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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

#231

Post by betterunix2 »

arebop wrote: post #227
NoOneNew wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/ They have an extremely detailed explanation and process to determine the footprint of Bitcoin transactions. Anyways, they also have the numbers for Visa based transactions, which can start to give you an idea how efficient the old system of digital transactions are. Its 980,000+ Visa transactions to equate the energy used for 1 bitcoin transaction.

This is comparing Visa's use of energy to Bitcoin's. It is not comparing Visa's use of all resources to Bitcoin's. It is like saying hybrid cars are more efficient than electric or gas cars, because they use less electricity than fully-electric cars and less gas than ICEs.

It is comparing the energy consumed by Visa to the energy consumed by Bitcoin. If you want to get into other resources e.g. supply chains for all the computing hardware used by Visa versus Bitcoin...is there any reason to think Bitcoin would do better here? Mining operations have become enormous, thousands of machines all churning away, and there are many such operations. I suspect Visa has a smaller footprint here as well.

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

#232

Post by bogomipz »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #85
oefrha wrote: post #72

A good reminder that Bitcoin runs on cheap renewables is BS. See also miners buying gas power plants in New York.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26828479

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).

Could you or someone else say how the model that uses the token itself to replace the "proof of work model" works? Which crypto(s) is using this model?

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

#233

Post by betterunix2 »

globular-toast wrote: post #207
antaviana wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that money is essential for civilization. I support what Jeremy Irons said Kevin Spacey in movie Margin Call: “Money is just a made up thing that helps we don’t kill each other for food.”

I don't think it's necessary, but I think it's inevitable, especially in seasonal climates.

That's kind of like saying the wheel is not essential to civilization, but that it is "inevitable." An accounting system of some kind is necessary to organize the limited resources available to any civilization, and that is exactly what money is and how it emerged in early civilizations.

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

#234

Post by lofi_lory »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #85
oefrha wrote: post #72

A good reminder that Bitcoin runs on cheap renewables is BS. See also miners buying gas power plants in New York.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26828479

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).

Heat generation really is the stupidest way of doing things. With things like storage, at least you can reuse it after the fact.

Tho, all these systems require some ressource scarcity and will inherently maintain/promote scarcity. This is completely unacceptable in the coming years. People don't realize how much we need to cut back on natural ressource extraction and energy expenditure. Out whole world is build on massive mineral and energy debt. E.g. natural cycles do not allow for biomass generation for food and energy on today's scale. It's simply impossible, the math doesn't check out. See peak phosphorus or dive into the viability of bio-plastics. If we don't tap into some unlimited energy source soon, we have to massively cut back in everything we consume. It's madness to use any unnecessary energy or resource on crypto finance, when there are more energy efficient alternatives.

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

#235

Post by NoOneNew »

arebop wrote: post #227
NoOneNew wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/ They have an extremely detailed explanation and process to determine the footprint of Bitcoin transactions. Anyways, they also have the numbers for Visa based transactions, which can start to give you an idea how efficient the old system of digital transactions are. Its 980,000+ Visa transactions to equate the energy used for 1 bitcoin transaction.

This is comparing Visa's use of energy to Bitcoin's. It is not comparing Visa's use of all resources to Bitcoin's. It is like saying hybrid cars are more efficient than electric or gas cars, because they use less electricity than fully-electric cars and less gas than ICEs.

So you're telling me that Bitcoin can make up ground for being almost a million times less efficient on a basic and everyday use case of currency in some other way? Please, go ahead and tell me. That's like saying you have the fastest drive thru hamburger shop even though it takes an hour for someone to get their food. But the burger joint is faster "elsewhere". Where else could Bitcoin make up the energy efficiency problem? Especially efficiency where it actually matters.

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

#236

Post by loceng »

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…

So it's either incompetence (a mistake) or a cover for plausible deniability?

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

#237

Post by mrfusion »

tarsinge wrote: post #140
pmlnr wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Ethereum POS chain is live and the migration of the main chain is planned for the end of the year.

Where can I learn more about this assuming I have an 85-90 IQ?

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

#238

Post by nyolfen »

danShumway wrote: post #228
disruptalot wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reader will find dozens of suggestion in this thread about how coin X is more "efficient". Note that efficiency would mean producing the same properties but with less resources. Not merely using less resources. While experimentation is certainly desired, it's a fallacy that any coin has actually reproduced bitcoin in a more efficient way. To name a couple, - Bitcoin had what some call an "immaculate conception" w…

> have stood in the market for 10 years straight At which point, Bitcoin proponents will up the requirements again. This is an excuse people use to avoid talking about the fact that Bitcoin has spent the last 2-3 years consistently proving that it doesn't scale and that it is unusable as a currency. > had what some call an "immaculate conception" Or, it was a good first try that needs iteration now that we understand…

> Or, it was a good first try that needs iteration now that we understand that hyper-deflation is a bad thing for a currency

in what sense is bitcoin "hyper-deflation"ary? i think you are thinking of the word "deflation" but i know that doesn't sound as smart

>The weird, religious loyalty people have to reinterpreting Bitcoin's flaws as strengths is setting the entire crypto ecosystem back. If you want to appeal to 'stability', then banks have been around for centuries. But if you're trying to build something new, you're going to have occasionally innovate and iterate on the thing you're building.

there is nothing stopping anybody from making something better, so go on

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

#239

Post by betterunix2 »

cortic wrote: post #230
oefrha wrote: post #72

A good reminder that Bitcoin runs on cheap renewables is BS. See also miners buying gas power plants in New York.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26828479

The ability to turn electricity into money is not the problem, or if it is, then lump all of modern endeavors in capitalism alongside of Bitcoin. The problem is we (the world) are not effectively taxing carbon emissions. Right now it should be unprofitable to use coal or oil energy. If this was done right, Bitcoin would be a massive stimulus to renewables.

How is Bitcoin a boon to renewables? Bitcoin consumes energy, and that energy is not being used for other things. Taxing one form of energy will just mean everything that uses energy becomes more expensive; Bitcoin fees would rise or mining operations would simply move to places without the tax.

The actual problem is that Bitcoin's incentive structure works against energy efficiency. Usually we would expect to see improvements in technology result in reductions in energy consumption. Instead, when a new hashing machine is built that computes the same number of hashes for less energy, the response from Bitcoin miners is to compute more hashes using the same amount of energy. That is what Bitcoin incentivizes, and that is why Bitcoin will always be an environmental catastrophe even if we only had renewable power sources (take a look at the environmental cost of producing a solar panel -- there is more to the environment than carbon emissions).

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

#240

Post by loceng »

zoshi wrote: post #89

Bitcoin's hash rate has always been volatile, and it doesn't cause problems. Look at the raw values at https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate >.

Indeed, though it's a nice flex/wink to show their current CCP controlled Bitcoin mining capacity; Peter Thiel's stated dislike of Bitcoin is for exactly this reason, international security and integrity.
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