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Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

eurasianet.org

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Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#131

Post by acdha »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #106
paganel wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crypto-mining apologists will point to figures that say "crypto-mining uses mostly renewable energy". Which is a shit take anyway because that means that non-renewable energy (plus the renewable energy non-consumed by the miners) is now more expensive for everyone else, it's the basic law of supply and demand. And in the process those miners are also making non-renewable energy a more desirable investment because i…

Energy is not fungible. Just because you have electricity in place A doesn't mean you can get it to place B in a cost-effective way, so mining next to, say, a hydro station with spare capacity (where electricity is cheap) doesn't necessarily have any impact at all elsewhere.

It's not that simple because these imbalances won't last forever. If the cost of renewable power remains low, it will encourage people in those regions to buy EVs, electrify their homes and businesses, relocate industrial usage to that area, etc.

If crypto-miners jump in to soak up that excess capacity, that cycle doesn't happen and there's very little positive outcome to show compared to all of those uses. 50 years from now, people are going to wish electrifying normal life had happened quickly but they're not going to be using a blockchain or glad that some speculators were able to make large returns for a few years.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#132

Post by whatisthiseven »

rfd4sgmk8u wrote: post #121
Fiahil wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't meant for Bitcoin to transition to PoS, but rather everyone using Ethereum instead of Bitcoin because it's now PoS.

Yeaaaaah i will believe it when i see it. I don't think betting the economy on changing airplane engines mid-flight is a good play. My prediction is that if ETH switches to a PoS consensus model, the value will TANK. If this happens at all. I know the PoS timeline, I think it is fiction.

Ironically, ETH switching to PoS is the reason I am holding the currency.

In the future I expect all PoW cryptocurrencies to be banned, or severely hobbled, because of their electricity usage and e-waste. I have a long bet on ETH specifically because of its eventual move to PoS. Bitcoin doesn't even have a plan, and when the legal landscape changes it will be in the worst position to pivot.

We'll just have to see what the future holds. But I got my money down.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#133

Post by matheusmoreira »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #112
matheusmoreira wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. It's a waste of energy because that energy is being spent mining BTC, a useless coin that isn't anonymous, private, decentralized, fungible, it isn't even an actual currency. It should be spent mining Monero instead which actually does have all of those properties.

Oh dear. I don't remember who said that crypto is Lululemon, Amway, multi-level marketing for tech guys, but it's amazing the similarities. In a discussion on Proof of work does not scale, cannot scale, will choke out production in the economy going forward because of its design, a person responds with say "you're right, that product is bad. Don't buy that one instead buy this one". Does this other one solve any of t…

So you think I'm a multi-level marketer? Is it even possible to prove otherwise? I just happen to believe in that project and like to talk about it. Am I supposed to not talk about this stuff?

I don't particularly care that energy is being spent on cryptocurrency. What I hate is the fact that energy is being spent on bitcoin in particular. The energy is not supposed to be wasted, it's supposed to buy us something. Namely, a decentralized, private, anonymous, uncensorable, unsanctionable digital cash network. Something that could withstand even the might of the US and China if needed.

Bitcoin is not it. At this moment I think Monero is closest to being it. I'm totally open to new ideas.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#134

Post by trixie_ »

DonHopkins wrote: post #127
matheusmoreira wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! This sounds like the perfect way to create a distributed proof-of-work network.

More like Proof-Of-Waste, both of precious electricity, and of precious rare earth elements and other materials. Not to mention how much precious time cryptocurrency shills waste, and dangerous greenhouse gasses they produce from all the hot air of their rancid breath, by droning on and on and on about cryptocurrency all the time, parroting all the lies they heard in youtube get-rich-quick pyramid scheme videos. Anot…

Did you miss the point? An electric space heater that is also a crytpo miner would be the same efficiency.

