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

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

#681

Post by qertoip » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:50 PM UTC

debbiedowner wrote: post #613

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.

Why is proof of work so much more popular than proof of stake?

Because PoS effectively means a handful of exchanges run the coin. This is far worse than a handful of mining pools, because pools depend on many more individual hash power providers.

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

#682

Post by DennisP » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:50 PM UTC

fsociety wrote: post #151

mavhc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which proof of stake systems currently exist and work well?

Tezos is interesting, upgrades happen without forks and are voted on-the-chain. It’s developer-friendly and seeing slow adoption with some governments. Allegedly France’s C3N uses it and Reno is testing it with NFTs. Bonus points for it being overseen by a Swiss non-profit, they fund development efforts and encourage adoption. Who knows what the end result it, but I think the ideas there make it favorable compared to…

Fwiw, the Ethereum Foundation is also a Swiss nonprofit.

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

#683

Post by jjnoakes » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:50 PM UTC

cableshaft wrote: post #638

saalweachter wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you both have full node bitcoin wallets it's possible, just like how it worked in the first place. But having a full node on your computer takes up >350GB of space now, so I doubt there's too many people that still do that.

Is this true? You still need connections to the rest of the network so that you know your block chain is the longest one and you get the number of confirmations that both of you feel is sufficient to remove double-spend risk. So it's not really just between the two of you, even if you both have full nodes. Right?

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

#684

Post by quesera » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:50 PM UTC

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #427

TameAntelope wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're getting a lot of responses, because this is a pretty common complaint about crypto, and it taps into a great "WELL ACTUALLY" moment, because your concern is close enough to the "at least real money is backed by something" misconception (which, tbh, I'm sure you're aware of at this point if you weren't already). Fundamentally, what folks are trying to get to with crypto is a trust-less system, one that can oper…

Crypto is 'backed' by the sunk cost of the energy used to mine it.

I'd modify that to:

"Crypto is 'backed' by the value of the sunk cost of the energy used to mine it."

...which is to say: nothing.

But for as long as collective agreement persists, there is volatility. And where there's volatility, there are profitable trades.

The natural question becomes "Why does, and for how long will, the collective agreement persist?".

For that, I have no answer. :)

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

#685

Post by riston » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:52 PM UTC

I agree with B. Gates and hopefully the crypto bubble will burst again with massive bank ran to sell their assets (it will happen but no-one knows when). Good luck

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

#686

Post by Erlich_Bachman » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:52 PM UTC

asenna wrote: post #616

acd10j wrote: post #495

Bitcoin seems like a huge Ponzi scheme, just with any other Ponzi scheme, its adopters fiercely fighting and trying to silence anyone who dares to utter anything opposing it. Bitcoin as it stands today has potential to destroy all the gains we have made in clean energy and bringing zero carbon offsets. Bill gates is right that it is massively inefficient in what is supposed to be doing. That is doing transactions. Ju…

> Bitcoin seems like a huge Ponzi scheme Can you please point out which previous ponzi scheme / bubble / tulip mania has gone through so many cyclic wave pattern and held up it's value despite all the crashes? "Bitcoin is going to crash" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbZ8zDpX2Mg

The freely-printed, non-gold-backed flavor of USD?

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

#687

Post by qertoip » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

BTCOG wrote: post #658

matheusmoreira wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think bitcoin has been completely surpassed technologically speaking. Monero in particular solved almost all of bitcoin's problems yet still can't compete with it in popularity.

XMR has the Bitcoin core devs developing for it and it has nothing technologically "surpassing" Bitcoin. Bulletproofs for Monero were written by GMaxwell. Do all people on HackerNews outside of my own bubble also constantly speak about things from a position like they know things when they clearly know nothing of the subject matter?

XMR is great but no, it does not have Bitcoin core devs developing for it. And no, nullc did not implement bulletproofs for Monero. Maybe you meant nullc designed confidential transactions. A modified variant of CT was then implemented independently in Monero by Monero devs.

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

#688

Post by inglor_cz » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #527

mutatio wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolutionists like Dawkins pose that most organisms are in fiercest competition with members of their own species. You and I compete for identical resources: mates, jobs etc.

Other species have mostly arranged not to kill one another in these competitions. E.g. vipers & komodo dragons don't bite while wrestling. Walruses get pretty ripped-up, but usually don't die. Ganging up to kill seems to be mostly a primate thing.

Fighting is only a subset of competition.

Male lions will kill cubs fathered by another male without remorse. It is not the same as our primate instincts of war, but remarkably close to ethnic cleansing.

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

#689

Post by dgs_sgd » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

gzu wrote: post #48

What about 0 percent interest rates? How much environmentally damaging malinvestment across the globe has been caused by risk free money? Think of how carbon intensive the concrete, steel, manufacturing, power generation industry are. Not to mention the population boom beyond our earths carrying capacity needed to perpetuate our ever increasing monetary scheme requiring never ending growth where deflation can never e…

Thank you for pointing this out. The misallocation of capital caused by artificially low interest rates caused by central banks printing money (and the "bust" and massive unemployment that follows when lenders realize that the investments are unprofitable at the true market interest rate) is not commonly discussed.

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

#690

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

TameAntelope wrote: post #409

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…

You're getting a lot of responses, because this is a pretty common complaint about crypto, and it taps into a great "WELL ACTUALLY" moment, because your concern is close enough to the "at least real money is backed by something" misconception (which, tbh, I'm sure you're aware of at this point if you weren't already). Fundamentally, what folks are trying to get to with crypto is a trust-less system, one that can oper…

Paper USD is backed by something though isn't it? It's backed by the US Govt. It's backed by the USG guaranteeing they will accept it.

Crypto ain't even backed by that.