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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

#771

Post by hannasanarion »

thebean11 wrote: post #761
hannasanarion wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what are those smart contract fees being used for? - Speculators buying ETH to ride the bubble - A revolving door of Proof-of-concept startups with backing from starry-eyed VCs and no viable business plans that pop up, use a bunch of compute, and then fail, every couple of months. Ethereum mining conglomerates don't even use Smart Contracts, they just cite "a long history of successful payouts", trust, and old-fa…

So you're moving the goalpost from "no users" to "no users I approve of"? A few other use cases: DeFi (mainly crypto backed loans), NFTs (so far not too interesting to me), distributed ETH2 staking pools, distributed betting markets (the coolest one in my opinion).

No, the goal posts are standing still at "competitively successful commercial activity". The fact that somebody somewhere hammers nails with glass jars doesn't mean that glass hammers are about to take over the hardware world. Early investors getting rich off of a Ponzi scheme doesn't make the Ponzi a good businessman.

DeFi is used almost exclusively as margin for speculation. Since smart contracts have no legal force, the only way lenders can be guaranteed their money back is by demanding collateral that is greater than the value of the loan. When is the last time you needed a loan of $10,000, for which you were happy to put up $15,000 of your own dollars in escrow as collateral, other than securities gambling?

NFTs are just cryptokitties by another name, ETH2 staking pools are just private equity firms but without security because millions of dollars are stolen out of them every year, and crypto distributed betting markets are patently illegal.

Which brings us right back to where these conversations always end: the only things blockchain has or will ever be useful for are speculation and obscuring criminal activity.

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

#772

Post by jasonlaramburu »

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.

Bitcoin’s excessive energy consumption is a feature, not a bug, designed to deter a 51% attack. It will only get worse as the price of BTC increases. If we reach an era of nearly free energy, the price of BTC will fall.

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

#773

Post by runarberg »

jayd16 wrote: post #768
capableweb wrote: post #719

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, it's still distributed consensus rather than centralized. If one banker stops being nice, he'll loose all his funds. The current system either ignores people not-being-nice or ejects them, but they'll never lose what they made. Compared to PoS where the biggest incentive is to be nice.

The fear is that there will be a powerful in-group that has majority control, not just a single bad actor.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that a problem shared with PoW?

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

#774

Post by runarberg »

kempbellt wrote: post #428
meowkit wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Honestly don’t know if you’re trolling or just old. No need to be ageist. It's a fair perspective. There is a quality of independence and agency that comes from being able to purchase things with cash. Ironically, your weed transaction is a perfect example of that. I am a little confused by your argument though. Are you saying that you used cash because you couldn't pay legally with a debit/credit card or something…

Seriously, cash is awesome:

* If I want to get payed quickly for a quick job, cash is the preferred payment method.

* If I immigrate to a country where I am not allowed to work legally, cash would be my preferred payment method.

* If I’m buying something illegal (including labor from a person not allowed to work in my country) cash is the preferred payment method.

* I can use cash to pay for products in the farmstand across the street without any transaction fees or 3rd party apps.

* I can use cash during a week long blackout.

* I can use cash without an internet access.

Parent might not personally use cash. But for many people around the world cash is by far the most convenient payment method. And for many less privileged people cash is the only payment method.

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

#775

Post by runarberg »

willis936 wrote: post #550
kempbellt wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly don’t know if you’re trolling or just old. No need to be ageist. It's a fair perspective. There is a quality of independence and agency that comes from being able to purchase things with cash. Ironically, your weed transaction is a perfect example of that. I am a little confused by your argument though. Are you saying that you used cash because you couldn't pay legally with a debit/credit card or something…

Cash’s no. 1 use case in the 21st century is tax evasion. Most people just refuse to acknowledge that because they like evading taxes. I’m sure there are ways to use cryptocurrency to do the same.

I doubt that’s true. It doesn’t seem to work out logically.

Lets say for the sake of argument that you are right, and the no. 1 use case of cash is to evade taxes. Then the people getting payed for their tax-free labor will need to use this cash somehow. The easiest (and cheapest) is simply to circulate the money while buying regular goods and services. So buying of regular goods and services would rise to be at least as popular use case of cash as tax evasion is.

Also note that there are plenty of people willing to pay tax for their transaction, but the transaction is made illegal by their government and hence they cannot. Then the reason to use cash is not tax evasion, but illegal transaction, (note that this includes paying and receiving salaries for people not allowed to work because of immigration status). Tax evasion then becomes a happy byproduct of the no. 1 reason for using cash, illegal transaction.

But I honestly doubt that either illegal transactions, nor tax evasion comes even close to why most people use cash. Convenience. Though I could be persuaded if I saw some data pointing to the opposite.

