Bitcoin miners are buying power plants • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#221

Post by seibelj » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 6:16 AM UTC

SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #207

seibelj wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I philosophically believe, to my core, that one of the greatest evils ever perpetuated on humanity was allowing governments to print money whenever they wanted. With very few exceptions, every single fiat currency has experienced periods of high or extremely high inflation (including USD in the 70s). Giving those in power the ability to dilute everyone else’s wealth and direct new money to their favored people / proj…

First, I will say, I do agree that fiat does have its flaws, and certainly the Fed is an institution that is run in great secrecy. To that end, why not use actual gold as a hedge? Why reinvent the wheel with a technology that burns ridiculous levels of energy, and doesn't at least have some additional side utility, like how gold is used in electronics or jewelry?

I fundamentally disagree that mining bitcoin is a “waste”. Bitcoin accomplishes what it takes all governments, their banks, their courts, their payment networks, and a huge amount of human labor and energy to accomplish in a single platform. Secondly, the value that bitcoin provides - an unhackable, incorruptible, un-bannable form of wealth preservation and transfer - is so useful that the energy is worth it.

Finally, I don’t play any video games. I don’t watch any Twitch or Tiktok. I honestly think video games as a concept are a waste of time and energy. But I don’t think they should be banned, despite their enormous cost of electricity.

Similarly, you shouldn’t advocate for a ban based on electricity use. Just regulate the use of electricity, or don’t be surprised when everything else some dipshit politician hates is banned on the same grounds.

And why bitcoin over gold? Gold can’t be sent natively over the internet. It’s expensive to store and transfer. Metal-as-currency is old and bypassed by superior monetary technology (bitcoin).

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#222

Post by Jyaif » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 6:18 AM UTC

kemonocode wrote: post #202

Some people throw hissy fits about how polluting cryptocurrencies supposedly are yet they remain silent about the perverse incentives that spurred their creation and use. It's the war on drugs all over again, and getting angry about crypto and trying to outlaw it is just treating a symptom and not the disease.

Can you elaborate on the perverse incentives that spurred cryptocurrencies?

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#223

Post by cromwellian » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 6:19 AM UTC

young_unixer wrote: post #195

ayngg wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it seems like Bitcoin (and other pow cryptocurrencies) are almost like the climate change scapegoat for a number of social and economic issues that have seemingly come to a head recently to facilitate their rise. People mine because it is expensive, it isn't the other way around, so the real questions we should be asking in good faith are things like "Why it is profitable in the first place?" and I think it is…

Yes. Cryptocurrencies are used because they're the only market that hasn't yet been regulated to death. People come to Bitcoin for 2 reasons, mainly: 1. It's a practical way to store value without the government destroying it by monetary emission. 2. People are free to speculate. The solution to the first point is that governments should stop pulling the rug from under people's feet. Monetary emission should be predi…

Oh come on. My portfolio is safer in a diversified basket of stocks, bonds, real estate and other holdings than it is in bitcoin.

> we can freely speculate

Right, because that worked oh so well for Long Term Capital Management, or the 2008 Housing Crisis, or the Great Depression, or Dutch Tulips, or...

This libertarian, nay, Austrian, fantasy that if only we would deregulate everything, these incredible damaging boom/bust cycles and disappear and everything would be smoothed out are a discredited zombie theory that never dies.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#224

Post by SwimSwimHungry » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 6:20 AM UTC

zapdrive wrote: post #181

SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to do this when you can have other countries with much looser regulations allow Bitcoin miners run rampant. What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. I have no delusions that this will halt activity in this sector entirely, but it will make it reasonably difficult to make any substantial money this way without raising some serious eyebrows.

> What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. Lol.. and that will stop all crypto-world currency trading? Just like how making drugs illegal stopped all drug trade?

If you read past that next sentence, I admitted it won't actually cause such activities to completely cease. It just needs to be stunted so that the majority of such transactions are disincentivized.

Disincentivized enough that nobody would bother adding it to their retirement strategy or use it out in the open. The dark web will continue to do their own thing.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#225

Post by cromwellian » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 6:21 AM UTC

puchatek wrote: post #219

bb88 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. It's a practical way to store value without the government destroying it by monetary emission. > 2. People are free to speculate. So it's a store of value that's destroyable by speculation. That's, if anything, worse than the US Dollar.

Doesn't look destroyable in the long-term

If some flaw is discovered in SHA-256 or other parts of the algorithm, like how MD-5 and SHA-1 had weaknesses, overnight the value goes to zero. Or if a basic widespread exploitable bug was found in most bitcoin stacks like Heartbleed, that went unnoticed, boom, value evaporated overnight.

