Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge • Hacker News Board

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

#481

Post by hajile » Tue, May 18, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

fvdessen wrote: post #189

DCKing wrote: 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…

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.

Don't forget the billionaire problem either.

Proof of Stake as setup gives all the power to people/companies who have large amounts of liquid assets.

Consider Amazon, they keep a rolling window of cash in-between when an item is sold and when the seller gets paid. This effectively gives them billions in interest-free capital. If this were Etherium, it would translate into huge amounts of voting power.

Likewise, if/when people deposit their etherium into banks, those banks can then leverage that "free" capital to grab huge voting stakes that wouldn't otherwise exist (because no person living paycheck to paycheck has the equivalent of 100k sitting around).

This leverage simply does not exist with proof of work.

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

#482

Post by exo762 » Tue, May 18, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

DickingAround wrote: post #261

This reduces security considerably. Fundamentally, the proof of work system locks in longer chains because of all the work that was done historically . If there is just one honest node out there you will be able to tell the difference between the honest one and a majority of fakes. With proof of stake there is nothing beyond the will of the current majority to lock in what is right. If you feel the majority is always…

> Fundamentally, the proof of work system locks in longer chains because of all the work that was done historically.

VDFs used in Ethereum's hybrid PoS replicate this property to large-enough extent. In case of PoW the resource you MUST spent to replicate the chain is electric energy, lots of it. In case of VDF it's mostly time. So one can imagine launching multiple "fake" chains using stolen/bought private keys, but such chain will get banned via software upgrade immediately after detection. Very hard to pull off, impossible to pull of multiple times.

EDIT: my bad, stolen keys will get banned by the network immediately and automatically. They break "equivocation" rule.

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

#483

Post by fredfoobar » Tue, May 18, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

Everything in this universe is analogous to Proof of Work, it's the most natural system out there. If there is a base monetary layer for the internet, it should be Proof of Work based (and Bitcoin, because it's got the most work done to improve the technology + network effects).

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

#484

Post by swensel » Tue, May 18, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

BTCOG wrote: post #239

G3rn0ti wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Banning their trade won't categorically stop PoW cryptocurrencies. What it should do is completely tank their value and get the world to move on to less destructive coins. This ban needed to be internationally, though. Pretty difficult to enforce on a global scale. And then it would only have a short term influence on the price of, say, Bitcoin, until enough “black” mining power emerges. I would just relax. Bitcoin…

In the long run, it's going to be very green. There are Crypto Climate Accord groups working to ensure Bitcoin is carbon-neutral by 2030. What is being done currently is making leaps and bounds in using solar, hydro, wind and trapped energy for bitcoin mining. It's pushing industry to green. Not the phony narrative that's constantly pushed by people who are quite literally, spreading allowed disinformation across Hac…

Are the people downvoting the above comment considering things like trapping excess flare gas [1]? This is energy that is literally wasted otherwise, and would be vented into the atmosphere, if not used for PoW mining (or put to some other undetermined use, but PoW is the only profitable alternative that has made sense so far vs just flaring the gas).

Maybe there need to be more guidelines around how to use excess energy instead of coal, but to totally disregard that PoW could be mined from excess energy is shortsighted. Flare gas is just one example.

[1] https://oilmanmagazine.com/how-and-why-natural-gas-flaring-i...

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

#485

Post by citilife » Tue, May 18, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

DCKing wrote: 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…

Bitcoins "power consumption" has two aspects - mining and processing transactions. The power consumption used for mining (or processing) is directly correlated to the relative earning potential - i.e. bitcoin price - power cost. Mining takes up the vast majority of the computation(s) and mining bitcoin should end somewhere between 2040 and 2050.

That is to say, it's self correcting. If the price of energy increases, there is less mining. Alternatively, the miners are also incentivized to find cheaper or develop cheaper alternatives; this spurs innovation.

If prices rise due to mining, innovation will take place and more energy will be developed.

There's nothing wrong with this mechanism, as it corrects itself. In 2050 when you can no longer mine bitcoin we will that have an abundance of cheap power. Which is the single greatest factor in reducing poverty.

Frankly, I think this comment is off base. So far there have been zero negative measurable impacts from power usage related to crypto.

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

#486

Post by delaaxe » Tue, May 18, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

DCKing wrote: 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…

Bitcoin mining uses as much energy as Christmas lights in the USA. Should we ban Christmas lights because of their energy usage? This debate is turning to madness

https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-mining-energy-consumption-us-...

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

#487

Post by fuddle » Tue, May 18, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

DCKing wrote: 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…

I'd be in favour of banning the use of fossil fuels for corporations mining proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. There is a few examples of Bitcoin miners using Coal power sources!

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

#488

Post by cliftonk » Tue, May 18, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

helen___keller wrote: post #106

roel_v wrote: post #75

Maybe this is a good time and place to ask - let's say I want to buy something using Ethereum. Is it correct that when I look at, say, https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_average_transaction_... , you have to pay USD 20 just as payment fees? I wrote off Bitcoin as a payment mechanism a long time ago because of this (although it seems BTC tx costs are now lower than ETH?), is this the direction tx costs for all cr…

To directly answer your question: currently, ethereum has the same fundamental scaling problems that bitcoin has (limited global throughput) Bitcoin's attempted solution on this front is off-chain scaling via lightning network. As far as I can ascertain, this has had highly limited adoption. Eth's attempted solution on this front is sharding. I can't claim to be an expert in this, but from my understanding after proo…

Eth has a sidechain called Polygon with orders of magnitude more usage than bitcoin's lightning network. There are a number of other promising "scaling solutions" launching in the coming weeks. Sharding is unlikely to happen in 2021.

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

#489

Post by tenacious_tuna » Tue, May 18, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

fredfoobar wrote: post #477

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #435

I really wish the UN could get together and implement a global treaty on a revenue neutral carbon tax. The only reason energy is as cheap as it is right now is because we're not properly pricing in the externalities of environmental damage. This would immediately make unproductive energy use ( cough POW crypto cough) a lot less profitable, without the government having to come in and set prices and regs for every lit…

Yeah, nope. Consider the amount of energy wasted right now and also in similar "industries". https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/bitcoin-uses-less-than-...

To me, this says those other "similar 'industries'" should *also* be regulated in this way. We shouldn't excuse bitcoin just because there's other worse offenders, we should address the entire sector. I'll phrase it this way: do high-frequency-trading and coin-mining contribute positively to the world as a whole? Are they producing goods that improve the standard of living on a global scale, tangible or otherwise? Are those good worth the negative environment and social impact their production causes?

Assuming HFT/coin mining do indeed contribute in these ways, are there less energy-intensive solutions that could produce the same or a similar effect?

I think it's completely reasonable for there to be regulations that limit the global impact of activities (e.g. emissions, global warming, chip shortage) for the good of the general population, especially in relation to how much tangible good they produce. That's the whole point of governments and regulations to begin with; see also, things like leaded fuels, or asbestos, or trust-busting.

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

#490

Post by exo762 » Tue, May 18, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

nwah1 wrote: post #464

This article obscures the truth, which will be obvious soon, that Ethereum will remain multiple orders of magnitude less efficient than traditional banks.

> Ethereum will remain multiple orders of magnitude less efficient than traditional banks.

As a payment network? Layer 2 solutions will be in production by the end of this summer which will enable payments that costs 3 cents, regardless of demand or amount transferred. Working alongside with smart contracts. Lookup zkSync 2.0 / zkPorter.