Live data from Hacker News

Bitcoin as a Battery

nickgrossman.xyz

221–230 of 319 posts

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does actually, thousands in Texas had no electricity while I did. Cost me 1/5 of a Bitcoin.

Did your electricity provider accept Bitcoin?

Whoever sells generators in an outage definitely will accept your bitcoin pre/post conversion.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#222
post #143

What the hell is is with cryptocurrency proponents and trying to redefine words to suit their narrative? First Bitcoin was NOT fiat currency (despite being one of the most fiat currencies by definition), then it was also a store of value (despite it being a horrible store of value, a high-risk high-reward investment is more accurate). Now it's supposed to be a battery? When the energy being put into it is basically p…

You don't think bitcoin should be valuable. Your point is fine, but it really doesn't address the article at all! Assuming bitcoin stays valuable, does it make sense to use bitcoin mining to augment some power projects? Like using otherwise wasted energy to mine or to mine in places where it might not be easy to transmit the electricity?

Actual batteries would be a better choice than consuming the energy at the time it is created. Investing in better transmission infrastructure would increase this benefit.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#223
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really because the Dollar bills battery keeps discharging at the inflation rate.

Right, because BTC value never goes down.

NGU - "Number Go Up" technology is one of Bitcoin's most interesting & unique attributes. Few here understand.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#224
post #118
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If bitcoin would be fully powered by renewables, do you still think its energy consumption would be a problem?

All energy generation is bad for the environment, just more or less bad. Solar cells and wind power might be "renewable", but it requires a lot of metals and material to build (and also energy), they disturb natural habitat etc. They are much better than coal, oil and gas, but they are not harmless. It's better to avoid using energy if possible than using renewable energy.

Cavemen used very little energy before the discovery of fire. Are you prescribing a return to that state?

>>>Response to Dan added here due to rate limit.

> waste power

Infinite energy in the universe and everything mankind has achieved has been in large part due to energy consumption. The idea that we should now stop that trend is antihuman/antihuman-progress at its core.

Let the individual/market decide the best uses for energy... not your money = not your choice.

BTW off-planet mining using the sun/stars is a great idea for the future and doesn't require them to be blacked out.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#225
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the sentiment, but this part is way off: > [...] despite being one of the most fiat currencies by definition [...] FIAT currencies are by design inflationary to enhance spending. Bitcoin is deflationary _by design_. Since there's no bank or state backing Bitcoin, the only way that bitcoin makes sense was/is deflation. This quality makes BTC an asset and that's what it is, a digital asset. As a currency B…

how would you quality VISA and Tesla accepting bitcoin ? does it qualify as asset tranfer or currency ? (open question)

Governments want you to think of crypto primarily as an asset and not a currency, because they don't want to give up control over currency creation. The fact that you have to file capital gains for every crypto will be the giant silent hurdle that stimies wide spread use. The only way to overcome this is if so many people ignore the law that it becomes unenforceable. Only time will tell.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#226
post #212

Whenever I read something this far off the mark, I genuinely wonder if it's total lack of intellectual honesty, or, having drank so much kool aid that this argument genuinely makes sense. Bitcoin transactions require the solution of a completely useless and expensive to compute mathematical computation. THIS IS BY DESIGN, TO MAKE IT SCARCE. In the short term, we are facing a critical shortage of computer chips becaus…

Correction: we need to solve climate change in a short term, not long term.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an excellent take on why the Grossman's idea is plainly idiotic [0]. You don't get more bitcoin for more electricity, you just get more security. The system itself can reach a state when you need 51% of whole planet electricity and computation devices locked into it to be perfectly secure. Thats frankly scary. [0] https://elad-verbin.medium.com/bitcoin-is-not-a-battery-it-i...

Yes, to me this response seems intuitive if you know anything about bitcoin and PoW blockchains. The original article seems based on misconceptions. I find it strange that even people at a prominent firm like Union Square Ventures are perpetuating such misconceptions.

I don't think it's a bit strange if they're heavily invested in Bitcoin. You may be assuming it's a good-faith argument.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A waste by most societal measures. Purely imaginary point backed by nothing that is easily defrauded and highly volatile. With no societal or personal value. And we've chosen to burn gigawatts of energy on this foolish game. Its easy to see it as enormous waste.

A waste by your societal measures. It's easy to see it as enormous waste, for you Speaking of "burnt gigawatts", if our society is still using coal to produce energy, are you blaming also Bitcoin for this? Too easy, sorry.

it's a waste for 99.9% of the World population, assuming that bitcoin's 6 million wallets represent 6 million different people.

So yes, it's arithmetically a total waste.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#230
post #212

Whenever I read something this far off the mark, I genuinely wonder if it's total lack of intellectual honesty, or, having drank so much kool aid that this argument genuinely makes sense. Bitcoin transactions require the solution of a completely useless and expensive to compute mathematical computation. THIS IS BY DESIGN, TO MAKE IT SCARCE. In the short term, we are facing a critical shortage of computer chips becaus…

Correction: we need to solve climate change in a short term, not long term.

You are right, I should have used short term and very short term.
Post reply on HN