Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin • Hacker News Board

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#201

Post by afiori » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

keymone wrote: post #200

afiori wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is perfectly a way to look at it but saying that "guns kills people is nonsensical" is making a straw-man of the argument. The statement is essentially "guns are bad, more guns means more death, less guns means less death" which is far from nonsensical independently with how much you agree with it or not. Bitcoin transaction use energy. The proof is that if no more transaction happened no energy would be spent i…

> Bitcoin transaction use energy. The proof is that if no more transaction happened no energy would be spent in bitcoins. That is not proof that bitcoin uses energy, in fact bitcoin only does about 2k on chain settlements every 10 minutes, and it has been like that for a decade, but energy usage has grown multiple orders of magnitude over that time period. Obviously energy is used for something other than transaction…

by the same logic you can prove that CPUs occupy no physical space at all given how much they have shrunk over the years.

many people claim that eventually Bitcoin will be able to be extremely power efficient (with the lightning network and whatnot), I have no idea about how these planned future improvements work. but today transferring Bitcoin (the main action that users of the network are supposed to perform) consumes a lot of energy.

you are clearly more knowledgeable about Bitcoin than me so if your position is that the internal operation called "transaction" nodes perform consumes a negligible amount of energy I have no qualms with it.

but I believe I have overwhelming external evidence that the operation called transaction by the laypeople users of the network to transfer ownership and grow the blockchain in any meaningful way under the dynamic consensus model uses lots of energy by design.

Edit: upon reflection I feel like what you are saying is that the nodes "consume" zero energy, but that I as the Bitcoin use am asking them to burn energy to produce a more secure block that will be better accepted on the blockchain. So the operations themselves consume nothing but rather use the value of energy as ingredient that ends up inside the block as stored value. I you are arguing this I can see how you could say that in good faith, I would still think that is a completely backward opinion

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#202

Post by afiori » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

keymone wrote: post #198

danaw wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell if you're just trolling or you're trying to make a point that Bitcoin actually uses no energy which, unless you do some crazy mental gymnastics, is quite a bizarre perspective to hold. And please explain how my question is ignorant but the stance you're taking isn't?

Well, your question assumes that bitcoin is using energy and anybody thinking differently must be ridiculed. Bitcoin isn’t using any energy, bitcoin is a marketplace where security of financial asset is represented in terms of energy expenditure.

airplanes use no energy, they offer a marketplace where token of fuel consumption are exchanged for weak guarantees of transportation

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#203

Post by ben_w » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 7:20 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #171

ben_w wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, the core thesis of Wealth of Nations is that a free market in an industrial economy is not zero-sum. Creation exceeds destruction, and the former does not require the latter.

>On the contrary, the core thesis of Wealth of Nations is that a free market in an industrial economy is not zero-sum. Technically yes, but there are always exceptions. Just because a well oiled and well functioning free market economy can be positive sum doesn't mean we have such an economy. Things can get really weird and backwards over the short term. The problem is that the short term can last decades and may was…

Sure. My context is purely with regard to the massive Bitcoin price instability, where I am denying the other comment that such is an unavoidable part of a free market, I am not any broader claim regarding the extent to which free markets are or are not also efficient markets.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#204

Post by keymone » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

afiori wrote: post #202

keymone wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, your question assumes that bitcoin is using energy and anybody thinking differently must be ridiculed. Bitcoin isn’t using any energy, bitcoin is a marketplace where security of financial asset is represented in terms of energy expenditure.

airplanes use no energy, they offer a marketplace where token of fuel consumption are exchanged for weak guarantees of transportation

if you want to see it that way, sure, but i'd say it's stretching. airplanes convert energy into miles travelled. bitcoin converts energy into security of an asset. if nobody needs to travel or nobody needs the security - no energy is spent.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#205

Post by keymone » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 8:10 PM UTC

afiori wrote: post #201

keymone wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin transaction use energy. The proof is that if no more transaction happened no energy would be spent in bitcoins. That is not proof that bitcoin uses energy, in fact bitcoin only does about 2k on chain settlements every 10 minutes, and it has been like that for a decade, but energy usage has grown multiple orders of magnitude over that time period. Obviously energy is used for something other than transaction…

by the same logic you can prove that CPUs occupy no physical space at all given how much they have shrunk over the years. many people claim that eventually Bitcoin will be able to be extremely power efficient (with the lightning network and whatnot), I have no idea about how these planned future improvements work. but today transferring Bitcoin (the main action that users of the network are supposed to perform) consu…

> I have no idea about how these planned future improvements work.

they already work. every on-chain bitcoin settlement can represent trillions of BTC exchanges. same as interbank settlements - done once a day, represent millions or billions of individual transactions. what does that do to your energy / tx metric?

