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Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

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Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#381

Post by colejohnson66 »

nmz wrote: post #371
ckosidows wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it? I know a couple books[1] that suggest life prior to the agricultural revolution wasn't nearly as famine-stricken as we tend to think it was. These books claim hunter gatherers were quite proficient at finding enough sustenance. Obviously starvation was still possible and likely, but was it the primary cause of death? Is there some more evidence that humans were suffering from starvation before agriculture? Wo…

"Thin out" is this another word for dying?

It could also mean just spreading out. So less dense civilizations, but the same amount of people.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#382

Post by ncallaway »

xkjkls wrote: post #296
celticninja wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Possession of the money is possession of the money and third parties don't need to get involved in every transaction. That's only true if you discount the US government as the third party (at least for USD$) who are involved in every transaction, by virtue of them needing to exist for the $ to have any value or for the seller to accept the $ in the first place i.e for them to know it will still be worth something in…

Eh, it's arguable how much the US Government is determining the worth of dollars rather than cultural consensus. I can guarantee that in the event of a zombie apocalypse where the government falls, USD would be used for a long time after.

> I can guarantee that in the event of a zombie apocalypse where the government falls, USD would be used for a long time after.

This seems like a strange guarantee, I think it's incorrect, and I would have absolutely no way in a zombie apocalypse to hold you to the guarantee. Which is, inherently, why I think it's incorrect.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#383

Post by totaldude87 »

ok, I dont understand.

for using bitcoin, I either need to mine or to buy. now lets say I choose to buy, here comes the problem.

Over the last 36 months , the lowest value of a bitcoin is $3k and highest $57k. If i had bought 1 bitcon at 57k i would have lost 7k by today, again, to buy bitcoin you need to use existing currency. Not everyone can mine and this is my first problem.

Next, how do I use this to buy anything? a $100 bill is worth $100 regardless of what, doesn't matter what I buy or where I keep or when I use, it will still be $100, can you say same about bitcoin?

this is all speculative and the exponential factor is scaring me out of bitcoin.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#384

Post by scsilver »

8fGTBjZxBcHq wrote: post #274
Shorel wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have been polluting and overheating the planet to make virtual characters eat pills and rescue princesses for over 30 years. What's the utility of that?

Fun and joy in and of themselves are worthy pursuits. That's completely aside from considering video games as an artistic medium that can be used to learn and share about the human experience. Bitcoin does none of that. At its very very best it's a way to buy hallucinogens on the internet with massive external consequences.

Its an alternative finance system bringing inflation resistant digitally accessible and transferable assets to an unbanked and inflation exposed populace. Many are ignorant of the challenges that face people in contries that don't the most sophisticated financial system on the planet with a local currency that acts as the worlds reserve currency. It takes up way too much power, but I am not going to let this key opportunity to much of the worlds less fortunate, be under appreciated.

At best its an alternative finance system that works around the captured, corrupted, and rent seeking finance systems of the world.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#385

Post by yokem55 »

bingbong70 wrote: post #262
hacknat wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think Ethereum will overtake Bitcoin eventually in usage. In some ways it already has. Ethereum's transaction fees are set to drop like a rock over the next few years, and so many useful things are built on it already.

ETH wasn't designed to be a store of value, there is no max supply and the emission rate is higher than even Vitalik predicted/expected... storing your money in ETH is generally a bad idea.

They are changing the transaction fee pricing system though to a model that 'burns' (dumps to /dev/null) part of the transaction fee when there is congestion. Exactly how much will be burned is hotly debated, but it will put a damper on the inflation side from block/staking rewards.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#386

Post by notum »

mrmanner wrote: post #362
jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can humans not be the cause humanity's biggest problems? That's a pretty good indicator of a civilization's state. For an advanced one, the answer to your question would be "it's nowhere near the top worries". All human-made horrors (war, climate change, etc.) would be left far behind. If we were as smart as we think we are, our biggest problems would be rogue asteroids, solar storms and aggressive aliens, not…

True, but also the other way around: A less advanced civilization would have much more trouble with elephants, sea urchins, bacteria, and other natural factors than with humans.

