Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US • Hacker News Board

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

#431

Post by noxer » Sat, Mar 06, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #417

noxer wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The governments sole purpose is to benefit the people (yes I know that far from reality) But which gov would endorse the use of BTC knowing that it harms the people, removes their own power and if we go back to sticks and stones would even removed the gov itself. At some point self preservation would kick in. Before we go to WWWIII an bomb each other because of buttcoin, someone would bomb the mining farms ryt? If the gov wont do it I'm sure we find some environmental terrorist.

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

#432

Post by BenoitEssiambre » Sun, Mar 07, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

noxer wrote: post #431

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

The governments sole purpose is to benefit the people (yes I know that far from reality) But which gov would endorse the use of BTC knowing that it harms the people, removes their own power and if we go back to sticks and stones would even removed the gov itself. At some point self preservation would kick in. Before we go to WWWIII an bomb each other because of buttcoin, someone would bomb the mining farms ryt? If th…

I mean this is not unprecedented (tying the economy to gold caused the great depression). A surprisingly large amount of people, even sometimes otherwise smart ones, can't seem to wrap their head around the fact that having a widespread deflationary token can destabilize the whole economy. Their blindness to this fact will be amplified if they own a lot of such tokens and stand to lose in the short term if the deflationary cycle is broken. Plus there is a prisoner's dilemma of standing to lose more if you sell too early before the peak which causes people to hodl further. What if these people are large corporations and leaders of large financial institutions that have a lot of political influence? The misguided token stabilizers often also seem to be democratically backed by the population that tends to equate tokens losing value to increasing cost of living instead of to market adjustments necessary for people to have jobs.

I can see it right now. If cryptocoins become widespread, we will start seeing articles in the press about how they are an integral part of the financial infrastructure now, an evolution of technology and the government should play a role in insuring their stability. If a consensus forms around these dangerous ideas, smarter voices could be drowned.

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

#433

Post by andirk » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 3:15 AM UTC

stjohnswarts wrote: post #391

maxharris wrote: post #97

What is the energy cost of the entire USD-based financial system? At a minimum we need to total up what the US Mint, the Federal Reserve, Visa, Mastercard, Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citibank, Goldman Sachs and thousands of other companies and government entities do. It is obvious that amount of energy used to keep the USD going absolutely dwarfs Bitcoin.

The issue is that the US dollar is actually achieving something. Bitcoin is just causing people to froth at the mouth and burn up huge amounts of energy while polluting the environment heavily. When it pops lots of people are going to be left hurting because they bought into bitcoin fever.

You should look at what plenty of ETFs do with their time. Pollute, pillage, waste, oh and profit. The "wasting" of electricity is a valid concern, but when apples-to-apples, it's nothing out of the ordinary.

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

#434

Post by jf22 » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

throwaway20875 wrote: post #429

jf22 wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>banned crypto mining and accrued even worse social costs Could you describe what social costs we'll have by banning crypto mining?

Banning anything that's already widespread implies making a part of the population into criminals. With that comes the costs of enforcement and of government's authority (which is finite). Consider too that crypto is, often, a response by many to perceived policy for fiat.

I'm sure there is a way to turn off phase out Bitcoin without making thousands of people criminals.

The planet is burning, the cost of enforcement will be worth it.

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

#435

Post by noxer » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #432

noxer wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The governments sole purpose is to benefit the people (yes I know that far from reality) But which gov would endorse the use of BTC knowing that it harms the people, removes their own power and if we go back to sticks and stones would even removed the gov itself. At some point self preservation would kick in. Before we go to WWWIII an bomb each other because of buttcoin, someone would bomb the mining farms ryt? If th…

I mean this is not unprecedented (tying the economy to gold caused the great depression). A surprisingly large amount of people, even sometimes otherwise smart ones, can't seem to wrap their head around the fact that having a widespread deflationary token can destabilize the whole economy. Their blindness to this fact will be amplified if they own a lot of such tokens and stand to lose in the short term if the deflat…

Well they could become an integral part, so nothing wrong with that. However it would not be bitcoin. The projects who actually work with financial institutions have one thing in common, they dont use PoW. You can read it every day, most powerful people talk bad about bitcoin and some even endorse other cryptos.

Deflation on its own is not a problem. Gold is deflationary too that does not cause a depression. It did once but because of the connection between gold and money (fiat). Now days if there would be a gold bubble, the central banks hold most of it and could simply dump the price by selling some. They can buy back with printed money and sell higher to crash it and repeat while unofficially "inform" the right people to short it. As long as the printed fiat still is widely accepted they can fight any deflation bubble from any asset with it. Its the whole point of central banks. They play outside of the rules of all other financial institution with the sole goal to manipulate the market into being somewhat stable. It doesn't really matter that gold would not go to zero and probably even would make a new ATH some yeas later. Busting the bubble is enough of a fix for many many years until the next bubble comes. Its still deflationary but most people dont think in decades and more.

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

#436

Post by tekknik » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 3:30 AM UTC

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #427

tekknik wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like since renewables are not commonplace and it costs money to move its easier to believe they are not using renewables.

You can of course believe whatever seems easy to you, but you do realize that I linked to a published study that says miners are using renewables far more than the US does on average, don't you?

32% of miners use renewables. That’s not even a majority amongst miners.