Coinbase outages • Hacker News Board

Re: Coinbase outages

#271

Post by MomoXenosaga » Wed, May 19, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

grey-area wrote: post #154

jonrcooper wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope - the author is incorrectly using total energy / total transactions to get this number. Which, is understandable. However, if there were 2x the transactions, the total energy would stay very close to the same. So no. There's a lot of energy to secure the network, but the actual energy usage per transaction itself is a small fraction of that misquoted number.

Unfortunately the network can’t handle more transactions. Decentralised, fast, cheap: pick two.

My country handles 5 billion electronic transactions a year (thanks to COVID cash practically died last year). Fast and cheap although to be fair not decentralised. To this day I have no idea what cryptocurrency was supposed to solved.

Re: Coinbase outages

#272

Post by _alex_ » Wed, May 19, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

lottin wrote: post #203

_alex_ wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The power per tx metric is a dumb metric. Power usage doesnt increase or decrease per tx

That doesn't mean it's a dumb metric. Any efficiency metric must measure cost per unit of output and in a crypto-currency that's power per transaction.

why not power per dollar transferred? transactions per 10 minute period is relatively constant over time. The thing that increases the energy usage is the price of bitcoin.

It's a dumb metric.

Re: Coinbase outages

#273

Post by rchaud » Wed, May 19, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #117

program_whiz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its due to that, automated selling probably, but mostly because of China adding increased scrutiny. CN is one of the biggest bases of bitcoin: https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/19/investing/bitcoin-price-drop-...

Bitcoin is a "decentralized" digital currency.

Much in the same way as how North Korea is a democratic people's republic.

Re: Coinbase outages

#274

Post by zaptrem » Wed, May 19, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

papreclip wrote: post #265

sokoloff wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reasonable argument that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr was a contender for that title previously.

I would say https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber blows him out of the water >Haber is also considered the "father of chemical warfare" for his years of pioneering work developing and weaponizing chlorine and other poisonous gases during World War I, especially his actions during the Second Battle of Ypres. but more importantly, >Nearly 50% of the nitrogen found in human tissues originated from the Haber–Bosch pr…

What is a “natural limitation” of food? Should we get rid of mechanized farming, genetically enhanced plant varieties, modern logistics, and everything else that makes the modern world so spectacular and quality of life so high for billions of people as well?

The solutions for the future will be ones that improve technology to allow more to be produced more efficiently. We should look to the future, not “return to monke”.

Re: Coinbase outages

#275

Post by rchaud » Wed, May 19, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

bidirectional wrote: post #113

jw1224 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those following the GME saga believe it’s Wall Street banks scrambling to find liquidity in response to emergency rule changes by the OCC. It’s fascinating stuff to follow — watch the VIX today, a measure of stock market volatility. It’s absolutely soaring already.

The GME saga is over outside of fervent believers who cannot accept that Wall Street did not tumble because one small hedge fund made a bad bet.

At this point the true believers are one more "short squeeze" missed deadline away from being recruited by cults and militia groups.

Re: Coinbase outages

#276

Post by varispeed » Wed, May 19, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

program_whiz wrote: post #42

gardaani wrote: post #13

According to Binance, Bitcoin just went down from $42k to $30k in 2 hours. Elon Musk selling his cryptocurrencies??

Its due to that, automated selling probably, but mostly because of China adding increased scrutiny. CN is one of the biggest bases of bitcoin: https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/19/investing/bitcoin-price-drop-...

Well, China was very close of getting over 50% of hash rate, so this news is good for Bitcoin... /s

Re: Coinbase outages

#277

Post by varispeed » Wed, May 19, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #109

______- wrote: post #57

I'm a bit of a cryptocurrency newbie, but I know enough about it to know that centralized exchanges are not what cryptocurrency is really about. It's more about spending with cryptocurrency (in a decentralized way) instead of exchanging some fiat for it, and vice versa, no? It's a bit of chicken and egg problem I suppose (If I want Bitcoin I need some fiat to get it in some cases), unless I acquire Bitcoin via some o…

People realised some time ago that Bitcoin isn't actually fit for purpose for most payments because transactions take so long to close. So it's now pivoted to this value idea of storing "value". Absolute house of cards.

It's not even that. The two main problems are that Bitcoin in non fungible - that is 1 BTC != 1 BTC, and that comes from the second problem - BTC isn't anonymous, in the sense that all transactions are publicly available and there are tools already that give great deal of deanonymisation capabilities. Now if you use a tumbler to get "fresh" coins, it may be that some of the source coins were involved in hacks or drug deals and are blacklisted. This means when you'll try to withdraw you likely get them confiscated and get yourself in trouble.

Re: Coinbase outages

#278

Post by floatingatoll » Wed, May 19, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

trevithick wrote: post #120

ramboldio wrote: post #70

I recommend to look at the tether trading volume. If too many people are requesting their dollars at the same time, tether will go bankrupt and with it the bulk of the 'value' of the crypto empire. (hard to get a site that is up and has a good chart for that rn..)

https://crypto-anonymous-2021.medium.com/the-bit-short-insid... Posted on HN a while back. "To be crystal clear: every time you sell Tethers on Kraken, you are forcing Tether Ltd. to pay you in US dollars. If you can manage to sell enough Tethers for USD on Kraken, then Tether Ltd. will run out of dollars and this whole machine — which currently undergirds 70% of all crypto trading flows — will fall apart. Well-capit…

> Posted on HN a while back.

Please link to the HN article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25788409

Re: Coinbase outages

#279

Post by j3th9n » Wed, May 19, 2021, 6:10 PM UTC

DebtDeflation wrote: post #152

ojr wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do know that Coinbase has a $50k a day withdrawal limit? A lot of doomsday scenarios leave out this important detail when talking about a hypothetical bank run.

>Coinbase has a $50k a day withdrawal limit Given the price volatility of crypto, that sounds absolutely insane to me. Also, I don't think this prevents a run, on the contrary, when everyone hits the sell button and cannot actually exit then panic will ensue.

A withdrawal limit has nothing to do with being able to exit a trade from BTC to dollars.

Re: Coinbase outages

#280

Post by dougmwne » Wed, May 19, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

yetihehe wrote: post #192

suprfsat wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the surface of the Earth will eventually become a black body radiator _anyway_, so why should it bother anyone if we want to have a little fun first.

There is a theory that life exists, because it is effective at spreading out energy as heat more efficently[0]. In such case, bitcoin (or having fun) can be seen as a good purpose for life. Most of activities seen by people as "fun" use up energy and spread it as heat. [0] https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-o...

This is excellent. We should found a religion based on it. CHURCH OF THE ENTROPY MOST HIGH.