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The Ethereum merge is done

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Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#481
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A recent study by an American governmental organisation (I don't remember which) recently showed that Bitcoin can be used to reduce methane emissions. This in turn would make Bitcoin mining and Proof-of-work net carbon negative (significantly so if my memory of the graph accompanying the news isn't letting me down). edit: also, this is a new frontier that combines the best of both worlds for energy suppliers, bitcoin…

Let’s talk about modern technologies pls

These are modern technologies. The infrastructure to use the methane isn't there, so it needs to be monetized locally. Bitcoin mining is one of the very few options available to do this at scale.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#482
post #282
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's easy: a 2kW Bitcoin miner heats your house just as well as a 2kW electric furnace. (I'm kidding but I'm also not; I'm regularly amazed by the fact that the most complex and intricate computational machines have exactly the same 'output' as the most basic 'heat this piece of metal' contraptions, when looked at as a blackbox.)

Have you heard of heatpumps?

I definitely have, and I wouldn't use an electric furnace nowadays unless there was no alternative. That's what the 'I'm kidding' was meant for. Sadly, heat pumps can't mine Bitcoins on the side afaik, so I couldn't use those for the analogy :P

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#483
post #259
post #8

I’m really curious what the GPU miners are going to be doing with their cards. Today may be as big a moment for gamers as it is for ETH devs.

Check out the hashrate for Ethereum Classic [0], it doubled overnight. Would be interesting to see if it's sustained. [0]: https://www.coinwarz.com/mining/ethereum-classic/hashrate-ch...

Now tripled as of this writing.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#484

Quote from the article: > “I feel very proud, you know, that I'll be able to look back and say I've had a role to play in removing a megaton of carbon from the atmosphere every week." -- Edgington There's a very important difference in not emitting carbon into the atmosphere and actively removing carbon from the atmosphere. Both are critically necessary and complementary, but I don't see how Edgington thinks that swi…

"We are ruining the environment more slowly."

er, I mean...

"We are saving the environment!"

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the same boat. However, I'm holding strong in being ignorant, as I believe crypto is a fad with no inherent value. I'm an avid reader and learner, but only if the topic is interesting or makes sense. Cryptocoins meet neither of those criteria -to me-. That can be difficult if you read tech news like us, but it will give me a small twinge of joy if I live longer than crypto. Guess we'll see.

I think that crypto-currencies as a fairly direct replacement for traditional currencies is probably not the future. I don't think it's a 'fad', but I think it'll settle into a niche position in the long term. The underlying problem that blockchains solve is 'distributed consensus'. This is a solution with a much broader range of applications. For example Maersk has a system for signing handover of shipping container…

I'm on the opposite side of yours. I believe that blockchain has a bright future as a currency, but not in logistic. Blockchain money is great because its inflation is very predictable, everyone can use it without permission (versus the slow banking system). I don't believe in blockchain in logistic because database corruption has never been an issue, the problem has always been that people did not insert any data or corrupted data in the database. Blockchain only insure that the database won't be corrupted (not that the data it uses are correct), so it doesn't solve the main issue of logistic.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#486
post #463

I appreciate it wasting less precious energy. But this change also means that "Decentralisation" and "Power to the people" are fading away right? The wealthy actors are the ones dictating the transaction now and they also on top get paid for being rich. This does not sound like a "better financial system" for me. Also, don't forget the DAO Fork[0] where with the "ungovernable Blockhain" it was decided a transaction w…

I wonder what the ETH miners are doing now. Did they switch to other coins? I doubt that they actually switch off their stuff. That makes no sense economically.

I saw an article yesterday saying that Ethermine (the largest mining pool) is indeed shutting down. I was surprised too! It seems like they're switching their business model to a staking pool.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#487
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a good video that basically explains everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4 This is not a very good explanation, but basically, you can have a "currency" using just asymmetric key cryptography: users simply sign "transactions". The problem is that you need a central authority to confirm the order of transactions, otherwise the recipient of a "transaction" will not know if the funds associated…

Is there any research on cryptomoney with central authorities, but also with reduced attack surfaces on a whole system? E.g. authority may be cryptographically bound in some way to only store the database and emit new tokens, but cannot spend them because they get freeze-signed by a receiver to their wallet. Then when you get a payment you check the path of money and algorithmically accept that path only. Anyone who…

Yes, see David Chaum's original pre-bitcoin "e-cash" and the more recent GNU Taler project: https://taler.net/en/

The problem is that banks won't implement these systems unless they're forced to. They seem to benefit from the insecurity, surveillance, and bureaucracy of the existing system. So we will have to make new banks...

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#488

It looks like the new Blockchain is quite centralized. 45% of blocks are mined by just two addresses: https://twitter.com/santimentfeed/status/1570339602346684416...

Those could be exchanges ? Which would mean they represent very large numbers of users. Seems the most likely explanation. The idea that this isn’t true in BTC or PoW seems like a wild fiction to me.

Mining pools do this.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#489

Quote from the article: > “I feel very proud, you know, that I'll be able to look back and say I've had a role to play in removing a megaton of carbon from the atmosphere every week." -- Edgington There's a very important difference in not emitting carbon into the atmosphere and actively removing carbon from the atmosphere. Both are critically necessary and complementary, but I don't see how Edgington thinks that swi…

> There's a very important difference in not emitting carbon into the atmosphere and actively removing carbon from the atmosphere.

The phrase "removing a megaton of carbon from the atmosphere every week" is globally syntactically ambiguous. It can be read as "removing [a megaton of carbon from the atmosphere] every week" or as "removing [a megaton of carbon from the atmosphere every week]". The second interpretation means removing a source. Both interpretations are roughly equally valid, although "eliminating" would sound better.

"eliminating the emission of a ton of CO2 every week" is a similarly ambiguous phrase which can be interpreted as [the emission of a ton of CO2 every week] or [the emission of a ton of CO2], every week.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#490
post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ether is also scarce. You can't spend one Ether multiple times for staking.

Is ether really scarce? There is no limit to the amount of ETH unlike bitcoin, so scarcity doesn't seem to be built in in the currency as with BTC.

yes, ether is scarce at any given point.
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