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Jack Dorsey says Square is ‘considering’ building a Bitcoin mining system

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Re: Jack Dorsey says Square is ‘considering’ building a Bitcoin mining system

#41

Dorsey's giving out some narrative of reducing pollution by making mining more efficient. This has to be him just saying things the media wants to hear, because that simply doesn't work. The pollution generated by bitcoin is not a factor of mining efficiency, its a factor of its price. When bitcoin reaches $100,000, its pollution will be roughly equivalent to the pollution created from making $100,000 worth of energy…

This is correct. But every 4 years, there is a halving. If the price of Bitcoin were to stay the same after each halving, then mining would be half as profitable so the amount of energy used by Bitcoin miners would drop by half. In 2012, the amount of new bitcoins issued every 10 minutes dropped from 50 bitcoins to 25. In 2016, it dropped from 25 to 12.5. In the most recent May 11, 2020 halving, the reward dropped fr…

> Even if it only earns them a few dollars a day, the opportunity cost could very well be zero.

You forgot the opportunity cost of the datacenter itself. It would be much more profitable to turn that into a colo or a VPS host with some new hardware.

Regardless, once the bitcoin reward goes low enough Bitcoin will probably become worthless. It's already not usable as a currency, and without the distributed ponzi system ofhanding out blocks to miners, what motive will anyone have to buy it?

Re: Jack Dorsey says Square is ‘considering’ building a Bitcoin mining system

#42
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not what is the value of bitcoin, what is the use of bitcoin. What function does it fill for a society in order to justify the energy expenditure? Manipulating a dollar value of something is apparently trivial to do, just look at the wild fluctuations in bitcoins price. So far the resounding answer has been “number go up”. Well, that and crime if we’re being honest.

I'm pretty sure he is trolling... It is evident by now that the energy fueling bitcoin should better be used otherwise.

Just to clarify, not trolling. For those who think Bitcoin has zero value, then by definition all the energy is waste. For those that think Bitcoin has value, then the energy is by definition not waste and it's a question of utility, what is the energy usage of what it's replacing.

Re: Jack Dorsey says Square is ‘considering’ building a Bitcoin mining system

#43
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure he is trolling... It is evident by now that the energy fueling bitcoin should better be used otherwise.

Just to clarify, not trolling. For those who think Bitcoin has zero value, then by definition all the energy is waste. For those that think Bitcoin has value, then the energy is by definition not waste and it's a question of utility, what is the energy usage of what it's replacing.

I noticed that you've asked a couple folks in this thread on their thoughts around that Square memo, digging a bit more into their thoughts. Wondering if there's something specific you're trying to understand around people's thoughts?
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