China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’ • Hacker News Board

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#221

Post by cecilpl2 » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 1:35 PM UTC

macinjosh wrote: post #178

jhgb wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CO2 emissions are Θ(P). I don't see how you could say this "does not correlate directly to CO2 emissions".

Its not complicated. It is not necessary for crypto PoW to be powered by CO2 emitting fuels. It can be powered with renewables. Therefore the power usage of Bitcoin can't be used to infer its environmental impact. You need to know how much of that usage was on the back of fossil fuels.

Energy is fungible.

If base load were to drop due to crypto miners being turned off, the energy with highest marginal cost would be turned off, which means fossil fuels, not renewables.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#222

Post by zionic » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

FabHK wrote: post #167

ChrisRR wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. It's literally just burning the world's resources just for the modern equivalent of beanie babies For those who genuinely want decentralised currency, there's so many more efficient options

"imagine if keeping your car idling 24/7 produced solved Sudokus you could trade for heroin" https://twitter.com/Theophite/status/1030225104234373121

I traded mine for ~50% of my house.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#223

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

pskiba wrote: post #198

gwbas1c wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the actual reason so many governments are speeding the push against crypto might be related to a future of high inflation and high gov debt The reason why we have inflation and debt is to keep the value of our currencies stable. IE, if people want to use dollars, the US government can print more dollars to satisfy the demand. (And thus keep the value stable.) Cryptocurrency's volatile value is a result of its inabi…

> The reason why we have inflation and debt is to keep the value of our currencies stable A stable currency would have an inflation rate of 0%. Inflation does not cause currency stability, it decreases the value of the currency. By definition, its value is changing.

> A stable currency would have an inflation rate of 0%

Sure, and if the government had centralized control of all prices, it could mandate that. Since it doesn't (even those that assert that power don't have it in practice), what it seeks to do, as far as stability, is try to acheive low short-term price volatility, and as it turns out, experience shows that low-to-moderate inflation helps with that.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#224

Post by plebianRube » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 1:38 PM UTC

thow-58d4e8b wrote: post #160

FabHK wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a bit annoying that you assume that people critical of cryptocurrencies and specifically Bitcoin's environmental footprint are uneducated about the issues. It is not a myth. BTC's environmental footprint is preposterous. It's estimated that the network currently runs at 165 TWh/a, or around 19 GW, which means that one transaction uses around 5 GJ or 1500 kWh, and produces 800 kg of CO2, and 250 g of electronic…

To underline how preposterous the whole PoW is - BTC is mined by hardware that consumes 2000-3000W each, all the while vast majority of these machines never mine a single block

Technically half true, they share the processing load of guessing the next valid block, and then share the profit when the one piece of hardware finally guessed it.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#225

Post by throwaway19841 » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 1:38 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #209

macinjosh wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not complicated. It is not necessary for crypto PoW to be powered by CO2 emitting fuels. It can be powered with renewables. Therefore the power usage of Bitcoin can't be used to infer its environmental impact. You need to know how much of that usage was on the back of fossil fuels.

Energy is fungible. Unless those renewable-generated watts were unable to be used for other things, then all marginal use of energy uses emitting sources, since we are not yet at 100% green energy. There are a few exceptions where mining is done on grids that are at 100% green energy, but this is not the norm.

Sure in theory. In reality not all energy is fungible because not all power generating systems in the world are connected. If I stand up a geo-thermal farm to run my crypto mining operation that power would not have been available to the grid anyway because the economic incentive to build the power station was crypto, not selling it to the grid.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#226

Post by pskiba » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 1:40 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #206

pskiba wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your time horizon is long enough, volatility shouldn't matter. Historically speaking Bitcoin is getting less volatile with every market cycle. I would not be surprised if in the future its volatility is comparable to the S&P500. Why would any sane person invest in real estate? You have maintenance costs, property taxes, it's not liquid and you can go years with little growth. Not to mention if your area see's hard…

I can live on land. I can't live on a string. You also ignore the premise being put forth, that Bitcoin as a currency still isn't ideal. You don't think "long term investment" with currency so much as short to medium term. Like, will bread and milk cost 10x as much next week? "Stop thinking investment and start thinking survival" might be a good way to put it.

The original comment was about protecting yourself against inflation. Not sure how your comment is related.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#227

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 1:40 PM UTC

pskiba wrote: post #198

gwbas1c wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the actual reason so many governments are speeding the push against crypto might be related to a future of high inflation and high gov debt The reason why we have inflation and debt is to keep the value of our currencies stable. IE, if people want to use dollars, the US government can print more dollars to satisfy the demand. (And thus keep the value stable.) Cryptocurrency's volatile value is a result of its inabi…

> The reason why we have inflation and debt is to keep the value of our currencies stable A stable currency would have an inflation rate of 0%. Inflation does not cause currency stability, it decreases the value of the currency. By definition, its value is changing.

[deleted]

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#228

Post by plebianRube » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 1:41 PM UTC

FabHK wrote: post #183

macinjosh wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a break. Power consumption numbers are completely meaningless in this argument. Power usage does not correlate directly to CO2 emissions. Crypto can and does run on renewables. If we were serious about fixing climate change we'd stop all air traffic tomorrow. In reality, the climate issue is just a convenient political bludgeon.

> Crypto can and does run on renewables. Energy is fungible. > If we were serious about fixing climate change we'd stop all air traffic tomorrow. The fashion industry alone has more climate impact than air traffic and maritime traffic together. Aviation contributes around 1% of air pollution (though 5% of greenhouse effect, due to high altitudes). But all of those (transport, fashion) provide utility. BTC usurps near…

I'm sure people who don't fly or follow fashion feel the same way about the perceived utility.

I for one think not having to pay 20% for a remmitance for someone who is trying to help their famiy in another country has huge utility, maybe others disagree.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#229

Post by throwaway19841 » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

cecilpl2 wrote: post #221

macinjosh wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not complicated. It is not necessary for crypto PoW to be powered by CO2 emitting fuels. It can be powered with renewables. Therefore the power usage of Bitcoin can't be used to infer its environmental impact. You need to know how much of that usage was on the back of fossil fuels.

Energy is fungible. If base load were to drop due to crypto miners being turned off, the energy with highest marginal cost would be turned off, which means fossil fuels, not renewables.

The fungibility argument doesn't work when you consider that not all power generation in the world is connected to the same grid. There are crypto operations that use their own renewable power infrastructure. That energy never would have made it to the grid because there was no incentive for it to be put there (otherwise it would already have been there). The incentive is to use it for crypto not your mom's blender.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#230

Post by pyrale » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

api wrote: post #104

alexgmcm wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just ban the fiat exchanges. The hardcore crypto types would carry on using it but like 95% would give up - that's sufficient.

Oddly enough besides the hard-core aficionados and techies that would mostly leave the criminals, who would operate street level informal exchange systems.

For them, that would be back to square one in terms of money laundering.

Odds are that, given fiat to launder, or crypto that needs to be converted to fiat that still needs to be laundered, they would cut the useless step.

The only illegal industry that would still see the use for it is maybe ransomware, but ransomware is not a cyclic business, so it would be surprising that they'd find enough individuals on the street to convert their millions easily.