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Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

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Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#141

Post by matkoniecz »

jabbany wrote: post #109
chii wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to what end? Undermining trust in bitcoin isn't a goal on its own - unless you're some mastache twiddling movie villain. If you're a nation state, and want to undermine the legitimacy of bitcoin, you can easily just institute laws to ban it. Much cheaper.

Yep. And China has done exactly that in the past when people were using crypto to launder RMB into USD. The fact that mining operations still exist today at large scales in China means that at least the government has found a way to profit off of crypto (strategically or economically).

> The fact that mining operations still exist today at large scales in China means that at least the government has found a way to profit off of crypto (strategically or economically).

Or government do not really care. If it is officially discouraged/illegal: it also means that officials are happy to take bribes.

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#142

Post by jabbany »

powerapple wrote: post #138
jabbany wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that even remotely strategically good for China......? These miners are probably making USD or some other foreign fiat at the end of the day which adds to the supply of foreign reserves without needing to use trade... And if they're siphoning power to get around currency exchange limits moving wealth abroad then a traditional crackdown to confiscate their equipment would be much more effective (you can't exact…

Bitcoin is neither good nor bad for China. The minors are not making USD for foreign reserves to be honest, they are mostly a way to transfer wealth out of the country (buying equipments and electricity and sell bitcoins abroad or not selling it at all). That's why China has banned its bank to do crypto related transactions and exchanges mostly. However, it is hard to enforce. You can find many exchange use Bank Tran…

This is partially correct.

Every time a miner exchanges crypto for RMB (like with Alipay or WeChat), China overall benefits a bit. Because Chinese banks (as you correctly stated) are not allowed to hold crypto and exchanges are illegal, what really happens is the crypto gets exchanged for foreign fiat (like USD) where exchanges are legal, which then gets exchanged for RMB, building up foreign reserves.

In the past, a lot of miners were "foreign investors" (likely other Chinese "nationals" rather than citizens) who lived abroad and would keep the exchanged fiat in foreign bank accounts, which _is_ harmful as they pay for electricity with RMB but get to keep USD. In recent years, a lot of local mining outfits are appearing, and because they ultimately need to spend RMB, the government has no problem with turning a blind eye to them.

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#143

Post by vidarh »

arcticbull wrote: post #64
foepys wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in the event of an attack you just hope they won't target nuclear power plants to recreate Chernobyl and Fukushima?

Nuclear reactors are very much hardened against such attacks, and of course, those were both very different situations. No need to spread FUD about the safest form of electricity in the entire world in terms of deaths per TWh. [1] It's also roughly zero carbon. You know the worst nuclear accident, Chernobyl, killed 4000 people in the full course of time - and we've learned a ton since then. Fukushima killed 1 person.…

Chernobyl shortened the life of a few thousand people, maybe - the estimate keeps dropping - over a 35 year time period. A few dozen were killed quickly. The rest are estimates of deaths based on increased cancer occurrences.

The reason for making the distinction here, is that while some certainly can be reasonably said to have been killed by Chernobyl, and the 4k number may well be reasonable, that number is an estimate based on possible effects on cancer rates over 35 years that have kept being adjusted down as the early high predicted cancer deaths didn't happen. E.g. there was a spike in childhood leukemia, but the death rate was extremely low. Not all of those projected deaths have even happened yet, and then represent often tiny reduction in the total life expectancy for people exposed 35 years ago and counting.

Notably, given the discussion here, coal does exactly the same thing - it keeps persistently, slowly affecting the life expectancy of everyone, only new particulates released keep being released year after year. And incidentally also includes uranium dust. Yet it's a lot easier to ignore those deaths because there's no single specific event for people to link them to.

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#144

Post by Paradigma11 »

pmlnr wrote: post #135
bonestamp2 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a good time to point out that there are energy efficient blockchains that work differently from bitcoin -- not all crypto is as power hungry (some use disk space, or memory, or even just the tokens themselves to replace bitcoin's proof of work model).

So point them out, please. One that is efficient on all levels.

I like Tezos. Its has a very interesting and developed smart contract technology stack: https://tezos.com/developer-portal and is Proof of Stake. You can run a node on a cheap laptop.

