Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages • Hacker News Board

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#241

Post by politician » Wed, Nov 03, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #201

politician wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be bothered if folks built their own solar farm to power crypto mining on their own independent grid?

Any way you skin this cat, resources are limited. So it would be taking away resources from other uses. Plus producing solar farms is harmful to the environment, as is running them. Unless you actually use solar farms for something useful, you know, replacing stuff with a higher negative environmental impact. Building your own power grid for crypto speculation is kind of the textbook definition of greed and selfishne…

The Sun is not a limited resource, not until we're a K2 civilization anyway -- and we're no where close to K2. The other materials in solar panels are abundant and reusable. There is plenty of unoccupied desert to build on.

In what way are resources limited?

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#242

Post by SAWZALL » Wed, Nov 03, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #147

bobcostas55 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What an odd take, given that electricity is almost the poster definition of fungible. Sure there are transmission losses, but they are very minor. It's not perfectly fungible, but nothing in the real world is, everything has some sort of shipping costs. I can't think of anything more fungible than electricity except for virtual items like dollars.

THANK YOU! Finally, someone with a fully functioning brain cell.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#243

Post by politician » Wed, Nov 03, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #189

politician wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be bothered if folks built their own solar farm to power crypto mining on their own independent grid?

A bit, because that solar manufacturing capacity wasn't used for reducing global carbon emissions or other direct human needs.

On the contrary, it directly reduces global carbon emissions by removing a load from a grid that has not been decarbonized.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#244

Post by latchkey » Wed, Nov 03, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #223

latchkey wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You picked off the easily googled articles that are unrelated to Coinmint and happened during the crypto boom in 2017 / 2018, when people were renting warehouses and filling them with miners. Everyone got rightfully pissed.

The article about the moratorium is from the summer, and if you are looking for the Coinmint angle, here you go (dated July 23, 2021): https://www.northcountrynow.com/news/massena-town-board-plan...

You are just googling articles and not even reading them. Coinmint is mentioned in there, but there is no 'angle' in that article other than the mention. They are still in operation today and expanding and I doubt that is going to change any time soon.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#245

Post by 908B64B197 » Wed, Nov 03, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #57

And so it begins. In the developed world in particular, we're seeing the move away from fossil-fuel power. This is good but currently relatively expensive. Crypto mining is starting to have very real impact on the ability of other people to live. It is adversely and disproportionately affecting poor people (who pay a greater share of their income for power). And at best crypto provides extremely limited utility for s…

> What this actually means is that crypto-mining is focused on areas that have hydroelectric power because it's the cheapest, generally.

Hydro is also interesting because it has to output power. When the reservoir gets above a certain level water has to be let out because dams can't handle overflow. That's achieved by diverting water to a stream without a turbine.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#246

Post by sudosysgen » Wed, Nov 03, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

trixie_ wrote: post #59

Im_your_dada wrote: post #18

Electricity = keeps you warm, cooks your food, powers your devices. Cryptos = suck that energy out of the power grid to gamble with one another.

Technically if all electric space heaters were crypto miners as well then crytpo mining would be well distributed, resistant to attack and unprofitable to mine - win, win, win. Edit: Looks like matheusmoreira below doesn’t understand a 500w electric heater and a 500w crypto miner produce the same amount of heat and use the same amount of electricity.

A 500w crypto miner produces much less useful heat than even the cheapest and most primitive 500w heat pump. So no, crypto mining is always less efficient.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#247

Post by honkycat » Wed, Nov 03, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #228

oblio wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not hypocrisy. We need computers for a lot of solid, real life uses. We don't need cryptocurrencies for almost anything being peddled. They're supposed to be decentralized, but you can't really use them that way in 99% of situations. They're supposed to be currencies and instead they're vehicles for speculation. Etc. I think their slogan should be: "You don't really need cryptocurrencies for that".

I'll be the first to admit that bitcoin failed to achieve everything it was supposed to. However, criticizing cryptocurrency as a whole over energy usage of all things is hypocrisy. It's not even 1% of global energy consumption. The world is being destroyed, but not by this.

0.55% of energy consumption[0] is not a trivial amount of energy.

0: https://hbr.org/2021/05/how-much-energy-does-bitcoin-actuall...

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#248

Post by sudosysgen » Wed, Nov 03, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #137

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.

Because you could use that existing solar for more useful things.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#249

Post by dogman144 » Wed, Nov 03, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #57

And so it begins. In the developed world in particular, we're seeing the move away from fossil-fuel power. This is good but currently relatively expensive. Crypto mining is starting to have very real impact on the ability of other people to live. It is adversely and disproportionately affecting poor people (who pay a greater share of their income for power). And at best crypto provides extremely limited utility for s…

> this has been an issue in towns on the Hudson Valley in New York, for example.

Believe you have your NY State river valleys swapped. There's not much mining downstate. Most of the the mining in NYS is up in the North Country and pulling excess power of the St. Lawrence River and a dam up there that supplies a fair bit of power to NYS/Canada/surrounding region. There was a study from Wharton recently on the impacts of power prices as a result.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#250

Post by honkycat » Wed, Nov 03, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

azth wrote: post #231

Im_your_dada wrote: post #18

Electricity = keeps you warm, cooks your food, powers your devices. Cryptos = suck that energy out of the power grid to gamble with one another.

> Cryptos = suck that energy out of the power grid to gamble with one another. All crypto currencies are used for gambling? Can you give us a good solution to hedge against government induced inflation that does not involve usury or having enough cash to purchase property outright to rent it out? Note: almost all companies deal with interest in some way or another, even if they don't need to, so usury is embedded in…

Can you give us a good solution to keep the price of bread from rising above the ability for impoverished people to purchase it over government induced inflation?

Oh right, I'm dealing with someone who believes in the "free market" while plugging their ears when people talk about subsidies for the gas, meat, defense, and other "profitable" industries.