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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

#481

Post by [deleted] »

Drblessing wrote: post #480
librish wrote: post #33

2.3% to support so little economic activity is just insane. This is the type of tragedy of the commons issue where regulation is needed. For any one actor they can justify spending infinity energy as long as their ROI is positive. There are enough justifications out there that it's easy to convince oneself that you're doing the world a favor ("I'm just librating finance and fighting the good fight against the central…

Right? Only 2.3% to support a decentralized, permissionless, censorship-resistant currency is such a bargain! It's almost like if it wasn't valuable to society than it wouldn't make economic sense. And here I thought America was a market economy.

[deleted]

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

#482

Post by VikingCoder »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #463
VikingCoder wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To people who love gold, I always want to ask what you think should happen if Elon Musk claims a meteor one of his robot ships landed on, that's got 1000 times more gold inside it than there is gold on Earth. What do you think should happen?

Why should anyone respond and speculate based on a hastily written hypothetical? You need to put in some genuine writing effort for folks to take it seriously. Offer some substantial, falsifiable, claims/arguments/etc.

If someone wants the world economy to be based on a commodity such as the metallic ore gold, then I wonder what they think would happen to the world economy, and more importantly all of the people in it, if all of a sudden, the world supply of the metallic ore gold went up by three orders of magnitude, all owned by literally one person.

Do they think people would continue to use the metallic ore gold as their currency, and they would just accept the insane inflation? And the fact that 99.9% of the world's wealth is now concentrated in the hands of one person?

Or do they think we would rapidly switch to a different commodity as our currency?

Also, why should anyone respond? Because they think the topic is interesting. I thought that would be clear. If you cannot imagine the nightmare scenario and you need "genuine writing effort" for you to imagine it, then it sounds like you don't think the topic is interesting. Maybe just let other people hash it out.

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

#483

Post by acdha »

jakupovic wrote: post #400
acdha wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no comparison made to the energy consumption of the traditional banking industry, which I am sure is not a particularly energy-efficient industry. This is your first mistake: the traditional banking system does not have a security model predicated on the ability to waste power. Bitcoin does, and it’s dynamic so there’s no way to waste less power which isn’t explicitly ceding control. The second error is tr…

>This is your first mistake: the traditional banking system does not have a security model predicated on the ability to waste power. Bitcoin does, and it’s dynamic so there’s no way to waste less power which isn’t explicitly ceding control. This doesn't make sense. The power is used to secure the network. Your first mistake here is you must think of Bitcoin as useless and any use of power is a waste. Just to help you…

Yes, Bitcoin uses proof of wasted computation as its security mechanism. That’s why it’s widely recognized as an inefficient design because you can just look at the alternatives which are faster, more secure, or both and do not require the energy equivalent of a fair-sized country to operate a database.

It’s a great software engineering case study: the algorithm is a neat solution to a problem that almost nobody has, so while it’s cool as an intellectual exercise it’s failed to see much adoption even as it passes the middle of its second decade because it’s not cost effective for most people. It’s kind of like the idea of a supersonic airliner: a neat engineering challenge but a failure in the marketplace because 99.9% of people don’t need the problem it solves desperately enough to pay so much more.

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

#484

Post by GaryNumanVevo »

tdeck wrote: post #378
GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, I want to know where OP lives, having an all electric heating setup anywhere in the world where it gets cold enough is incredibly inefficient

It's pretty common in the Pacific Northwest. Heat pumps are unreasonably expensive here in the US so they're still fairly uncommon and the PNW has abundant, relatively cheap hydro power.

Hydropower make sense, it's very very cheap

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

#485

Post by patricius »

acdha wrote: post #477
patricius wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you call inefficiency (I guess in terms of power consumption) is a misuse of the term in a world where value is subjective. It is efficient and necessary for the use case and value it provides. You can argue it is ineffecient compared to Proof of Stake for example, but Proof of Stake is a completely different system and has a completely different incentive structure. I’m saying also that L2 (and L3, … Ln) is a w…

> What you call inefficiency (I guess in terms of power consumption) is a misuse of the term in a world where value is subjective No, it’s simply recognizing that competing systems match or exceed on security without the same cost. You’ve effectively acknowledged this by saying that the system will be more usable and affordable by using something better designed which eventually clears in Bitcoin to reduce the number…

No, not something better designed. Something augmenting Bitcoin to make it cheaper to transact while maintaining a base layer for final settlement that is secure and decentralized.

You leave out other characteristics that make Bitcoin an attractive economic good, when you think that matching or exceeding the security at a lower cost is a valid argument against Bitcoin. If it was all about power consumption, Bitcoin wouldn’t keep increasing in demand and price.