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#145

Post by HWR_14 »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #131
chii wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

some nation states can - for example, the US can easily ban it globally. They don't because it does no harm to anyone.

What is the legal mechanism for a unilateral world ban on use of a technology? Closest thing to that I can think of is nuclear proliferation but you’d have to get countries to agree and play strong arm tactics. Possible I guess but not “easily”

I assume the idea is that a technology that, by definition, can only be used publicly faces a far different threat surface than nuclear proliferation.

A significantly powerful actor could exert sufficient force. Russia or the US threatening nuclear war over bitcoin would probably lead to a worldwide ban, although obviously the repercussions would be dramatic. More realistically, the US could state that any bank that does business with bitcoin isn't welcome to participate in the US economy. The US economy is big enough that such a threat might work. This is similar to how the embargoes against Iran worked, and why that Chinese executive is being extradited to the US from Canada.

In reality, if Bitcoin got the point of destabilization where the US felt the need to ban it, the effects would probably be widespread enough that the EU, Japan, the various Commonwealth countries would be convinced to take coordinated action.

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#146

Post by keorn »

pmlnr wrote: post #135
bonestamp2 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a good time to point out that there are energy efficient blockchains that work differently from bitcoin -- not all crypto is as power hungry (some use disk space, or memory, or even just the tokens themselves to replace bitcoin's proof of work model).

So point them out, please. One that is efficient on all levels.

Polkadot: https://wiki.polkadot.network/docs/en/learn-consensus

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#147

Post by vidarh »

foepys wrote: post #93
arcticbull wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear reactors are very much hardened against such attacks, and of course, those were both very different situations. No need to spread FUD about the safest form of electricity in the entire world in terms of deaths per TWh. [1] It's also roughly zero carbon. You know the worst nuclear accident, Chernobyl, killed 4000 people in the full course of time - and we've learned a ton since then. Fukushima killed 1 person.…

Bunker piercing weapons exist and are specifically made to penetrate thick concrete and metal structures.

Who do you imagine would like to attack Germany with bunker piercing missiles but don't have their own radioactive material?

Even just a dirty bomb would have far greater damage potential than slightly increasing cancer rates for the next several decades by replicating something like Chernobyl.

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#148

Post by jabbany »

matkoniecz wrote: post #141
jabbany wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. And China has done exactly that in the past when people were using crypto to launder RMB into USD. The fact that mining operations still exist today at large scales in China means that at least the government has found a way to profit off of crypto (strategically or economically).

> The fact that mining operations still exist today at large scales in China means that at least the government has found a way to profit off of crypto (strategically or economically). Or government do not really care. If it is officially discouraged/illegal: it also means that officials are happy to take bribes.

Yeah. It's also very likely that in some cases only the local government benefits (bribes etc.) rather than necessarily the central/federal government.

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#149

Post by tarsinge »

cygx wrote: post #134
ekianjo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope Germany is massively relying on nuclear energy produced by its neighbors.

There's always something. Did you know that nuclear-power producing France comes close to crashing the grid basically every other winter? See eg https://www.cre.fr/Actualites/RTE-fait-appel-aux-industriels... for the announcement from 2019, but I remember reading articles about this at least as early as 2012.

This is because a lot of French households use electrical heating (because it was encouraged by the government to use the huge sovereign electrical capacity), so cold put a huge stress on the grid. This is not related to nuclear power per se.

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#150

Post by oefrha »

rfoo wrote: post #121
delecti wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few steps in between, but if the chain of events really is: coal mine accidents > coal shortage > power blackouts > drop in bitcoin mining, then the end result is effectively they were indeed slaving away for bitcoin.

No. I'm a native Chinese and from my understanding (read between lines and talking to local friends), the situation is: 1. Coal mine accidents. 2. Someone said "stop mining, make sure all the mine pass security check". Of course they mean coal mining. 3. Government officers confuse "mining coal" and "mining Bitcoin", decided to stop both just because they both have a "mine" word in name. It's quite hilarious how they…

According to the Twitter thread quoted by TFA, https://twitter.com/doveywan/status/1382912887535005701, non-crypto data centers in the region are down as well, which really doesn’t support this reading between lines.
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