Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet • Hacker News Board

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

#591

Post by bagacrap » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

jidiculous wrote: post #541

There's a bit of a reporting bias when it comes to BTC's (or even crypto itself) environmental impact. We're only able to say "it uses as much electricity as X country" because there's a well-defined ledger of every BTC transaction. The question is how much non-crypto "conventional" currencies cost the planet. That being said, BTC probably isn't the "best" cryptocurrency. I'm not sure about the details because I don'…

The amount of electricity used for transactions is just a lower bound on the amount of resources used overall for btc. For example, Coinbase has servers which use electricity. And, this lower bound is /very/ high. So this comment comes off as pro-crypto FUD.

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

#592

Post by saalweachter » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

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…

If you want a hipper, 21st-century term all the yutes love, cash is peer-to-peer.

Crypto-currencies don't provide a way to transfer value peer-to-peer, online, just a third party that is (hopefully) neutral.

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

#593

Post by nix23 » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:04 PM UTC

A OS that need's a Antivirus on every machine is bad for the planet too ;)

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

#594

Post by yunvme » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:04 PM UTC

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.

This isn't true. You don't understand Bitcoin. Proof of work is the only way to secure a decentralized system like Bitcoin's. Proof of stake requires trust in a group of validators. An oligopoly of sorts. A proof of stake system is unfit for a decentralized store of value. Alternatives to Bitcoin enriched a central group of people. Bitcoin's distribution was "fair". There is no replicating it.

Picture bitcoin in its final state, where central banks trade in and out of Bitcoin to weaken or strengthen their respective currencies. Bitcoin is the only solution, and other cryptocurrency is fit for the task.

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

#595

Post by matheusmoreira » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

throwawayffffas wrote: post #317

shiado wrote: post #62

The irony is that the exact society destabilizing grand visions of the future billionaires advocate for are some of the main drivers behind people embracing Bitcoin. If you push a "you own nothing" WEF approved dystopian tech oligarch reality don't be surprised when people adopt an asset that cannot be confiscated by the government.

I find it really cute that people think that a fully transparent public ledger, where every transaction is written for all to see, is the way to escape government control.

Monero will hopefully make it hard enough that governments can't discover the information without significant effort. They'll probably still be able to target specific individuals but perhaps we can stop dragnet surveillance of everyone.

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

#596

Post by colechristensen » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:07 PM UTC

adolph wrote: post #210

kitcar wrote: post #11

Bitcoin is an almost perfect exploitation of humanities fatal flaws (greed, unwillingness to acknowledge externalities - i.e. selfishness). It's that old SF-trope that the cause of many of humanity's biggest problems is humans.

> the cause of many of humanity's biggest problems is humans As opposed to elephants or sea urchins? How can humans not be the cause humanity's biggest problems? The Buddha taught there are three kinds of dukkha [usually translated as “suffering”]. The first kind is physical and mental pain from the inevitable stresses of life like old age, sickness, and death. The second is the distress we feel as a result of imperm…

It's always important to remember that we live in a thin sheet of self-sustaining complexity in a cold, hostile universe, perhaps unique and if not incredibly rare. The "human" problems are a luxury when our fragile existence seems like little more than an accident.

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

#597

Post by bagacrap » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:07 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #526

acruns wrote: post #374

At what point did Bill become an expert on everything? It's cute that he takes his little bag of books and secluded himself in his she-shed and reads. But honestly, why do we now trust him to be an expert on so many subjects when he hasn't even gotten an undergraduate degree in anything, let alone spent decades studying a field. I can't tell you how many books I have read by experts that later turned out to completel…

Where is this rage coming from? It doesn't take an expert to see the damage bitcoin is causing for the planet, the exernalities are pretty clearly outlined (although conspicuously ignored by crypto-evangelicals). His quote in the article is true. I also don't understand the attacks on his academic credentials. He had been working in his field since he was 13, he's published in CS, and he was taking graduate level cla…

I think it's coming as a reaction to Bill Gates's status as media darling; his own fondness for the limelight; and the fact that someone somewhere thought it was a good idea to make a documentary deifying his brain.

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

#598

Post by yunvme » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:07 PM UTC

bouncycastle wrote: post #196

deweller wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof of stake is a different security model. It may work but it has not been proven in a $1 trillion high stakes environment yet.

They work under the same assumption as PoW - that the majority of those participating in consensus will be honest. PoS also offers something PoW does not: absolute finality, https://medium.com/mechanism-labs/finality-in-blockchain-con... Additionally, PoS attackers can have their stake slashed, so they may never attack again. However, you can't slash PoW attackers, once attacked, they will just keep on coming back (n…

And you need to bootstrap your PoS system by enriching a bunch of insiders so that they can validate your transactions. PoS systems are unfit for being the decentralized digital store of value. Bitcoin has the most fair launch any cryptocurrency can ever have. There is no alternative for Bitcoin's use case.

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

#599

Post by GordonS » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

yunvme wrote: post #594

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.

This isn't true. You don't understand Bitcoin. Proof of work is the only way to secure a decentralized system like Bitcoin's. Proof of stake requires trust in a group of validators. An oligopoly of sorts. A proof of stake system is unfit for a decentralized store of value. Alternatives to Bitcoin enriched a central group of people. Bitcoin's distribution was "fair". There is no replicating it. Picture bitcoin in its…

Surely proof of work also requires trust in a group of miners, trusting that 51% of them don't collude?

As mining complexity grows, surely this problem is only exasperated, since you need a bigger investment to be able to mine effectively, which would presumably result in an even smaller group of more powerful miners?

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

#600

Post by yunvme » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

Bill Gates is either disingenuous or he doesn't understand Bitcoin. The electricity isn't expended to do transactions. That's part of the system. The electricity is expended to ensure there are no double spends. It would be arbitrarily easy to increase the number of transactions. That is not needed on the blockchain, at least right now.

The electricity is well spent securing a truly decentralized digital store of value. The world needs Bitcoin.