China’s Bitcoin miners flee Inner Mongolia ahead of crypto mining ban • Hacker News Board

Re: China’s Bitcoin miners flee Inner Mongolia ahead of crypto mining ban

#111

Post by keymone » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 1:26 AM UTC

LordDragonfang wrote: post #108

keymone wrote: post #61

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…

1. Bitcoin is not a store of security, it's a highly volatile market that most experts agree is going to crash soon. Even if it doesn't, that's still a clear gamble, not "security". (Nor, in financial terms, is it a "security", as no regulator treats it as such) 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. Ev…

1. those experts have been agreeing it'll crash ever since bitcoin hit $1, sorry if i dont have a lot of faith in their expertise.

2. .. in which you agree that producers, not consumers are responsible for carbon output. i dont get your "zero sum game" idea, we already have plenty of fusion energy available - it's called the sun. as for allocation efficiency - that's just like your opinion man.

3. i guess we'll have to wait til' you get whats the tangible benefit then...

Re: China’s Bitcoin miners flee Inner Mongolia ahead of crypto mining ban

#112

Post by space_rock » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 1:46 AM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #72

space_rock wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is worse for the environment then subsidized coal power. Uneconomical environmental destruction

I agree with you in theory, but in practice it's the only way to be competitive as a poor country. From the perspective of most countries that do this the only thing you can do is build more renewables.

But the economic theory doesn't even agree with subsidies. It's only a populist belief that they work. China's economy boomed from free trade with the US

Re: China’s Bitcoin miners flee Inner Mongolia ahead of crypto mining ban

#113

Post by ChainOfFools » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 2:36 AM UTC

petre wrote: post #87

TacticalCoder wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What’s a digital currency without mining... I take it GP meant mining without gigantic electricity consumption: so not proof-of-stake but proof-of-work > ... and how does it differ from regular fiat money today? There was a discussion here a few days ago where people were trying to determine how many swiss bills were circulating... Someone commented on the irony, in a thread hating on cryptocurrencies, that anyone…

There are cryptocurrencies with inflation like PeerCoin. Unfortunately it's also mined.

the network is also barely functional these days. resyncing is so slow its hardly worth running a node. oh also pretty sure PPC is proof of stake, it was the first widely traded (maybe first, period?) crypto to implement PoS.

Re: China’s Bitcoin miners flee Inner Mongolia ahead of crypto mining ban

#114

Post by Bakary » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 4:03 AM UTC

keymone wrote: post #111

LordDragonfang wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Bitcoin is not a store of security, it's a highly volatile market that most experts agree is going to crash soon. Even if it doesn't, that's still a clear gamble, not "security". (Nor, in financial terms, is it a "security", as no regulator treats it as such) 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. Ev…

1. those experts have been agreeing it'll crash ever since bitcoin hit $1, sorry if i dont have a lot of faith in their expertise. 2. .. in which you agree that producers, not consumers are responsible for carbon output. i dont get your "zero sum game" idea, we already have plenty of fusion energy available - it's called the sun. as for allocation efficiency - that's just like your opinion man. 3. i guess we'll have…

These arguments often take the form of [complaint about Bitcoin not working] → [sardonic counter about Bitcoin working despite the nay-sayers]

A better way to frame the problem IMO is that if Bitcoin works as intended, it will only serve to create a new elite of early adopters that will be even more massively powerful than the traditional one

So you have a lose-lose proposition for late adopters, with collectivized costs and pollution, and basically the promise of boundless wealth for the rest. I can't blame early adopters from working towards this, but in turn they can't blame the rest from reacting.

Re: China’s Bitcoin miners flee Inner Mongolia ahead of crypto mining ban

#115

Post by sudosysgen » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:58 AM UTC

space_rock wrote: post #112

sudosysgen wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you in theory, but in practice it's the only way to be competitive as a poor country. From the perspective of most countries that do this the only thing you can do is build more renewables.

But the economic theory doesn't even agree with subsidies. It's only a populist belief that they work. China's economy boomed from free trade with the US

The economic theory can say what it will, in most countries electricity would be so expensive that starting a business or even running a household would be really complicated.

Re: China’s Bitcoin miners flee Inner Mongolia ahead of crypto mining ban

#116

Post by foepys » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:19 AM UTC

latchkey wrote: post #92

foepys wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is including industry like aluminum smelting which are basically running their own power plants to work. Aluminum is either used directly or indirectly for everything produced. It's also including households, trains, data centers, etc. Things people actually use to live. Meanwhile with Bitcoin people are just rushing to calculate as much zeros as possible into their hash to append 1 MB of data to a chain.

