51–60 of 134 posts
Bitcoin ate all the GPUs and I said nothing because I was not a gamer. Now Chia wants to eat all the hard disks, and I am pissed . I declare war on hegemonizing proof-of-waste swarms. Burn the coins. I want that disk space back.
Bitcoin ate all the GPUs and I said nothing because I was not a gamer. Now Chia wants to eat all the hard disks, and I am pissed . I declare war on hegemonizing proof-of-waste swarms. Burn the coins. I want that disk space back.
“Chia” means “shat” in French.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't count on it collapsing any time soon. Not with everyone from Visa to Time magazine jumping on the bandwagon >I've never built a PC. Definitely worthwhile. Basically lego for adults. Tons of good info here https://old.reddit.com/r/buildapc/
There is a well known curse to Time/Newsweek/Businessweek covers. Things that make the front page there tend to do worse. No guarantee, but it’s more of an anti signal.
Bitcoin ate all the GPUs and I said nothing because I was not a gamer. Now Chia wants to eat all the hard disks, and I am pissed . I declare war on hegemonizing proof-of-waste swarms. Burn the coins. I want that disk space back.
Ethereum are the GPU's. Bitcoin utilizes ASIC's designed only for Bitcoin. This is an eventual e-waste issue, but not a GPU supply issue.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just don’t get the sustainability argument.. Who decided that all computing must be for a sustainable or meaningful purpose? Cryptocurrency, as wasteful as it might appear, is like a drop in the ocean compared to the data centers of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. Likes on Facebook provide much less value to society than a distributed currency that circumvents central control over the financial system. Second, Cr…
Bitcoin alone is estimated to use around 129 TWh of electricity [1], compared to 12 TWh for Google or 200 TWh for literally all other data centers [2]. Hardly a drop in the bucket, unless that drop is the size of 10 buckets. Surely not even the most hardcore cryptocurrency enthusiast would argue that crypto provides anywhere near the utility of the rest of the entire internet . [1] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/vi…
It's really important that manufacturers start responding to cryptocurrency induced shortages with auctions. The demand from the cryptocurrency users will be extremely high until they've spent a particular amount in total. They can do that with 1000 units, or with 5000 units. Obviously auctioning off units would be bad for having predictable prices for retail customers but that is irrelevant if aggressive miner buyin…
Burning your regular customers is terrible business practice. It's not always about the money. Also, remember when Martin Shkreli increased the price of an anti-parasitic drug by 5000%? That upset a lot of people, and arguably it's what put him in jail. Of course, HDDs are not quite the same as vital medicine.
Yeah it’s bad for regular customers, but if there’s no supply then what would they be able to get anyway?
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This doesn't change that the shortages are caused by processes with infinite appetites. The demand grows with the supply, for hardware used by cryptocurrencies. To me it looks like the polar opposite of sustainability, which is distressing.
I just don’t get the sustainability argument.. Who decided that all computing must be for a sustainable or meaningful purpose? Cryptocurrency, as wasteful as it might appear, is like a drop in the ocean compared to the data centers of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. Likes on Facebook provide much less value to society than a distributed currency that circumvents central control over the financial system. Second, Cr…
It isn't, as 'mytherin points out.
> Likes on Facebook provide much less value to society
That's absurdly untrue. For all the warts of big social media players, they still provide tremendous social value - rich long-distance communication, organizing ad-hoc groups of people (including, in particular, meatspace ones), improved exchange of news worldwide, making things easier for local commerce, ... I could go on. And while these services can, and are, being misused, they are still at least doing something useful.
> than a distributed currency that circumvents central control over the financial system.
Except it doesn't. But even if it did, this isn't necessarily a good idea in the first place.
> How much “energy” does it take to disassemble a mountain and suck out precious metals or diamonds?
Less than it takes to run Bitcoin, and it's also a one-time expense.
> How much energy does it take to manufacture all the coins and paper money the world over?
Not that much on an ongoing basis. It's also O(n) with respect to the amount of extra money you need in circulation. A trivial cost compared to what the upkeep would be if we tried to run the world economy on Bitcoin.
> And how many innocent people have been gunned down for the petrodollar or some other dispute over fiat currency?
People kill other people for profit. That's a fact of life, independent of the way money is represented. That they don't kill each other over crypto says only one thing: that right now, cryptocurrencies are completely irrelevant to the economy. If crypto ever sees any serious adoption, a proportional body count will follow.
(Also, I imagine the number for Bitcoin is already greater than zero, given that cryptocurrencies are disproportionally popular with criminals compared to general population.)
It's really important that manufacturers start responding to cryptocurrency induced shortages with auctions. The demand from the cryptocurrency users will be extremely high until they've spent a particular amount in total. They can do that with 1000 units, or with 5000 units. Obviously auctioning off units would be bad for having predictable prices for retail customers but that is irrelevant if aggressive miner buyin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just don’t get the sustainability argument.. Who decided that all computing must be for a sustainable or meaningful purpose? Cryptocurrency, as wasteful as it might appear, is like a drop in the ocean compared to the data centers of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. Likes on Facebook provide much less value to society than a distributed currency that circumvents central control over the financial system. Second, Cr…
> Cryptocurrency, as wasteful as it might appear, is like a drop in the ocean compared to the data centers of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. It isn't, as 'mytherin points out. > Likes on Facebook provide much less value to society That's absurdly untrue. For all the warts of big social media players, they still provide tremendous social value - rich long-distance communication, organizing ad-hoc groups of people (…
This is a fascinating insight I had not considered.
TIL all it takes to be a reputable "industry insider" is an anonymous reddit account.