El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by pyrale » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

garydevenay wrote: post #10

pizza234 wrote: post #2

Two questions: - will those moves make the country a good location for laundering bitcoins? - generally speaking, is there no other way of profiting from surplus electricity (which essentially, this is)?

In the case of laundering Bitcoin— this seems to be a majorly misunderstood concept. Bitcoin transactions are completely transparent and observable by everyone who has an internet connection. Anyone (with an internet connection) can watch any wallet and observe any and all transactions. The notion of a country being a "good location for laundering bitcoins" doesn't really make sense, as Bitcoin are never in a locatio…

> it's exceptionally simple to scale up and down in accordance with available cheap surplus.

This point comes back frequently, but it's actually not true.

In order to turn a profit from bitcoin, you need to offset hardware depreciation costs, and that usually means you need to mine 24/7.

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

#182

Post by 29athrowaway » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #137

29athrowaway wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a government... 1) owns a profitable state company 2) that does not require the cooperation of the population in order to be profitable ...the result is a dictatorship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

That sounds a lot like Norway though, didn't they have this massive amount of money from some natural resource (oil I think) and made a big pension fund for the population? There are obviously also counter-examples, but a currently-democratic country finding a new way to make money from natural resources, I wouldn't expect we have a large enough sample size to really say anything about that with certainty. Edit: The…

Because oil was discovered in modern times when Norway was already a developed society with strong institutions and an educated populace.

In contrast, El Salvador right now is still fighting barbarism and anarchy.

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

#183

Post by jerry1979 » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

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…

People in El Salvador will simply have the free choice to put their money into BTC. If people in El Salvador make or lose a bit of money because they diversify their exposure, will they not have contributed to the overall price signal process of the free market? Why is it bad to give people options?

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

#184

Post by lucasnortj » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

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…

lol "new financial system", bitcoin is literally useless. take of your tinfoil hat

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

#185

Post by NovemberWhiskey » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

graderjs wrote: post #17

It just gets better and better. - ES makes BTC fiat - ES taps volcanoes to mine BTC What next? - ES uses natural wormholes to plot the future timeline and win Earth?

A more historically supportable outcome would be a coup by a military junta and/or a civil war.

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

#186

Post by lucasnortj » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

Looks like El Salvador is on a mission to make itself the world's fool. crypto "currencies" have no use case except for gamblers, stop wasting everyone's time. There is literally nothing more useless that this electricity could be used for

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

#187

Post by munificent » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

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.

This is true exactly to the degree that landmines reward efficient blood donation.

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

#188

Post by jerry1979 » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

Avshalom wrote: post #173

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…

>> Lets remember that the law obligates the government to instruct all citizens on the use of the technology and to provide the means if necessary. This means that the government now has to provide connectivity to all citizens and teach them. Nayib has shown that he’s up to the task. For example, El Salvador is providing every child in the public school system with a laptop and free internet connectivity. That could…

If this experiment works, it should benefit the people in El Salvador because they now have the option to transact and communicate their purchase preferences all around the globe instead of just to the people they meet in person. As for using normal banks, I reckon we had the whole 20th century to try that experiment. Now, banks seem a bit like hope-cope such that it seems like a matter of shitting in one hand and "could have been done with just like a public bank" in the other.

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

#189

Post by defgeneric » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #148

At what point do the Bitcoin bros notice the company they keep is getting more and more ridiculous?

What exactly is ridiculous about El Salvador? What an ignorant and racist comment.

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

#190

Post by bogota » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #108

bogota wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pop…

You defeated your own argument :) I’m referring to the whole nation as poor which it is. Poor people rarely benefit from any government economic policies but in order to have them the government needs to be in a place to offer them to start with.

There’s some other points to be argued such as people now are holding an asset that is volatile but deflationary in nature by default and they have the option to convert and hold a currency which will lose value over time (USD). I’m not saying “bitcoin is going to save them” but its at least a novel approach that i think is worth exploring for countries in this position.