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Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

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Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#291

Post by SwimSwimHungry »

bawolff wrote: post #245
SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with text based conversations like this is that you really aren't able to perceive my physical or emotional state easily over text. Using all caps and multiple punctuation marks are also not only extremely rude in polite company, but I'm sure HN has rules against that kind of thing. :) And bawolff... my aim is to at least give those reading from the sidelines some things to think about. I am sure as heck…

> And bawolff... my aim is to at least give those reading from the sidelines some things to think about. And are you under the impression that you're the only voice that people on the sidelines are going to hear? You need to understand the counter arguments so you can adapt your own arguments to counter them. You can't defeat an enemy you don't understand.

Right. I thought that was already obvious. Are you done pontificating to me?

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#292

Post by imtringued »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #108
seoaeu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take wind turbines: they've found that harvesting wind actually increases the temperature in an area. Do enough of this, coupled with channeling the energy into heat-producing machines, are we sure this isn't gong to contribute to global warming at scale? That's some anti-renewable energy FUD I hadn't seen before... Yes, we're sure that won't cause global warming. Wind turbine operation doesn't produce greenhouse g…

Since I'm getting downvoted, here's a study on it: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511... Your misunderstanding seems possibly intentional. I'm very much in favour of renewable energy as an alternative to nonrenewable energy. I'm just not in favour of wasting energy for very little purpose. Build solar/wind energy to replace fossil fuels? Great! Obviously I'm in favour of that. Built an insan…

The earth is a closed system, in the sense that if you do not radiate energy out to space, or radiate energy from space to earth, the total energy on earth doesn't change, it just moves around.

The question is, how do wind turbines ensure that more energy radiates from space onto the earth? I consider this scenario highly unlikely.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#293

Post by CTDOCodebases »

arcticbull wrote: post #261
caf wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the criticism is exactly wrong, but it's more like Bitcoin mining is the reductio ad absurdum exposing the waste of resources that goes into gold mining (yes, there's some industrial uses, but that is a rounding error compared to the quantities that are dug up, purified, cast into bars, shipped around the world and buried back underground in vaults).

About half is used for jewelry because gold is shiny pebbles. About 10% is used for electronics. Mining Bitcoin consumes 5X as much energy as gold, btw, per unit value extracted. It also requires mining gold to produce the circuit boards used for mining Bitcoin - given the popularity of the ENIG immersion gold plating process for PCB contacts. The secondary issue is that of course each Bitcoin transaction generates 1…

The miners don’t compute hashes of random data. They confirm transactions.

If you don’t think that a technology that allows you to store value in a tamper free digital ledger is useful it’s hard to argue the usefulness of PoW crypto currencies to begin with.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#294

Post by imtringued »

agravier wrote: post #15
pcthrowaway wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering if 'carbon-neutral' energy production is really environmentally neutral, especially when channeled to cryptocurrency mining. Take wind turbines: they've found that harvesting wind actually increases the temperature in an area. Do enough of this, coupled with channeling the energy into heat-producing machines, are we sure this isn't gong to contribute to global warming at scale? Not to mention the harm t…

Also, the propellers get used quickly and are not recyclable AFAIK.

It's infrastructure that lasts 20 years, not a plastic cup containing yogurt that gets thrown away within 3 days.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#295

Post by paulgb »

px43 wrote: post #128
bransonf wrote: post #94

It’s a simple equation: So long as there is more money in mining BTC than there is cost in energy to mine it, mining will proceed. No entity in the world can control the price of crypto. But, we can and already do regulate energy production. I think we need a carbon tax, that is specifically a financial disincentive towards any means of energy production that directly pollutes the atmosphere. Seriously, what are the…

Mining difficulty tends to be a lagging indicator of price, not the other way around. I doubt that a price increase in power would have much affect on the price of the currency itself. We 100% need massive carbon taxes right now. It's really telling how the energy industry is trying to push blame to consumers, especially cryptocurrency miners, in order to distract from the discussion of real carbon taxes to force pol…

Would you support a carbon import tariff for PoW cryptocurrencies mined outside of countries that implement a carbon tax? Because otherwise I can just imagine mining moving to countries without one, as is already happening with regards to other climate-based restrictions.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#296

Post by originalvichy »

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.

You should have said that Bitcoin is a bad solution to a problem. The mining algorithm is wasteful because it uses cpu/gpu cycles as much as it can to calculate useless math instead of doing something a lot less energy-intensive like proof of stake. I’m not gonna pretend to be up to date on crypto mining but useless math is useless.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#297

Post by mateuszf »

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?

I guess OP means long term declining interest rates and their effect on wealth distribution.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#298

Post by mateuszf »

imtringued wrote: post #287
Jyaif wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It seems stable if you measure with CPI inflation, but then check real estate prices, healthcare and education prices, stock prices.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#299

Post by celticninja »

cromwellian wrote: post #225
puchatek wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is true, it is also true that no implementation breaking bugs have been found for a long time and you can also be sure that there are any number of people constantly looking for ways in which to exploit bitcoins codebase to either steal, destroy or create new coins.
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