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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

#241

Post by oytis »

Jensson wrote: post #226
oytis wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without advocating for legalization of child porn, we can see how it is being used by the governments for justifying violations of digital privacy on various levels, so it's definitely not a good thing to double down on I would argue that this proposal does bring it a step further though. Child porn involves a child being abused before it gets to your machine. To crack a piece of software you need to take software wr…

It depends a bit what the proposal looks like. You have to submit papers about your energy use to authorities when you open a business, it could just be that businesses asking for significant energy to run a server cluster has to say that they aren't doing crypto. That would mean that private people can still run their own crypto mining. But still, crypto mining is such a niche use-case, preventing me from running a…

That sounds pretty much like other business regulations, and is not too intrusive in my book.

There is another point about abundant regulations helping Europe capture yet another brilliant opportunity to complain about foreign companies monopolizing everything, but in case of crypto mining we might be in a low risk area

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

#242

Post by roenxi »

CalRobert wrote: post #25
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 role of government is also capturing and charging for negative externalities.

It isn't. There are lots of negative externalities that the government doesn't get involved in.

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

#243

Post by moogly »

FDSGSG wrote: post #55
guerrilla wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment on hydro isn't relevant since hydro output hasn't actually changed[1], meanwhile wind production has overall replaced nuclear. Total production has increased slightly while total domestic consumption has decreased slightly. So basically it comes down to increased exports and variability of wind. 1. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/El...

Why is it not relevant if growth of hydropower output has ceased? That seems like a perfectly relevant thing to point out.

Sweden stopped expanding the exploitation of that natural resource in the 1960s. Most of it has been exploited already, but I think there is one additional river that could be utilized, but the plan to do that was shot down in 1970.

With today's more rigorous environmental policies, constructing more hydro power seems infeasible due to the adverse effects on wildlife diversity.

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

#244

Post by azth »

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?

In addition to what was mentioned, the hope is that once cryptocurrencies stabilize (especially the bigger ones like bitcoin, eth), they will be a hedge against government induced inflation.

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

#245

Post by azth »

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.

The government can print money at will. Just look at what's happening recently with inflation. The government does not have the right to devalue people's hard work at a whim.

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

#246

Post by Retric »

roenxi wrote: post #234
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?

> 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 aske…

We also ban quite a few things like CFC’s. Cryptocurrency might not be inherently significantly harmful to the environment but proof of work coins are, so it just comes down to a question of benefit vs harm.

That doesn’t mean we need to ban Bitcoin as a country mandating all computation bound proof of work coins on date X would allow for a transition. However existing miners already have significant investments and are going to keep trying to profit from them which makes such transitions problematic.

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

#247

Post by ur-whale »

caskstrength wrote: post #188
ur-whale wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

Ah, I see: he meant the 21st century as opposed to the last 100 years.

A major distinction, obviously.

But my point still stands: if you believe crypto and/or PoW is the most evil thing invented in the last years, you need to get more exposure to the real world, whatever X may be.

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

#248

Post by devoutsalsa »

VMG wrote: post #190
sk0g wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How is BitCoin a threat to power? It’s no more a threat to power than 1990s Beanie Babies on EBay.

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

#249

Post by lordlimecat »

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?

The utility of crypto comes from two factors: its decentralization, and its pseudonymity.

The decentralization is only useful in a world where the central authority (e.g. banking system, governments) are not trustworthy, and this excludes legal activities where a legal remedy is enormously valuable. I've heard that international transactions are a use case, but realistically if a country reneged on a financial transaction the remedy is and always would be soft- or hard-power based (diplomacy, sanctions, military).

The pseudonymity is only useful to the extent that you don't want the government to track you. But our societies have generally decided that the government should have oversight into how we spend our money to stop criminal activity. Agree or not, this is the consensus: so it makes no sense to argue that the government should then tolerate a system that undermines its rules.

If we wanted to allow anonymous transactions, we could do so much more efficiently by simply removing KYC regulations on the banks. We aren't going to do that, and in fact KYC is broadly being implemented at crypto exchanges so for the overwhelming majority of crypto users there is no real benefit: you're already centralized and everyone already knows what you're doing.

Even for the speculative investors there is limited utility: they could simply invest in derivative securities on traditional markets without incurring the incredible cost of performing crypto transactions.

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

#250

Post by [deleted] »

swalsh wrote: post #233
TomSwirly wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cou…

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