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

The Ethereum merge is done

coindesk.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

891–900 of 1001 posts

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#891

Post by ninkendo »

mrb wrote: post #764
apeace wrote: post #634

> It's like Finland has suddenly shut off its power grid So, have we observed global energy usage go down by about one Finland? Shouldn't that be observable somehow? Shouldn't there be some power stations reducing their output as a reaction to reduced demand? Anyone know how this would be visible, and on what kind of time frame we expect it to become visible? I'm not claiming it hasn't happened. I just feel surprised…

« Shouldn't that be observable somehow? » No, because of two reasons. First, many miners simply pointed their hardware to mine other cryptocurrencies such as ETHW or ETC. For example we have evidence that about a quarter of Ethereum's mining farms moved to ETC over the last 24h. Second, contrary to sensationalist headlines Ethereum miners only represent a drop in the bucket of the global electricity consumption: only…

> Ethereum miners only represent a drop in the bucket of the global electricity consumption: only 0.1%

1 out of every 1000 watts of energy produced in the whole world going to ethereum mining is tragic. It’s an absolutely massive waste, and the fact that crypto miners think a number like that isn’t a big deal is horrifying to me.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#893

Post by unboxingelf »

unboxingelf wrote: post #641
andruby wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a real proposal to turn BTC into PoS?

No. PoW enables real decentralization. No party/company/govt can control a PoW network like BTC. This is why it’s considered a commodity by many. PoS is almost the opposite. A small group with stake control the network. This is why it’s considered a security by many. For Bitcoin, PoW is a feature not a bug.

I’d love a rebuttal to backup the downvotes.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#894

Post by [deleted] »

fcantournet wrote: post #863
ibeckermayer wrote: post #828

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "liberation of people" can only happen by having a working democracy If 51% democratically voted to enslave the other 49%, that would be a working democracy but far from "liberation of people".

No it wouldn't. There is no definition of democracy where 51% of the people enslaving the 49% would constitute a democracy. Except the one you just imagined for the purposes of "winning" an argument on the internet. This is why people who give a shit about Democracy talk about minority rights, and free media, and non-discrimination. These are the core tenets of democracy.

[deleted]

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#895

Post by SilasX »

Stagnant wrote: post #522
qznc wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To give you an idea how big of an impact this is to miners, my 5700 XT went from making $1.2 / hour (mining Ethereum) to $0.15 / hour (mining Ethereum Classic) Eth classic seems to be currently the most profitable coin to mine and it is barely worth the electricity cost. The people with actual mining rigs with multiple GPU's will either sell their stuff or start renting them for services like vast.ai. I assume most w…

Hm, I went on coinmarketcap.com and filtered by PoW, and it shows Bitcoin (of course) and Dogecoin as being PoW with higher market cap. Next three are Litecoin, Monero, and Bitcoin Cash.

The last one I don't expect to work, because mining is about as profitable as Bitcoin, since both use the same algorithm, and the best relative profitability fluctuates between them, and they're both dominated by ASICs. But Monero deliberately avoids ASIC dominance.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#896

Post by psychlops »

oblio wrote: post #820
galaxyLogic wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> liberation of people from massively powerful banks and governments The difference between business and governments is that in business every dollar has a vote, whereas in a democracy every adult has a vote. "liberation of people" can only happen by having a working democracy. And a working democracy can only exist when there is (democratically elected) government. So it's not like people should be liberated from go…

To add to your comment, we want a *powerful* and accountable government. Weak governments make for failed states, because corporations and other interest groups such as gangs, warlords, control things instead.

That's a tough combination. If it's powerful, how does it remain accountable. Sure, maybe a few election cycles are fine, but eventually it will degrade.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#897

Post by titzer »

anonporridge wrote: post #804
apeace wrote: post #634

> It's like Finland has suddenly shut off its power grid So, have we observed global energy usage go down by about one Finland? Shouldn't that be observable somehow? Shouldn't there be some power stations reducing their output as a reaction to reduced demand? Anyone know how this would be visible, and on what kind of time frame we expect it to become visible? I'm not claiming it hasn't happened. I just feel surprised…

The entire world generates about 25,000 TWh of electricity every year. Finland consumes about 87 TWh of electricity every year. An entire Finland of electricity use thinly distributed over the entire planet disappearing is a negligible rounding error on the grand scheme of things. It's about a ~0.3% change. News media uses word imagery like "an entire Finland of electricity use" because it sounds huge and scary to th…

> The entire world generates about 25,000 TWh of electricity every year.

I know this isn't you, many people use these units, but I cringe every time I see abuse of units like this. 1 TWh/year is 113MW, so you are saying 2.8TW global; Finland is 9.4GW.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#898

Post by psychlops »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #684
ineedasername wrote: post #444

Prior to the merge ethereum’s trust was controlled by the organizations with the most money who bought/built massive data centers to mine it. With the merge & staking that abstraction layer has disappeared and it’s still the organizations with the most money who control it. Sure it’s great that non-productive math problems no longer need to be solved & consume so much energy and hardware to make it all work. And it m…

> If a criminal spies on my credit card # as I make a purchase and uses that to go on a spending spree I can fix it with the credit card company with little cost but a few hours of time and frustration. I'll take this one step further. My credit card company has caught every instance of fraud on my card. So I've had zero hours of frustration yet multiple instances of people trying to use my credit card number. One ti…

So because your losses are comfortably socialized, it's a good system?

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#899

Post by pjkundert »

ibeckermayer wrote: post #828
galaxyLogic wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> liberation of people from massively powerful banks and governments The difference between business and governments is that in business every dollar has a vote, whereas in a democracy every adult has a vote. "liberation of people" can only happen by having a working democracy. And a working democracy can only exist when there is (democratically elected) government. So it's not like people should be liberated from go…

> "liberation of people" can only happen by having a working democracy If 51% democratically voted to enslave the other 49%, that would be a working democracy but far from "liberation of people".

Yes. A “gang rape” is a working democracy.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#900

Post by derefr »

mrb wrote: post #764
apeace wrote: post #634

> It's like Finland has suddenly shut off its power grid So, have we observed global energy usage go down by about one Finland? Shouldn't that be observable somehow? Shouldn't there be some power stations reducing their output as a reaction to reduced demand? Anyone know how this would be visible, and on what kind of time frame we expect it to become visible? I'm not claiming it hasn't happened. I just feel surprised…

« Shouldn't that be observable somehow? » No, because of two reasons. First, many miners simply pointed their hardware to mine other cryptocurrencies such as ETHW or ETC. For example we have evidence that about a quarter of Ethereum's mining farms moved to ETC over the last 24h. Second, contrary to sensationalist headlines Ethereum miners only represent a drop in the bucket of the global electricity consumption: only…

> For example we have evidence that about a quarter of Ethereum's mining farms moved to ETC over the last 24h.

...which is a stop-gap, holding-pattern sort of action to take, because there is OpEx to running a mining farm, and the lower trading value of ETC vs ETH (1 ETC = 0.025ETH) means ETC block rewards likely won't be enough to be positive-margin for these farmers. This is just a way to reduce burn while they try to sell their rigs. (Which they likely won't be able to do, because nobody wants overheated near-EOL mining GPUs. Mining farms will likely just end up bankrupt with assets liquidated at fire-sale prices.)

Post reply on HN