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Bitcoin's fundamental value is negative given its environmental impact

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Re: Bitcoin's fundamental value is negative given its environmental impact

#161

Post by thebean11 »

wmf wrote: post #29
thebean11 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin mining does not waste energy in the same way cable boxes did. The more energy is "wasted" the more secure the network is. This isn't an argument that it's worth the energy expenditure, or that there aren't alternate ways to get the same level of security, but it's an apples and oranges comparison.

Bitcoin: 6 GW Avalanche: Keep telling me how "securing the network isn't waste".

Uhh, not sure what that is, but at a quick glance it seems completely orthogonal?

Re: Bitcoin's fundamental value is negative given its environmental impact

#162

Post by logifail »

xiphias2 wrote: post #160
logifail wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin has to withstand an attack from central banks of the world in the future Q: How do we imagine central banks would 'attack' a cryptocurrency, and how is a cryptocurrency (or its users/owners/proponents) going to defend against whatever form such attacks might take?

Buy / bribe miners to have a constant 50% attack even if they lose billions / tens of billions of dollars. Bitcoin mining should soon be seen as national security threat for countries that have the most bitcoins, that's why having so much hashing power in China is dangerous.

> Buy / bribe miners to have a constant 50% attack even if they lose billions / tens of billions of dollars

(This is a genuine question, I'm not nearly as well-read on this as I should be) What would this achieve, and whom would benefit?

My naïve assumption would be that coordinated, deliberate (over-)regulating of cryptocurrencies and/or attempting to manipulate prices lower might be a) much cheaper, and b) much more effective.

If you bring enough political pressure to bear on any particular international financial flow, it takes quite a lot of (political!) effort to stand up to that.

Look at what happened between the US and Iran re: the reintroduction of sanctions; then look at the response from France, the United Kingdom, and Germany.[0][1]

Can Bitcoin and its backers (yet?) muster sufficient political muscle to respond if there's a coordinated political attack?

[0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?re... [1] https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_trading_with_iran_special...

Re: Bitcoin's fundamental value is negative given its environmental impact

#163

Post by api »

xiphias2 wrote: post #160
logifail wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin has to withstand an attack from central banks of the world in the future Q: How do we imagine central banks would 'attack' a cryptocurrency, and how is a cryptocurrency (or its users/owners/proponents) going to defend against whatever form such attacks might take?

Buy / bribe miners to have a constant 50% attack even if they lose billions / tens of billions of dollars. Bitcoin mining should soon be seen as national security threat for countries that have the most bitcoins, that's why having so much hashing power in China is dangerous.

Any decent sized nation state could afford a 51% attack if they didn’t care about profiting on it and only wanted to wreck Bitcoin.

Re: Bitcoin's fundamental value is negative given its environmental impact

#164

Post by xiphias2 »

api wrote: post #163
xiphias2 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy / bribe miners to have a constant 50% attack even if they lose billions / tens of billions of dollars. Bitcoin mining should soon be seen as national security threat for countries that have the most bitcoins, that's why having so much hashing power in China is dangerous.

Any decent sized nation state could afford a 51% attack if they didn’t care about profiting on it and only wanted to wreck Bitcoin.

In theory sure, but how do you suggest to do it in practice?

Turn off electricity to half of residents because you have this crazy idea that doesn't help them? Buy miners just to get nothing out of it at the end?

Also what do you think other billionaires with Bitcoin holdings do? Sell it all, or counteract by buying even more miner equipments?

It would be a political disaster unless all natiom states work together to take over all miners...which is a possibility.

Re: Bitcoin's fundamental value is negative given its environmental impact

#165

Post by xiphias2 »

logifail wrote: post #162
xiphias2 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy / bribe miners to have a constant 50% attack even if they lose billions / tens of billions of dollars. Bitcoin mining should soon be seen as national security threat for countries that have the most bitcoins, that's why having so much hashing power in China is dangerous.

> Buy / bribe miners to have a constant 50% attack even if they lose billions / tens of billions of dollars (This is a genuine question, I'm not nearly as well-read on this as I should be) What would this achieve, and whom would benefit? My naïve assumption would be that coordinated, deliberate (over-)regulating of cryptocurrencies and/or attempting to manipulate prices lower might be a) much cheaper, and b) much mor…

It's easy to censor Iran if you control the international clearing system.

