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Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

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Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#181

Post by razemio »

NickM wrote: post #73
gime_tree_fiddy wrote: post #58

A slightly tangential question, in regards to Bitcoin and Blockchain, that I (surprisingly?) haven't seen answered/asked: Blockchain is computationally intensive, but why does it has to be used for Bitcoin. There could be another solution, which achieves all its objectives, but isn't necessarily as convoluted. What am I missing? Why not just use SQL databases?

There are absolutely other solutions. The problem is they don’t allow existing participants to extract as much money out of newcomers as PoW, so the artificial hype being generated around alternatives is much lower.

Tell me one solution that would make blockchain technology obsolete. I would bet there is none even close because other solutions will require trust to some degree or have rather big security concerns but I am always open to learn new things.

If we are talking about blockchain tech PoS is a possible (not perfect) solution to replace PoW but this is even more hyped then PoW in my opinion.

Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#182

Post by multjoy »

scottiebarnes wrote: post #171
arcticbull wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rather than scapegoat Bitcoin for our climate crisis, start by... I too enjoy whataboutism to distract folks from the environmental impact of my favorite Ponzi scheme. > Do those things, and Bitcoin will literally subsidize and accelerate clean energy infrastructure investment. If you invest in massive solar and wind plants then use that energy to roll rocks up and back down a hill forever like Sisyphus, that's jus…

It's a waste to you, but not to the people who use and value it.

Sod the people who use and value it, this is literally the future of the planet.

Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#183

Post by arcticbull »

scottiebarnes wrote: post #171
arcticbull wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rather than scapegoat Bitcoin for our climate crisis, start by... I too enjoy whataboutism to distract folks from the environmental impact of my favorite Ponzi scheme. > Do those things, and Bitcoin will literally subsidize and accelerate clean energy infrastructure investment. If you invest in massive solar and wind plants then use that energy to roll rocks up and back down a hill forever like Sisyphus, that's jus…

It's a waste to you, but not to the people who use and value it.

I mean, ok, you could make that argument about literally anything. It's a tautology. Thing has value to people who value it because people value it. Neat.

It's intrinsic value is zero. It's economic value is negative, because it's a Ponzi scheme. [1]

[1] https://ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-pon...

Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#184

Post by me_me_mu_mu »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #66
thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> My utopian hope for the future is that we start sending rigs in orbit close to the sun. Dyson spheres and stellar engineering to power cryptocurrency mining rigs. I shudder at the thought.

One day a swarm of self replicating probes will turn up and start building a Dyson sphere around our sun. The purpose is to power the alien equivalent of Bitcoin mining. Another storyline I came up with is this: Imagine that an alien civilisation has the ability to send electromagnetic signals faster than light by some mechanism such as a micro wormhole but not ships and such. They still want to destroy other civilis…

crypto is basically mimetic crack.

Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#185

Post by jakub_g »

hocuspocus wrote: post #121
unicornmama wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to share your evidence for the first paragraph?

There's none. It's mind boggling that 12 years later, people like the parent poster are still claiming bullshit like that when there's literally zero evidence, rather the opposite. No country with underdeveloped banking and payment systems is interested in something like Bitcoin. They need something cheap and efficient, federated and... centralized! Many African countries are perfectly fine using M-Pesa.

I'm a crypto hater as much as one can be, but there are many countries in Asia and S.America where locals may not want to stick to local currency due to sky high inflation, and getting foreign currency is not easy or illegal, and/or making international transfer is not possible or expensive.

Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#186

Post by FabHK »

tasha0663 wrote: post #125
Negitivefrags wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One day a swarm of self replicating probes will turn up and start building a Dyson sphere around our sun. The purpose is to power the alien equivalent of Bitcoin mining. Another storyline I came up with is this: Imagine that an alien civilisation has the ability to send electromagnetic signals faster than light by some mechanism such as a micro wormhole but not ships and such. They still want to destroy other civilis…

Consider a Blockchain where proof-of-work mining takes place by solving a hard problem: for a given set of parameters, determine how long life will last in a realistic ancestor simulation. Consider also a play-to-earn game in the form of a realistic ancestor simulation where players grind menial portions of the game and sell the artifacts of their progress in a market backed by the aforementioned Blockchain. With apo…

You forgot the possibility that the outside civilisation is destroyed (eg by itself) before such simulation technology becomes technically feasible.

Not sure whether I should welcome my simulator overlords or search for weaknesses in Bostrom's argument.

Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#187

Post by js8 »

geertj wrote: post #93
sktrdie wrote: post #7

With a climate crisis the last thing we needed was to make the most effective energy consumption system ever constructed. The whole thing literally works on competing on consuming more energy. No other system works so efficiently towards such goal. What's scary is that the whole thing was designed to be unstoppable. My utopian hope for the future is that we start sending rigs in orbit close to the sun. Since we only…

> What's scary is that the whole thing was designed to be unstoppable. It’s only unstoppable within the game theoretic model of crypto itself, not within the larger societal context. Once Bitcoin power consumption enters the common discourse, my guess is that politicians will step in and simply outlaw PoW systems. There is no real downside for politicians. The average voter hasn’t yet invested their life savings into…

> Once Bitcoin power consumption enters the common discourse, my guess is that politicians will step in and simply outlaw PoW systems. There is no real downside for politicians.

Will we? I am not convinced. In the pandemic, many countries weren't even able to efficiently mandate masks or vaccines, despite the fact the majority supported these measures. The libertarian-anarchy minority is very loud, and will fight the right to Bitcoin tooth and nail.

Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#189

Post by ohgodplsno »

frutiger wrote: post #144
thathndude wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a son who is just about 10 years old, and he’s getting to the age where he’s beginning to realize how irrational our world is. We recently had a conversation discussing the fact that we could eradicate hunger and the need for clean water globally, but for a whole host of reasons we have not yet done it. He continues to probe “why“ and all I can say is, essentially, because people are greedy and unmotivated gen…

> and unwilling to sacrifice a modicum for others I agree with your sentiment but I have to disagree with that phrase. The vast majority* of people of people pay quite a lot of money in taxes, which ostensibly** only exist to help others. (*) I know the billionaires have their wealth as unrealized gains; I chose my words carefully (**) I know we all disagree on how that revenue should be spent, but the purpose of tax…

> I know the billionaires have their wealth as unrealized gains; I chose my words carefully

That they use as collateral to get loans from banks that actually have that money. "Billionaires don't actually have that money" is peak bootlicker logic.

Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#190

Post by me_me_mu_mu »

scottiebarnes wrote: post #171
arcticbull wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rather than scapegoat Bitcoin for our climate crisis, start by... I too enjoy whataboutism to distract folks from the environmental impact of my favorite Ponzi scheme. > Do those things, and Bitcoin will literally subsidize and accelerate clean energy infrastructure investment. If you invest in massive solar and wind plants then use that energy to roll rocks up and back down a hill forever like Sisyphus, that's jus…

It's a waste to you, but not to the people who use and value it.

Fentanyl has value to some people. But it kills them and some people keep making more.
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