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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

#231

Post by cblconfederate »

boppo1 wrote: post #200
cblconfederate wrote: post #13

Thankfully, crypto mining is adversarial so even if it is cornered into remote islands powered by the sun or nuclear powered siberian mines , it will still work. I understand that "Climate crisis" is becoming the new "Children and Terrorists" wrapping for the next decades' wave of state oppression, but overall this ban may not be a bad idea for sweden and most of the developed world. Westerners being monetarily depen…

> it will still work. Technically, sure. But without sufficient network capacity, there won't be much demand for it.

> without sufficient network capacity

like, today?

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

#232

Post by guerrilla »

Jensson wrote: post #194
guerrilla wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing has changed about the actual output of hydro power since the 80s. It wasn't growing to begin with, so it's definitely not a cause of very recent price increases.

Population grew by 25% since 1980 though, so now each person has on average 20% less hydro power if it stayed the same.

No, that's wrong. If you actually look at the graph and my comment, you'll see that consumption did not in fact increase much at all in that time and slightly decreased recently.

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

#233

Post by swalsh »

TomSwirly wrote: post #173
swalsh wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all crypto is money. ETH for example (which will soon be proof of stake... and more energy efficient) could be considered more accurately as a really large (but relatively slow) computer that never turns off. This plus infrastructure like ipfs enables a brand new internet. Completely decentralized and free of the strangle hold of large tech companies. To me, money and profit is less important than freedom. Web 3.…

It's funny and sad that when people talk about their "freedom" in 2021, it's almost always some sort of madness: freedom not to get vaccinated; freedom not to wear a mask; freedom to use cryptocurrencies.

I'm vaccinated, I wear an N95 mask when I go out. I try to be reasonable. But this comment is exactly why I think crypto is important. There are too many people now questioning the basic tenets of our liberal democracy. When I watched the president of the United States get thrown out of of the most popular forums to discuss politics at the same time, and then destroy the only place people with a different opinion could go to talk, it became clear to me that these companies have too much power.

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

#234

Post by roenxi »

swman wrote: post #84
seu wrote: post #3

"If we were to allow extensive mining of crypto-assets in Sweden, there is a risk that the renewable energy available to us will be insufficient to cover the required climate transition that we need to make. This energy is urgently required for the development of fossil-free steel, large-scale battery manufacturing and the electrification of our transport sector. Based on estimates from Cambridge University, it is cu…

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?

> Honestly do we really need cryptocurrency?

This is a fundamentally unfair question. People waste lots of resources on things I don't think we need. There is a powerful principle in modern economies that if people have money then they don't need to justify what they think is a good idea to you, me, the government or anyone else unless there are compelling reasons to.

"Do you need this?" isn't a question that is asked anywhere except when there is measurable harm. Mining bitcoins doesn't cause measurable harm. If it does, then that is an argument that we shut down the electricity grid - a different debate.

We may as well ban half the technology we have. People don't need any of it.

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

#235

Post by lawn »

swman wrote: post #84
seu wrote: post #3

"If we were to allow extensive mining of crypto-assets in Sweden, there is a risk that the renewable energy available to us will be insufficient to cover the required climate transition that we need to make. This energy is urgently required for the development of fossil-free steel, large-scale battery manufacturing and the electrification of our transport sector. Based on estimates from Cambridge University, it is cu…

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?

Using cash is fine, but what if you need to use digital payments? Then you need to rely on third parties (VISA, PayPal, Stripe etc) who will of course charge fees from your business, or completely block you.

For instance, there are tons of stories of PayPal randomly pulling the rug under legitimate businesses, and destroying them in the process.

Or how the US government blocked payments to WikiLeaks when they presented proof of war crimes US committed.

Crypto is like digital cash in this sense, as nobody can prevent you from paying with it.

