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Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

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Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#281

Post by dragonelite »

admax88q wrote: post #186

All this talk about Bitcoin causing global warming is starting to feel like a targetted misinformation campaign. Yes it's wasteful, and yes it's using a fair amount of energy at the moment. But all estimates show it's still a very small fraction of the problem. It feels like we spend a disproportionate amount of time talking about bitcoins carbon footprint for its size.

Its pretty much a misinformation campaign just like the drugs and weapon dealers. Wouldn't be surprised if they will use the terrorist and human rights angle next.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#282

Post by SwimSwimHungry »

young_unixer wrote: post #165
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.

Or kill all people. Both are effective at fixing the emissions problem. Both are also extremely oppressive and unjust.

That's quite a stretch of a response.

Wiping out humans and curtailing bitcoin are not at all equitable. One is unconscionable. The other is the right thing to do, in my opinion.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#283

Post by dragonelite »

bawolff wrote: post #214

I'm surprised nuclear isn't used more here. My understanding that one of the problems of nuclear is you cant turn it on/off quickly. So why not just mine crypto at low load times?

People are already thinking about using over capacity for mining. I think some ideas were being thrown around of using run off gas during pumping oil to power crypto mining.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#284

Post by dragonelite »

seibelj wrote: post #199
SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@maxerickson That ultimately will be the end game. I'd argue that most of the folks that bought into Bitcoin do not, in fact, share in the an-cap libertarian utopia of an economy entirely detached from the US Dollar. Folks are going to want their payday, even folks like Michael Saylor and Elon Musk. These guys aren't HODLing for charity. They want to exit before the rest of the peanut gallery does.

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…

You need endless printing to finance endless wars.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#285

Post by celticninja »

arcticbull wrote: post #271
throwaway271818 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you get the 100g of e-waste figure from btw? Is that, roughly speaking, the e-waste mass of storage/txn * total number of nodes?

Digiconomist [1]. I should have linked it up top, my bad. Looks like they, in turn used this reference [2]. [1] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/ [2] https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(19)30087-X

This is a better index and not run by someone with an axe to grind https://cbeci.org/

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#286

Post by dragonelite »

seibelj wrote: post #221
SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 agree a finite supply to limit the endless ambition of capitalists and imperialists.

From what I gathered gold, silver and salt(why your work income is called salary) was used as currencies so empires could fine tune their supply lines and empires better. The bigger the empire and ambitions the more likely coin clipping and debasing took place.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#287

Post by imtringued »

Jyaif wrote: post #222
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?

The Fed failed to create inflation and that means low interest rates. The Bitcoin bugs are saying that the real reason is that the purchasing power of the dollar is eroding, but in reality it is too stable.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#288

Post by dragonelite »

runawaybottle wrote: post #12

What’s the bandwidth from a probe close to the sun with a Bitcoin miner on it? Beam back the coin, we can wait. Or, mine it near the sun and then bring it back. Could take 20 years, but the returns should be better than the SPY. We’d need a spaceship I guess with the largest solar panels ever. Park it near the sun, mine Bitcoin, come back to earth.

You already have the bitcoin blockchain on a satellite beaming back the state of the blockchain. It might work somewhere in the future if the tech is ready. You don't have day night cycles in space so solar could work 24/7 you do need to find something about the radiation.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#289

Post by politician »

birracerveza wrote: post #272
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. I have a better idea, let's make everything that causes pollution a crime. Bought a plastic water bottle? Straight to jail. Refueled your car? Yep, jail. You used your heater? Believe it or not, jail. I'm sure we'll live in a pollution free utopia in no time. Thank you for your insightful contribution. This i…

Breathing? Right to jail.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#290

Post by politician »

abduhl wrote: post #152
jude- wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are you handwaving away my concerns? Calm down. > Speaking of which, can you quantify what things pollute more? You're all over the comments trying to pin the blame for CO2 emissions on the the existence of PoW cryptocurrencies. But if you stop and think about the problem for more than 5 seconds, you'll realize that it's the CO2 emissions , not cryptocurrencies, that are the problem. They were a problem before…

You didn’t answer their question. Can you quantify what things pollute more?

Sealioning.
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