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Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

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Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#401

Post by hollerith »

hellojesus wrote: post #398
hollerith wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need a way to store money. Sometimes, the government-approved ways of doing that have severe problems. Gold would be worth much less than it actually is if people weren't using it to store money. It is easier to store bitcoin than to store gold. (E.g., bitcoin is easier to hide from thieves than gold is.)

I agree with both your statements. There is a tradeoff between friction of a nonapproved system and having your money in it. The US has tried to KYC as much as possible, and the psuedo anonymous addresses have mostly been linked to meatspace owners, so I have trouble completely believing that the currency is completely free of gov intervention. Any sufficiently large state actor can simply buy a zero day exploit to t…

Bitcoin doesn't seem particularly useful for evading government controls in the US or the EU, but it does in much of the rest of the world, where the governments are typically incapable of something like the US anti-money-laundering regime. A sensible reason for a US investor to invest in bitcoin would be to sell it in the future for more than he paid for it to some saver in some non-US non-EU country, and most US investors would have no particularly strong motive to hide such an investment from the US government.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#403

Post by nmz »

lottin wrote: post #242
Symbiote wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visa used 189GWh in 2017, worldwide, of which around half was data centres [1]. That handled 111.2 billion transactions, so about 1.7Wh per transaction (half for datacentres). Bitcoin used 844670Wh per transaction [2]. [1] https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/corporate-responsibil... [2] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

And it's worse. Bitcoin doesn't even work. Imagine paying with bitcoins at the grocery store.

Imagine losing your phone which has all of your coins.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#404

Post by jakupovic »

Symbiote wrote: post #321
mandibles wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the old Visa vs Bitcoin comparison. It was wrong when it was first made in 2009, and it's wrong now. 1. Bitcoin is a final settlement system, akin to moving gold bars from one vault to another. It achieves this settlement in minutes and requires no trusted intermediaries. 2. Bitcoin's energy consumption is a function of price, not of transaction throughput, so the two are orthogonal.

You have almost 6 orders of magnitude available to make the comparison with whatever transaction method you prefer. You could fly gold bars around in small planes, and it would still be more efficient than Bitcoin .

What if we have to account for all the bankers and their houses and cars and everything they need to live to continue our current financial order? People focus on simple math, but bitcoin doesnt need all the people to sign the docs and keep track of them, that's the catch.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#405

Post by jakupovic »

Symbiote wrote: post #397
latchkey wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm keenly aware of their operations as my last company looked into hosting in their facility and I know people who have hosted there too. I have also physically been there. Too bad HN doesn't allow photos, I've got some good ones. The map shows what I'm talking about very clearly... all of the power is either used for the local Alcoa plants (there are several) or gets exported elsewhere. There is little usage for th…

There's no evidence at all that the power can't be transmitted elsewhere. There are high-capacity transmission lines in all directions. A ~600MW wind farm was connected to the grid right at the dam relatively recently. I won't discuss this further. It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

>I won't discuss this further.

>It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

Little sneaky to put that last comment there, useless completely and spiteful? Just because your hypothesis turned out to be wrong doesn't mean you cannot admit it

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#406

Post by hellojesus »

imiric wrote: post #371
hellojesus wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time understanding what the value of that is in its pure form. What is the value of a scare digital commodity in and of itself?

What is the value of physical currency, or a balance in a digital system? It's all supply and demand. When physical currency used to be backed by gold reserves, then it could be argued that gold itself has material value, but nowadays it's all fairy dust[1]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiTfnpgNkmI

Agreed that gold's value was largely increased it's demand as a reserve currency, but it does have stand alone value. Jewelry, conductivity, etc. all contribute to a baseline market for it.

To me, store of value commodities are interesting when unpegged from a mainstream currency in that they provide no dividends. Their ownly roi is via speculation of the masses. Castles in the skies. That is where I have a hard time underatanding the value preposition of crypto.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#407

Post by jakupovic »

boc wrote: post #118
digging wrote: post #57

I'm not a crypto proponent per se, but I do feel the need to be reasonable about it, and this reads like pure emotional anti-cryptocurrency sentiment. (edit: while I still can, I'm going to jump in and repeat that I'm criticizing this as a bad article which isn't saying anything very meaningful on its own. Thanks everyone for doing the author's work for them and gathering more data. I won't be upset if it's proven th…

> I'm not a crypto proponent per se Yet you rolled out the standard crypto talking points flawlessly. > Energy consumption is frankly not a phenomenon I give two shits about, as an environmentalist Again, I suspect you aren't an environmentalist either. Please just be straightforward with your motivations here.

Your comment added 0 to the discussion and was a personal attack. This site is not for this kind of stuff as I was reminded previously.

Also just get some Bitcoin :)

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#408

Post by hellojesus »

hollerith wrote: post #401
hellojesus wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with both your statements. There is a tradeoff between friction of a nonapproved system and having your money in it. The US has tried to KYC as much as possible, and the psuedo anonymous addresses have mostly been linked to meatspace owners, so I have trouble completely believing that the currency is completely free of gov intervention. Any sufficiently large state actor can simply buy a zero day exploit to t…

Bitcoin doesn't seem particularly useful for evading government controls in the US or the EU, but it does in much of the rest of the world, where the governments are typically incapable of something like the US anti-money-laundering regime. A sensible reason for a US investor to invest in bitcoin would be to sell it in the future for more than he paid for it to some saver in some non-US non-EU country, and most US in…

Very interesting perspective. Thank you.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#409

Post by latchkey »

Symbiote wrote: post #397
latchkey wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm keenly aware of their operations as my last company looked into hosting in their facility and I know people who have hosted there too. I have also physically been there. Too bad HN doesn't allow photos, I've got some good ones. The map shows what I'm talking about very clearly... all of the power is either used for the local Alcoa plants (there are several) or gets exported elsewhere. There is little usage for th…

There's no evidence at all that the power can't be transmitted elsewhere. There are high-capacity transmission lines in all directions. A ~600MW wind farm was connected to the grid right at the dam relatively recently. I won't discuss this further. It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

This is the second time, you've misconstrued my statements and inserted your own dialog.

I didn't say it can't be transmitted elsewhere.

I said that it was expensive to do so and I've seen with my own two eyes the proof of that expense. The proof of that expense is that it hasn't been done yet, despite years of opportunities and the fact that it can be done (which I agree with you on).

For the record, my salary does not depend on this at all.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#410

Post by Symbiote »

jakupovic wrote: post #405
Symbiote wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no evidence at all that the power can't be transmitted elsewhere. There are high-capacity transmission lines in all directions. A ~600MW wind farm was connected to the grid right at the dam relatively recently. I won't discuss this further. It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

>I won't discuss this further. >It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. Little sneaky to put that last comment there, useless completely and spiteful? Just because your hypothesis turned out to be wrong doesn't mean you cannot admit it

I'll gladly admit spite towards people wrecking the climate for their own greed.

Cryptocurrency miners rank worse than oil and coal executives in my book.

(I've seen nothing to suggest my hypothesis is wrong.)

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