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

#236

Post by moogly »

zxcb1 wrote: post #18

It may be better to tax activities considered harmful for society, and subsidize those considered beneficial. For example, Microsoft, Facebook and Google data centers are deemed appropriate use of renewable energy in Sweden and are thus subsidized. However, will there be sufficient renewable energy available for Swedish citizens in the long run, with continued data center build outs?

The bigger "problem" for Sweden's power production is the modernized "fossil-free" steel production which will require (at least) a 50% total capacity increase over the coming decade or so. Data centers are a drop in the ocean in comparison.

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

#237

Post by GaylordTuring »

TomSwirly wrote: post #171
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there are people that have bought in that want others to buy in also so they can liquidate for a profit. Is that any different than a ponzi/pyramid scheme?

Consider this. Crypo cannot create or destroy fiat currency. So if you sell your crypto and make a profit in dollars, it's exactly because someone else bought it at a higher price than you did. And they expect someone else will buy it from them, in just the same way... So every dollar that comes out of cryptocurrency is because a later investor put a dollar in. Doesn't that sound like the definition of a Ponzi scheme…

This exact reasoning can be applied to the buying and selling of gold, can it not? I’m not saying that therefore it’s moot, but is there a difference? Would you call gold a ponzu scheme as well or do you see a difference between the two? It can also be applied to, for example, the buying and selling of old watches or art.

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

#238

Post by moogly »

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…

> The Swedish government (of which the green party is part) has closed down several nuclear reactors

Only Barsebäck 1 in 1999, Barsebäck 2 in 2005, and that was primarily because of Danish pressure (it's very close to Copenhagen). So that's 15-20 years ago.

The other reactors (Ringhals 1 (2020), Ringhals 2 (2019), Oskarshamn 1 (2017), Oskarshamn 2 (2015)) have been shut down by the private companies operating them because they have either reached their operational lifetime and were deemed (by the private company (Vattenfall, Uniper/Eon)) not economically feasible for modernization, or just plain not profitable to keep running, due to low electricity prices.

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

#239

Post by roenxi »

Jensson wrote: post #31
skohan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One role of government is to curtail negative externalities. If it's possible for a few people to profit by causing general harm through accelerating climate change, that would be well within the government's mandate to regulate against this. It's possible that cryptocurrency will be the future of finance. It's also entirely possible that crypto - which is incredibly expensive energy-wise per transaction - is actuall…

I don't see how banning mining will have any negative consequences at all. What benefits would a country get from having a lot of miners? A few people would get rich at the cost of everyone else getting less electricity or higher prices. The miners relocate, and you can enjoy using bitcoin without any of the local externalities of having miners around.

That is an argument against having most non-service industries. Indeed, a similar argument would have been used for off-shoring huge amounts of manufacturing from Western societies to China (why put up with the pollution externalities when the Chinese could pick those up for us?).

The upshot is lots of the know-how now lives in China, the wealth is being generated in Shenzhen instead of the west. The argument was correct, but in hindsight it does look like the positive externalities were greater than the negative. China's growth has been much more impressive than the EUs.

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

#240

Post by roenxi »

Glavnokoman wrote: post #15
roenxi wrote: post #10

The basic idea of the economy is people can earn the right to energy, and then direct it to a goal of their choosing. The government making a value judgement about what type of commercial activity is worthwhile is extremely risky. Countries with innovative financial and credit systems have historically steamrolled those that don't have such innovations. We still don't understand the nature of crypto.

"The government making a value judgement about what type of commercial activity is worthwhile is extremely risky" Bullshit. That's what government is for. It already forbids commercial activities as robbery, stealing, fraud etc. If they put crypto into the same basket I wouldn't cry much.

> ...robbery, stealing, fraud...

Those aren't commercial activities. One of the parties doesn't agree to the deal, so they are violations of property rights.

The justification for forbidding them isn't that the government has concerns about the transaction (the robber probably needs the goods more than the person they are robbing, on a needs basis most robberies might be justifiable for all I know). The problem is the involuntary nature of a robbery. That isn't a factor here.

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