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I hope we see more Bitcoin mining bans elsewhere. I definitely like digital currencies, but mined currencies need to go.
That's like saying you like cars, but motors have to go. There are no interesting digital currencies that are not proof of work based (yet). Hopefully that will change soon.
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I prefer innovation over prohibition.
Without regulation, there is no incentive to innovate in this case. As long as Bitcoin goes up, investors don’t care what powers it.
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Without regulation, there is no incentive to innovate in this case. As long as Bitcoin goes up, investors don’t care what powers it.
You should look into the altcoin space where a lot of very smart people are trying a lot of different things. Now whether you put your money into them or not is an entirely different discussion.
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"Around 60% to 70% of bitcoin is currently mined in China, where more than two-thirds of electricity generation comes from coal. But bitcoin mining facilities are concentrated in remote areas of China with rich hydro or wind resources (cheap electricity), with about 80% of Chinese bitcoin mining occurring in hydro-rich Sichuan province. These mining facilities may be absorbing overcapacity in some of these regions, u…
Assuming China like most other developed countries has something resembling a unified grid the adjacency of consumption to renewable resources means nothing. Part of that power will still end up comeing from coal, even if it has to take a contrived path through multiple interconnects and load-balancers to do so
I hope we see more Bitcoin mining bans elsewhere. I definitely like digital currencies, but mined currencies need to go.
This is the reason I'm rooting for the underdog DPoS/ORV currencies like Nano. Bitcoin is slow, too expensive to run and is becoming increasingly centralized--the opposite of what it was trying to be.
I hope we see more Bitcoin mining bans elsewhere. I definitely like digital currencies, but mined currencies need to go.
What’s a digital currency without mining, and how does it differ from regular fiat money today?
i feel like HN's outrage about bitcoin mining is just virtue signaling. 1. bitcoin has created a market where people purchase security of their assets with the ultimate currency - energy. that market isn't going anywhere, the idea is out of the bag and you can't un-discover it. 2. energy consumption is not what causes carbon emissions, energy production does. stop chasing consumers and start regulating producers if y…
2. Our infrastructure is only equipped to produce a finite amount of energy plus emergency output, and much of that emergency output is fossil-fuel-based. Even building new "green" plants has a high amount of carbon output due to concrete production. Energy is a zero sum game until we master fusion, and Bitcoin is the least efficient allocation of that resource.
3) Yes, it is, because the government also already regulates how much energy can be used in appliances or businesses. More broadly, it is literally the government's job to step in when a behavior is, at scale, creating a significant negative drain on society's resources for no tangible benefit.
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There are good examples of countries getting together to shut down destructive activities when market forces were unable to. Bans on leaded gasoline and ozone-depleting CFCs, for example. IMO it would be enough if regulators take action against crypto exchanges. Tax outflows heavily, audit companies located in the EU, track bank transfers received from exchanges outside the EU. Controlling the exit ramps to euros is…
This is not the same situation as your examples though. Here you are basically saying that the resulting pollution from electricity generated to mine bitcoin is worse than other uses of that same electricity. It's a slippery slope if you start to decide what people can use their electricity for. For example. Assume exactly the same energy usage. Why is surfing on HN a better use of that electricity than mining?
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Especially when China constitutes about 70% of the hashrate for bitcoin. (I'm also dubious of how they know what is powering the mining operations inside China, most of the power in China still comes from coal.)
Coal is more expensive in China. So if you're doing something that is reliant on energy and doesn't need to be close to physical supply chains, there is a huge incentive to move to provinces where renewable (cheaper) energy is available.