21–30 of 39 posts
I agree with Dorsey on this. It reminds me of what Andreessen said, “The best thing for the environment is economic growth.”
I think the oft-misattributed Einstein quote applies here. "The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."
But your point stands.
it incentivizes the cheapest energy source... like every other thing that uses energy...
It's worse than that. Because BTC can be transferred globally, it actually increases demand for the cheapest energy regardless of location . One could easily imagine it becoming a way for Chinese or Korean coal mines to grow and remain profitable. Aluminum aka "solid electricity" somewhat fills this role as well, but aluminum certainly doesn't travel as quickly as a coin.
+ “Bitcoin is good for environment” + YouTube CEO awards herself a Freedom award It all makes sense now - it is an opposite year from Sponge Bob
There needs to be a term for this, perhaps Marie Antoinette syndrome , unfortunately there is already another Marie Antoinette syndrome[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Antoinette_syndrome
That doesn't help the environment directly of course, it only helps you.
But I suppose you could argue that it drives down the cost of operating a wind farm, which in principle makes you able to sell renewable energy cheaper.
I mean this is like saying coll-rolling incentivizes renewable energy or pouring lead into the river incentivizes the local water agency to up their game. Technically correct, but in this case the worst kind of correct
I mean this is like saying coll-rolling incentivizes renewable energy or pouring lead into the river incentivizes the local water agency to up their game. Technically correct, but in this case the worst kind of correct
Pardon my ignorance but what is coll-rolling?
I mean, some of this is kind of stupid
>Bitcoin miners are unique energy buyers in that they offer highly flexible and easily interruptible load
Is it? Is that at all true. My guess is that the economics of crypto are such that to get an ROI on your huge capital expense (mining boxes that have a limited life and are depreciating quickly), you need to be running your mining rig 100% utilization. My guess is far from being a buyer of last resort the exact opposite happens - you build your mining farm next to a wind farm and instead of acting as a buyer of last resort your miner soaks up almost the entire supply of cheap energy pushing all the actual useful activity back onto non-renewables. What happens when China changes their regulations, a load of miners fall off the network, the reward shoots right up and miners cause brown outs around the world because they're suddenly no longer buyers or last resort but instead are incredibly incentivized to mine as much as possible.
And I say guess in all this because the white paper offers literally no justification for why BTC miners would be a buyer of last resort instead of what they are demonstrably doing right now - which is crowding out useful energy uses in markets where energy costs are artificially low.
I agree with Dorsey on this. It reminds me of what Andreessen said, “The best thing for the environment is economic growth.”
The easiest and laziest way to get economic growth is by growing the population.