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El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

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Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#101

Post by bogota »

xwolfi wrote: post #90
fasteo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tagging it as "ridiculous" calls for a minimal clarification

Like maybe there are more pressing problems than making bitcoin with this electricity supply. I dont know but it feels wasted on a fad.

They are doing it to make money how is making money a fad? The reality of living in a poor nation like this is that unless they take a gamble they will most likely continue with the same level of violence and poverty. Its very easy to look down on people from an ivory tower though and call it a waste.

Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#102

Post by nitrogen »

bogota wrote: post #97
acjohnson55 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually a complete waste. All it produces is more security for the blockchain, which is of low marginal value. They could use that energy to produce something of actual value, like hydroponic food, or desalinated water, or run a data center, or literally anything else.

Bitcoin has value that they can spend on doing all of this. You are falsely saying the only value it provides is blockchain security when im sure that isn’t even a reason they thought about when doing this. Its to produced more money for the government and hopefully that translates to better public infrastructure.

Bitcoin has value that they can spend on doing all of this.

Money doesn't directly convert into food. Someone still has to consume the energy to actually make things. By using energy to mine bitcoin to buy food, one is potentially doubling energy consumed.

Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#103

Post by wmil »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #91
enchiridion wrote: post #79

So, I'm going to choose to be an optimist when it comes to crypto energy consumption. There has literally never been a more direct reward for efficient energy production.

It's actually a complete waste. All it produces is more security for the blockchain, which is of low marginal value. They could use that energy to produce something of actual value, like hydroponic food, or desalinated water, or run a data center, or literally anything else.

Right now there's a chicken and egg problem where cheap power is not near things that need it.

Crypto mining will allow places with cheap power sources to build up energy production. Once that's established it's easier to build up infrastructure for things like data centers.

Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#104

Post by jlarocco »

kerng wrote: post #99
lucb1e wrote: post #37

Almost half the electricity produced in El Salvador is from fossil sources (they don't have nuclear power): https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.PETR.ZS?location... Option A: invest in that volcano and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Option B: invest in that volcano and mine bitcoin. B makes them richer so long as other people keep expecting Bitcoin prices to rise (increasing demand), so I can see why they do…

Its telling of the quality if HN, if the top comment is a false dichotomy... I have noticed a steep decline of thoughtful comments over the last year. And of course: why not do both, and more? Edit: lots of downvotes, but at least a higher quality comment is on top now.

Yeah, it's hard to imagine an implementation where the geothermal can only be used for bitcoin mining.

I'm not a fan of crypto or bitcoin, but if it funds their roll out of geothermal power, then that seems like a net-positive.

Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#105

Post by cratermoon »

lucb1e wrote: post #37

Almost half the electricity produced in El Salvador is from fossil sources (they don't have nuclear power): https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.PETR.ZS?location... Option A: invest in that volcano and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Option B: invest in that volcano and mine bitcoin. B makes them richer so long as other people keep expecting Bitcoin prices to rise (increasing demand), so I can see why they do…

> B makes them richer

B makes the colonizing foreign investors richer. It won't do shit for the poor country.

Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#106

Post by [deleted] »

oogabooga123 wrote: post #44
jMyles wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> makes BTC fiat Did I miss a memo? Or is this a sort of Freduian slip wherein you said 'fiat' when you meant to say 'official'? It seems to me that we've been conditioned to conflate the two.

That’s what “fiat” means. Did you have a Freudian slip wherein you said “fiat” when you meant to say “debt based central bank monetary system”?

[deleted]

Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#107

Post by narrator »

emodendroket wrote: post #77
deweller wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false dichotomy. They can subsidize the startup costs for harvesting geothermal energy from Bitcoin mining and then use the geothermal infrastructure to produce electricity for the country.

It's not a false dichotomy. The infrastructure does not exist and they can't do both things at once

They can put the Bitcoin mine out in the middle of nowhere next to the volcano. Building a transmission and distribution infrastructure to the rest of the country can be funded by the Bitcoin mine.

Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#108

Post by cratermoon »

bogota wrote: post #101
xwolfi wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like maybe there are more pressing problems than making bitcoin with this electricity supply. I dont know but it feels wasted on a fad.

They are doing it to make money how is making money a fad? The reality of living in a poor nation like this is that unless they take a gamble they will most likely continue with the same level of violence and poverty. Its very easy to look down on people from an ivory tower though and call it a waste.

> They are doing it to make money

In no scenario does "they" refer to El Salvador's poor population, especially not the indigenous peoples. The money will go to the colonizing foreign investors and circulate in things like CDOs. A few crumbs that fall off the table will go to improving the lives of the upper end of El Salvador's people, and incidentally some crumbs of the crumbs might fall down to the rest of the population. Trickle down, eh?

Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#109

Post by sklearncowboy »

xwolfi wrote: post #90
fasteo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tagging it as "ridiculous" calls for a minimal clarification

Like maybe there are more pressing problems than making bitcoin with this electricity supply. I dont know but it feels wasted on a fad.

I think this is a real problem in the West.

Consider how much brain power and resources have been spent on quant finance and crypto now in the past 20 years.

Imagine if all those resources had been spent on something more productive.

Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#110

Post by danbruc »

How much money is there to be mined per year? On the order of 10 billion dollar? What share of the total hash rate could you realistically buy and power with your volcano? One percent? Probably not ten percent. What would the investment for the hardware be? I have a hard time imagining that you could make a noticeable difference this way even for an economy like Salvador's. And there are probably many better ways to spend money than buying mining ASICs.
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