The Crypto-Chernobyl

Gold provides better permanence and durability; and what immutability Bitcoin does provide is a bad thing rather than a good thing, because it prevents refunds in cases of fraud — something which you need to anticipate and be able to respond to in exactly the “trustless” environment which Bitcoin is supposed to enable.

And the environmental consequences of the network are not opt-in, they are born by us all even if we do not use the currency. Thus can energy be said to be wasted: it is bad for us all, not just the spender, when Gigajoules are spend when spending millijoules would have equivalent of better results.

> Knowing how many SHA256^2's my rivals can hash a second is also pretty useful information

For?

> What I don't understand is why you think scarcity implies any sort of value. You do understand that there are plenty of things that are scarce that are essentially worthless, right?

In this case, the value is as a unit of account that is (mostly) guaranteed to be, not just scarce, but have a hard limit on quantity. This links back to your first sentence, and people’s desire to be able to make several transactions or hold funds without depreciation.

> As well, I'm not questioning the need for an exchange medium. I'm questioning why a certificate that says someone solved a useless math problem is a valid exchange mechanism.

This also connects to your first paragraph. The simplest answer is that value is subjective and the people using it value it for that purpose.

> Suppose a magical genie snaps their fingers and suddenly, everyone's USD bank balance gets multiplied by 10. What happens then? People still value the things they were buying with USD yesterday the same, so, prices will just go up by a factor of 10. You can call that the USD depreciating, or you can call it the price of goods increasing. Those things are equivalent.

This is a good example. Now imagine what happens if when the genie snaps his fingers, all the white people in NY, DC, and SF have their bank balances multiplied by 10 and the rest of us don’t. What happens to prices of the things white people in ny/dc/sf buy? What happens to the profits of people who sell to them? What does the market look like for the rest of us, who are now competing with people who have 10x as much money for the same goods? Do you see now how the FED’s actions distort the economy and cause certain people to benefit to the detriment of others?

> One final question: do you take issue with my statement that the USD essentially is a blockchain-based digital currency? If so, how? If not, why bother with BTC?

USD are an electronic ledger but they aren’t a blockchain. BTC are desireable because of the hard cap on the number of units, which means that a person who holds BTC is protected from the risk of their currency being diluted by additional units.

> Oh, and you still haven't explained why BTC should be worth anything at all. I thought you were one of those "enthusiasts" who understood those things? Is there a reason you don't want to explain it to me so I can become an enthusiast as well?

Tbh I’ve explained it a few times and I’m not convinced that you’re actually interested in understanding. You’re spending a little too much time inferring things about me (incorrectly, mind you).

> Pretty hard to get your gold back in case of fraud too, especially if they have guns.

In either case you need trust. That’s the point.

Thus “trustless” is not a benefit of BTC. Existing systems do literally everything else that Bitcoin can do, and more besides, only faster better and with less side effects.

> Millijoules are insufficient to globally protect the ledger, sorry. If someone wanted to undo my transaction, they need Gigajoules to undo it. I don't think you quite understand what is required to protect a ledger.

To me it appears that it is you who does not understand.

We don’t need the BTC ledger. It adds zero value. It solves no novel problem. There is nothing, at all, which it does uniquely well, including the claim made about it removing the need for trust, which is a false claim because it does no such thing.

> The physical attack price of infrastructure and energy allows a defender to calibrate their defense spend.

It does not help you calibrate. This isn’t Alice and Bob, nor is the the Cold War nuclear race. The BTC structural worry is any one group gaining more than half the total hash rate, when there are many competing groups. No individual can defend against a big group — just like old money, which again means you need to go back to exactly the kind of financial system we already have with simple non-blockchain ledgers kept by banks and accountants.