11–20 of 43 posts
I guess it wasn't taken to heart.
"2/Mining needs to be more efficient. Driving towards clean and efficient energy use is great for Bitcoin’s economics, impact, and scalability." This seems like Dorsey doesn't understand how Bitcoin works, which is surprising Making a more efficient miner will not reduce energy consumption, no more than designing lightweight bricks would allow you to build cheaper bank vaults
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the energy comes from a clean source, what does it matter? I think Dorsey believes that if there were cost effective mining equipment that requires little maintenance and is simple to maintain, you'd be able to use it in places that have abundant cheap and renewable resources. The cheapest forms of power are likely the ones that are going to go to waste anyway. Sure you'll still bid up the price you consume, but t…
> If the energy comes from a clean source, what does it matter? It matters because we don’t have enough clean energy to go around. Since energy is fungible, this means that turning on a bitcoin mine means that the energy provider has to turn on a fossil fuel plant to meet demand. Maybe if Dorsey agreed to only run his bitcoin machines when excess renewables were available and could not be stored that would be fine. B…
Dorsey's giving out some narrative of reducing pollution by making mining more efficient. This has to be him just saying things the media wants to hear, because that simply doesn't work. The pollution generated by bitcoin is not a factor of mining efficiency, its a factor of its price. When bitcoin reaches $100,000, its pollution will be roughly equivalent to the pollution created from making $100,000 worth of energy…
And that’s because there will be no more Bitcoin to mine and the price will not be going ‘up’ by default, so mining will be chasing fees only. And the fees are related only to transaction volume.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the energy comes from a clean source, what does it matter? I think Dorsey believes that if there were cost effective mining equipment that requires little maintenance and is simple to maintain, you'd be able to use it in places that have abundant cheap and renewable resources. The cheapest forms of power are likely the ones that are going to go to waste anyway. Sure you'll still bid up the price you consume, but t…
The opportunity cost means there is effectively no difference. A megawatt hour used to mine from a clean source means that a megawatt hour used for something else doesn't come from a clean energy source. Even if this project is the difference between building additional clean energy capacity or not, the resources for building that capacity have an opportunity cost—something that can't be built that would create value…
I don’t understand this point, are you saying a project that stimulates additional clean energy capacity is a net negative somehow? Why?
Dorsey's giving out some narrative of reducing pollution by making mining more efficient. This has to be him just saying things the media wants to hear, because that simply doesn't work. The pollution generated by bitcoin is not a factor of mining efficiency, its a factor of its price. When bitcoin reaches $100,000, its pollution will be roughly equivalent to the pollution created from making $100,000 worth of energy…
I think in the even longer term, when the price stabilises (ie. we are not in this growth/adoption phase) the transaction volume will dominate. And that’s because there will be no more Bitcoin to mine and the price will not be going ‘up’ by default, so mining will be chasing fees only. And the fees are related only to transaction volume.
Dorsey's giving out some narrative of reducing pollution by making mining more efficient. This has to be him just saying things the media wants to hear, because that simply doesn't work. The pollution generated by bitcoin is not a factor of mining efficiency, its a factor of its price. When bitcoin reaches $100,000, its pollution will be roughly equivalent to the pollution created from making $100,000 worth of energy…
If the energy comes from a clean source, what does it matter? I think Dorsey believes that if there were cost effective mining equipment that requires little maintenance and is simple to maintain, you'd be able to use it in places that have abundant cheap and renewable resources. The cheapest forms of power are likely the ones that are going to go to waste anyway. Sure you'll still bid up the price you consume, but t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the energy comes from a clean source, what does it matter? I think Dorsey believes that if there were cost effective mining equipment that requires little maintenance and is simple to maintain, you'd be able to use it in places that have abundant cheap and renewable resources. The cheapest forms of power are likely the ones that are going to go to waste anyway. Sure you'll still bid up the price you consume, but t…
I don't know which world people like Dorsey live in. There is a massive chip shortage (all over the world) and energy shortage (in China and Europe). We don't have enough energy to power homes, and there just aren't enough chips for automobiles. This got to be an absolutely worst time to start manufacturing bitcoin machines, opensource or otherwise.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think in the even longer term, when the price stabilises (ie. we are not in this growth/adoption phase) the transaction volume will dominate. And that’s because there will be no more Bitcoin to mine and the price will not be going ‘up’ by default, so mining will be chasing fees only. And the fees are related only to transaction volume.
Maybe I’m confused. I thought there is a finite supply of bitcoins. If they stop mining / hit the limit, the supply becomes fixed but the demand may increase. What happens then to the value of the coin?
At that point the activity of miners would be better described as ‘transaction processors’ and in this phase, energy expended will be directly correlated with transaction fees.
Yes you could say coin higher value would make the transaction fees ‘worth more’ but this effect will be completely dominated by the volume of the transactions themselves which will be much more variable.
It’s like saying Western Union’s server costs can be affected by the USD/GBP exchange price. Sure, they can be but the far more dominant effect will be transaction volume.
Dorsey's giving out some narrative of reducing pollution by making mining more efficient. This has to be him just saying things the media wants to hear, because that simply doesn't work. The pollution generated by bitcoin is not a factor of mining efficiency, its a factor of its price. When bitcoin reaches $100,000, its pollution will be roughly equivalent to the pollution created from making $100,000 worth of energy…
Square has written a memo titled "Bitcoin is Key to an Abundant, Clean Energy Future". What are your thoughts on the piece? https://squareup.com/us/en/press/bcei-white-paper