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

Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 129 posts

Re: Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency

#11

Post by hndamien »

hudon wrote: post #9

This seems like good news for speculators (disclosure: I still hold Bitcoin and worked at a Bitcoin exchange). Having said that, "Wall Street" should be wary of enabling the use of a system that is using more electricity than the country of Switzerland [0] without any productive output. The energy consumption is rapidly rising too. Furthermore, Bitcoin's transaction throughput is dismally low compared to existing pay…

You are focusing on the wrong thing. Energy production is the issue, not energy use. There is an equilibrium to be found in the free market based on the value of BTC that is provided and the economic expenditure to mine it with the cost of electricity used to get there. Oh wait! I found the link in the causal economic chain! We don't put a price on carbon! Put your energy into yelling there and not at yelling at Bitcoin. Maybe Bitcoin will help shed a light on this overtly obvious problem.

Re: Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency

#12

Post by DINKDINK »

hudon wrote: post #9

This seems like good news for speculators (disclosure: I still hold Bitcoin and worked at a Bitcoin exchange). Having said that, "Wall Street" should be wary of enabling the use of a system that is using more electricity than the country of Switzerland [0] without any productive output. The energy consumption is rapidly rising too. Furthermore, Bitcoin's transaction throughput is dismally low compared to existing pay…

>I [...] worked as an engineer at a well-known Bitcoin company). >Having said that, "Wall Street" should be wary of enabling the use of a system that is using more electricity than the country of Switzerland [0] without any productive output

You worked at a Bitcoin company and don't understand the value of proof of work? Being able to trustlessly settle shared stated across the entire globe is unproductive output? The globe spend billions of dollars each year blowing up mountains to sift for gold that then sit in central bank vaults to collect dust. At least bitcoin mining can absorb some of the curtailed renewable energy and make the payback on renewables faster.

Re: Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency

#13

Post by hndamien »

r32a_ wrote: post #3

How are people surprised by this? If Cryptocurrencies become huge, these banks will just buy up crypto companies and also point their resources at building cryptocurrency applications. They are in the business of making money. If they can make money in crypto then they will do it.

The problem is that HOLDers won't sell.

Re: Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency

#14

Post by hudon »

DINKDINK wrote: post #12
hudon wrote: post #9

This seems like good news for speculators (disclosure: I still hold Bitcoin and worked at a Bitcoin exchange). Having said that, "Wall Street" should be wary of enabling the use of a system that is using more electricity than the country of Switzerland [0] without any productive output. The energy consumption is rapidly rising too. Furthermore, Bitcoin's transaction throughput is dismally low compared to existing pay…

>I [...] worked as an engineer at a well-known Bitcoin company). >Having said that, "Wall Street" should be wary of enabling the use of a system that is using more electricity than the country of Switzerland [0] without any productive output You worked at a Bitcoin company and don't understand the value of proof of work? Being able to trustlessly settle shared stated across the entire globe is unproductive output? Th…

I understand the claims of proof-of-work. What I'm asking for is evidence. Do you have any scientific research indicating that Bitcoin will ultimately be an efficiency? Or is it a hunch? How much energy does Bitcoin need to consume before you demand evidence that it does as you claim?

Re: Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency

#15

Post by mrb »

hudon wrote: post #9

This seems like good news for speculators (disclosure: I still hold Bitcoin and worked at a Bitcoin exchange). Having said that, "Wall Street" should be wary of enabling the use of a system that is using more electricity than the country of Switzerland [0] without any productive output. The energy consumption is rapidly rising too. Furthermore, Bitcoin's transaction throughput is dismally low compared to existing pay…

Don't refer to the Digiconomist BECI for electricity consumption figures. The author makes fundamentally flawed assumptions, causing him to overestimate the consumption by 1.5× to 2.8×, and likely by 2.2×.

BECI starts with calculating average mining revenues based on a 439-day (variable) moving average of the Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash prices. Then BECI assumes a fixed 60% share of these revenues are spent on electricity costing $0.05/kWh. That is it. There is nothing sophisticated about his model. His first error is that 60% is not representative of current hardware; real-world data shows the lifetime average percentage is between 6.3% and 38.6%. His second error is that the averaging period is excessively variable and poorly justified: it has increased from 60 and 439 days and changed by twofold his electricity consumption figures.

For more info, see: http://blog.zorinaq.com/serious-faults-in-beci/

In reality, Bitcoin's consumption is only a third of the power generated by the Three Gorges Dam as of 4 months ago: http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-electricity-consumption/

Re: Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency

#16

Post by xor1 »

hndamien wrote: post #13
r32a_ wrote: post #3

How are people surprised by this? If Cryptocurrencies become huge, these banks will just buy up crypto companies and also point their resources at building cryptocurrency applications. They are in the business of making money. If they can make money in crypto then they will do it.

The problem is that HOLDers won't sell.

What makes you say that? I would be surprised if anyone who has sat on more than $10 million USD of crypto at any point in the past few years didn't cash out a substantial portion of it.

Re: Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency

#17

Post by doug3465 »

hudon wrote: post #9

This seems like good news for speculators (disclosure: I still hold Bitcoin and worked at a Bitcoin exchange). Having said that, "Wall Street" should be wary of enabling the use of a system that is using more electricity than the country of Switzerland [0] without any productive output. The energy consumption is rapidly rising too. Furthermore, Bitcoin's transaction throughput is dismally low compared to existing pay…

Proof of Stake is the answer.

Re: Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency

#18

Post by [deleted] »

hndamien wrote: post #11
hudon wrote: post #9

This seems like good news for speculators (disclosure: I still hold Bitcoin and worked at a Bitcoin exchange). Having said that, "Wall Street" should be wary of enabling the use of a system that is using more electricity than the country of Switzerland [0] without any productive output. The energy consumption is rapidly rising too. Furthermore, Bitcoin's transaction throughput is dismally low compared to existing pay…

You are focusing on the wrong thing. Energy production is the issue, not energy use. There is an equilibrium to be found in the free market based on the value of BTC that is provided and the economic expenditure to mine it with the cost of electricity used to get there. Oh wait! I found the link in the causal economic chain! We don't put a price on carbon! Put your energy into yelling there and not at yelling at Bitc…

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency

#19

Post by bsenftner »

selectodude wrote: post #2

Wall Street will trade anything they can make money on. Better to make money on transactions than trying to win the ponzi scheme.

Wall Street will trade anything people will speculate. Regardless of its merit or value, it's the transaction that generates their revenues. They care not what is being traded.

Re: Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency

#20

Post by almostApatriot1 »

DINKDINK wrote: post #12
hudon wrote: post #9

This seems like good news for speculators (disclosure: I still hold Bitcoin and worked at a Bitcoin exchange). Having said that, "Wall Street" should be wary of enabling the use of a system that is using more electricity than the country of Switzerland [0] without any productive output. The energy consumption is rapidly rising too. Furthermore, Bitcoin's transaction throughput is dismally low compared to existing pay…

>I [...] worked as an engineer at a well-known Bitcoin company). >Having said that, "Wall Street" should be wary of enabling the use of a system that is using more electricity than the country of Switzerland [0] without any productive output You worked at a Bitcoin company and don't understand the value of proof of work? Being able to trustlessly settle shared stated across the entire globe is unproductive output? Th…

The "not as bad as" fallacy, also known as the fallacy of relative privation, asserts that:

If something is worse than the problem currently being discussed, then The problem currently being discussed isn't that important at all. In order for the statement "A is not as bad as B," to suggest a fallacy there must be a fallacious conclusion such as: ignore A.[0]

[0]https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as

Post reply on HN