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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

#161

Post by vidarh »

lucb1e wrote: post #146
vidarh wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming there is a plan, rather than just the president using it to get attention. All that seems to have really happened is that he's asked someone at the majority government owned geothermal power company to look into doing it.

Not exactly. I'm wondering whether the person who says they're going to do something better than what they're currently saying is correct.

Who is saying they are going to do something better? You gave a couple of options, and I pointed out there was an additional option. They are still just options absent a commitment to a plan, and there's no indication anyone has set out any actual plans.

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

#162

Post by pocoloco »

rawtxapp wrote: post #144
fnord123 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mandating BTC as legal tender is an awesome move. To me the most important benefit is that the 70% of the population which was excluded from banking and relegated to use physical currency will now be included. If the economy is an engine and money is the oil, El Salvador, which had only some drops of oil, will now get a complete oil change with synthetic on top of that. You are 100% incorrect. Bitcoin is wildly def…

> You are 100% incorrect. Bitcoin is wildly deflationary. Therefore it does not encourage an economy to function, it encourages people to hold onto it with white knuckles. It's not oil for the economy, it's sand. In my opinion, that's the biggest lie that people have been made to believe to justify constant stealing of their purchasing power over time. People will always spend money for things they need, they will al…

Yes, and this is exactly what Jeff Booth explains in this podcast way better that I ever could:

How Inflation Is Stealing Your Wealth | Jeff Booth | Pomp Podcast #572 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuCqFjU9Wi4

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

#163

Post by deviantfero »

sanderjd wrote: post #145
danbruc wrote: post #110

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…

And if you're going to rig up a volcano for power production, maybe use that power for something useful in your own country.

Geothermal power in El Salvador represents 25% of the country's total electricity production.

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

#164

Post by adrianN »

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.

"Efficient" energy production in practice today is energy production that maximizes externalized costs.

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

#165

Post by kragen »

I wrote a couple of comments yesterday exploring the environmental questions related to Bitcoin in depth: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27450417

The short summary is that the environmental effect of Bitcoin mining is very small at present (12 GW consumption out of the world's 18 TW), but probably positive, because it slightly accelerates the renewable transition. But this could change.

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

#166

Post by rawtxapp »

GhostVII wrote: post #154
rawtxapp wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are 100% incorrect. Bitcoin is wildly deflationary. Therefore it does not encourage an economy to function, it encourages people to hold onto it with white knuckles. It's not oil for the economy, it's sand. In my opinion, that's the biggest lie that people have been made to believe to justify constant stealing of their purchasing power over time. People will always spend money for things they need, they will al…

It also encourages them to invest their money. The choice isn't either spend money on over-consumerism or lose it, the choice is either spend it or invest it so someone else can allocate more resources to what they are doing.

For sure, but then you have to understand and research what you're investing in. We also end up with sky high (in my opinion unjustified) P/E ratios just because money doesn't have elsewhere to go and it creates all kinds of wild inaccurate pricing imo.

In this world where the currency doesn't depreciate like ~95% over a 100 year period, only investments which make sense will get money thrown at them.

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

#167

Post by rawtxapp »

sanderjd wrote: post #142
pocoloco wrote: post #129

As a Salvadoran living abroad but keeping an eye on politics there, I feel the need to comment given the amount of skepticism shown here, which is understandable given the history. I believe that what the president, Nayib Bukele, and his team have done is monumental. The reason is that I also believe that the financial system crashed back in 2008 and has been kept alive by central banks worldwide. Last summer we saw…

Without debating any of your points: bitcoin is a terrible choice for this. It is horribly volatile, it is incredibly expensive to transact in, it is an awful waste of energy. Using a stablecoin on a proof of stake blockchain with high transaction rates would make a lot of sense. But that wouldn't help the officials who pushed this get rich from their stash of bitcoin...

Once again, El Salvador is using lightning network which enable almost instant and practically free Bitcoin payments. PoS isn't perfect either and has it's own sets of problems.

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

#168

Post by oh_sigh »

dadoge wrote: post #4

Remittances, things like wire transfers, account for 22% of their GDP. Bitcoin will give that money back to the people with the way lower cost of transfers, esp through the Lightning Network that is planned to be widely used. Elizabeth Stark boldly said 7 yrs ago and Bitcoin is like TCP and needs an http, and then built Lightning on top of Bitcoin and this is super exciting to see. EDIT: removed “fees”, it’s just rem…

Are you familiar with transfer fees for remittances? I sent $1000 to a friend in Ecuador and paid $1014 total. Will the transfer fees be below 1.4%?

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

#169

Post by baybal2 »

fnord123 wrote: post #136
pocoloco wrote: post #129

As a Salvadoran living abroad but keeping an eye on politics there, I feel the need to comment given the amount of skepticism shown here, which is understandable given the history. I believe that what the president, Nayib Bukele, and his team have done is monumental. The reason is that I also believe that the financial system crashed back in 2008 and has been kept alive by central banks worldwide. Last summer we saw…

> Mandating BTC as legal tender is an awesome move. To me the most important benefit is that the 70% of the population which was excluded from banking and relegated to use physical currency will now be included. If the economy is an engine and money is the oil, El Salvador, which had only some drops of oil, will now get a complete oil change with synthetic on top of that. You are 100% incorrect. Bitcoin is wildly def…

> You are 100% incorrect. Bitcoin is wildly deflationary. Therefore it does not encourage an economy to function

That a widely, blindly believed economist mantra without much basis.

People now don't want to spend money even at the time when interest rates are near negative.

The few countries still with relatively high rates, and credible economy are the ones which register growth.

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

#170

Post by defgeneric »

sanderjd wrote: post #142
pocoloco wrote: post #129

As a Salvadoran living abroad but keeping an eye on politics there, I feel the need to comment given the amount of skepticism shown here, which is understandable given the history. I believe that what the president, Nayib Bukele, and his team have done is monumental. The reason is that I also believe that the financial system crashed back in 2008 and has been kept alive by central banks worldwide. Last summer we saw…

Without debating any of your points: bitcoin is a terrible choice for this. It is horribly volatile, it is incredibly expensive to transact in, it is an awful waste of energy. Using a stablecoin on a proof of stake blockchain with high transaction rates would make a lot of sense. But that wouldn't help the officials who pushed this get rich from their stash of bitcoin...

> But that wouldn't help the officials who pushed this get rich from their stash of bitcoin...

The price didn't move much after the announcement. The whole point is to attract those who have already gotten rich from their stash of bitcoin to come to the country.

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