Damn those sea urchins!

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#387

Post by throwaway20875 »

ruined wrote: post #360
throwaway20875 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Moreover for the vast majority of people on earth would still have basically zero money relative to the emerging bitcoin oligarchs. It would be a grossly unequal society, where there would need to be some non-math-based approach to getting money from the wealthy to redistribute to the less fortunate. Those oligarchs won't be able to print more bitcoin or exclude (sanctions) their political enemies from conducting tr…

>Those oligarchs won't be able to print more bitcoin or exclude (sanctions) their political enemies from conducting trade. Seems fairer than the current system. Sure they would. If bitcoin continues to exist much longer, you'll likely see the larger governments define a set of rules for domestic miners, perhaps including requirements to only process transactions from registered accounts or signed by specific keys, or…

What you're suggesting is a fork, which would not be Bitcoin at that point.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#388

Post by darkwater »

saalweachter wrote: post #220
jetpackjoe wrote: post #9

There are so many better crypto-currencies. Better for the environment because they use proof-of-stake, and not proof-of-work. Better for users because transactions are confirmed in seconds, not hours, and without the ridiculous fees that Bitcoin has. I think this shows how truly powerful the network effect, and being first to market is. Because without those things, Bitcoin would be nothing.

You know what actually bothers me the most about all crypto-currencies? None of them are actually money, like in the paper-or-gold-coin sense. They're all ledgers. The thing about money is that I can hand it to someone . Possession of the money is possession of the money and third parties don't need to get involved in every transaction. I can hand someone dollars and take a sandwich and walk away, transaction done. T…

> The problem with a digital currency, of course, is that when you hand someone a sequence of bits, they don't go away from you, so you can hand that same sequence of bits to another person.

> The "solution" people came up with to this problem was to not solve the problem, and instead solve a different problem, how to have a distributed ledger.

And what would be, at least intuitively, a solution to the "you can copy bits, give them away but also keep a valid copy for yourself" problem which is a problem for currency but also the default way digital information work?

If you had access to a near-perfect money printing machine, you would have just the same problem, we are just "saved" by the implementation difficulty. Just the same as with the ledger approach.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#389

Post by triceratops »

meowkit wrote: post #253
saalweachter wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what actually bothers me the most about all crypto-currencies? None of them are actually money, like in the paper-or-gold-coin sense. They're all ledgers. The thing about money is that I can hand it to someone . Possession of the money is possession of the money and third parties don't need to get involved in every transaction. I can hand someone dollars and take a sandwich and walk away, transaction done. T…

> The thing about money is that I can hand it to someone. Honestly don’t know if you’re trolling or just old. I used paper money once last year. To buy weed. Because the federal government has determined I am not responsible enough to use or own weed. No one I know uses physical cash anymore. We’re moving away from physical items where possible, not toward it. I would rather have my currency on a public DLT than cont…

> No one I know uses physical cash anymore.

But physical cash should always be an option. You can't have a truly free society without it. Some intermediary could always have control over your transactions.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#390

Post by runarberg »

j-james wrote: post #346
runarberg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could anyone explain to me how proof of stake works (as opposed to proof of work), and how it is better? Has proof of stake been proven to be as robust as proof of work? EDIT: The wikipedia article is easy to find[1]. However it is really short, looks incomplete, and has a lot of “citation needed” after each point. So I would rather ask on HN. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_stake

I'll give it a try, but I'm by no means an expert in cryptography. Proof-of-work works (very broadly) by computers solving harder and harder math problems to create value. Eventually, these get so hard that solving one requires either joining a pool or a huge investment in electricity and mining rigs - which is where we're at now. This isn't good for the environment. Proof-of-stake works by individuals "staking" some…

Thank you, this was really helpful
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