You can based the entire world monetary economy on a single point of failure like this.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#226

Post by meff » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 6:22 AM UTC

SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #149

o_p wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>regardless of where we are getting our energy from So you dont care about the actual real problem which is carbon emissions? >we should be making efforts to massively reduce consumption across the board Why? Theres no problem with the consumption of renewable energies When you want to trample on people's freedoms just because you dont deem them "worthy" of consuming energy its no wonder that people gives you the fin…

When the externalities of your actions cause undue harm to others, your activities are no longer appropriate. I consider the damage to the environment caused by all this mining to be an end game that results in misery for everyone. Your responses are obviously hostile, so I'm going to bid thee adieu. EDIT: Lest we forget, there's a thing in Libertarianism called the Non-Aggression Principle (aka NAP). If your actions…

> When the externalities of your actions cause undue harm to others, your activities are no longer appropriate.

And, according to you, which criteria should we use to define whether some externality causes "harm" or not and whether that harm is "undue" or not?

If I decide to spend all my days playing games on my computer (which is wasteful energy-wise and probably does not contribute meaningfully to humanity's welfare), am I causing harm to others? What if I decide to cut down trees in my plot of land: am I causing harm to others? What if I decide to shower using potable water, thereby depriving other people from that drinkable water?

Is this harm "undue"? Should I be punished for this? If yes, how are you going to punish me and by how much?

Who decides this? Based on which criteria?

> Lest we forget, there's a thing in Libertarianism called the Non-Aggression Principle (aka NAP). If your actions are an aggression on the health and well-being of our planet and future generations, this would violate NAP.

1) So, me using resources I acquired/paid for as I see fit is "aggressing" someone else? Under this logic, most human activities could be seen as an aggression, in one way or another (by applying resources in X, you are witholding them from being used in Y, thus "aggressing" everyone who benefits from Y happening over X).

2) Under a Libertarian framework, how exactly do you expect to enforce any sort of anti-NAP rule or law? Hope you brought your army with you.

Your general idea requires people to agree on what is "harmful" or not and whether that harm is "undue" or not. Good luck with having people agree on that.

TL;DR: Even if we assume "bitcoin mining" to lead to externalities that cause undue harm to others (not just normal harm, but undue harm), the same applies to many (most?) other human activities... you can always frame any resource allocation as "depriving someone from resources". Under this logic, we should ban anything I don't see as useful, because reasons.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#227

Post by SwimSwimHungry » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 6:24 AM UTC

jude- wrote: post #213

SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your assumption about me is correct. I am extremely biased against cryptocurrencies. And that's bad how? Do you have a sizable position in these instruments that you are afraid would be affected by my dialogue? And my point about circle jerks is prevalent all over social media. Open your eyes man. The Winklevoss Twins, Jack @ Twitter, Elon Musk. All of them have a vested interest in abusing their influence to push th…

I think you should go re-read the HN commenting guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm pretty sure I've been following the rules. Not sure what you're suggesting here.

EDIT: If dang or any other HN moderator wishes to opine on where I'm going wrong, I'm happy to reassess my style and approach going forward, but I try to steer clear of ad hominems.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#228

Post by SwimSwimHungry » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 6:25 AM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #211

SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your assumption about me is correct. I am extremely biased against cryptocurrencies. And that's bad how? Do you have a sizable position in these instruments that you are afraid would be affected by my dialogue? And my point about circle jerks is prevalent all over social media. Open your eyes man. The Winklevoss Twins, Jack @ Twitter, Elon Musk. All of them have a vested interest in abusing their influence to push th…

Have you considered the best way to advance your position is to use logic instead of acting hysterically? I mean, i think i agreed with you more before i read your comments than after.

You might be projecting. I'm not hysterical, just very emphatic about my points.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#229

Post by wyager » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 6:25 AM UTC

SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #87

caterama wrote: post #68

Who cares? Everyone is fixated on Bitcoin... there are tons of energy inefficient processes out there. The solution has nothing to do with Bitcoin... environmental impact needs to be priced into energy itself, whatever the application. This is a failure of the markets (and therefore ourselves). Bitcoin is a scapegoat.

Here's the problem with this sentiment. Bitcoin isn't replacing anything. Not pre-existing fiat currency, not banks, nothing. Bitcoin only adds to the problem at an alarming rate. Bitcoin is certainly not a scapegoat. It's a massive problem and, largely, a symptom of human greed that must be put in check.

> Bitcoin isn't replacing anything. Not pre-existing fiat currency, not banks

How in the world do you say this? It's made significant progress in replacing both of these things. Just because it hasn't 100% eliminated all extant currencies and banks doesn't mean it's not making meaningful progress in that direction.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#230

Post by ddeyar » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 6:26 AM UTC

I don't know. Eth is switching to PoS. Tezos, cardano and many others are PoS. Is there any plan for bitcoin to switch to PoS? When there are a lot of more environmental friendly crypto alternatives, what should stop governments to ban bitcoin mining?