Theoretically if every space heater right now was also a crypto miner, it would make any dedicated mining operation completely unprofitable.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#135

Post by thinkmassive »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #39
0des wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My heater doesn't become less effective each year, requiring replacement. While ASIC concretely implies this, GPU is not excluded if you want to remain competitive (read: generating profit)

It doesn't have to be competitive. 4+ kWh electric showers are ubiquitous in my country. Literally a dumb piece of metal resistance immersed in water. Anything is better than the current situation. What if it was a processor instead? What if a bunch of home servers could heat up stored water through their heat instead of just dissipating that energy uselessly into the air? We'd be getting the heat we need and we'd be…

This is what WiseMining.io is addressing with their Sato “bitcoin boiler.” It uses hashcards (daughterboards populated with mining ASICs) immersed in coolant to augment a typical heat pump setup.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#136

Post by thinkmassive »

bouncycastle wrote: post #52
likpok wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto miners are pretty inefficient at heating your home. A heat pump is more than twice as efficient as direct heat.

Yup. Also mining rigs produce a lot of noise, are more likely to break down & need an internet connection 24/7. Not your average heater.

Immersion cooling makes it quiet and efficient, totally suitable for in-home use.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#137

Post by ravenstine »

Why not create incentives to mine crypto with solar?

Lower or eliminate any sort of capitol gains taxes on crypto mined with solar, make solar panels tax free for companies that mine crypto, and crypto would not only go up in value but the solar industry would also be supported.

Oh yeah. The Federal Reserve and the central banks need fiat.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#138

Post by latchkey »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #106
paganel wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crypto-mining apologists will point to figures that say "crypto-mining uses mostly renewable energy". Which is a shit take anyway because that means that non-renewable energy (plus the renewable energy non-consumed by the miners) is now more expensive for everyone else, it's the basic law of supply and demand. And in the process those miners are also making non-renewable energy a more desirable investment because i…

Energy is not fungible. Just because you have electricity in place A doesn't mean you can get it to place B in a cost-effective way, so mining next to, say, a hydro station with spare capacity (where electricity is cheap) doesn't necessarily have any impact at all elsewhere.

Specific example:

Coinmint in upstate new york is located in an old Alcoa aluminum smelter plant that has long shut down. It gets power from Moses Saunders dam a few miles away. The factory was originally placed near the dam so that it could provide massive amounts of power to keep the pot lines hot 24/7.

The whole place is super remote. I've seen the costs for carrying hundreds of MW just a few miles and they are massive at this scale. You can't just economically build more lines to send the power elsewhere.

Short of firing up the superfund site again and smelting aluminum, a bitcoin mine is literally the most profitable thing you could use this power for. The dam needs maintenance and a constant draw of power to keep it operational, and this pays for it.

Since the power lines are direct from the dam to the plant and the contracts were all drawn up decades ago, this has zero impact on the local community prices. Never mind that the local community doesn't draw anywhere near enough power compared with what the dam produces.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#139

Post by fastball »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #34
fastball wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right but that's not the problem here? If there are power shortages then the power companies should increase supply.

There is no capability to increase supply. See my other post - Eastern Europe is out of coal and nat gas. Belarus has excess energy from Nuclear, but is still triaging exports. People will go without power this winter if this isn't done.

So don't rely on coal and nat gas?

What about solar? Wind?

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#140

Post by jcranmer »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #106
paganel wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crypto-mining apologists will point to figures that say "crypto-mining uses mostly renewable energy". Which is a shit take anyway because that means that non-renewable energy (plus the renewable energy non-consumed by the miners) is now more expensive for everyone else, it's the basic law of supply and demand. And in the process those miners are also making non-renewable energy a more desirable investment because i…

Energy is not fungible. Just because you have electricity in place A doesn't mean you can get it to place B in a cost-effective way, so mining next to, say, a hydro station with spare capacity (where electricity is cheap) doesn't necessarily have any impact at all elsewhere.

People don't build hydroelectric plants in, say, northern Quebec and suddenly discover that there's all this free energy and no one around to use it. The build those hydroelectric plants and the transmission lines to places (say, Montreal) where people need that energy, even if those lines are 1000s of km long.

The electricity may be cheaper next to that hydro station because you're not also paying for the 1000km transmission line. But your use of that electricity would preclude the people 1000km away from using it.

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