I was an early user of coinbase. I only bought a fraction of a coin because of Paul Graham and YC's reputation. Well .. I was wrong. I was not an active trader. It seems they have closed by account and liquidated the btc within (if there were actually btc in my name). I am deeply disappointed that they don't have a telephone number I can call to help figure out the situation. Pretty disappointed.
Coinbase from YC to DPO
51–60 of 883 posts
Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO
#52I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…
PoW is on it’s way out - Ethereum is moving away from it and there is no reason for other cryptos to not follow.
The major player in PoW will remain Bitcoin, which won’t change.
But as soon as solar/wind become cheaper than coal, it will switch to green without a blink of an eye.
A random thought - I’m genuinely surprised Bitcoin folks didn’t yet crowdfund building a nuclear reactor for mining purposes ;) They crowdfunded first ASIC production lines which are 1000x cheaper, but at the time when Bitcoin was 1000x cheaper as well :)
Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO
#53I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…
>I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It's not really remaining mainstream. Bitcoin is soon going to be the only big project (in terms of electricity used) with it. The industry as a whole is moving away from it quite fast at this rate, with ETH (second biggest) moving to PoS within a year, and almost every new project being a or on a non-P…
The problem is that Bitcoin miners and investors have a huge incentive to keep the status quo.
Bitcoin is no longer the scrappy renegade alternative currency. It's big business now, with big institutional money behind it. The investors in these Bitcoin businesses do not want to see Bitcoin fall out of favor, and they're going to do everything in their power to keep it popular and profitable to mine.
Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO
#54Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO
#55Bitcoin is an enormously wasteful ponzi scheme mind virus and YC should be ashamed of their involvement in it - not proud. I long for the day (which it seems may come soon!) when cryptocurrencies are outlawed and we can all move on with our lives.
Outlawed? I don't think that will be possible. Bitcoin is part of the US financial system already!
Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO
#56Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO
#57I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…
Bitcoin can only be demonstrably free of government controls by continuing to operate after being made illegal. I wonder if its creators actually intended to make it a target for legal sanction by building in conspicuous environmental costs.
Could there be an equilibrium where energy efficiency is achieved because miners have avoid using a noticeable amount of electricity to avoid legal trouble?
Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO
#58I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…
Bitcoin allows you to convert excess energy into money. Because it can be mined anywhere at any time, it's priced to the global low cost of energy. It doesn't make sense to use expensive energy sources. Much of energy production is meant to meet peak demand and storage is difficult. Bitcoin mining is a great way to monetize energy that has a low market value and would likely go to waste. If you want to price energy o…
"Excess energy" is a myth.
It's 2021, and transmitting energy across the power grid is easier and more efficient than ever before. No one is building hydroelectric dams in the middle of nowhere without a way to transmit that energy to somewhere else. It's still better to send the energy somewhere where they can replace coal-fired power plants than it is to burn it up mining cryptocurrency.
> Bitcoin mining is a great way to monetize energy that has a low market value and would likely go to waste.
It's exceedingly rare for energy to "go to waste".
Miners do not really care about anything other than profit. As long as the profit out of their operations is greater than the cost of electricity going in, the machines will be running.
Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you think about computers that are always on 24/7? Or TVs that never turn off (even if the screen is off)? (ETA: 23% of household energy use is by always-on devices. The scale of this waste is MASSIVE.) Devices in our life consume energy 24/7 when we're not even using them or needing them to be on. Energy conservation has a LONG way to go. In fact, one could argue that the current stock market system is a hug…
We should do a much better job of building energy efficient devices, but, the amount of energy that's "wasted" by things like TVs that never turned off is really tiny compared to the energy footprint of the crypto ecosystem. Further, I worry that crypto will grow massively . If that happens, all bets are off. In its current state, crypto consumes more energy than several large countries - imagine a world where that's…
"A study by the Natural Resources Defense Council found that the energy use from Always On devices across the US accounts for 23% of power consumption in the average household, or a quarter of any given electricity bill. Our own research confirms this."
23% of energy used by households is by always on devices.
Not "tiny".
Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It's not really remaining mainstream. Bitcoin is soon going to be the only big project (in terms of electricity used) with it. The industry as a whole is moving away from it quite fast at this rate, with ETH (second biggest) moving to PoS within a year, and almost every new project being a or on a non-P…
The problem is that Bitcoin miners and investors have a huge incentive to keep the status quo. Bitcoin is no longer the scrappy renegade alternative currency. It's big business now, with big institutional money behind it. The investors in these Bitcoin businesses do not want to see Bitcoin fall out of favor, and they're going to do everything in their power to keep it popular and profitable to mine.
Sure, but that's a Bitcoin problem not a crypto as a whole problem.
And let's face it - all the projects being built on crypto which can cause it to grow much further cannot be built on Bitcoin in the first place.