Live data from Hacker News

Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

blog.ethereum.org

411–420 of 1001 posts

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#411
post #133

Good. Very good. This may be a radical take, but I think nations should introduce some unprecedented legislation: ban trade of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. Don't ban their trade because they make poor financial products, either because of rampant fraud or criminal activity. That's a different argument and requires different approaches. Ban their trade because global society shouldn't accept rampant incentives to l…

Who decides what is a good use of energy and what isn't?

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

Why do HN comment threads always end up as Pedantry Pageants where all ye who dare comment must address all the fucking edge cases or be called out by the immediate first child comment about failing to do so. It's SO trite, predictable, wearisome and boring . It always follows the same pattern too. "Where do you draw the line?" "Who decides what's the truth?" Always the same fucking slippery slope fallacy. Every fuck…

It's not pedantry, it's calling out issues in armchair proposals. "Why not regulate" and "Why not let the market sort itself out" are kinda intellectually lazy propositions: there are good regulations and bad regulations, and good and bad implementations.

And banning isn't really a proper solution in the first place. It's a literal avenue for tax revenue for countries at this point. The fact that PoS coins like Cardano and L2 solutions like Polygon are bullish despite the crash in Bitcoin shows something about investor sentiment surrounding the whole energy consumption ordeal. Voting with your wallet is a real possible solution and IMHO, people are starting to take the hint.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

Why do HN comment threads always end up as Pedantry Pageants where all ye who dare comment must address all the fucking edge cases or be called out by the immediate first child comment about failing to do so. It's SO trite, predictable, wearisome and boring . It always follows the same pattern too. "Where do you draw the line?" "Who decides what's the truth?" Always the same fucking slippery slope fallacy. Every fuck…

I don’t understand why you don’t find these “where do you draw the line?” inquiries extremely relevant to this conversation. It seems like everyone here has just assumed that Bitcoin is useless and therefore the externalities from its energy usage should be unacceptable. Personally I’m not a big fan of bitcoin’s energy usage either, but it strikes me as bizarre to recommend banning arbitrary things that use energy rather than, for example, addressing the externality problem directly.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#414
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current system is no different, as the hash power is related to how many computers you can afford to buy. This doesn't fix the problem but it does fix the environmental impact.

The difference is that with PoW you constantly have to do "stuff" (ie. buying equipment, running datacenters) or get left behind. PoS on the other hand you can just sit on your ass and wait for the $$$ to roll in.

I find comments like yours hilarious. The idea that the ethereum foundation has spent years and years designing a PoS system, writing papers, doing tests, building proofs of correctness aaaaaand derp they just didn't think of people sitting on their asses.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#415
post #277

The minimum amount of Ether to be eligible to stake is 32 Coins, so it appears that last year in June, about 120k addresses would've met that criterion[0]. That probably changed by now, I'd assume the number to be higher as more people set up 'mining rigs'. That's at least a larger number than I would've guessed. I wonder how many people/entities are behind those addresses. On a side note, I have mixed feelings about…

It is a scam -- all current crypto is a scam for the same reason. One of the other things that people don't understand is that currency and government are inseparable. When you buy Eth (or any other crypto) you're buying into a new system of government.

Do you want to be a citizen of that new government? What will they do for their citizens? Do they plan to build roads or anything else?

Seigniorage should go to the people not the capital holders.

Also, if people don't think there will be validators for each wallet with 32 coins -- which are producing Co2 -- then they are wrong. It just changes the game, not the incentives.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#416
IF it merges. That's a big "if" The ethereum Miners will rebel, "The Merge" will introduce catastrophic bugs, 0-days will appear.

However, if it does successfully transfer to proof of stake, we're in for a long and exciting ride.

Trust is a valuable commodity these days.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

Yes, what about that other thing? Look over there! Is there literally any response that isn't this mere Whataboutism? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Not everything is "Whataboutism". The parent poster wants to know how we should treat various uses of energy in the context of calls for the outright banning of specific uses. How can you expect them to talk about that topic without talking about the various uses of energy that currently exist?

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PoS is not just a more environmentally version of PoW. It is a lot more vulnerable to state level actors. If the state takes over / subverts / influences the limited number of stakeholders, then it is game over. With PoW the state can influence the existing miners, but cannot prevent new independent miners to pop up and counter act.

The exact opposite is true. It's always possible for a state to obtain enough mining hardware - PoW is hopelessly insecure. It also has infinite economies of scale inevitably leading to absolute centralization even absent state attack. Once majority of hashrate is achieved, profits nearly double as minority can be censored. That's the inevitable end state of PoW. PoS is resistant to state attacks because it would req…

> PoS is resistant to state attacks because it would require buying up tokens on an impossible scale

You don't need to buy the tokens. You make laws which the stakers have to follow, otherwise you seize their tokens for breaking the law. You can also use electronic warfare to steal the tokens of stakers outside your juridiction. If you are doing this as a big country such as USA/China, then other stakers might be tempted not to fork because a compromised system that works with those countries might still be more valuable than an uncompromised system that has not access to a large part of the world economy.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Its a technically flawed solution that now has so much hype, abandoning the idea would lead to further FUD, tarnishing the project's future direction. So we must go through the motions to appease the energy FUD warriors.

lol, Ethereum's Beacon Chain already been running since Dec 1. See https://beaconcha.in/ Please point me towards the flaws.

Point me at its purpose?

As far as I can tell, it was a trick to remove coin from circulation, locking it away where it could not be used again. The fact that people have tokenized these beacon coins on other chains to trade show that people want their money back!

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

Why do HN comment threads always end up as Pedantry Pageants where all ye who dare comment must address all the fucking edge cases or be called out by the immediate first child comment about failing to do so. It's SO trite, predictable, wearisome and boring . It always follows the same pattern too. "Where do you draw the line?" "Who decides what's the truth?" Always the same fucking slippery slope fallacy. Every fuck…

This comment isn't productive. The original comment suggests states act to ban wasteful energy use. The comment you're replying to asks "who decides?" , and gives an example of energy use they find particularly wasteful.

You're presupposing this is a problem that needs a solution. I think myself and the commenter you are replying to would agree that either: A) it's not or B) it does not need to be solved by a regulatory body.

Instead of getting annoyed by people pointing out edge cases, it would be more productive to explain what criteria should be used, or admit this is a half baked solution.

Post reply on HN