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Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

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Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#81

Post by dqx »

endisneigh wrote: post #29
haswell wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that he is not does not invalidate the parent comment and your question sidesteps the fact that he left lasting damage that is still playing out on the political stage today.

It literally does. He was democratically removed. The fact he left lasting damage is besides the point, and no system of government can prevent bad actors, only minimize the damage.

He was an oligarch, and then was democratically elected. His supreme court appointees will continue to enforce his policies for the rest of their lives.

> no system of government can prevent bad actors

Everything's the same! So crypto's no worse then?

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#82

Post by danuker »

I am a bitcoin owner.

That said, I agree that the PoW mining reward is excessive.

Right now, a 51% attack on the network costs upwards of $2M/h[1]. That is an obscene amount. I argue this comes from the very high growth not being expected by the creators.

Most of the miner rewards right now come from inflation (in spite of inflation being less than 2% per year). This was intended to allow the network to grow permissionlessly - so, anyone can sacrifice real-world resources for some tokens, and they don't have to buy from someone already owning it.

The reason such a sacrifice is required is that you need a form of scarcity to prevent a Sybil attack[2]. Otherwise, a single person could spin up countless VMs to fake identities, which would be unfair.

Since everyone must have heard of Bitcoin by now, I believe this high reward is no longer warranted, and results in a lot of waste. It should be reduced, to reduce the electricity budget of miners. A larger share of this cost should be borne by people actually using the service - i.e. transaction costs.

I believe that Bitcoin should reduce its block time, in order to trigger the reward halvings more quickly.

[1] - https://www.crypto51.app/

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#83

Post by endisneigh »

dqx wrote: post #81
endisneigh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It literally does. He was democratically removed. The fact he left lasting damage is besides the point, and no system of government can prevent bad actors, only minimize the damage.

He was an oligarch, and then was democratically elected. His supreme court appointees will continue to enforce his policies for the rest of their lives. > no system of government can prevent bad actors Everything's the same! So crypto's no worse then?

> His supreme court appointees will continue to enforce his policies for the rest of their lives.

that's not how the legislature works. A motivated majority can undo anything via the passing of new legislation via an election of a majority of the house and senate.

> Everything's the same! So crypto's no worse then?

I already explained in the GP. Give it a read.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#84

Post by VHRanger »

mathgenius wrote: post #63
endisneigh wrote: post #3

There's some good data here - that being said, even if the carbon footprint were literally zero, I couldn't personally support cryptocurrency. Fundamentally it's the antithesis to democracy. Say whatever you will about all forms of government, but ultimately no matter the form, there's some level of accountability. Some governments use elections to facilitate this, others use the threat of rulers being killed. One wa…

> whose power cannot be really removed Yes. It may not be too worrisome right now, but what if the cryptocurrency phenomena became several orders of magnitude bigger? Couple that with climate wars, failed states, and malignant corporations. I can imagine some very grim outcomes indeed.

You really think the internet will still be a robust system haven if this apocalypse plays out?

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#85

Post by bserge »

nolantait wrote: post #6
endisneigh wrote: post #3

There's some good data here - that being said, even if the carbon footprint were literally zero, I couldn't personally support cryptocurrency. Fundamentally it's the antithesis to democracy. Say whatever you will about all forms of government, but ultimately no matter the form, there's some level of accountability. Some governments use elections to facilitate this, others use the threat of rulers being killed. One wa…

What about the idea that it acts as a balancing weight to the perverse incentives for countries to debase their currency? Radically if the relationship to taxation was more of a voluntary customer relationship it could lead to better outcomes, ignoring how many more problems it might bring. Thoughts?

My first thought is you can share your thoughts with the armed people at your door if you decide to push your voluntary taxation idea.

They'll probably listen to you as they're giving you a free ride to your new home.

Point is, it's not a balancing weight when the state has the actual power.

Broader point: instead of focusing on changing and improving the actual social/political system, people build fantasy escape solutions through technology.

But it's all based on the assumption that the current liberal, democratic society is an immutable right for everyone. It's not.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#86

Post by Syonyk »

tornato7 wrote: post #73

Early next year when Ethereum becomes PoS, it will basically be JUST Bitcoin that is PoW in the top 20. From a climate perspective, we can only hope that this narrative will cause Bitcoin to slide in favor of more green currencies.

> Early next year when Ethereum becomes PoS...

Haven't they been planning to move to PoS "soon" now for at least several years? I hate to say I'll believe it when I see it, but... the believeability of their PoS timelines is more than a little suspect now.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#87

Post by anonporridge »

foepys wrote: post #57
cwkoss wrote: post #19

The idea of taxing cryptocurrencies specifically for carbon emissions is some mixture of naive, shallow and sour grapes. There are a lot of wasteful industries - crypto is a small slice of the overall pie and is arguably the most responsive to market forces. Make universally applied carbon taxes across all industries and let the market sort it out. I'm a crypto bull, and fully support greening our energy economy. Adv…

The problem with this is that poor people will not be able to keep their fridge powered if energy became too expensive.

Could the solution be graduated luxury carbon taxes on unnecessary consumption, like private jets, regular flights, non critical home AC, Christmas lights, PC gaming, etc?

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#88

Post by bserge »

nolantait wrote: post #77
endisneigh wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focusing on democratic nations specifically for a moment - I don't see how it could be a balancing weight. Presumably all issues with a country and its handling of their own currency could be resolved solely through democratic political means. No technical solution - cryptocurrency or otherwise - necessary. I don't really understand your second point. Taxation by definition is involuntary. I won't discuss the merits…

For example, Keynsian economics requires everyone to be forced to save through a central banking system. Otherwise the whole thing collapses. Keynsian economics has dominated the last 100 years of politics. Crypto gives you an escape which puts a check politicians who would be forced to be less spendy. The only other way of enforcing this would attack the ways in which politicians trade favor which seems impossible.…

Oh, why would they be less spendy when they can just take your crypto escape away by physical force?

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#89

Post by pjc50 »

dqx wrote: post #12
endisneigh wrote: post #3

There's some good data here - that being said, even if the carbon footprint were literally zero, I couldn't personally support cryptocurrency. Fundamentally it's the antithesis to democracy. Say whatever you will about all forms of government, but ultimately no matter the form, there's some level of accountability. Some governments use elections to facilitate this, others use the threat of rulers being killed. One wa…

How effective were the traditional means of removing oligarchs? The US just elected a game show host president 4 years ago.

> How effective were the traditional means of removing oligarchs?

Having got the joke out of the way in a sibling comment, a serious one: "Oligarch" is an oddly modern term, usually applied to Russians in the post communist era, and of course they weren't removed. Buying your way into power is highly effective. And can expand into other countries, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evgeny_Lebedev

Prior to the modern era (20th century), even the democratic countries were only partly democratic (restricted electorates). Most were constitutional monarchs, and of course the traditional way of removing a monarch is execution. Democracy provides a way of getting rid of bad leaders without having to have violence .. but that does also rely on them acquiescing in the result.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#90

Post by danuker »

pjc50 wrote: post #55
cwkoss wrote: post #19

The idea of taxing cryptocurrencies specifically for carbon emissions is some mixture of naive, shallow and sour grapes. There are a lot of wasteful industries - crypto is a small slice of the overall pie and is arguably the most responsive to market forces. Make universally applied carbon taxes across all industries and let the market sort it out. I'm a crypto bull, and fully support greening our energy economy. Adv…

> Make universally applied carbon taxes across all industries and let the market sort it out Globally?

I'd apply the tax globally, but make it proportional to GDP/capita.

A way to enforce this is tariffs.

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