Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated • Hacker News Board

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#261

Post by fleddr » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

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…

That's ridiculous. Most retail and institutional investors in crypto are already KYC.

The current value in crypto isn't solely in moving money, there's scarcity (Bitcoin), utility (ether), Defi/staking, NFTs, the metaverse, whatever.

Moving money is a benefit, but the least interesting use case of crypto.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#262

Post by nolantait » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #182

nolantait wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

>For example, Keynsian economics requires everyone to be forced to save through a central banking system. Where did you get this strange idea from? You can literally buy anything with your money to save in real assets or at least non monetary savings like bonds. If anything, low interest rates tell you you should stop saving in money but they don't force you to save or stop saving in money. Nobody is here to tell you…

The money exists in a closed system controlled by a central banking system. You might move your money around but the control remains. I didn't mean to imply that my free will is at risk with our current system. Only to point out that the Keynesian model has a hard time existing if the money supply is determined by a gold standard. And back then I could buy the same things. I'm also not disavowing the great tools we have to control our economy. Just exploring ideas outside the narrow focus on greater and greater taxation in a world becoming more resistant to it every year.

If the US were forced back to a gold standard could they continue being Keynsian in the way they have been over the last 20 years?

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#263

Post by thebean11 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

danuker wrote: post #82

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 permissi…

$2M/h seems pretty low. A multi-day attack would be super affordable for any billionaire or government.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#264

Post by cwkoss » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #210

chroem- wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fundamentally it's the antithesis to democracy. What is this even supposed to mean? Strict state controls on economic activity are more within the realm of authoritarian regimes, rather than democracies.

Democracies can control the economy deliberately. Democracy without economic control is near anarchy and the democracy is debilitated, subject to the whims of the people that own production.

The US currently has a high degree of economic control AND is still subject to the whims of the people that own production.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#265

Post by joe_the_user » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:41 PM UTC

thesausageking wrote: post #249

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…

No one elected the Fed and they print USD like crazy. They're now proposing to print more money to solve climate change. That's the opposite of democracy. Bitcoin is a transparent, simple currency. There will only ever be 21m Bitcoins and how they're minted is defined up front and everyone knows.

No one elected the Fed and they print USD like crazy.

The Fed is combination of officials appointed by elected representatives and official of banks, with appointed officials having something of the lead. Representative democracy involves things like this.

They're now proposing to print more money to solve climate change. That's the opposite of democracy.

The printing of money here is effectively a tax. Taxing the population and using the revenues for programs to benefit people is how a state works (in this case, a (slightly) democratic state).

If anything, it seems you're proposing the wealthy not be subject to taxes oriented towards to common good, which is what the gp was (correctly imo) upset about. The only thing here is you're calling the power of the wealthy "democracy".

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#266

Post by iskander » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:41 PM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #254

iskander wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"designed so that there can be never be criminal justice consequences for any financial action"

I don't see why that's true at all, cryptocurrencies are public ledgers with mostly KYC'd on/off ramps. You can pursue criminals, but it's harder to create collusion-based regulatory monopolies. Users of financial products have more choices through self custody and the diversity of decentralized financial products. The merger of decentralized finance with a better regulatory/taxation framework (+ a few safety features) will significantly dis-intermediate mainstream finance and deal a major blow to Wall Street. It's going to be great.

>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.

Smaller scale crimes may be harder to track down but large scale institutional crimes will be easier to prosecute since e.g. Aave will never have the regulatory clout of Bank of America. Decentralized finance institutions adding systemic hazard to our financial system will be more vulnerable to governmental actions and individuals will have more choices to not participate in an opaquely corrupt system of finance that manages to ensnare everyone through savings and retirement funds.

I don't want the money I save to be funneled to the investment banking arm of a mega-corp which then destabilizes the entire country with impunity.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#267

Post by tylersmith » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

mavhc wrote: post #179

tornato7 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethereum has been planning to move to PoS since the beginning. PoS is already working and devs are making incredible progress toward The Merge. PoS chains such as Solana and more efficient L2s are already starting to see wide adoption.

How does Proof of Stake not cause the rich to grow richer?

All investments help the rich grow richer. People mine PoW currencies only because it makes them richer.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#268

Post by nolantait » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #146

nolantait wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a balancing weight because the states military power depends on a landed citizenry that is easily taxed. If you remove the easily taxed part you also remove the military power part. Not advocating a lawless return to strong man tribalism. But I don't follow the idea that changing the abilities of a government to easily enforce taxation means they will remain effective at enforcing through more expensive means.

Cryptocurrencies do not exactly make it harder to enforce taxes on a landed citizenry. The government is what enforces land property in the first place, and if you're late on your taxes they'll just put a tax lien on your land and ultimately stop enforcing your property rights on it.

Assuming you can't also choose to move yourself and your assets to another country offering better terms. That's how the dynamics are changing. Peter Thiel and New Zealand are a small picture of the future to come. Countries will compete. How much of wealth is really tied up in land? If I can zap my wealth from one side of the world to another without anyone being able to stop me is it really easier to stop capital flight?

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#269

Post by fleddr » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:43 PM UTC

542458 wrote: post #196

xrd wrote: post #2

I still think war and oil are dirtier and don't see a way to wean ourselves off that consumption and impact. I do see that cryptocurrencies are moving toward energy reduction through things like proof of stake and L2s. https://susanfsu.medium.com/think-btc-is-a-dirty-business-co...

I’m not really sure what your point is. Basically everything pales in comparison to war and oil - by that logic, burning trash in a barrel in my yard is fine. It’s not like if we all switched to Bitcoin tomorrow that war and oil would cease to exist.

Well, a war typically costs trillions. Which is usually just printed out of thin air. On a truly global Bitcoin standard, you could not afford that war. Because even a government would have a limited supply of Bitcoin, and they can't just create new ones.

So the only way to pay for such a war, is to do extremely heavy taxation on your citizen's Bitcoins.

Good luck with that.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#270

Post by tylersmith » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:43 PM UTC

tornato7 wrote: post #66

seibelj wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a terrible article written by someone who doesn't know anything. Plenty of proof of stake coins are currently active, such as Binance Chain, Ripple, Avalanche, Cosmos, Polkadot, and on and on. Ethereum will get there but they are being very careful.

To be fair it was written in March, a lot of progress has been made since then

All of the cited PoS chains existed in March.