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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

#251

Post by arcticbull »

flatfilefan wrote: post #240
arcticbull wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you not think there's a meaningful difference between privately-run exchanges fraudulently manipulating the price to enrich themselves (to clear short or long positions off their books, pump the value of their assets, etc) -- and central banks who operate on behalf of the people of their respective countries to ensure a stable and reliable money supply?

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#252

Post by [deleted] »

flatfilefan wrote: post #232
drak0n1c wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#253

Post by throwaway32366 »

rtpg wrote: post #163
sekai wrote: post #161

Why a Chinese Bitcoin mining ban is good news: * It kills the narrative that China controls Bitcoin. * It severely diminishes the Chinese state's ability to disrupt the Bitcoin network by commandeering hashpower. * The Chinese miners will move their operations overseas, leading to higher geographical/jurisdictional decentralization. * It becomes relatively speaking more profitable for Chinese ASIC manufacturers to di…

>* The Chinese miners will move their operations overseas, leading to higher geographical/jurisdictional decentralization. I feel like you really don't get the... particulars of being a Chinese national, on multiple levels

There are many places in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and probably most of Africa where a Chinese national can easily get a business visa to set up shop there.

Heck, given the amount of money invested, a visa for a first world country might be possible too.

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#254

Post by ryanlol »

paulgb wrote: post #216
ryanlol wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the whole bitcoin climate change story isn’t true, the people making the claims may very well be well intentioned, they just aren’t correct.

Of all the fantastical things bitcoiners believe, the idea that the mining industry isn't directly responsible for a huge amount of CO2 emissions is one of the most egregious.

Did you accidentally reply to the wrong person?

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#255

Post by paulgb »

ryanlol wrote: post #254
paulgb wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of all the fantastical things bitcoiners believe, the idea that the mining industry isn't directly responsible for a huge amount of CO2 emissions is one of the most egregious.

Did you accidentally reply to the wrong person?

I was responding to this point:

> the whole bitcoin climate change story isn’t true

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#256

Post by sekai »

Nursie wrote: post #162
sekai wrote: post #161

Why a Chinese Bitcoin mining ban is good news: * It kills the narrative that China controls Bitcoin. * It severely diminishes the Chinese state's ability to disrupt the Bitcoin network by commandeering hashpower. * The Chinese miners will move their operations overseas, leading to higher geographical/jurisdictional decentralization. * It becomes relatively speaking more profitable for Chinese ASIC manufacturers to di…

> This likely makes overall Bitcoin mining greener, hurting the Bitcoin climate change FUD. It's not FUD if it's true, which you're implying with the first half of that there sentence...

It's debatable, most frequently cited articles are bogus with inflated numbers.

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#257

Post by KorematsuFred »

phreeza wrote: post #55
KorematsuFred wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is actually other way around. No one mines cryptos where energy in less supply because energy prices tend to be high. The current mining rigs in China are almost exclusively located in regions where energy is cheap and in oversupply. China has many power-plants that must run at certain capacity floor and despite of that the demand is much lower. It makes so much sense to let that energy be used to mine cryptos whi…

It appears to me that inhibiting mining does not really have a lot to do with usage of Bitcoin as a currency. Even if they managed to completely wipe out mining in China, that would have zero impact on the utility of Bitcoin as a currency in China.

Do not expect the chinese government agents to understand all that.

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#258

Post by ryanlol »

paulgb wrote: post #255
ryanlol wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you accidentally reply to the wrong person?

I was responding to this point: > the whole bitcoin climate change story isn’t true

There's a world of difference between the wild claims re: bitcoin pushing global warming above 2°C and bitcoin causing lots of CO2 emissions.

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#259

Post by village-idiot »

keymone wrote: post #250
village-idiot wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you’re just dodging the question. Prove your assertion that a country on bitcoin would need a smaller army. I’ll wait. Edit: saying that the economy would be deflationary and thus couldn’t afford a large army would be a hilarious way to go.

fiat's value is, at least partially, backed by an army that can defend/assert it. not having fiat eliminates the need for as much army.

There’s two issues here.

First, the logic doesn’t work. Let “has fiat currency” be A, and “has a large army” be B. You’re asserting “If A then B; therefore if not A then not B”. This is a formal logic error called “denying the antecedent”, which means the argument is invalid.

(You also don’t support A well, but that’s a side point because your logical assertion doesn’t work).

Second, there are plenty of examples of rich fiat countries with small armies (Switzerland, 0.7% GDP defense spending) and non-fiat countries with massive army expenditures (Roman Empire, harder to calculate due to history and lower productivity, but at least 2.5% GDP and 80% of the entire government budget). The presence of both indicates that the form of currency a country uses is secondary to other intangible aspects when it comes to the formation and maintenance of large armies.

Re: China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining

#260

Post by clarky07 »

Fnoord wrote: post #130
soVeryTired wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think a more intellectually interesting debate to have is whether or not Bitcoin is useful to society, and whether or not its utility justifies the costs. I honestly don't think it's an interesting debate. It's been done to death, and neither side will ever make any headway in convincing the other.

Not sure anything regarding Bitcoin hasn't been discussed to death. In this case, perhaps because there's no easy yes/no answer to it. I'm an opponent of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general. I find the environment important. However, I can attest there are valid use cases for cryptocurrency. I don't think there are valid use cases for me (a European utilizing the EUR who's not interested in tax avoidance or buying…

Not sure if you are aware, but not all crypto is based on proof of work (mining). There are other algorithms that don't waste tons of energy and still provide the benefits of crypto. Also, they can be useful for things other than tax avoidance and illegal utilities.
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