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In defense of cryptocurrency

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

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Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#41

Post by abirch »

propter_hoc wrote: post #29

This article is a rebuttal to a letter, that in his interpretation, claims: >[...] that the entire technology field is worthless and cannot be used for any practical purpose. However, instead of addressing the core issue of whether cryptocurrency or DLT serves any practical purpose, the article instead cherry-picks specific issues that he thinks are resolvable: * Energy waste * Transaction speed * Privacy The author…

Crypto is antiprivacy. All of the transactions are public, it just offers psuedo-anonymity. If we used crypto for all transactions you could see when I go to my local watering hole and wait for me to close out my tab.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#43

Post by andrewflnr »

matkoniecz wrote: post #26
sumy23 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said it's "dishonest to mention." The author is the mentioner. If the mention is dishonest, then it necessarily follows that the author is dishonest.

> if the mention is dishonest, then it necessarily follows that the author is dishonest. Not really. If someone did something stupid it does not follow they are stupid. The same for evil, dishonest or irritating acts. Though maybe "weird" would be better than "dishonest"? I posted in this form in comments on the original article.

No, it really does follow for "dishonest". It's definitionally a character lapse at best.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#44

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

propter_hoc wrote: post #29

This article is a rebuttal to a letter, that in his interpretation, claims: >[...] that the entire technology field is worthless and cannot be used for any practical purpose. However, instead of addressing the core issue of whether cryptocurrency or DLT serves any practical purpose, the article instead cherry-picks specific issues that he thinks are resolvable: * Energy waste * Transaction speed * Privacy The author…

He says why he cares are the end. That it could be a viable payment system, if you solve the scaling and energy and regulation and a few other things.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#45

Post by matkoniecz »

> 60% of mining energy consumption still comes from fossil sources.

Even if it would be 0% then it is still wasting energy and removing that consumption would reduce overall waste.

And “green” energy still have massive environmental and economical costs.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#46

Post by AlexandrB »

I find the last section of this article particularly ironic considering cryptocurrency is one of the biggest steps back for technological efficiency I've seen in my lifetime. No, credit card fees have not improved in 30 years, but at least the energy required to process those transactions hasn't increased by orders of magnitude in the same time period.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#47

Post by matkoniecz »

dxhdr wrote: post #12
PaulHoule wrote: post #2

If you think Mastercard and Visa fees are too high, fees are higher on Bitcoin. It's like the way Amway victims will try to sell you an $8 tube of toothpaste, "draw circles" to show that 7 people get a cut from that tube of toothpaste and then say "How does Amway bring you great prices on quality products?" (tap whiteboard) "By eliminating the middleman!"

> If you think Mastercard and Visa fees are too high, fees are higher on Bitcoin. Mastercard and Visa charge a percentage (?!), Bitcoin is a fixed amount per transaction. Plus Bitcoin won't deny your ability to make a transaction.

> Plus Bitcoin won't deny your ability to make a transaction.

Visa will not steal all my money.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#48

Post by yieldcrv »

matkoniecz wrote: post #31
yieldcrv wrote: post #19

> This is dishonest nonsense: estimates hold that at east 60% of mining energy consumption still comes from fossil sources. Ah so that number keeps going down! It's nice that you all hold Bitcoin/Proof of Work to such high standards that it cleans itself up so fast. I really doubt any other industry can do that or has such great metrics, so keep up the great work everyone.

Even if it would be 0% then it is still wasting energy and removing that consumption would reduce overall waste. And "green" energy still have massive environmental and economical costs.

I was waiting for this comment. I was going to preemptively write the acknowledgment and rebuttal to this in the earlier post but I didn't want to be accused of posting a "strawman argument", by different people, or maybe the same people that would chose to pretend they weren't going to say exactly what you did.

Basically, the idea of "zero-sum energy" is incorrect. So the disdain for Bitcoin/Proof-of-work using any energy source is misplaced. There is plenty of energy currently out there, currently being wasted for decades, that would cost more to store, and cost more to transport. While proof-of-work can (and does) use it directly on the spot. These are often remote, low infrastructure, areas and so unlike other computationally intensive things, such as a data center, Proof-of-work requires very little bandwidth and doesn't even need a steady low-latency internet connection, so it works well. And so far, no other use case has been able to do this - or form the partnerships with the site owners to do this.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#49

Post by ekkeke »

propter_hoc wrote: post #29

This article is a rebuttal to a letter, that in his interpretation, claims: >[...] that the entire technology field is worthless and cannot be used for any practical purpose. However, instead of addressing the core issue of whether cryptocurrency or DLT serves any practical purpose, the article instead cherry-picks specific issues that he thinks are resolvable: * Energy waste * Transaction speed * Privacy The author…

Have yet to see a reasonable crypto defence, probably because there isn't one. The same people would have been writing "In defence of tulip prices" in age of yore except that was not as bad for the environment.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#50

Post by matkoniecz »

andrewflnr wrote: post #39
matkoniecz wrote: post #5

It is dishonest to mention > proof-of-time-and-space construction used by Chia as reason to reduce importance of induced waste. Chia just wastes something different and is not improvement in any form.

Not really. It manifestly wastes something with, at worst, a much longer runway toward making the planet uninhabitable for humans. That's the important point about PoW waste.

SSD/HDD also require energy to produce and overall their production is causing the same type of damage as energy prodction.
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