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

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

#891

Post by dheera » Tue, May 18, 2021, 11:40 PM UTC

danhak wrote: post #734

DickingAround wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? We totally got what we wanted; we have a deflationary currency we trade for goods and services. I'm 100% serious here; it's been working fine for quite a number of years. The fiat conversion is pretty noisy but BTC on average goes up in value in fiat terms at a fast pace. BTC is easy to turn it into stuff. No one has ever censored my transactions or asked for ID. Even if you buy something really exp…

> we have a deflationary currency we trade for goods and services. Such a vanishingly small percentage of cryptocurrency activity is actually used for trade (as opposed to speculation) that it is a novelty and newsworthy when it actually happens. E.g. We all know about that guy who bought a pizza with BTC. And when Tesla decided to allow purchases via BTC (which they have since backtracked) it was a media sensation a…

> And when Tesla decided to allow purchases via BTC

The main reason I don't buy things with cryptocurrency is that it would trigger a liquidation event and short term capital gains taxing.

Due to that, for US residents and citizens, it's not functional as a currency in its current form. I'm vehemently against taxing of cryptocurrency or treating it as a security by the IRS, but that's the way it is now.

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

#892

Post by pvarangot » Tue, May 18, 2021, 11:41 PM UTC

nikanj wrote: post #798

intotheabyss wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe this blatant denialism still exists on HN despite the fact that Ethereum has a thriving defi ecosystem. I can get a loan peer to peer today with my ETH in a stablecoin and yet you say there's no there there? Right....

Cryptos also have a thriving theft ecosystem, and illegal uses dwarf the few defi experiments.

So does any traditional government issued currency, credit cards and banking loans and that doesn't make them useless to me.

Would I work for a crypto startup or as a crypto developer in the US if I'm not a citizen? No

Does crypto work as advertised? Yes

Social wellfare, a 401k, etc... are also "get in first get more money out if you get in late" schemes. A lot of people already cashed out their crypto to tangible assets and are set for life. A lot of other people have our pools as a risky investment and every once in a while rabalance and it puts food on the table. It's full of people with bad intentions but open your eyes, so is the world, those people are also doing pump and dumps and pyramid schemes with fiat and the stock market and putting hits on drug dealers over snail mail or dead-drops.

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

#893

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 18, 2021, 11:55 PM UTC

moralestapia wrote: post #889

DINKDINK wrote: post #874

Paxos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paxos has existed for more than 30 years. If it were easy or simple to issue a money with distributed signing, it'd have been done before Bitcoin's PoW Difficulty Adjustment Fixed Money Issuance novel art was published. Ethereum has been "about to release PoS" for almost 6 years now and all of the initial critiques (By issuing X units of value, you incentivize ~ https://www.truthco…

I went through that as it was happening. Vitalik Buterin & co. have no integrity. Most people should be aware about how they defrauded everybody with the DAO and subsequent fork of Ethereum. But, of course, it has been conveniently sweeped under the rug.

[deleted]

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

#894

Post by fredfoobar » Tue, May 18, 2021, 11:55 PM UTC

Matthias1 wrote: post #890

DINKDINK wrote: post #874

Paxos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paxos has existed for more than 30 years. If it were easy or simple to issue a money with distributed signing, it'd have been done before Bitcoin's PoW Difficulty Adjustment Fixed Money Issuance novel art was published. Ethereum has been "about to release PoS" for almost 6 years now and all of the initial critiques (By issuing X units of value, you incentivize ~ https://www.truthco…

> Without mining, less electricity is used in mining, and less silicon is used in mining chips. Are these resources available for extra production? Yes. However, these “non-wasted” resources are offset by other resources which are “wasted”. This would seem to be the main argument of that second article you posted summarizing the economics around PoS. The idea is that if you’re backing your crypto with itself (like in…

Electricity is the best form of energy to use as the basis for Proof of Work, because there is no pre-requisite on how to generate the required electricity.

compare: electric cars vs ice cars, electric cars can also end up consuming "dirty" electricity from coal fired plants, but that's an option vs. ice cars.