> but today transferring Bitcoin (the main action that users of the network are supposed to perform) consumes a lot of energy.

transferring doesn't, securing it against an attack does.

> operations themselves consume nothing but rather use the value of energy as ingredient that ends up inside the block as stored value

that's exactly right, people that choose transacting on bitcoin chain do so knowing that they pay for certain level of security and you can see it from the correlation between bitcoin price and bitcoin hashrate. it's a system with many feedback loops that self-balances at a level of security that is demanded by the market.

you may think it's backward opinion but i appreciate that you recognize i'm not arguing in bad faith.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#206

Post by redis_mlc » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 8:26 PM UTC

Encybe wrote: post #3

> has no intrinsic value and is only valuable because others may accept it. So does USD

The US has an army. Bitcoin doesn't.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#207

Post by afiori » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 9:00 PM UTC

keymone wrote: post #204

afiori wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

airplanes use no energy, they offer a marketplace where token of fuel consumption are exchanged for weak guarantees of transportation

if you want to see it that way, sure, but i'd say it's stretching. airplanes convert energy into miles travelled. bitcoin converts energy into security of an asset. if nobody needs to travel or nobody needs the security - no energy is spent.

Personally I have a problem with how much energy is needed in the conversion in both cases, but my point is that both formulations are sophistically working around the fact that bitcoin and air travel both consume a lot of energy.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#208

Post by zaphar » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

andyana wrote: post #133

greyman wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also early adopters who are running their node and don't plan to cash their bitcoins. They just want this thing to exists for ideological reasons. What worries me more are some "inhuman" traits in cryptocurrencies. Most notable is one where if your crypto gets stolen, there is no standard way to "enforce the justice" by catching the thief, and give the money back to the rightful holder. This is something ve…

Those inhumane traits exist with cash too, don't they? I've never gotten my money back after being ripped off.

This is one reason I use cash less now.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#209

Post by MereInterest » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 12:11 AM UTC

keymone wrote: post #200

afiori wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is perfectly a way to look at it but saying that "guns kills people is nonsensical" is making a straw-man of the argument. The statement is essentially "guns are bad, more guns means more death, less guns means less death" which is far from nonsensical independently with how much you agree with it or not. Bitcoin transaction use energy. The proof is that if no more transaction happened no energy would be spent i…

> Bitcoin transaction use energy. The proof is that if no more transaction happened no energy would be spent in bitcoins. That is not proof that bitcoin uses energy, in fact bitcoin only does about 2k on chain settlements every 10 minutes, and it has been like that for a decade, but energy usage has grown multiple orders of magnitude over that time period. Obviously energy is used for something other than transaction…

> Obviously energy is used for something other than transactions.

Not at all. The efficiency of the network is intentionally degraded such that the rate of Bitcoin transactions remains constant despite the increased energy use. You are assuming that the energy is being spent for some tangible benefit, and drawing conclusions from that assumption. I would say that the energy is being wasted, with the sole result being a receipt showing how much electricity has been thrown away.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#210

Post by camgunz » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 1:34 AM UTC

swebs wrote: post #196

camgunz wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protected classes aside, you can't tell a business whom they have to do business with. That's freedom of association and also in the First Amendment. For example, you couldn't force someone to sell a Coke to a Neo-Nazi.

Yes, that's my point. Read the parent comment again.

> It solves the problem of corporate censorship. Visa for example is notorious for refusing to do business with people they don't like (porn companies, 4chan, etc).

You're saying here that it's a problem that Visa isn't forced to sell credit or payment processing to porn sites. I'm saying that's their right under the First Amendment.