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Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

cointelegraph.com

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Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#211

Post by keymone »

afiori wrote: post #207
keymone wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But that’s where the analogy breaks, because with airplanes it’s indeed a backward way of describing it, but with bitcoin it’s what actually happens. Airplanes are means of travel, they can be more or less energy efficient. Bitcoin is a mean of achieving security via energy expenditure and energy efficiency doesn’t apply here. If you made a Bitcoin miner that is two times more efficient - it wouldn’t lead to reduction in energy use, it would lead to increase in difficulty requirement in bitcoin because the attacker can use that energy efficient miner too.

You may not like how much energy is spent on maintaining security, but it’s not bitcoin that necessitates it, it’s the market.

Bitcoin opened a Pandora’s box by showing the world how it can be done and now if people say they want an attacker to take 1gigawatt to overtake the network then that’s what will be spent to protect against such attack. With or without bitcoin.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#212

Post by keymone »

MereInterest wrote: post #209
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…

> 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…

> You are assuming that the energy is being spent for some tangible benefit

I don’t assume, I know what it’s being used for - security against chain overrides/rollbacks.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#213

Post by afiori »

keymone wrote: post #211
afiori wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But that’s where the analogy breaks, because with airplanes it’s indeed a backward way of describing it, but with bitcoin it’s what actually happens. Airplanes are means of travel, they can be more or less energy efficient. Bitcoin is a mean of achieving security via energy expenditure and energy efficiency doesn’t apply here. If you made a Bitcoin miner that is two times more efficient - it wouldn’t lead to reductio…

Personally I do not see how it is meaningful to draw a distinction between bitcoin and its market. If you prefer I can reformulate my poin to "the bitcoin current _ecosystem_ consume is overly inefficient" but beyond that I find problematic that

> If you made a Bitcoin miner that is two times more efficient - it wouldn’t lead to reduction in energy use, it would lead to increase in difficulty requirement

this is not considered problematic for something meant to replace current army-based currency. It points toward a direction where the economy becomes a zero-sum game.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#214

Post by keymone »

afiori wrote: post #213
keymone wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that’s where the analogy breaks, because with airplanes it’s indeed a backward way of describing it, but with bitcoin it’s what actually happens. Airplanes are means of travel, they can be more or less energy efficient. Bitcoin is a mean of achieving security via energy expenditure and energy efficiency doesn’t apply here. If you made a Bitcoin miner that is two times more efficient - it wouldn’t lead to reductio…

Personally I do not see how it is meaningful to draw a distinction between bitcoin and its market. If you prefer I can reformulate my poin to "the bitcoin current _ecosystem_ consume is overly inefficient" but beyond that I find problematic that > If you made a Bitcoin miner that is two times more efficient - it wouldn’t lead to reduction in energy use, it would lead to increase in difficulty requirement this is not…

Maybe I can reformulate my position then, so that it’s clearer: people have demand for certain kind of security of their financial assets - security that guarantees any attacker would have to spend some amount of energy to perform a successful attack. Whether bitcoin exists or not - that demand will be fulfilled and that amount of energy will be spent.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#215

Post by swebs »

camgunz wrote: post #210
swebs wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, and I agree. I'm not saying they should take that right away from Visa.

But if a customer wants to do business online with someone Visa doesn't approve of, they have very few options. And currently Bitcoin is the best option.

And if the government does not want Bitcoin to prosper, they should come out with a better alternative in the form of a public (government run) payment system so we have the digital equivalent of the dollar.

Because unlike private entities, the government is bound to the first amendment. Unlike Visa, the government does not have the right to pick and chose who they do business with.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#216

Post by camgunz »

swebs wrote: post #215
camgunz wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes, and I agree. I'm not saying they should take that right away from Visa. But if a customer wants to do business online with someone Visa doesn't approve of, they have very few options. And currently Bitcoin is the best option. And if the government does not want Bitcoin to prosper, they should come out with a better alternative in the form of a public (government run) payment system so we have the digital equival…

> But if a customer wants to do business online with someone Visa doesn't approve of, they have very few options. And currently Bitcoin is the best option.

I get what you're saying here but, the odds of someone taking actual BTC as payment are pretty low right now. It's way, way more likely I can just use another credit card company, a debit card, Venmo/Cash App/PayPal, etc. I think this argument, while common amongst BTC folks, is pretty hypothetical.

> And if the government does not want Bitcoin to prosper, they should come out with a better alternative in the form of a public (government run) payment system so we have the digital equivalent of the dollar.

The problem with this is that we'd lose lots of the tools we have to fight organized crime. These are people who run the drug trade, the weapons trade, and the modern slavery trade. It would probably also destroy our political system because of the ensuing corruption. I don't know exactly which side of the debate I fall on on this one (it's mostly the same as the encryption debate, although I think money isn't speech, but it also does seem like it sometimes, etc.), but I do know the consequences are pretty severe if we create a right to privacy for financial transactions.

> Unlike Visa, the government does not have the right to pick and chose who they do business with.

Believe it or not, I didn't exactly want to get into a BTC discussion here, I was trying to focus on your claims about 1A. I think this is another false claim; the government chooses who they do business with all the time--there's a contract bidding process, there's affirmative action, etc. etc. The government simply can't tell us whom we can do business with (as long as they're also Americans).