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

#895

Post by musesum » Tue, May 18, 2021, 11:56 PM UTC

RealityVoid wrote: post #772

musesum wrote: post #502

Ironically, lowering the cost of mining may also lower the value of the asset.

I struggle to understand how you came to this conclusion.

Dunno. The cost of mining approaches market price. The hypothesis is: will the inverse be true?

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

#896

Post by vvillena » Wed, May 19, 2021, 12:00 AM UTC

moralestapia wrote: post #889

DINKDINK wrote: post #874

Paxos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paxos has existed for more than 30 years. If it were easy or simple to issue a money with distributed signing, it'd have been done before Bitcoin's PoW Difficulty Adjustment Fixed Money Issuance novel art was published. Ethereum has been "about to release PoS" for almost 6 years now and all of the initial critiques (By issuing X units of value, you incentivize ~ https://www.truthco…

I went through that as it was happening. Vitalik Buterin & co. have no integrity. Most people should be aware about how they defrauded everybody with the DAO and subsequent fork of Ethereum. But, of course, it has been conveniently sweeped under the rug.

In a PoW chain, Vitalik Buterin can talk, propose, and make patches to an Etherum client, but it means nothing unless miners approve the changes by running the updated client. He is the most important voice in that coin's ecosystem, but miners are the ones who decided to approve the fork.

Switching consensus to a different set of rules is entirely within the scope of a PoW system, and it's based on the same mechanism that gives legitimacy to the rest of the blockchain. The original Bitcoin paper explains this perfectly, so I won't replicate it here.

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

#897

Post by skrowl » Wed, May 19, 2021, 12:00 AM UTC

Too little, too late. Cardano (ADA) is going to beat them to it and eat their lunch.

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

#898

Post by Sargos » Wed, May 19, 2021, 12:01 AM UTC

skizm wrote: post #182

Dumb question: if all popular cryptocurrencies shifted to proof of stake, would GPU prices come back down to earth?

Yes

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

#899

Post by samplatt » Wed, May 19, 2021, 12:05 AM UTC

danhak wrote: post #734

DickingAround wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? We totally got what we wanted; we have a deflationary currency we trade for goods and services. I'm 100% serious here; it's been working fine for quite a number of years. The fiat conversion is pretty noisy but BTC on average goes up in value in fiat terms at a fast pace. BTC is easy to turn it into stuff. No one has ever censored my transactions or asked for ID. Even if you buy something really exp…

> we have a deflationary currency we trade for goods and services. Such a vanishingly small percentage of cryptocurrency activity is actually used for trade (as opposed to speculation) that it is a novelty and newsworthy when it actually happens. E.g. We all know about that guy who bought a pizza with BTC. And when Tesla decided to allow purchases via BTC (which they have since backtracked) it was a media sensation a…

It was a media sensation because it was Tesla doing it, not because of what was being done.

Tesla and Musk are attention-sponges and it's a large part of how they're still operating.

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

#900

Post by staplers » Wed, May 19, 2021, 12:10 AM UTC

vbuterin wrote: post #886

leishman wrote: post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm mostly talking about governance. The biggest "users" and governance decision makers of any PoS protocol will be regulated financial institutions (e.g. Coinbase) operating on behalf of end users. In theory Joe Schmoe can be a staker from his garage, but in practice the only stakers that matter will be regulated custodians (full disclosure, I am the CEO of a regulated custodian) other than a handful of independent…

How does this view of PoS governance explain how Ethereum protocol governance has operated in reality for the past five years? As far as I can tell, the power held by miners has been minimal; if miners had any significant power at all then the various issuance reductions and now EIP 1559 would not have been accepted nearly so smoothly. So when miners are replaced by PoS validators, the power that PoS validators will…

Benevolent dictators can make their dictatorship feel very democratic if they aren't abusing their power. The problem is that benevolence eventually erodes when conflicted interests come to head.

Then everyone sees how truly democratic/free something is.