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Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

isbitcoindownorjustme.com

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Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#131

Post by camjohnson26 »

barkingcat wrote: post #101
camjohnson26 wrote: post #43

For all the hate Bitcoin gets because it’s obviously in a bubble market, can we at least agree that it is an astounding engineering achievement that an anonymous individual and a small group of researchers were able to build a network capable of transacting billions of dollars of value with only 2 service incidents in 14 years? All without any meaningful service costs and no hacking of the network, despite huge incen…

What are you talking about - the bitcoin and ethereum network "service costs" are through the roof and are one of the biggest failures of the network as it was designed. The service costs are so extremely high for each transaction, and if you don't pay the gas/service fees there's a very high potential that no one will process your transaction. It's basically highway robbery. I'm thinking you've never really transact…

Your reply is missing the point so may want to reread what I actually said. I’ve run Ethereum miners and have a Bitcoin paper wallet.

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#132

Post by notch656a »

beaconstudios wrote: post #119
notch656a wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heating and cooling uses way more electricity than Ireland. This message is for the hypocrites who complain about bitcoin while keeping their house above 60 when it's cold, or those running A/C below 80 when its hot. Y'all are wasting way more energy than bitcoin, while many of you simultaneously complain about bitcoin. >This isn't a cogent argument. Yes, overheating or overcooling houses is also bad. If AI training…

I mainly just want to ensure the earth doesn't burn. Yes people should ideally not be overheating their home (could easily be done using smart meters if electric companies weren't incentivised to ignore it) and many other things like reducing fossil fuel usage. Bitcoin consumes massive amounts of energy for basically no benefit except pure money wonkery, which is no benefit at all. It's a net negative in every possib…

>Bitcoin consumes massive amounts of energy for basically no benefit except pure money wonkery, which is no benefit at all. It's a net negative in every possible way.

Well I disagree here. It provides benefit for many people. The example I continually use for me personally is buying precious metals with I think we're in agreement we would do well to be as efficient as we can with our resources. It would be great to find a way to eliminate externalities of energy production/consumption.

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#133

Post by [deleted] »

lowkey wrote: post #129
beaconstudios wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a meaningful service cost, it's just paid for by mining. Environmentally there's also a massive cost, one that is not offset by the benefits bitcoin brings - which is primarily financial speculation and scams. Cryptocurrency is probably one of the worst inventions in recent memory.

Tell me you don’t understand the problem Bitcoin solves without telling me.

[deleted]

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#134

Post by beaconstudios »

lowkey wrote: post #129
beaconstudios wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a meaningful service cost, it's just paid for by mining. Environmentally there's also a massive cost, one that is not offset by the benefits bitcoin brings - which is primarily financial speculation and scams. Cryptocurrency is probably one of the worst inventions in recent memory.

Tell me you don’t understand the problem Bitcoin solves without telling me.

"it's not bad you just don't understand it"

Good one

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#135

Post by krzyk »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #123
krzyk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not unregulated What do you mean? > transactions are not cheap and fast What do you mean by that? Becauee my transactions were cheap and quick

> What do you mean? When it was created, it was idealized as the digital equivalent to cash. Totally private and anonymous so you can do whatever you want without some bank or government monitoring you or taking issue. It was supposed to be your money, not your social credit at the bank that the authorities allow you to use for approved purposes. Bitcoin totally failed to become all that. The ledger is public and per…

> Bitcoin totally failed to become all that. The ledger is public and perfectly traceable so it's even worse than money at the bank.

Well, but that's not about "not regulated", just not totally anonymous.

But it if you think about it is better than money in the bank. Because that can be traced only by governments, and here average Joe can do the tracing. So it is at least more egalitarian.

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#136

Post by kebman »

jayd16 wrote: post #83
camjohnson26 wrote: post #43

For all the hate Bitcoin gets because it’s obviously in a bubble market, can we at least agree that it is an astounding engineering achievement that an anonymous individual and a small group of researchers were able to build a network capable of transacting billions of dollars of value with only 2 service incidents in 14 years? All without any meaningful service costs and no hacking of the network, despite huge incen…

>a network capable of transacting billions of dollars of value Isn't the absolute value of the transaction pretty irrelevant to the technology? As far as transactions per second Bitcoin is still pretty mediocre, isn't it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#137

Post by SantalBlush »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #125
beaconstudios wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a meaningful service cost, it's just paid for by mining. Environmentally there's also a massive cost, one that is not offset by the benefits bitcoin brings - which is primarily financial speculation and scams. Cryptocurrency is probably one of the worst inventions in recent memory.

If bitcoin's benefits do not offset the "massive costs" for you (because you're likely coming from a first-world country), it doesn't mean that these benefits do not exist for people who were not so lucky as you are.

Carbon pollution is not just a one-time cost, it is a debt that carries a massive interest rate with it that will be paid for generations. So whatever benefits someone else might reap from Bitcoin, it certainly isn't worth it to me.

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#138

Post by coffeefirst »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #43

For all the hate Bitcoin gets because it’s obviously in a bubble market, can we at least agree that it is an astounding engineering achievement that an anonymous individual and a small group of researchers were able to build a network capable of transacting billions of dollars of value with only 2 service incidents in 14 years? All without any meaningful service costs and no hacking of the network, despite huge incen…

And to me, that's the tragedy.

Clearly the people who created this were absolutely brilliant. And after sinking years of sweat and energy into groundbreaking work, the end result is an energy-sucking ponzi scheme that's done considerably more harm than good.

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#139

Post by matheusmoreira »

Yuioup wrote: post #130
anderber wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cryptocurrency is probably one of the worst inventions in recent memory Keep in mind that not all Cryptocurrency use mining. Nano, for example, is zero fee, environmentally friendly coin that is incredibly fast. Bitcoin gets all the talk but there are some great and interesting tech out there. Get yourself a wallet ( https://natrium.io/ ) and I'll send you some so you can try it out. https://nano.org/

I keep hearing bitcoin apologists saying "Bitcoin is environmentally unfriendly but... check this out" as if that would solve the record temperatures we're having at the moment. How about we stop using cryptocurrency completely. Time for the UN to get together and get this banned.

Cryptocurrency's not responsible for even 1% of global energy consumption.

> How about we stop using cryptocurrency completely.

> Time for the UN to get together and get this banned.

How about we get the developed nations to stop trading with China instead? How about we get them to stop burning fossil fuels?

They're the ones ruining this world. Cryptocurrency is merely a little raindrop compared to that ocean.

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#140

Post by jodrellblank »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #43

For all the hate Bitcoin gets because it’s obviously in a bubble market, can we at least agree that it is an astounding engineering achievement that an anonymous individual and a small group of researchers were able to build a network capable of transacting billions of dollars of value with only 2 service incidents in 14 years? All without any meaningful service costs and no hacking of the network, despite huge incen…

> All without any meaningful service costs

Only by outsourcing those. If BitCoin consumed the electricity equivalent of Argentina[1] recently with basically nothing to show for it, how much longer before your small group of researchers surpasses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr. as the most harmful inventors of all time?

What other uses could 120TWh of electricity have been put to? Training GPT-3 took approx 200MWh of electricity[2], so enough power to train GPT-3 ~600x over.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56012952

[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/04/gpt3_carbon_footprint...

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