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#217

Post by swebs »

camgunz wrote: post #216
swebs wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and I agree. I'm not saying they should take that right away from Visa. But if a customer wants to do business online with someone Visa doesn't approve of, they have very few options. And currently Bitcoin is the best option. And if the government does not want Bitcoin to prosper, they should come out with a better alternative in the form of a public (government run) payment system so we have the digital equival…

> But if a customer wants to do business online with someone Visa doesn't approve of, they have very few options. And currently Bitcoin is the best option. I get what you're saying here but, the odds of someone taking actual BTC as payment are pretty low right now. It's way, way more likely I can just use another credit card company, a debit card, Venmo/Cash App/PayPal, etc. I think this argument, while common amongs…

>the odds of someone taking actual BTC as payment are pretty low right now. It's way, way more likely I can just use another credit card company, a debit card, Venmo/Cash App/PayPal, etc. I think this argument, while common amongst BTC folks, is pretty hypothetical.

It's the only way you can buy a 4chan pass for example

https://www.4channel.org/pass

>The problem with this is that we'd lose lots of the tools we have to fight organized crime

Well right now we have bitcoin where there is high anonymity and the government has no power over. In a government payment system they would have the power to freeze accounts and track transactions. I don't see how that's a worse system in regards to fighting crime.

>I was trying to focus on your claims about 1A

You completely misunderstood my original claim and went on a tangent bringing up common talking points. As if it were a knee-jerk reaction to seeing the words "corporate censorship" and "first amendment" in the same paragraph. I'm still not sure that you understand.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#218

Post by afiori »

keymone wrote: post #214
afiori wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I do not see how it is meaningful to draw a distinction between bitcoin and its market. If you prefer I can reformulate my poin to "the bitcoin current _ecosystem_ consume is overly inefficient" but beyond that I find problematic that > If you made a Bitcoin miner that is two times more efficient - it wouldn’t lead to reduction in energy use, it would lead to increase in difficulty requirement this is not…

Maybe I can reformulate my position then, so that it’s clearer: people have demand for certain kind of security of their financial assets - security that guarantees any attacker would have to spend some amount of energy to perform a successful attack. Whether bitcoin exists or not - that demand will be fulfilled and that amount of energy will be spent.

Usual army-based money depends weakly on the cost of energy, in general the economic structure of our society is ultimately based on trust of others and of the system.

Security of assets is understood to be best effort and preventive measures are well known to be unreliable (often replaced by inefficient punitive measures).

Bitcoin strives to build a trustless economy and thus its operation has far greater costs (fraud prevention with usual money generally costs proportionally with fraud attempts, while bitcoin is constantly tuned to 100% prevention).

In a more fair comparison we should compare the cost of all the world police + law enforcement + armies to the cost of mining energy + mining hardware and even given conservative estimates of corruption it isn't clear which side would be better under the total cost metric.

We could stop here and consider bitcoin an (almost) infallible trustless economy based on burning commodities compared to our usual fallible economy based on trust and force.

Personally I fell that this comparison suggest that bitcoin _should_ remain like it is today, relatively small with little influence on the world as a whole but readily available to who might need its peculiar service.

Bitcoin

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#219

Post by camgunz »

swebs wrote: post #217
camgunz wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if a customer wants to do business online with someone Visa doesn't approve of, they have very few options. And currently Bitcoin is the best option. I get what you're saying here but, the odds of someone taking actual BTC as payment are pretty low right now. It's way, way more likely I can just use another credit card company, a debit card, Venmo/Cash App/PayPal, etc. I think this argument, while common amongs…

>the odds of someone taking actual BTC as payment are pretty low right now. It's way, way more likely I can just use another credit card company, a debit card, Venmo/Cash App/PayPal, etc. I think this argument, while common amongst BTC folks, is pretty hypothetical. It's the only way you can buy a 4chan pass for example https://www.4channel.org/pass >The problem with this is that we'd lose lots of the tools we have t…

> It's [crypto] the only way you can buy a 4chan pass for example

Sure, I said "It's way, way more likely I can just use another credit card company, a debit card, Venmo/Cash App/PayPal". There are zillions of products, you named one for which there's very little demand, it looks like we agree.

> Well right now we have bitcoin where there is high anonymity and the government has no power over.

At least the US government regulates BTC. Lots of people have been arrested for violating finance laws re: BTC. The US could easily outlaw BTC or mandate further regulation. BTC is also not at all anonymous, the only thing that makes it "anonymous" is a tumbler.

> In a government payment system they would have the power to freeze accounts and track transactions. I don't see how that's a worse system in regards to fighting crime.

> You completely misunderstood my original claim...

Yeah, sorry again I wanted to dispute your 1A claims. Insofar as your idea of nationalizing a payment infrastructure and using a blockchain, I guess that's fine. I broadly think most things don't make sense as markets, and in democratic societies people should nationalize almost everything. However, I don't think blockchain should be involved because it's generally junk tech. It's like, yet again a normal database would be just fine.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#220

Post by afiori »

keymone wrote: post #205
afiori wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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) con…

Rereading my comment I realize that what i wrote is essentially an insult, I didn't mean for it to sound that way. I should have said that it is a backward implementation of security.
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