Is it illegal to attack cryptocurrency?
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Sabotaging Bitcoin
61–70 of 224 posts
Re: Sabotaging Bitcoin
#62TIL the scale of bitcoin derivatives in 2020 (hence volatility): ~2T on 2B market activity. Jeepers!
--- Starting in late 2020, as shown in The Economist's graphic, the spot market in Bitcoin became dwarfed by the derivatives markets. In the last month $1.7T of Bitcoin futures traded on unregulated exchanges, and $6.4B on regulated exchanges. Compare this with the $1.8B of the spot market in the same month. ---
Re: Sabotaging Bitcoin
#63This is good analysis. The main longitudinal aspect omitted is that the profitability of the attack goes up as long as the price of BTC doesn't double or more each halving. In ~6 more years, Bitcoin will undergo two more halvings, so if the price of BTC is not ~400k by then, then attack will have become more feasible.
In the near future every nation state will be vying for the largest stake of the BTC mining pie and the BTC race will be bigger than the Space Race and the Nuclear Arms Race combined and adjusted for inflation.
Re: Sabotaging Bitcoin
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
False. Gold and silver have intrinsic value beyond their use as currency.
True, but only a minuscule fraction of it is used for that purpose. If that were the sole source of its value, it would be worth pennies per once.
https://pse-info.de/en/scale/price - gold doesn't stand out, there are a few similar ones (Rhodium/Palladium/Iridium/Platinum). I haven't checked, but we'd probably find the gold price sits in a boring-looking distribution of the prices of other elements. Probably an exponential or something that could be mistaken for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prices_of_chemical_elements if you prefer wikipedia.
If it wasn't radioactive, poisonous and pyrophoric people would probably all just leap into the Neptunium market.
Re: Sabotaging Bitcoin
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
What this site does not show is how much of the power used to maintain the network is waste power such as gas that's normally burned off at the well site or hydro electric that goes to waste. Unlike AI, there's a strong incentive to find the cheapest electricity possible. Because that's what everyone else is doing. With Bitcoin, you now exactly what your costs are and what your yields are. There's a clear threshold,…
> gas that's normally burned off at the well site Funny thing about that. Civilized governments put a stop to that, by fining flare-offs to make it economical to not do that.
I hadn't heard of this. Do they just allow the gas to go into the atmosphere instead? I've always heard that's worse than burning it
Re: Sabotaging Bitcoin
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless they didn’t. There’s nothing inherently valuable about crypto beyond what value people assign to it in their minds.
Same with all money. Please research more before parroting this argument. You are not the first person to think of it.
The true value of (fiat) money is derived from the fact that contracts are denominated in that money and those contracts are enforced by a central authority with guns. No other assumption is needed in financial engineering.
Re: Sabotaging Bitcoin
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same with all money. Please research more before parroting this argument. You are not the first person to think of it.
GP was arguing against GGP’s point and I was simply pointing out that the argument was hollow. What are you referring to with “research more”?
Hmm, maybe I wasn't following the thread very well? Many people like to discredit Bitcoin by saying it's only worth is what people decide it is. If that's not what you were trying to do then I apologize.
Re: Sabotaging Bitcoin
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same with all money. Please research more before parroting this argument. You are not the first person to think of it.
Fiat money has a difference: an army. It is issued by a government which has the legitimate right to demand taxes, paid in their currency, and deprive you of life and liberty if you don't. Ultimately the populace could repudiate the whole social contract, which is also just consensus, but that's a far bigger deal than mere money.
Well to be pedantic, in the USA at least the value of the dollar is largely maintained by civilian law enforcement rather than the military. If you incur a tax liability and fail to pay your debt in US dollars then eventually the IRS will seize your assets and auction them off to settle the debt. Due to the Posse Comitatus Act, the Army doesn't get involved.
Re: Sabotaging Bitcoin
#69TIL: https://ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci - quite horrifying! EDIT: For comparison: https://gridwatch.co.uk/
Meanwhile, Hedera remains carbon negative and 7 orders of magnitude more efficient than Bitcoin. "Today, Hedera is performing the equivalent of over 10,000,000 transactions and 788,000 transactions for the same amount of energy it takes Bitcoin and Ethereum to process 1, respectively." [0]: https://hedera.com/blog/going-carbon-negative-at-hedera-hash... [1]: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10160701/
Everything is orders of magnitude more efficient than bitcoin.
Re: Sabotaging Bitcoin
#70TIL: https://ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci - quite horrifying! EDIT: For comparison: https://gridwatch.co.uk/
What this site does not show is how much of the power used to maintain the network is waste power such as gas that's normally burned off at the well site or hydro electric that goes to waste. Unlike AI, there's a strong incentive to find the cheapest electricity possible. Because that's what everyone else is doing. With Bitcoin, you now exactly what your costs are and what your yields are. There's a clear threshold,…
BTC enthusiasts have very creative arguments for why their currency isn’t the a complete disaster for the climate. Like pointing fingers.