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China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

reuters.com

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Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#231

Post by jayd16 »

jraedisch wrote: post #112
jayd16 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is just a pipe dream. You would just have fraud hidden away in Swiss bitcoin accounts and wallets in the Cayman islands. Isn't it just less privacy for the naive user and business as usual for the fraudster?

You are correct in that money can and will still be used for fraudulent activity. But the system itself (so far) could not be corrupted. So there is a class of systemic manipulation, that becomes a lot harder with Bitcoin (e.g. inflating money supply).

In theory, but in practice it seems easily manipulated.

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#232

Post by flatfilefan »

drak0n1c wrote: post #102
kevintb wrote: post #17

Good. There are few things more wasteful in energy and minimal in doing good for the world. Widespread bitcoin adoption would be catastrophic for the Earth and climate change efforts [1]. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0321-8

There are a billion people living under authoritarianism who are stuck with an increasingly devalued Yuan and steadily losing the ability to obtain other currencies. Is that not also a problem that can result in humanitarian disaster? It certainly has before. I don’t think we should be comfortable with blanket bans just because they are accompanied by government greenwashing PR.

Why would a devaluing Yuan be bad for working class Chinese? What are they buying that’s getting disproportionately more expensive? We assume you call devaluation lower FX to dollar, don’t you? Because dollar is also subject to inflation obviously.

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#235

Post by flatfilefan »

village-idiot wrote: post #157
keymone wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do these calculations take into account energy equivalent of running all the armies in the world, funding their wars and conflicts? because entire banking system exists on a premise that there is an army behind every fiat currency, so it's not really honest to exclude that from communication. bitcoin security on the other hand is backed purely by energy spent by miners.

The idea that bitcoin will magically make armies obsolete is one of the most laughably silly ideas I’ve seen in a long time, and that’s quite the bar to clear. Hint: wars predate fiat currency. You’d still need army without fiat.

Read on British debt and it’s relationship to the WWI and WWII.

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#236

Post by imhoguy »

kevintb wrote: post #17

Good. There are few things more wasteful in energy and minimal in doing good for the world. Widespread bitcoin adoption would be catastrophic for the Earth and climate change efforts [1]. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0321-8

I am not bitcoin proponent, however to be fair I wouldn't judge only one side. The World's economy is currently based on assumption of constant growth therefore it is going to be catastrophic as well. I have no hard data but look how much resources the present monetary systems consume, that including cost of running air-condition in any big financial hub offices.

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#237

Post by smile_ »

swarnie_ wrote: post #132
chakintosh wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but we're talking about thousands of GPUs here and each one radiating 70ºC

Again, probably need a physicist or engineer to figure out if that's enough to get water to the 500-600 degrees typically used in steam driven turbines.

I do not believe this would be possible. If we stick with 70 degrees being the max temperature of the GPUs^, as we increase the number of GPUs then the coolant will approach 70 degrees but not go over, hovering from 69-70.

To break it down, if you have a comically large stove top heater set to 70 degrees and a regular sized one set to 70 degrees, if you put a pot on either the max temperature of the water in the pot is still 70 degrees. The rate at which it heated to 70 would change but max temp wouldn't.

^Max safe temp of GPUs is around 100c. What will actually happen is that the GPUs will heat the coolant to this temperature, then either the coolant will lose heat through normal means (when water isn't heated it cools), or if the coolant stays hot eventually a GPU will turn itself off through overheat safety mechanisms. Once this GPU is off the coolant loop will drop temperature for a while then slowly approach max temp again, until either another GPU gets turned off or the system finds its equilibrium where the coolant is at a stable temperature and no more GPUs are turning themselves off.

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#238

Post by plorkyeran »

riffraff wrote: post #223
peteradio wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares if it's renewable when it's inexhaustible.

is fission material inexhaustible?

It is inexhaustible in the sense that fuel is not the limiting factor on how many nuclear power plants we can build.

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#239

Post by tudorizer »

GenericsMotors wrote: post #228
tudorizer wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a techie, you should still apprectiate the fact that Bitcoin mining is the first financial system that can be measured in terms of energy impact. Existing systems, banks and all adjacent institutions and companies, are close to impossible to track and measure.

Existing financial systems process many orders of magnitude more transactions than Bitcon does. There's no acceptable excuse for its current consumption VS the throughput it provides.

It's software, it can be optimised much quicker than optimising the politics and dynamics of the existing banking system.

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#240

Post by flatfilefan »

arcticbull wrote: post #227
flatfilefan wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We shouldn’t confuse trading for fiat money with on-chain transactions.

I'm curious why they should get a pass. They're a first-class part of the ecosystem, and pretending exchanges don't exist to goose the numbers feels dishonest. Further, it's the exchanges that set the "price" of bitcoin relative to fiat, which in turn sets the exchange rate for BTC to goods in on-chain transactions. Unless you're suggesting there's an "exchange" price for goods and a "black market" price for goods th…

Because as per your linked article 95% of it is fake. Supply of fiat money is also „fake“ in a sense that it’s arbitrary controlled by one entity per country at most.
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