Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index • Hacker News Board

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#291

Post by eecks » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

leesec wrote: post #91

IgorPartola wrote: post #10

Slightly off topic, but does anyone have any good resources on how alternative consensus protocols work, like proof of stake and proof of importance? I either see really simplistic explanations or ones that assume a lot of domain knowledge. I also recently saw a crypto coin that claims to be energy efficient, and I don’t quite understand how that’s possible without the possibility of a 50.1% attack.

Eth prolly has the best constructed PoS system, just starting to roll out. https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/consensus-mechanisms...

What about Cardano? Isn't it already rolled out with >70% of ADA staked?

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#292

Post by Rallerbabs » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #265

Ok, I have to admit that I am one of those people who knew about BTC very, very early but never bought any. Now, of course I should have mined at least 100 back in the days, but anyways. The reason I have never mined nor bought into it is that I still, to this day struggle to come up with a real reason to do so. Am I getting too old? Do I not see the "huge potential" what it may become? Don't I want to get freaking r…

Follow the big money.

Michael Saylor from Microstrategies: $1B.

Elon Musk from Tesla: $1.5B.

GrayScale: not sure how many dollars, but they own >550,000 bitcoins.

Big money is of the opinion that bitcoin is an excellent store of value.

Only a matter of time before it becomes a medium of exchange.

And later on, a unit of account.

By that time, you won't be asking yourself what 1 bitcoin is worth anymore.

Things will be priced in bitcoin. And those who have it, have it good.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#293

Post by doctorwho42 » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

px43 wrote: post #254

Please put on your critical thinking hat for a minute. Using electricity is not the same as contributing to carbon emissions. Bitcoin is mostly mined in areas overflowing with excess green energy, and thus contributes negligibly to carbon emissions. The idea that all electricity generation is bad and therefore all electricity usage is bad is completely ridiculous. Instead of working so hard to figure out how to hate…

(1) power is not free, even green energy. It has production, labor, and material costs.

(2) using the term 'excess' green energy is a false statement. There is no such thing as excess green energy while a bulk of the grid is still coal/gas/etc.

(3) Bitcoin has led to a drain on GPU availability and in turn on the finite capacity of our semiconductor fabs. Arguably for nothing.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#294

Post by charcircuit » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

ucha wrote: post #92

Jonnax wrote: post #23

From what I understand bitcoin currently has a $20+ transaction fee with a transaction time takes 60 minutes+ With these issues in addition to the high power consumption, how will Bitcoin become a usable currency?

Buying US stocks takes 2 days to settle. Sending simple wires in the US takes hours. Last time I tried to send significant funds from France to the UK, it took me a whole week of back and forth with the bank to complete all the AML/KYC paperwork. Let's not even talk about how long it would take to move gold from one part of the world to another cf. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-30/iran-is-h... You c…

A bitcoin transaction never settles. If a longer chain is created without that transaction it will become the current state and that transaction will be effectively rolled back.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#295

Post by blhack » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #265

Ok, I have to admit that I am one of those people who knew about BTC very, very early but never bought any. Now, of course I should have mined at least 100 back in the days, but anyways. The reason I have never mined nor bought into it is that I still, to this day struggle to come up with a real reason to do so. Am I getting too old? Do I not see the "huge potential" what it may become? Don't I want to get freaking r…

Do you understand what the purpose of money is? It allows you to abstract your work into a (near) universally acceptable intermediary.

For instance: I am great at writing web APIs in golang, but unfortunately for me the people coming to my house today to deliver a dumpster (we're doing some spring cleaning) do not accept "golang apis" as a method of payment.

So I find somebody wants "golang APIs", agree to exchange with them for some money, and then use that money to pay the dumpster guys.

Money is a hugely innovative concept which has obviously driven a huge amount of innovation (now you can do work like "write golang APIs" instead of only doing things like "grow potatoes").

Does that help you understand what the point of bitcoin is?

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#296

Post by darkstar999 » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

golemotron wrote: post #290

baxtr wrote: post #265

Ok, I have to admit that I am one of those people who knew about BTC very, very early but never bought any. Now, of course I should have mined at least 100 back in the days, but anyways. The reason I have never mined nor bought into it is that I still, to this day struggle to come up with a real reason to do so. Am I getting too old? Do I not see the "huge potential" what it may become? Don't I want to get freaking r…

Inflation-proof store of value.

By trading inflation for volatility?

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#297

Post by slazaro » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

Jonnax wrote: post #23

From what I understand bitcoin currently has a $20+ transaction fee with a transaction time takes 60 minutes+ With these issues in addition to the high power consumption, how will Bitcoin become a usable currency?

Some of us ask ourselves the same thing. NANO, for instance, has no fees and is basically instantaneous (<1s). But unlike Bitcoin, Elon Musk isn't hyping it, and you can't make money by using computer farms, so most people don't know about it.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#298

Post by josalhor » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #265

Ok, I have to admit that I am one of those people who knew about BTC very, very early but never bought any. Now, of course I should have mined at least 100 back in the days, but anyways. The reason I have never mined nor bought into it is that I still, to this day struggle to come up with a real reason to do so. Am I getting too old? Do I not see the "huge potential" what it may become? Don't I want to get freaking r…

I see a huge potential in cryptocurrencies, just not in Bitcoin per se. I can totally see the European Central Bank controlling some kind of CryptoEuro that is tied to the real euro and allows individuals to make transactions without banks.

Banks would become an optional frontend on this transaction system, with security features built-in, etc.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#299

Post by seibelj » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

rjsw wrote: post #263

ucha wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying US stocks takes 2 days to settle. Sending simple wires in the US takes hours. Last time I tried to send significant funds from France to the UK, it took me a whole week of back and forth with the bank to complete all the AML/KYC paperwork. Let's not even talk about how long it would take to move gold from one part of the world to another cf. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-30/iran-is-h... You c…

> Last time I tried to send significant funds from France to the UK, it took me a whole week of back and forth with the bank to complete all the AML/KYC paperwork. You would need to do the same paperwork with bitcoin. I have UK and French bank accounts, transfers between them take seconds. Transfers from the French account to any other Eurozone account take seconds.

This comment made me laugh! Filing paperwork to send bitcoin? You are in outer space!

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#300

Post by axxxo93 » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #265

Ok, I have to admit that I am one of those people who knew about BTC very, very early but never bought any. Now, of course I should have mined at least 100 back in the days, but anyways. The reason I have never mined nor bought into it is that I still, to this day struggle to come up with a real reason to do so. Am I getting too old? Do I not see the "huge potential" what it may become? Don't I want to get freaking r…

I appreciate an honest question. The negative sentiment around crypto is a bit extreme imo. Bitcoin does have intrinsic value. A trustless P2P payment network has value. Is POW flawed, yes. This is a big reason why I prefer and hold Ethereum. Eth is moving to POS which is vastly more efficient. It also has additional programability in the form of smart contracts that bitcoin does not have. Look into the DeFi space for further use cases.