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Bitcoin Is Time

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Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#251

Post by ketamine__ »

creaturemachine wrote: post #121
ketamine__ wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people generally want to enjoy their lives. I have a friend that keeps his house at 60F in the winter. I think you can argue that I'm not going to die at those temperatures or experience hypothermia. It's quite unpleasant nonetheless. During the summer if it's hot indoors I feel miserable and tired. A lot of us could live a more simple life (i.e. no cars, fewer children). But humans are attracted to comfort a…

Easy with the children. Having children is the one immutable thing we as living beings must protect and cherish at all costs.

So we can't analyze the thing using the most resources?

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#252

Post by abledon »

I'm curious how 70% of mining of BTC is done by China... how USA will react to allow BTC to take over their financial territory? Can governments step in and do some sort of play on this to not lose out on their value?

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#253

Post by mdoms »

doomroot wrote: post #108
user-the-name wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing baseless in saying that using 0.1% of the entire world's energy in order to do 3 transactions per second is beyond ludicrous, and an environmental disaster of massive proportions.

Here me out. What if it was the only way to defund the US military? Would you be interested then? Why do we waste so much energy building killing machines? Why is there not a daily hackernews thread complaining about the energy consumption of the US military? Because it’s a necessary to ensure you can buy and sell things when you want to.

This is delusional.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#254

Post by jes5199 »

gnrlst wrote: post #210

I'm ready to be downvoted to oblivion, especially by all the Bitcoin purists, but I hope my message sparks at least some curiosity. Bitcoin is getting "weaker" every year for several reasons: - emerging centralization due to economies of scale. If this trend continues the mining power will be so consolidated that a 51% attack will be likely. The Nakamoto coefficient is already at 4, and tending towards 3. - energy us…

can you explain your point about renewable energy? I'm not sure I see how that follows

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#255

Post by f430 »

You mean bitcoin is a ticking time bomb kept afloat by an unbacked asset that is now the target of Federal agencies?

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#256

Post by boringg »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #209
noxer wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bitcoin is onto something What if it "was"? The "hate" people express against bitcoin especially here on HN is often towards the implementation. People clearly see the flaw in PoW if they are not emotionally attached to it because they have no money at stake. You should not misinterpret that as hate because they missed the train to richness. Objectively PoW does not scale. Objectively we have DLTs (blockchains) with…

>People clearly see the flaw in PoW if they are not emotionally attached to it because they have no money at stake. You should not misinterpret that as hate because they missed the train to richness. The vitriol that Bitcoin evokes from HN commenters can really only be explained by jealousy, the environmental concern is just a cover for covetousness.

That seems inflammatory (covetousness?).

My take is HN commenters try to typically reason through articles with thought and an open mind. I would wager there are so many bitcoin bros who hype ad nausea that beckons the skepticism you see here.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#257

Post by cloakandswagger »

boringg wrote: post #256
cloakandswagger wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People clearly see the flaw in PoW if they are not emotionally attached to it because they have no money at stake. You should not misinterpret that as hate because they missed the train to richness. The vitriol that Bitcoin evokes from HN commenters can really only be explained by jealousy, the environmental concern is just a cover for covetousness.

That seems inflammatory (covetousness?). My take is HN commenters try to typically reason through articles with thought and an open mind. I would wager there are so many bitcoin bros who hype ad nausea that beckons the skepticism you see here.

"Bitcoin bros" is inflammatory and slanderous. Please edit your comment.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#258

Post by Applejinx »

UncleMeat wrote: post #157
gt565k wrote: post #66

Why are we still talking about bitcoin and first gen blockchain tech. Yes it's old, yes it's slow, yes it wastes resources. It is legacy software after all. PoS solves the problem of mining and wasted energy. Cardano's Ouroboros is a provable and secure Proof-of-Stake blockchain protocol. https://docs.cardano.org/en/latest/explore-cardano/relevant-...

> Why are we still talking about bitcoin and first gen blockchain tech. Because it doesn't seem to be going away faster than the newer generations. There is a real chance that if cryptocurrency ends up being a thing forever that BTC is the winner. And that is an environmental disaster until we get to 100% clean energy worldwide.

Even then. This stuff produces heat.

The way the scaling operates, as it goes along, even if you had FREE energy piped from a hyperspatial link in the heart of the Sun… eventually the ASIC farms themselves will begin to cook the planet.

It doesn't stay alive and profitable unless it keeps burning energy MORE. The fact that the energy's going to come from the dirtiest and most dangerous (cheapest) possible fuels, is certainly a problem and will continue to be one for as long as such fuels exist, but in the literal absence of fuel and cost of fuel, the exponential-growth thing just switches to the computers turning (now free and infinite) energy into calculation.

There is always a bigger server farm, because such a thing costs money, and those with money are the ones who can and will make more of it. With cryptocurrency, that's just literal, and their profitability is always a perfect and direct match with how hard they can cheat or abuse any possible rule there to constrain them. The end result, perfectly untraceable and fungible, as long as the system is allowed to continue.

Disaster will always be more profitable, in cryptocurrency-land. I mean, I suppose you could play nice and barely make any money…

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#259

Post by flurben »

neilwilson wrote: post #156
SkipperCat wrote: post #68

Bitcoin is only popular because tech workers get paid a lot and have the ability to speculate, we live in a world of massive asset bubbles created by government fiscal policies and Bitcoin is excellent for buying drugs on-line. Most people want security in their assets, which is why a majority of folks read articles about bitcoin but never touch one. All of these articles are great examples of creative writing. I do…

"we live in a world of massive asset bubbles created by government fiscal policies" Do we? Or have we lived in a world where asset prices were suppressed due to artificial intervention by central banks. Interest rate setting is a market intervention. If left to its own devices the market rate would be driven down towards zero.

> If left to its own devices the market rate would be driven down towards zero.

How do you figure?

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#260

Post by Sparkyte »

gnrlst wrote: post #210

I'm ready to be downvoted to oblivion, especially by all the Bitcoin purists, but I hope my message sparks at least some curiosity. Bitcoin is getting "weaker" every year for several reasons: - emerging centralization due to economies of scale. If this trend continues the mining power will be so consolidated that a 51% attack will be likely. The Nakamoto coefficient is already at 4, and tending towards 3. - energy us…

There is also no meaningful contribution for the work. Imagine if there was a blockchain crypto attached to folding@home it would work that has value.
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