digested and connected with other work. And frankly, if the result had been that each $1 created 1¢ of costs, you'd be celebrating it. Your only…

>If you're so concerned about the root cause of power generation, go focus on solving that problem. So ignore the root cause altogether, lol. And when we've banned crypto mining and accrued even worse social costs as a result, we'll rinse and repeat this process with the next ".*damage" power consumer. Totally sane!

The irony of this whole chain is that the paper itself actually acknowledges this other variable (that y'all are pretending is the only variable) directly:

> There is considerable evidence of concentration of mining operations in particular locations, typically where reliable electricity is cheaply available, though, precise data are lacking (e.g., [15], [6]). In the US, perhaps the most well-known concentration is the Mid-Columbia Basin area in central and eastern Washington State, where cheap electricity is produced by hydropower along the Columbia River [4], [6], however, mining in other US locations also occurs (see [11] and news references in [23], [24], and [25]).

> emissions rates per kWh will differ substantially given underlying differences in how power is produced—i.e., China relies extensively on coal power (>60% of electricity generation) while the US is more balanced (32% natural gas, 30% coal, 20% nuclear, etc.).

Saying they ignore this is just a lie. Criticize the paper, by all means, but this simply isn't a hit piece. It's careful in stating exactly what it can commit to, and it reasonably tries to explain how that fits into the bigger picture.

Post reply on HN