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Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

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Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#181

Post by TomSwirly »

ur-whale wrote: post #94
swman wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly do we really need cryptocurrency? I don’t want my transactions public. I like exchanging cash for weed (legal in California) and nobody needs to know regardless. I also don’t understand what’s wrong with USD. I grew up in a third world country so maybe it could help people there but in USA? I’m happy with the dollar fluctuations vs four digit fluctuations daily. Can someone give me a good explain?

> I don’t want my transactions public. First, not all cryptos share Bitcoin's open ledger characteristics. Look up Monero, ZCash, Grin, Beam : they all implement untraceable transactions, not just pseudo-anonymous ones like Bitcoin. Second, pseudonymous transactions is far from being the only interesting property of Bitcoin. Among others, no centralized control is a key aspect.

> they all implement untraceable transactions

As a non-criminal, what use would I have for untraceable transactions?

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#182

Post by Ekaros »

BoardsOfCanada wrote: post #23

The background is this: The Swedish government (of which the green party is part) has closed down several nuclear reactors and there is a ban on building more hydro electric dams. Before Sweden had about 50% hydro + 50% nuclear. Now electricity prices are rising a lot, especially on days when there is little wind (which generally is the case on extremely cold winter days), and emergency power plants using fossil fuel…

Prices are rising due to normal variety of weather, that is not enough rain to fill the reservoirs for future capacity. As such markets are working and prices are expected to be higher as producers optimise for profit.

Nuclear would help with this as there would be certain baseline price and hydro could store more excess capacity for those times renewable production is low.

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#183

Post by TomSwirly »

ikt wrote: post #106
swman wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly do we really need cryptocurrency? I don’t want my transactions public. I like exchanging cash for weed (legal in California) and nobody needs to know regardless. I also don’t understand what’s wrong with USD. I grew up in a third world country so maybe it could help people there but in USA? I’m happy with the dollar fluctuations vs four digit fluctuations daily. Can someone give me a good explain?

you don't use crypto do you? playing with money is honestly just a fun thing to do, putting it into coins you think will do well or staking it to earn more or lending it via defi, or putting it into a yearn vault etc the other thing is that (for the 9 billionth time) people are clueless and associating all of crypto with bitcoin. There are tons of chains that aren't proof of work and there's also nothing suggesting p…

> there's also nothing suggesting proof of work can't run on renewable energy

You act like we have infinite energy of all types. But we don't - it's close to a zero-sum game.

80% of US energy comes from fossil fuels. If your blockchain uses a huge amount of renewable energy, then some other application is forced to use fossil fuels.

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#184

Post by boppo1 »

tommiegannert wrote: post #57
louloulou wrote: post #47

Ah, the electricity police strike again. You're allowed to use the electricity you paid for for some computations, but not for others. Seems logical and enforceable.

Just like rifles. Surely there are things that could be done if we start thinking about the problem space.

You might consider changing 'rifles' to 'gun-control'. The movement against rifles, when looking at the problem space of preventable gun deaths, is political optics.

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#185

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

TomSwirly wrote: post #168
throw298340 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just wrong. The hashrate is proportional to the network security, eg 51% attack. The sentiment on HN against crypto strikes me as odd… it’s like saying cars are the devils tool in the 1900s … Give it some time to evolve and embrace the future!

The very first time I saw email, I immediately knew I wanted to have it. Ditto with the web. Ditto with video conferencing. I've known about crypto for almost ten years. I worked in the field writing bits of the rippled code for a couple of years. And I still have no idea why anyone would want to use cryptocurrencies, except of course for crime. > it’s like saying cars are the devils tool in the 1900s … Hmm, is this…

>car was the Devil's tool, because we are running as fast as we can to devastate our climate by turning fossil fuels into carbon dioxide.

To be fair, mankind evolved a lot due to the use of cars. Off-rail transportation has changed the way we live, not just for the worse. The coffee and bananas I bought today was transported by a motor vehicle for the last mile. The ambulance that drove my friend to the hospital was also a motor vehicle.

Most of our agriculture that is responsible for us having cheap food, is also powered by motor vehicles.

Motor vehicles have benefited nearly everyone, whereas crypto currencies haven't benefited almost anyone so far except the speculators who advocate for more people to buy in, to push the price up, so they can cash out (in fiat of course) at a higher price.

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#186

Post by ur-whale »

TomSwirly wrote: post #181
ur-whale wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t want my transactions public. First, not all cryptos share Bitcoin's open ledger characteristics. Look up Monero, ZCash, Grin, Beam : they all implement untraceable transactions, not just pseudo-anonymous ones like Bitcoin. Second, pseudonymous transactions is far from being the only interesting property of Bitcoin. Among others, no centralized control is a key aspect.

> they all implement untraceable transactions As a non-criminal, what use would I have for untraceable transactions?

> As a non-criminal, what use would I have for untraceable transactions?

As a non-criminal, what you would you have a need for privacy?

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#187

Post by boppo1 »

capableweb wrote: post #176
Jensson wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy-intensive crypto mining is accurate enough, proof of stake isn't energy intensive.

Judging by the comments here in this submission and overall on HN, not everyone is aware that different cryptocurrencies have different strategies for consensus. For example, I've seen calls to action from a lot of HNers to ban all cryptocurrencies because they are destroying the environment, missing completely that PoS even exists and has nowhere near the impact on energy usage as PoW.

Is ETH PoS yet?

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#188

Post by caskstrength »

ur-whale wrote: post #175
timwaagh wrote: post #110

Although I'm pretty conservative regarding climate change, it's a real problem that needs adressing so the Swedish government has a legitimate reason to intervene. Maybe we can indeed travel more if we ban crypto. But more importantly I think crypto is the most wasteful, pointless and potentially dangerous development that happened this century and I fully appreciate any government wanting to ban it for literally any…

> But more importantly I think crypto is the most wasteful, pointless and potentially dangerous development that happened this century How did you manage to miss the atomic bomb?

> How did you manage to miss the atomic bomb?

I'm quite sure atomic bomb and cryptocurrencies were invented in different centuries (assuming original Satoshi's Bitcoin paper as origin of current crypto)

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#189

Post by ur-whale »

meeriee wrote: post #164
peakaboo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you guys are completely inside the matrix here so allow me to explain... Bitcoin is being fought by banks and governments because it threatens the dollar and the banking system. The future they want is a global coin, not a decentralized currency.

> Bitcoin is being fought by banks and governments because it threatens the dollar and the banking system. What's wrong with the dollar? Just because something is centralized doesn't mean it's bad.

> What's wrong with the dollar?

If you were a normal person living in Iran (or any other country to which the US decides to apply arbitrary economic sanctions), you might feel rather different about this.

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#190

Post by VMG »

sk0g wrote: post #167
VMG wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it interesting that it is never a "waste" if it is the Pentagon that is polluting and poisoning the world. But if there is a technology that threatens government power, suddenly it's suddenly all about the Earth. For many people, Bitcoin is the only reliable technology to prevent their savings to be destroyed by inflation and to evade cruel sanctions. Your opinion has no value to them.

The first point is classic whataboutism. Would you defend a murder court case by claiming people don't care when the police kill people? It's the same thing, but people being replaced by the planet. Second point - who are these people, and how much of BTC usage comes from that, vs greedy 'investors'/'evangelists' who have bought in, and get rich by other people buying in? It's a rich people's plaything. Poor people i…

Bitcoin is targeted because it is a threat to power, not because of any environmental concerns.

The people who use it do not have to justify it for you or anyone else. That's what makes it successful.

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