China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’ • Hacker News Board

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#381

Post by poontang1 » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 3:09 PM UTC

FabHK wrote: post #127

Offpics wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should educate yourself. Energy consumption is an old myth and cryptocurrency pushes a lot of innovations in this field. There is a great documentary on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-7dMVcVWgc .

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…

Measuring energy use per transactions makes no sense, as mining energy consumption is not related to the number of transactions processed.

Also a huge portion of the energy used by bitcoin would otherwise be wasted.

Also your figures are egregiously off and taken from flawed estimates

https://nydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/NYDIG-Bitcoin-N...

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#382

Post by drdeca » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 3:09 PM UTC

randomhodler84 wrote: post #345

phist_mcgee wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what about non energy intensive crypto currencies that rely on PoS or PoH?

Don’t worry they are scams, only proof of work is actually secure.

Not convinced of this. (Your handle doesn’t make it a more convincing claim.)

I’m not saying I’m totally convinced that PoS can be really secure, but I am reasonably confident that some developing such systems sincerely believe it can be, and have no deceptive intent. This in my mind seems to contradict it being “a scam”, which to my mind requires deception.

In fact, I do suspect that it can be secure, for some reasonable sense of “secure”, though I am not especially confident in this.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#383

Post by javert » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 3:09 PM UTC

amin wrote: post #375

I hope it all comes crashing down, so that cryptocurrencies will go back to their use of transacting instead of speculating.

Cryptocurrency was originally designed to be currency, not a transactional mechanism only.

If you think it through, it can't work as only a transactional mechanism, because the price won't be stable. It has to first become a big asset class with a lot of liquidity, which means it has to go through a growth phase, i.e. speculation.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#384

Post by user-the-name » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #361

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most mining has already shifted out of China, and Bitcoin mining is a very small percentage of electricity usage on the scale of "all electricity usage" - there are plenty of bigger fish (the argument then turns, validly, to the usefulness of said bigger fish in comparison to bitcoin).

> there are plenty of bigger fish Sure, but in most cases people would, at best, be seriously inconvenienced if they were immediately banned. At worst, people would die. If bitcoin was banned worldwide tomorrow, it would be an interesting story in the news and the internet would be furious for a while; there would be no significant real-life impact. It would probably be the most slam-dunk "obviously we should do this…

Of course, there would be plenty of positive impact in the mid to long term. More capacity for semiconductor production available would help with semiconductor shortages, ransomware would become pretty much unprofitable, and of course a huge drop in environmental destruction.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#385

Post by poontang1 » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 3:11 PM UTC

avianlyric wrote: post #77

Offpics wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should educate yourself. Energy consumption is an old myth and cryptocurrency pushes a lot of innovations in this field. There is a great documentary on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-7dMVcVWgc .

Energy is a zero sum game. Every watt you use for crypto mining is a watt not used for something more productive. Every watt of renewable power generated to power a crypto miner, is a watt not being used to reduce the use of non-renewables in the wider energy grid. I don’t care if your crypto gear is hooked up to a dedicated hydro plant, I care that the hydroplant is not connected to the wider grid and shutting down…

You are completely ignoring the fact that even if connected to the grid all power grids are structured to meet peak demand, and that there will always exist periods of excess power which, until bitcoin, had to go to ground.

Bitcoin makes use of energy that would otherwise be unused.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#386

Post by yomly » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 3:11 PM UTC

la6471 wrote: post #304

China seems to be hell bent on exiting the global speculative markets. Can the stock markets absorb this shock?

To be fair, it is well accepted that high inflation is bad as everyone stops spending. This holds true for asset inflation as well - you can be damned sure that in the current environment tonnes of people will be taking money out of the system to dump into markets

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#387

Post by bobthechef » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

wsc981 wrote: post #145

ceilingcorner wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN has a well known hatred for anything crypto. I’m not really sure why, to be honest. Very odd that an authoritarian action by an extremely centralized government is being applauded on here.

I think a lot of people that like big government, people that tend to call themselves liberals, these people generally don't like (or even hate) crypto. Maybe these people feel this way because they feel the government needs to protect people against themselves. Or maybe because they somehow fear central banks losing power and they feel central banks are needed in a monetary system. Or maybe they are concerned with t…

"The road from libertarianism" [0]

[0] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-road-from-liber...

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#388

Post by UncleMeat » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

plebianRube wrote: post #281

UncleMeat wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with a techno goldbug understanding of what money is I think this isn't emphasized enough. With existing fiat money I have some degree of democratic control over monetary policy. With BTC, critical monetary policy was set by one person and if that monetary policy ever changes it will be decided by a combination of engineers and mining conglomerates. Given how critical these policies are and how ideologically focuse…

I believe you lack understanding of BTC monetary policy. I'm 100% sure you don't think you do though. BTC is at the point where if you don't have time or want to research what it really is, and only want to believe talking heads and authority figures, no one is going to take the time to explain it to you. Those days are over, people have moved on and are using it for utility, without permission, how they see fit, whe…

> I believe you lack understanding of BTC monetary policy.

I am so tired of people insisting that I simply don't know anything.

The mining curve is monetary policy. For example, a 100% premined coin has very different properties than a coin with a fixed mining rate and no upper bound. The upper bound on the number of bitcoins is consistently pointed at by proponents as a means to prevent inflation. I can imagine no other phrase for this than "monetary policy".

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#389

Post by user-the-name » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 3:13 PM UTC

Torwald wrote: post #374

adrianN wrote: post #263

Excellent news for the climate.

The idea that crypto mining is bad for the climate is short-sighted. It is based on the wrong assumption of a static universe. But this world is not static. Let's say for example, all goverments would become more strict in taxing energy consumption. (Presumably to help save the climate.) Now at some point there is a market incentive to develop mining techniques that optimize for less energy consumption above all else…

Nonsense.

Bitcoin mining's main cost is energy usage. It already fully optimises for less energy consumption. But because the way bitcoin is designed, any gains in energy consumption will cause mining difficulty to go up, and with it energy consumption.

Bitcoin is designed to be anti-efficient. All improvement in efficiency of mining are immediately cancelled out by difficulty adjustments. That is the economic model of bitcoin: It will always use as much energy as you can buy with the mining rewards.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#390

Post by EGreg » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 3:13 PM UTC

shiado wrote: post #364

Some China FUD on the last Friday of the month that is an almost verbatim reprint of headlines printed a couple months ago... You surely realize the purpose of this right? Just look at all those 40k strike puts...

I don’t really understand these types of claims.

You think the CCP and central bank of China are just putting out statements to help a few foreign traders win on leveraged trades? The central planners of the economy that if fast becoming the largest in the world care a ton about some random traders in other countries? LMAO.