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

#776

Post by TheDong »

silentsea90 wrote: post #420

What's bad for the planet is how decades of individual work output in money can be confiscated (by printing and inflation, not taxation) by the Government under the pretense of doing good. What's bizarre is that the Government is not affected by market forces while the rest of us plebs are forced to be efficient lest we lose to competition. Note: when I say confiscation, I mean money printing and not taxes (which wil…

> Increasing taxes will cause a mass exodus leaving the Governments in a bad shape. [..] Holders will just migrate to a [different] country

Yeah, when the US increases taxes on me, I'll just move to Korea. Oh, what's that, it takes a minimum of 5 years and learning the language to get a citizenship? And I still have to pay the IRS in USD in the meanwhile since they're still taxing me until I revoke my US citizenship (which I can't until I get a korean one in 5 years).

Not to mention I left behind my family and friends, many of whom can't emigrate due to not qualifying for a work visa or other category.

My point here is that the free market does not apply to governments as you imply it might. Consumers can vote with their wallet for things like different brands of food and other commodity goods, but people can't change citizenships easily. People can't vote on their favorite country easily due to massive social effects and how limited immigration is.

There are far more people who live in a country where they think their government is worse than another one, and yet don't move, than there are people who do change countries for such a reason.

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

#777

Post by thebean11 »

hannasanarion wrote: post #771
thebean11 wrote: post #761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're moving the goalpost from "no users" to "no users I approve of"? A few other use cases: DeFi (mainly crypto backed loans), NFTs (so far not too interesting to me), distributed ETH2 staking pools, distributed betting markets (the coolest one in my opinion).

No, the goal posts are standing still at "competitively successful commercial activity". The fact that somebody somewhere hammers nails with glass jars doesn't mean that glass hammers are about to take over the hardware world. Early investors getting rich off of a Ponzi scheme doesn't make the Ponzi a good businessman. DeFi is used almost exclusively as margin for speculation. Since smart contracts have no legal forc…

> nobody is using it > no competitively successful commercial activity

Those are two wildly different claims but I'll bite anyway:

Your argument against DeFi could be made about Schwab, or any brokerage providing margin so I don't find it very compelling. Is selling margin to gamblers not a "competitively successful commercial activity"? Your original claim was that there were no users.

> crypto distributed betting markets are patently illegal

That's like saying self driving cars are patently illegal. Of course they are (more illegal than grey market sports betting), but it's a nascent technology and it's not obvious that it will stay illegal.

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

#778

Post by lmilcin »

BTCOG wrote: post #496
lmilcin wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is repeatedly cited delusional conclusion. The reality is that consensus only requires people to agree on something. It does not require burning tons of energy or military action. Prisoner's dilemma is only a thing if you consider finite games, ie. played for your immediate benefit. If you consider an infinite game (for example the good and survival of humanity in perpetuity), it can be clearly shown that there…

People will ALWAYS cheat others given the chance, and especially when facing very little online repercussions. I am not sure who you were replying to here. I do live in a small community, I have relied on a few others for survival, and I have been both stolen from, and price gouged due to others who would try to make skin off my back. I assume you've got less real life experience in these matters. I live on the basis…

I am sorry for you.

Now, what you experience isn't necessity.

Think why you decided to write you only trust "select few"? Aren't these the people you plan on interacting with for a long time like family, friends or coworkers?

That's because when you plan to work with somebody for a long time, your game changes from finite to infinite. It suddenly makes other than altruistic sense to invest actual resources into fostering the relationship and avoid damaging this relationship by cheating.

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

#779

Post by xtracto »

mekoka wrote: post #272

“Bitcoin uses more electricity per transaction than any other method known to mankind, and so it’s not a great climate thing” That's the sole actual quote attributed to Bill Gates in that article (which doesn't even link to any source). The rest is the author conflating their thoughts with Bill Gates's.

I wish people would differentiate between Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies: Yeah, Bitcoin is crappy and way inefficient in different aspects. Anyone who knows a bit about Cryptocurrencies knows about it.

At this stage, it is like in the late 90s when people said that "The internet was very unsafe" because Internet Explorer 4/5 were crappy insecure. Yeah, everybody with the least amount of computer knowledge knew how crappy Explorer was.

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

#780

Post by silentsea90 »

TheDong wrote: post #776
silentsea90 wrote: post #420

What's bad for the planet is how decades of individual work output in money can be confiscated (by printing and inflation, not taxation) by the Government under the pretense of doing good. What's bizarre is that the Government is not affected by market forces while the rest of us plebs are forced to be efficient lest we lose to competition. Note: when I say confiscation, I mean money printing and not taxes (which wil…

> Increasing taxes will cause a mass exodus leaving the Governments in a bad shape. [..] Holders will just migrate to a [different] country Yeah, when the US increases taxes on me, I'll just move to Korea. Oh, what's that, it takes a minimum of 5 years and learning the language to get a citizenship? And I still have to pay the IRS in USD in the meanwhile since they're still taxing me until I revoke my US citizenship…

Agreed, it isn't easy. But things are changing. Balaji Srinivasan argues that's the future. Naval Ravikant says that innovation has been found in geographic centers like the Arabic world (middle ages) -> Rome (Renaissance) -> England (1800s) -> SF Bay area (since the 60s), but the next center will be geographically distributed but on gathered on the cloud through digital nomadism. See The Sovereign Individual as a book that predicts this.

There's a business here that helps managing citizenship: https://nomadcapitalist.com/

I don't know what the future holds. We shall see :)

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