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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

#411

Post by karpour »

ric2b wrote: post #327
karpour wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a completely useless comparison. If anything, compare energy usage per transaction. If you would hypothetically scale up the transaction volume of the Bitcoin network to the entire USD financial system, you'd quickly find out that it would use more energy than was ever produced on this planet.

Bitcoin's energy usage is not related to the number of transactions in any significant way, it's strictly a defense measure to prevent a nation state from tampering with the ledger.

Maybe you should read up on how Bitcoin actually works before you comment.

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

#412

Post by karpour »

DennisP wrote: post #328
karpour wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so then it's ok to have a "currency" where one transaction uses 650kWh, 12000000 times more than a credit card transaction. I get all the benefits of crypto, but there are also massive downsides, the biggest being the energy/hardware usage, which has to rise constantly by design.

That's only a downside for proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. Proof-of-stake eliminates almost all the energy consumption.

I'd be excited about a widely adopted cryptocurrency that doesn't gobble up insane amounts of energy and needs an ever increasing amount of computing power to keep it from collapsing, but right now Bitcoin is using almost as much energy as Sweden, which isn't great.

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

#413

Post by arghwhat »

gowld wrote: post #220
arghwhat wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheap is not necessarily renewable, but is often just a cheaper country which in turn tend to be more lenient. Also, it is wrong to assume that consuming 1GW near a hydroplant is fine. That 1GW would have been sold to someone else, and unless the net has an abundance of renewable energy, a non-renewable plant is going to have to cover for that.

Energy is not fully fungible. Local cheap energy can't be transported for use elsewhere, or else it would already have been.

It's better and cheaper to use locally, but unless you find a plant that is unable to sell capacity, you're taking it from something else.

True, it doesn't make sense to move the power all the way around the world, but that's also not really how things like the synchronous grid of Continental Europe works, where power is traded across 24 countries on a single grid.

If your have cheap renewable energy, when you start selling, excess non-renewable capacity and more expensive plants in general powers down in nearby areas and countries.

Any power taken from a renewable plant there when power price is positive means increased non-renewable output.

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

#414

Post by noxer »

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #409
noxer wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Far more likely is that these businesses like Tesla would be the very first to dump and probably make good profit on it. They have zero incentives to keep it running if they are informed in advance that the goal is to crush the price. I have no doubt that most banks and large business will know when its time to get out. the gov has no intention to damage them and they are a the key part in crushing the price. They only have to get the large holders to sell an not buy anymore the small ones dont matter much anyway.

Also truly believe the Tesla bought BTC as a PR gimmick. Elon Musk for sure know that no one really want to be paid with it or buy a Tesla with it. Also very likely its directly related to the expected inflation spike. several % inflation on 1.5B is kinda a lot money and in the current market situation its hard to protect that money from inflation. Everything seems to be a bubble. BTC might actually be a good bet. It survived the bear market the mining is very very profitable now so it aint gonna die anytime soon. It should be around 1 year until the next cycle starts and BTC crashes like in 2018. if they sell before that they might perfectly avoid the turbulent time that is expected in the traditional markets.

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

#415

Post by nathias »

maxerickson wrote: post #184
nathias wrote: post #170

Has the author compared how much USD and CNY monetary systems are responsible for as a point of comparison?

The equivalent of bitcoin happens on small servers all over the place. Bitcoin doesn't replace the need for civil defense, it doesn't replace the need for contracts (if anything it makes them more important), it doesn't replace the need for a legal system, etc., etc., etc.

as a money it has much less dependencies, and probably less costly dependencies, although a proper comparison would be interesting to see

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

#416

Post by Certhas »

dang wrote: post #381
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…

Please omit personal swipes from your HN comments, no matter how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. Your comment would be just fine without the first paragraph. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Unfortunately I am to late to edit my post. I understand the intent here, but these threads are full of what are, in the end, drastic accusations of scientific misconduct (or raging incompetence) against the authors, made with confidence from a place of proud ignorance. I believe it is important to point out when arguments are not made in good faith. Responding to them as if they were honest attempts at debate is problematic in the sense of a false balance.

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

#417

Post by BenoitEssiambre »

noxer wrote: post #414
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Far more likely is that these businesses like Tesla would be the very first to dump and probably make good profit on it. They have zero incentives to keep it running if they are informed in advance that the goal is to crush the price. I have no doubt that most banks and large business will know when its time to get out. the gov has no intention to damage them and they are a the key part in crushing the price. They on…

>if they are informed in advance that the goal is to crush the price.

Ok but the scenario was what if bitcoin holders convince the government to support price instead of crush it?

The Bitcoin "fever" is already starting to spread from individual speculators to large businesses, already a jump that I didn't expect.

If the fever spreads: individual speculators -> large businesses -> financial institutions -> government? This is when we could be in trouble.

I hope the Tesla purchase is a gimmick like you said. But what if it's the start of a trend? You provided the justification yourself? "Everything seems to be a bubble. BTC might actually be a good bet."

> It should be around 1 year until the next cycle starts and BTC crashes like in 2018.

Yes that would be the best scenario, but what if large institutions are on a multi year trend of adding Bitcoins to their portfolio which prevents this crash?

I can still see a non negligible probability of the fever going:

individual speculators -> large businesses -> financial institutions -> government, then, great depression II -> WWIII -> sticks and stones etc.

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

#418

Post by jf22 »

aww_dang wrote: post #368
jf22 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the "this is obviously a conspiracy" defense despite offering no evidence of such a conspiracy at all.

I've posed questions about incentives. In lieu of engaging in a discussion, you've dismissed the possibility. You've provided no rationale (or evidence for that matter) for this flippant dismissal. Instead, you offer the 'conspiracy theory' pejorative. It is not a starting point for a conversation.

I have not dismissed the possibility there is a conspiracy.

I'm only calling out that asking a leading question like this doesn't add to the conversation at all.

There is an incredible irony to accuse me of providing no rational when this whole thing is about somebody alluding to a conspiracy with no rational at all.

The starting point to a conversation should be "hey, there is a conspiracy here, this is why."

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

#419

Post by jf22 »

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!

>banned crypto mining and accrued even worse social costs

Could you describe what social costs we'll have by banning crypto mining?

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

#420

Post by jf22 »

random5634 wrote: post #363
jf22 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What good would transaction value per day be? This is like counting your salary twice, once when you earn it, once when you spend it, lol.

Because the transactional ledger of bitcoin is what is driving electricity use, and another statement might be, for every $1 transacted on the bitcoin ledger, 0.0005 dollars in health damage is caused. (it's roughly a factor of 1000 more volume then new mining, and over time new mining is going to get smaller and smaller)

You mean the mining isn't driving electricity use?
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