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Coinbase from YC to DPO

blog.ycombinator.com

61–70 of 883 posts

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#61

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.

Have you even communicated with them about it?

Today might not be a great day to try that. But reach out to them and ask.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#62

Bitcoin 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.

BTC is different. It will never go down from here.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#63
post #43
post #35

I'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…

This and - literally millions of office worker drones power a PC for MS Office/Excel whole day long for no net effective social or global benefit which the likes of Bitcoin will weed out eventually. And then one day we will replace Bitcoin with something even more effective.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#64
post #35

I'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…

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…

Idle CPU !== full-blast GPU.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#65
post #35

I'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…

Proof of stake is here in Ethereum 2.0 and it works great. Invest in that because this is the last hurrah for Bitcoin. The next cycle will be the “Ethereum is the new better Bitcoin” cycle. I say that as someone with almost all my net worth in Bitcoin but it has miserable transaction speed and energy usage. History has shown us that not innovating has never worked out for any company I can think of.

So you are saying your money is not where your mouth is?

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#66
post #35

I'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…

Proof of stake is here in Ethereum 2.0 and it works great. Invest in that because this is the last hurrah for Bitcoin. The next cycle will be the “Ethereum is the new better Bitcoin” cycle. I say that as someone with almost all my net worth in Bitcoin but it has miserable transaction speed and energy usage. History has shown us that not innovating has never worked out for any company I can think of.

Incorrect, Ethereum is still using PoW.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#67
post #35

I'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…

2 links:

- In today’s news: https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/critics-claim-bitcoin-threa...

- From earlier: https://pomp.substack.com/p/bitcoin-mining-is-good-for-the-e...

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#68
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Across most of the world there are at least brief moments when the price of electricity goes negative. It happens because some energy sources cannot quickly be shut down (eg. Nuclear), so it makes financial sense to pay to get rid of electricity for brief periods.

These negative prices don't coincide worldwide, indicating that there is not sufficient electrical transmission capacity.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#69
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Exactly my point. That's why they choose the global lowest cost of energy provider. And if you allow the price system to work, this would be the least valuable undesirable energy. Anything else would be uneconomical.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#70
post #52
post #35

I'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 crowdf…

Ethereum is quite centralised - people will follow the main developers.

Bitcoin probably wouldn't switch - there is no single person or group who could get majority support to force such a change.

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