Why is crypto still a thing ? I may be dumb but just don't get it.
My wife has a saying "If you want to know why a thing is a thing, the reason is money"
Either poor(ish) people trying to get rich, or rich people trying to get richer.
Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power
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Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power
#32And how much energy does maintaining the military that backs US currency use? Much more and it's violent. The use of energy to protect bitcoin from attack from nation states is non-violent. It really is an efficient and ethical use of the energy.
Are you implying that we could or should replace USD with BTC? Bitcoin uses over 2% of the energy to process 0.02% of the transactions. Aside from all the geopolitical & economic detriments that would incur, scaling Bitcoin up to the national level would require us to increase our energy production roughly 10000% just to power the mining.
And then you're further implying that doing so meant we could or should disband the military? Uh, I don't know what to say to that other than that there are plenty of non-economic reasons to have militaries.
Bitcoin really is a complete waste of time and energy.
Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power
#332.3% to support so little economic activity is just insane.
This is the type of tragedy of the commons issue where regulation is needed. For any one actor they can justify spending infinity energy as long as their ROI is positive.
There are enough justifications out there that it's easy to convince oneself that you're doing the world a favor ("I'm just librating finance and fighting the good fight against the central bankers").
Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power
#34The crypto industry financed a 2.3% expansion of the US's power generating capacity. I don't care what we're spending energy on. Being stingy about it just makes all of us poorer. There's a quadrillion-cubic-kilometer flaming ball of plasma in the sky. We have the ability to generate literally infinite electricity; and quite literally the only way we get to that is by increasing the amount of electricity we're using,…
Agreed 100%
Build more nuclear, build more natural gas (cleanest 'fossil fuel') to replace coal and pipelines to pipe it. Doing anything other than vastly expanding energy production will result in the US economy being left behind as automation rises and demands more and more energy.
Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah those companies generally use that energy to produce things of value to people
A global, decentralized, censorship-resistant monetary asset is not of value to people?
Not when it has repeatedly demonstrated over more than a decade that it is completely incapable of supporting a sane, usable model for financial transactions that isn't 99% scams, drugs, and burning giant piles of energy every time someone actually tries to use it as money.
Decentralizing the monetary system is potentially a laudable goal. Bitcoin has failed to accomplish it. Failed. Move on.
Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power
#36Fixing this is not going to fix the energy crisis but as uses of fossil fuels go it is among the most egregious
There is no single fix, of course.
In situations like this you prioritize... you cut the larger things that have the least value per amount of energy used.
Ending crypto mining is the easiest no-brainer in the history of energy systems.
Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power
#37Why is crypto still a thing ? I may be dumb but just don't get it.
Money laundering, ransomware, speculation/gambling, purchasing illegal goods and services
Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power
#38Power usage by itself is meaningless. The real question is the power providing utility or not. Like, no one thinks data centers for AWS are bad. They provide real benefit and utility. But, perhaps power wasted on cloth dryers and Christmas lights are a western frivolity.
So, the real argument is Bitcoin useful or not. Which, like most things, is something that probably be left to the free market.
Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power
#39The crypto industry financed a 2.3% expansion of the US's power generating capacity. I don't care what we're spending energy on. Being stingy about it just makes all of us poorer. There's a quadrillion-cubic-kilometer flaming ball of plasma in the sky. We have the ability to generate literally infinite electricity; and quite literally the only way we get to that is by increasing the amount of electricity we're using,…
This 2.3% mostly came from fossil fuels not new green generation capacity. You need to consider where these miners are located based on electricity costs and what infrastructure is built there not simply a hypothetical grid where arbitrary power can be moved anywhere at zero losses.
Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power
#40And how much energy does maintaining the military that backs US currency use? Much more and it's violent. The use of energy to protect bitcoin from attack from nation states is non-violent. It really is an efficient and ethical use of the energy.
I wish US military could additionally use that 2.3% power.
> The Department of Defense spews so much greenhouse gas every year that it would rank as the 55th worst polluter in the world if it were a country, beating out Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal, according to a new paper from Brown University’s Costs of War project.
> Why so much? Well, first off, there’s all those military buildings (some 560,000 on bases around the world) to power, heat, and cool. That accounts for about 40 percent of the total. The rest goes toward operations like moving troops and carrying out missions. The biggest CO2 culprit is, by far, planes. “Aircraft are extremely thirsty,” Crawford said.
https://grist.org/politics/u-s-military-emits-more-co2-than-...
US: 14.9 tons of co2
Sweeden: 3.6 tons