Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

seldo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 318 posts

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#21

Post by notch656a »

Reichhardt wrote: post #13
null_object wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The current fiat system (and the Governments that control it) are completely enslaved to the welfare (pension) and healthcare demands of baby boomers. If we can craft a new financial system without spending 15%+ of our GDP and rising on Pensions, even with some inefficiency its still worth it. Avoiding sales taxes, platform commissions, and income taxes is a major advantage. So you think the problem solved by crypt…

50% of healthcare costs are incurred in the final 5 years of life, and in much of the world private healthcare is accepted and efficient. I'd rather euthanize myself at age 80 and pay much lower taxes throughout my adult life than die at age 85 in a gold-plated Government hospital. Sanitation and public transport can be directly charged to end-users based on usage. Education can be funded with land value taxes. Feder…

No post body was provided.

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#22

Post by leppr »

varajelle wrote: post #15
pcthrowaway wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but our problem is with proof of work, not crypto. I don't buy/use bitcoin any more because of this. Ethereum is moving (the sooner the better), and the only other PoW crypto I have a bit of is innovating PoW and (hopefully) becomes more environmentally friendly as a result. To be honest, I'm still unclear on if this is even possible, and if energy usage becomes significant relative to what it does, I would…

The price of cryptocurrencies are strongly correlated. I have the feeling that if you inject money in any cryptocurrency, you inject money in the "cypto market" which eventually mean that the price of PoW money also increase. And the energy usage follow the price of the PoW money.

The "crypto market" is also very correlated to the US stock market, and risk assets in general.

The best way to push the energy usage of PoW money down is to get back fiat money under control and stop incentivizing reckless gambling, like the FED finally seems to be doing.

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#23

Post by namdnay »

notch656a wrote: post #14
null_object wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The current fiat system (and the Governments that control it) are completely enslaved to the welfare (pension) and healthcare demands of baby boomers. If we can craft a new financial system without spending 15%+ of our GDP and rising on Pensions, even with some inefficiency its still worth it. Avoiding sales taxes, platform commissions, and income taxes is a major advantage. So you think the problem solved by crypt…

Quoted post unavailable.

so what, taxes now become a voluntary contribution to whatever charity you want to donate to? And you don't see any scale issues with that?

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#24

Post by notch656a »

namdnay wrote: post #23
notch656a wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

so what, taxes now become a voluntary contribution to whatever charity you want to donate to? And you don't see any scale issues with that?

>taxes now become a voluntary contribution to whatever charity

yes

>And you don't see any scale issues with that?

No. I see it vastly superior as private competition ensures people can donate to charities they find most effective, rather than monopolized government with little incentive for efficiency.

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#25

Post by oarabbus_ »

Nursie wrote: post #7

> It seems if you want to do crypto things without burning the planet down, you can. Right, but what if you consider it a bad thing to introduce an economic incentive for other people to burn the planet down? This is beyond a matter of personal choice, until and unless we all get our own personal planets.

Why do you consider the energy usage from GPUs mining cryptocurrency worse than energy usage from GPUs used for playing video games or rendering CGI graphics? Or porn? TV commercials?

Why is it considered OK to generate massive amounts of pollution and expend tremendous energy flying beef from Japan to New York for people's consumption, when there are perfectly edible cuts of beef which require at most a short train ride?

What if the crypto is mined in part or full by renewable energy, which many crypto miners do (it's economically to their advantage in certain areas/climates)?

If the goal is saving the planet, there are plenty of activities like flying internationally for pleasure, or eating meat that do far more environmental damage than cryptocurrency mining.

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#26

Post by astoor »

The author believes "a Twitter where your popular tweets earn you money" would be a good thing? Twitter is already full of people trying to shout the loudest - how can adding a financial incentive to shout even louder make things better rather than worse?

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#27

Post by pcthrowaway »

varajelle wrote: post #15
pcthrowaway wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but our problem is with proof of work, not crypto. I don't buy/use bitcoin any more because of this. Ethereum is moving (the sooner the better), and the only other PoW crypto I have a bit of is innovating PoW and (hopefully) becomes more environmentally friendly as a result. To be honest, I'm still unclear on if this is even possible, and if energy usage becomes significant relative to what it does, I would…

The price of cryptocurrencies are strongly correlated. I have the feeling that if you inject money in any cryptocurrency, you inject money in the "cypto market" which eventually mean that the price of PoW money also increase. And the energy usage follow the price of the PoW money.

This may be true short term, but it doesn't hold long term. When you support a competitor you improve the narrative for its relative strength.

Eventually I think Bitcoin will lose out to PoS cryptocurrencies (probably Ethereum), and many people such as myself are specifically rallying behind this narrative, which is why we see bitcoin dominance at near historic lows, and I suspect it's unlikely to recover to >70% and perhaps not even >60%.

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#29

Post by mantenpanther »

NFTs in the current form might be pretty useless as such (just a proof you "first purchased" a jpeg). But I think in the gaming space this will become huge and actually makes sense - use elements (items, characters, stats,...) and their history in different and independent games if the developer wants to integrate them. No lock-in and portable, not tied to game-specific accounts.
Post reply on HN