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Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

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Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#561

Post by jariel »

ccortes wrote: post #558
jariel wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying 'people can or cannot use it means that it's not a fundamental property' -> is not an argument. Nobody has to use anything to value a stock - including current profits. Therefore even current profits would not be 'a fundamental property'. And of course, nobody has to use any data or logic when valuing absolutely any financial asset anywhere, ergo - the statement is completely pointless. Again: we value stock b…

> Nobody has to use anything to value a stock - including current profits. Therefore even current profits would not be 'a fundamental property' Correct, so: > A stock is valued based on the performance of it's actual profit generation. Is incorrect. The correct sentence should be "Some times stock is valued based on the performance of it's actual profit generation." > BTC is just a fantasy speculation. Absolutely, ju…

"Anything can be valued at anything" is not an argument.

It's just some weird rhetoric you're using to somehow show a parallel between BTC and Stocks.

The material issue here is that stocks can be rationally valued by determining the underlying value of the implied asset ownership - and mostly are - whereas BTC cannot.

That someone can pay $1 Trillion for a pair of shoes, a BTC, or an Amazon shares is not relevant.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#562

Post by ClumsyPilot »

reader_mode wrote: post #198
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…

I think Bitcoin (and crypto in general) has prooven to be disruptive in many areas (in a negative way) and has yet to deliver any tangible positives that would outweight the negatives. It's basically becoming a unregulated comodity that big money institutions get to gamble with because there is just nowhere to put the money on the market right now. If bitcoin and crypto (ETH, etc.) was just a money dumping speculatio…

"because there is just nowhere to put the money on the market right now"

For civilisation to survive we need renewables, electric cars/trucks/busses, nuckear power olants, grid scale storage and fusion power or hydrogen.

There are only two scenarion -there things are built and our society rewards them - or in the alternative money in your bank ceases to exist, along with moth of economy

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#563

Post by loeg »

scotty79 wrote: post #560
loeg wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Burning natural gas, as in the plant referenced by the article, also produces CO2.

Sure, that too. My point is coal and similar resorces don't have many other uses so you can safely tax the resource, mined or umported rather than the act of burning. And if you have some specific application that you might want to be not affected you might make special tax breaks for it.

Ah, that's totally reasonable. Thanks for clarifying.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#564

Post by arcticbull »

roenxi wrote: post #555
arcticbull wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supply is only half the inflation calculation, the other half is velocity. That's why the increase in the M2 supply doesn't translate to what you're paying at the grocery store. You've missed half the equation. [1] [1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2014/september/wha...

I'm not missing anything, I just don't care about the inflation calculation. I'm using gold and the M2.

Ok, so you're doing it incorrectly then. That's fine, but it seems weird to give advise on the basis of information that you know is wrong.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#565

Post by EdwinLarkin »

totony wrote: post #546
EdwinLarkin wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even today carbon taxes are the stupidest idea people from rich nations thought about. Around 5BN from the developing world will laugh at this proposal. They will not be able to trade with you? Oh well they might trade among themselves and dont have to face competition from rich countries. I call this win win.

Do you honestly believe (let's say) the USA cutting all economic ties/imposing tariffs is insignificant? Of course they can trade with the others who don't care about pollution. That doesn't mean the costs of a carbon tax don't outweigh the benefits of having economic ties with the countries that have that tax.

Since carbon taxes primarily benefit local production...yes? Emerging nations are too far away from the US to care about it as much as you think.

>That doesn't mean the costs of a carbon tax don't outweigh the benefits of having economic ties with the countries that have that tax.

The only reason the world is not at war is globalization and even that is coming to an end.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#566

Post by cabalamat »

roenxi wrote: post #359
arcticbull wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is a really easy solution for this disaster - a trusted party could run a big relational database that was basically a non-inflating currency and really cheap to run. Except that isn't going to work, because governments are untrustworthy and as history shows will sooner rather than later debase their currency. All people are looking for here is a safe way to store value over time. If governments would let peopl…

> Except that isn't going to work, because governments are untrustworthy

Some governments are more trustworthy than others, and lots of people trust some governments. For example many people hold USD because they consider it a better store of value than their own country's currency.

> a trusted party could run a big relational database that was basically a non-inflating currency and really cheap to run

Somewhere like Switzerland would probably be quite trusted to run this.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#567

Post by roenxi »

arcticbull wrote: post #564
roenxi wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not missing anything, I just don't care about the inflation calculation. I'm using gold and the M2.

Ok, so you're doing it incorrectly then. That's fine, but it seems weird to give advise on the basis of information that you know is wrong.

That's got all the argumentative power of a damp noodle. If you happen to be using the CPI to adjust your portfolio, you might be saying you've experienced real growth when your investments are literally being outperformed by the steadily growing value of an inert rock.

The inflation rate is basically a proxy measure of wage growth [0]. The money printing hasn't going in to wages. It isn't appropriate to use the CPI to adjust wealth, because then you'd be mistaking asset price inflation for productive growth and putting money into things that don't earn real returns (ie, are grossly mismanaged).

[0] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2015/november/rela...

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#568

Post by zepto »

tshaddox wrote: post #552
zepto wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The externality problem ought to be addressed directly What does ‘directly’ mean? > instead of creating a new regulatory body to decide which goods are “good” and thus allowed to have externalities and which goods are “bad” and thus are banned completely or banned from having externalities. How would you apply this direct approach to muggings or cigarette companies?

> What does ‘directly’ mean? Whoever is polluting ought to pay for the damage of that pollution. That’s my view. No different than pouring toxins into the river outside the factory. > How would you apply this direct approach to muggings or cigarette companies? Well, I don’t know if there’s a great analogy for muggings. I’m all for going after organized crime, and for local law enforcement for random unorganized robbe…

In the case of Bitcoin the incentives of the system itself will drive miners to seek out and exploit locales where the externalities are least policed.

This is part of the design, and everyone who transacts in Bitcoin benefits from this.

Therefore the cost of those externalities should be borne by the network in the form of a transaction tax.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#569

Post by AustinDev »

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…

Gold mining btc mining isn’t the best comparison. For your 5X number. You’ve still got to ship and store the gold which undoubtedly has additional environmental costs.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#570

Post by vernon99 »

M277 wrote: post #478
bradstewart wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming you're in the US/Europe/somewhere with a stable currency. Places like Argentina that have had serious devaluation of currency do not see money in their bank accounts as "safe". Bitcoin can provide a way for e.g. Argentinians to get their money into other currencies when the government is actively preventing that through "standard" mechanisms. It's safe (er, safer) from that perspective.

How is it safe when it's so volatile and based on speculation? As someone from a country which has had its currency's value slashed to half 5 years ago, I genuinely don't see how Bitcoin is safe at all. If anything, gold or real estate are safer. Sure, if it is somehow guaranteed that I won't wake up tomorrow seeing 1 BTC = $30 000, I could see your argument. But is that guaranteed? I would also like to add that the…

As somebody who saw family wealth slashed 100x due to crazy inflation just 20 years ago, 2x fluctuations are nothing. This is the perspective worth recognizing. Bitcoin is actually very stable by comparison. Edit: fat fingers typing.
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