Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

blog.dshr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 361 posts

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#251

Post by lottin »

reedjosh wrote: post #176
endisneigh wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong, the the middle class has far more savings than the poorest quartile. Is it this you disagree with?

I disagree that the middle class is hurt the most. Whoever can leverage the most debt for assets benefits the most under an inflationary scheme. This tends to be banks and generally wealthy people. Stated inversly the poorest are hurt the most as they are least a part of this wealth generating scheme. Cash savings is largely irrelevant. Most Americans are net negative cash wise via credit cards. So stating the middle…

Basically everything you say is wrong. Inflation is typically priced in and therefore has little effect on debts.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#253

Post by caeril »

Fundamentally, cryptocurrency is an end-run around the ridiculous and absurd SWIFT sanctions, KYC, and AML regulations that weigh down banks around the world. There's nothing innovative about it beyond this.

We've known how to do two-phase transactions for decades, now. We've had Merkle Trees for about the same period of time. The only innovation cryptocurrency offers is that it's decentralized, to avoid the garbage regulations surrounding moving money.

If anybody actually cared about the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies, they'd do the obvious thing: advocate for the free, unencumbered movement of money from person X to person Y within the existing system.

A repeal of KYC and AML would immediately kill all cryptocurrencies, particularly privacy coins.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#254

Post by joe_the_user »

iskander wrote: post #223
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…

Personally, if not for the real world resource usage, I would be extremely supportive of cryptocurrencies replacing the traditional financial system for reasons that overlap with your reasons for opposing crypto. Essentially, the financial sector has succeeded so wildly in regulatory capture that we have lost any semblance of democratic control over banks and are unable to dispense punitive consequences for large sca…

There have still been no consequences for large banks issuing known bad mortgages in the early 2000s and then reselling those mortgages in bundles with artificially inflated default rate claims.

I'm not sure how a cryptocurrency based financial system, designed so that there can be never be criminal justice consequences for any financial action, is supposed to be an answer to particular abuses without consequences in the ordinary financial system. The state doesn't do a great job regulating bad actors in the financial system - how can "let them do whatever they want" be the answer to that?

If we had an ethereum based loan system, in the ideal, home owners could not get relief for the most abusive contract and those who made those contracts could remain anonymous and inherently immune to consequences.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#255

Post by fleddr »

croes wrote: post #163
hackingforfun wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fundamentally it's the antithesis to democracy. No one is forced to use crypto. No one is forced to mine it. No one is forced to use it at all. Is this not democratic? The users choose whether they want to use it, miners choose whether to mine it, and the "lack of accountability" you suggest, I just don't agree with at all. Crypto removes the need for government fiat. There is no need for a central authority any mo…

You aren't forced to use crypto because fiat exists. If fiat would be replaced by crypto, you would be forced. Crypto is not democratic, it's redundant and it heavily biased towards the one with most resources. It's an oligarchy.

Heavily biased towards the one with the most resources? You mean like with every asset class?

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#256

Post by cwkoss »

X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #211
nprz wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about commercial cruise lines? Do people need to go on cruises? The cruise industry uses over double the emissions of the bitcoin protocol[0]. Furthermore, millions would be affected if bitcoin were to go offline tomorrow. Particularly people living in authoritarian states[1], or people who do not have access to traditional banking services. [0] https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1414065840157347840?s=2... [1]…

But cryptocurrencies don't appear to need proof of work.

Proof of work has demonstrated security over time. It costs a lot to do so - as soon as Proof of Stake or another system can provide the same level of security assurance, the market will rapidly shift there to capture the benefit without the costs.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#257

Post by thebean11 »

caeril wrote: post #253

Fundamentally, cryptocurrency is an end-run around the ridiculous and absurd SWIFT sanctions, KYC, and AML regulations that weigh down banks around the world. There's nothing innovative about it beyond this. We've known how to do two-phase transactions for decades, now. We've had Merkle Trees for about the same period of time. The only innovation cryptocurrency offers is that it's decentralized, to avoid the garbage…

None of the things you listed work as replacements for the EVM. A decentralized SWIFT still can't execute software that can move money around.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#258

Post by cwkoss »

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?

Ideally and eventually, but I have no qualms with the US implementing a carbon tax first to demonstrate leadership in this space.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#260

Post by imtringued »

mavhc wrote: post #173
anonporridge wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Just tax everything the amount it costs to clean up the pollution it causes, and then use that money to clean up the pollution. Subsidize the poor as we've always done.

Maybe change the way we subsidize them. The negative income tax can be used for basically any form of pigovian tax revenue.
Post reply on HN