Using graphic cards to mine bitcoin became unprofitable about 10 years ago. The graphic card shortage can be linked to other cryptocurrencies.
Primarily Ethereum, which will hopefully be migrating away from proof of work (mining) in late 2021 / early 2022, so hopefully there will be an abundance of cheap second hand options (which will admittedly have lead hard lives), but also dramatically reduce the demand for new cards.
The Ethereum merge is now scheduled for "Q1/Q2", so I think even "early 2022" is extremely optimistic and 2021 is right out.
That's the whole problem isn't? The actions of any individual, or even the actions of everyone in a small-to-medium sized nation are just too small on their own to mark significant change. Too many people aren't willing to accept this simple fact: the standard of living in the cushy societies of the Western middle class is completely and utterly unsustainable. And probably never will be. Avoiding environmental degrad…
I agree with the last part. There is a huge amount of moral licensing as well (I recycled this cardboard box, so flying to Aruba is ok). But I think both collectively and individually we are unwilling to make the required sacrifices. You're right, the actions of one person don't make a significant change, but they do make some change. If everyone who said they were deeply concerned about the environment started to ma…
I think what a lot of people who say individual change is useless fail to realize is that individual change isn't about tipping the scale from their effort alone. An individual change may influence another individual (friend, loved one, someone on the internet, etc) to follow, and now you have 2 individuals. Keep repeating that and it may stop being an individual change.
Someone points out a legitimate problem with something, and the "response" is to point out a "bigger" problem with something else. Its not a response, its a misdirection. Changing the subject doesnt work. We have seen this "response" so many times that its laughable. Its like a person who owns large number of shares of Company X and everytime someone brings up the serious problems at Company X she tries to change the…
The problem is, when pretty much anyone brings up Bitcoin's issues , they've got an axe to grind. So I find it totally valid to bring up any and all bigger, worse, and longer historied comparisons to highlight that complaining about Bitcoin is quite petty; a mosquito bite for a cancer patient. Bitcoin is still new and poorly understood by a significant percentage of the population and therefore hasn't become part of…
I’m open to having my mind changed about blockchain/bitcoin’s utility, I could also see a new cryptocurrency changing my mind about all of this, I really _want_ to like this stuff! But whenever I ask people about the environmental impact of crypto (or really any sub-surface level question about blockchain, smart contracts or NFTs) they either dodge the question, ignore the question, give a shallow non-answer, or call me (a developer who works on integrating AR, VR, IoT and neural style transfer into live theatre) a luddite who doesn’t understand or is afraid of technological change. I’d love to be persuaded about why I should incorporate blockchain into my bag of shiny tricks or how I could use it for good. But I’m getting very frustrated with the community’s refusal to answer a lot of really basic questions about it.
Why would that be hard? It's used for tons of illegal activity (ransomware as an example).
Only .4% of bitcoin transactions are used for illegal activities. It'd be hard because you'd have to find every single node and disconnect it from the internet, and something like 90% of Bitcoin nodes run over TOR
> Only .4% of bitcoin transactions are used for illegal activities.
And you know this... how?
Did you know that 96% of statistics are made up on the spot?
Someone points out a legitimate problem with something, and the "response" is to point out a "bigger" problem with something else. Its not a response, its a misdirection. Changing the subject doesnt work. We have seen this "response" so many times that its laughable. Its like a person who owns large number of shares of Company X and everytime someone brings up the serious problems at Company X she tries to change the…
The problem is, when pretty much anyone brings up Bitcoin's issues , they've got an axe to grind. So I find it totally valid to bring up any and all bigger, worse, and longer historied comparisons to highlight that complaining about Bitcoin is quite petty; a mosquito bite for a cancer patient. Bitcoin is still new and poorly understood by a significant percentage of the population and therefore hasn't become part of…
> The problem is, when pretty much anyone brings up Bitcoin's issues , they've got an axe to grind
Or it could be that rational people look at incredibly slow and energy expensive security with no fundamentals and no applications after a decade and are skeptical.
I mean, why would someone have an axe to grind? Bitcoin stole their girl?
Only .4% of bitcoin transactions are used for illegal activities. It'd be hard because you'd have to find every single node and disconnect it from the internet, and something like 90% of Bitcoin nodes run over TOR
> Only .4% of bitcoin transactions are used for illegal activities. And you know this... how? Did you know that 96% of statistics are made up on the spot?