What you suggest is more similar to banning gold, which happened 100 years ago in US. Where do you think gold price went after that?

Re: Bitcoin's fundamental value is negative given its environmental impact

#166

Post by logifail »

xiphias2 wrote: post #165
logifail wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Buy / bribe miners to have a constant 50% attack even if they lose billions / tens of billions of dollars (This is a genuine question, I'm not nearly as well-read on this as I should be) What would this achieve, and whom would benefit? My naïve assumption would be that coordinated, deliberate (over-)regulating of cryptocurrencies and/or attempting to manipulate prices lower might be a) much cheaper, and b) much mor…

It's easy to censor Iran if you control the international clearing system. What you suggest is more similar to banning gold, which happened 100 years ago in US. Where do you think gold price went after that?

> What you suggest is more similar to banning gold, which happened 100 years ago in US. Where do you think gold price went after that?

Where the gold price when after 1933 isn't that relevant to all those who were forced to sell their gold to the Federal Reserve at that time.[0]

Thought experiment: were your national government to pass a law forcing you to sell your Bitcoin to them at a price they pick, you would appear to have precisely two options: 1) sell, or 2) be prosecuted

There's plenty of precedent for 2) [1], so I'm guessing most people would end up opting to sell. That would appear to be the end of that... (?)

For clarity: no, I don't think this is right. It might happen anyway.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102#Prosecuti...

Re: Bitcoin's fundamental value is negative given its environmental impact

#167

Post by jliptzin »

svachalek wrote: post #138
jliptzin wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to other methods of money transfer I think Bitcoin does pretty well in terms of its energy usage. How much energy is used printing money and shipping it to various banks in Brinks trucks? How much is used building and operating millions of bank branches/ATMs worldwide?

Cash is terrible. But that's not all "other methods of money transfer". Compared to an ATM debit, credit card payment, or even most modern crypto coins, the energy cost of Bitcoin is ridiculous.

The marginal cost to use an ATM is low but what about the fixed costs of installing them and the ongoing maintenance? How much methane is released into the atmosphere feeding bankers porterhouse steaks?

Re: Bitcoin's fundamental value is negative given its environmental impact

#168

Post by mrits »

3np wrote: post #154
3np wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardware manufacturing for ASICs is indeed mainly from Bitmain and a few others - how does that matter here?

(Too late to edit, but to get the point home): Would you argue that non-blockchain computing is centralized just from the fact that Intel and TSMC arguable control the CPU manufacturing?

Bitmain gives preferential treatment to certain vendors. This is problematic with a massive supply shortage. It makes it worst when the hardware that already exists starts to become worthless.

Re: Bitcoin's fundamental value is negative given its environmental impact

#169

Post by aabbcc1241 »

tomjen3 wrote: post #103
ballenf wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is far from unique in this. When gas prices fall people have been shown to drive more. And buy less efficient cars and drive them less efficiently (faster, more aggressively). When water prices are lower people water their lawns more and take more baths. When shipping ePackets from China is cheap, people buy more stuff from there. I just don’t see how Bitcoin responding to supply and demand is different from…

But when gas prices fall people either move those savings to cheaper, less efficient cars or get more satisfaction out of their driving? Whereas there is very little change in the bitcoin mining, unless you have fetish for long zeros in hash values.

The zeros translate to "more secure network"

Re: Bitcoin's fundamental value is negative given its environmental impact

#170

Post by oarabbus_ »

wmf wrote: post #14
oarabbus_ wrote: post #8

Video gaming has more environmental impact than bitcoin. So do porn sites. Bitcoin just seems like an easy target because people are more directly profiting off of it.

Gaming and computer hardware is ruthlessly optimized to be as energy-efficient as possible while Bitcoin mining is specifically designed to waste energy even though more efficient ways (PoS) exist. Cable boxes used to waste massive amounts of energy (because GI/SA don't pay your power bill) and eventually the government stepped in to force efficiency. So no, Bitcoin isn't being unfairly singled out for criticism.

>Gaming and computer hardware is ruthlessly optimized to be as energy-efficient as possible

And yet gaming still wastes more energy than crypto. Poor argument.

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