In the same vein, think about all the infrastructure that was created just to get your comment on my screen.

I don't get your point? Crypto currencies are useless without a stable internet connection.

Re: China’s Bitcoin miners flee Inner Mongolia ahead of crypto mining ban

#117

Post by xxel » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:26 AM UTC

bjeds wrote: post #4

burlesona wrote: post #2

I’m not shocked to see this. I’m bullish on bitcoin overall, but at this point I believe the Geo-political risk caused by the insane power requirements of current day mining are the biggest danger to bitcoin as a whole. Obviously the network and operate fine with less power, but if that reduction in hash rate occurs because most of the world has banned mining, you can imagine a situation where the remaining miners ca…

As someone living in the European Union I'd be extremely surprised if bitcoin isn't taxed/regulated to death within 1-2 years here. The recent price increase will attract the attention of governments sceptical of assets they don't understand (they don't understand it, but they want a piece of it), and they will get loud support from the environmentalists who are alarmed by the reports making the rounds ("more power t…

How some goverment could manage to tax my wallet on usb flash?

Re: China’s Bitcoin miners flee Inner Mongolia ahead of crypto mining ban

#118

Post by keymone » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:52 AM UTC

Bakary wrote: post #114

keymone wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. those experts have been agreeing it'll crash ever since bitcoin hit $1, sorry if i dont have a lot of faith in their expertise. 2. .. in which you agree that producers, not consumers are responsible for carbon output. i dont get your "zero sum game" idea, we already have plenty of fusion energy available - it's called the sun. as for allocation efficiency - that's just like your opinion man. 3. i guess we'll have…

These arguments often take the form of [complaint about Bitcoin not working] → [sardonic counter about Bitcoin working despite the nay-sayers] A better way to frame the problem IMO is that if Bitcoin works as intended, it will only serve to create a new elite of early adopters that will be even more massively powerful than the traditional one So you have a lose-lose proposition for late adopters, with collectivized c…

first, those were not the arguments in form "complaint about Bitcoin not working", those were attempts to rebutt my earlier statements why it's erroneous to view bitcoin in context of environmental issues.

> if Bitcoin works as intended, it will only serve to create a new elite of early adopters that will be even more massively powerful than the traditional one

sure, early adopters will reap some benefits, but it's laughable to suggest they will be any competition to current elites. a valid criticism of bitcoin would be that current elites will adopt bitcoin to cement the existing inequalities, but a) that would already be some redistribution of wealth, b) there's already plenty of wealth cementing options in form of london real estate, etc, singling out bitcoin here seems disingenuous.

Re: China’s Bitcoin miners flee Inner Mongolia ahead of crypto mining ban

#119

Post by bjeds » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 12:32 PM UTC

cinntaile wrote: post #18

bjeds wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone living in the European Union I'd be extremely surprised if bitcoin isn't taxed/regulated to death within 1-2 years here. The recent price increase will attract the attention of governments sceptical of assets they don't understand (they don't understand it, but they want a piece of it), and they will get loud support from the environmentalists who are alarmed by the reports making the rounds ("more power t…

This seems unlikely. Big mining operations are already structured as corporations and taxed on their profits. Electricity is already heavily taxed in many countries in the EU. As long as it doesn't pose a threat to the electricity net there is no reason to single out bitcoin for energy use, it's not like the energy is different.

Do you live in Europe?

If you don't then what you say make some sense, but the European Union think differently.

The EU ban things all the time.

For example: inefficient vacuum cleaners banned: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-41119355

Light bulbs banned (this didn't originate from the EU, but the EU were early)

High watt hair dryvers banned https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/1106153...

Single use plastic banned https://time.com/5560105/european-union-plastic-ban/

Re: China’s Bitcoin miners flee Inner Mongolia ahead of crypto mining ban

#120

Post by aww_dang » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 2:28 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #100

aww_dang wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Quebec is running a profitable business, there's no argument in what I wrote? The most I could say is that there may be unseen costs of nationalization. I.e. it could be cheaper still if privatized, but that is further afield from the discussion. In HN parlance I suppose I could demand that you provide evidence and sources proving the same power stations wouldn't operate more efficiently under private ownership, b…

Replying due to edit : you can claim that a free market could be cheaper. But there are free energy markets right next to Quebec, and costs are around twice as high, so you are arguing against reality.

That's playing a bit fast and loose with the definition of "free market". Hydropower is also geographically unique.