Look, you can theorize all you want about the inefficency of Bitcoin, but the market has spoken and continues to speak.

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

#486

Post by afroboy »

throw0101d wrote: post #20
superkuh wrote: post #2

And how much energy does maintaining the military that backs US currency use? Much more and it's violent. The use of energy to protect bitcoin from attack from nation states is non-violent. It really is an efficient and ethical use of the energy.

> The use of energy to protect bitcoin from attack from nation states is non-violent. It really is an efficient and ethical use of the energy. Can Bitcoin be used to stop people from attacking ships going through the Suez Canal? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sea_crisis Can Bitcoin be used to discourage people from grabbing marine territory from other countries? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-dash_line

If the US Army didn't assault and helped terrorists nation there, those attacks wouldn't happen in the first place.

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

#487

Post by t0bia_s »

lottin wrote: post #472
t0bia_s wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. Fiat money drives inflation. The adoption of fiat currency by many countries, from the 18th century onwards, made much larger variations in the supply of money possible. Since then, huge increases in the supply of paper money have occurred in a number of countries, producing hyperinflations – episodes of extreme inflation rates much greater than those observed during earlier periods of commodity money. http…

Hyperinflation is extremely uncommon, especially in developed countries, and when it occurs it's always caused by incompetent or corrupt governments, not by the currency itself.

Sure, it multiple effect of devaluation of money.

So it's just a matter of time when citizens loose trust in fiat currency and start looking for other solutions, like decentralised cryptocurrency.

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

#488

Post by infamouscow »

bdcravens wrote: post #418
infamouscow wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laissez-faire is the default. It's only through the indoctrination of young impressionable minds by the state that people become persuaded by arguments the state should intrude into things.

I would think it's injuries and deaths from the lack of safety and standards that would be far more persuasive. It's never about trusting the state; it's understanding that unchecked capitalism is less trustworthy. That's not to say it's inherently evil, but quite to the contrary: profit is inevitably self-serving, and only outside forces can ensure that the needs of others are considered.

I'm confused.

The only reason every criminal stepping foot on my property doesn't have their head on a pike is because the state will involve itself in their failure to prevent criminals from committing crimes on my property.

My property would be drastically safer if the state was not involved. You might disagree with my methods of deterring crime, but

1. I don't believe in democracy. My rights are not subject to vote.

2. There is literally no rational explanation why anyone should relinquish their natural rights and delegate them to a state. This is what The Concept of the Political by Carl Schmitt discusses at length. Schmitt is often dismissed by Western academics because of his later association with the Nazi Party, but it's a cop-out for a serious introspection of what his works said about the underlying nature of society and human nature. It frightens them, to put it mildly. Hitler was only able to take power after grasping the implications of his work.

3. I would bet my life savings that if I could get away with leaving the heads of criminals on pikes, along with other unspeakably heinous things, there would be a large drop in crime. Most won't dispute this, which begs the question why does the state allow criminal behavior to prosper when it costs far less to not get involved.

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

#489

Post by qqqwerty »

manquer wrote: post #284
qqqwerty wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is bonkers if true. To put some context around that, our EV can drive around 4000 miles on that amount of energy. Meanwhile, I am not sure you could even unlock the car on 1.7Wh.

Why is it bonkers ? Bitcoins are just speculative assets . All crypto is, nobody is actually doing real economic transactions on them, I.e buying and selling services/goods for bitcoin. It is not practical to do so with transaction/gas fees . If you think of it as an Asset transactions then it makes sense, those are always expensive. A real estate deal for a house will have buyer agent, seller agent government taxes…

A digital currency using ~844 kWh per transaction is absolutely bonkers. This is irrespective of any fees, taxes, or commissions associated with the transaction. If I buy real estate with bitcoin, all of those would still apply, but my choice of using bitcoin would result in an extra 844 kWh of energy consumed compared to using cash. Bonkers.

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

#490

Post by jakupovic »

acdha wrote: post #483
jakupovic wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is your first mistake: the traditional banking system does not have a security model predicated on the ability to waste power. Bitcoin does, and it’s dynamic so there’s no way to waste less power which isn’t explicitly ceding control. This doesn't make sense. The power is used to secure the network. Your first mistake here is you must think of Bitcoin as useless and any use of power is a waste. Just to help you…

Yes, Bitcoin uses proof of wasted computation as its security mechanism. That’s why it’s widely recognized as an inefficient design because you can just look at the alternatives which are faster, more secure, or both and do not require the energy equivalent of a fair-sized country to operate a database. It’s a great software engineering case study: the algorithm is a neat solution to a problem that almost nobody has,…

BITCOIN ETF

MIC DROP

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