331–340 of 431 posts
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Inefficiently though. Electric heaters are only 100% efficient at turning electricity to heat. We can do a lot better than that
I know that in theory a heat pump can do better, but in cold enough climate it can't because one side collects condensation and freezes making it less than 100% efficient. So no, we can't do better.
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The "stochastic probability stuff" falls apart once ISPs discover they can profitably influence the consensus outcome by messing with packet arrival times between nodes.
Yeah that's an interesting angle. I believe the problem in the first place is forcing the network to come to global consensus. In my project the idea is to form "lazy consensus" (i.e. just enough consensus for everyone to have a consistent outlook on the world). Datalisp is a data interchange format rather than a cryptocurrency though.. so it behaves a bit different.
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This is a bit of crypto-delusion I have never understood: why compare Bitcoin with the financial system as a whole to get out of the "it is mostly powered by coal plants in China"-argument? Does Bitcoin assess credit risks of governments, companies and people and then extend+manage credit? What does Bitcoin offer in regards to risk management/hedging for operating businesses? Maybe Bitcoin has some liquidity manageme…
I worked at Goldman Sachs for 3 years in technology and trading roles so I'm fairly confident that I am largely familiar with how a bulge bracket investment bank as well as how most consumer banking firms operate work. It's not misleading at all. It's important to consider that a large group of human operators, using a separately large set of semi automated processes, are a large component of the current energy spend…
A good reminder that Bitcoin runs on cheap renewables is BS. See also miners buying gas power plants in New York.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26828479
This ROI could be then funneled into carbon offset projects, renewables, and research.
[1]: A quick google brought up a few results spanning those ranges
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So you're telling me that Bitcoin can make up ground for being almost a million times less efficient on a basic and everyday use case of currency in some other way? Please, go ahead and tell me. That's like saying you have the fastest drive thru hamburger shop even though it takes an hour for someone to get their food. But the burger joint is faster "elsewhere". Where else could Bitcoin make up the energy efficiency…
Does VISA create and secure an asset that is open source, decentralized, censorship resistant, permissionless to participate in? Apples to oranges. VISA can't do those things, it is a centralized settlement layer for US Dollar transactions. So when we selectively compare the transactions per energy metric, we are conveniently ignoring the fact that VISA is not responsible for securing the stability of the global US D…
There was an article on HN regarding money laundering in the past week. Lots of people were surprised and denounced how easy it is to launder money... so... with Bitcoin's features making it a beautiful means of money laundering... if it becomes truly adopted as a currency, those features are going to go bye-bye. Stealing bitcoin hasn't been rare either. Search engine of choice look up, "bitcoin stolen". It doesn't really seem that much better that current systems. There's always a way to steal from someone. That xkcd comic on security makes a good joke on it. The best hash doesn't protect you from someone hitting you with a $5 wrench.
So what visa isnt responsible for securing the stability of the dollar? Who in their right mind thinks they are responsible for shit other than skimming off the top when communicating between two banks? Seriously? You think a mainstream bitcoin transaction service is going to be a non-profit? Visa is simply part of the network. If they go down, there are other services that still function. Best part, if all telecom goes down, paper money still works. Crypto doesn't. Anything that affects visa, Mastercard or any other high or low level merchant service, affects crypto too. Generally, crypto is just another merchant service using it's own chucky cheese tokens instead of an multi organization agreed upon one.
Most of the "benefits" are either rare, extremely niche or just brute forcing a wall that just requires stepping around it.
A good reminder that Bitcoin runs on cheap renewables is BS. See also miners buying gas power plants in New York.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26828479
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Yes, and it’s vastly less than Bitcoin. Simply because it’s centralized, and a centralized system is always more efficient than a decentralized one. It’s a well known trade off. A better comparison would be gold versus Bitcoin, as they’re both similarly decentralized. Just comparing energy consumption between the two probably wouldn’t make sense, though, as gold mining e.g. ruins vast areas of land.
> Yes, and it’s vastly less than Bitcoin. Ponder, for a moment, the way in which governments use the "printing" of fiat money to fund wars (for private sector profit, revolving back into that private sector's lobbying those governments for even more war and military spending). Ponder, for a moment, the amount of energy and Earth's resources expended to materialize these wars and military spending. Bitcoin (or, the pr…
If you imagine that people wouldn't lend BTC to the US, remember that, when Standard&Poor's reduced America's credit rating, US bonds shot up in price (even though technically they were the one asset that S&P's rating was about the most).
A good reminder that Bitcoin runs on cheap renewables is BS. See also miners buying gas power plants in New York.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26828479
A very large amount (something about 25-47% [1]) of homes use electricity without getting any computation for their electricity to heat conversion. Those homes could use computing devices (albeit at a high capital cost) with 0 marginal energy or environmental cost. Especially if their device is a sunk cost. Yes heat pumps are better than 100% efficient, but they're inappropriate in many circumstances, and can be as e…
They could also just take the costs that would go to ASICs and instead put that into the investments in the first place. What actual utility is there in some mathematical computations for society as a whole?
A good reminder that Bitcoin runs on cheap renewables is BS. See also miners buying gas power plants in New York.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26828479
A very large amount (something about 25-47% [1]) of homes use electricity without getting any computation for their electricity to heat conversion. Those homes could use computing devices (albeit at a high capital cost) with 0 marginal energy or environmental cost. Especially if their device is a sunk cost. Yes heat pumps are better than 100% efficient, but they're inappropriate in many circumstances, and can be as e…
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A very large amount (something about 25-47% [1]) of homes use electricity without getting any computation for their electricity to heat conversion. Those homes could use computing devices (albeit at a high capital cost) with 0 marginal energy or environmental cost. Especially if their device is a sunk cost. Yes heat pumps are better than 100% efficient, but they're inappropriate in many circumstances, and can be as e…
> This ROI _could_ be funneled into carbon offset projects, renewables, and research. They could also just take the costs that would go to ASICs and instead put that into the investments in the first place. What actual utility is there in some mathematical computations for society as a whole?
Think of calculating digits of Pi. You can calculate the digits ahead of time and stockpile them, you can use your stockpile to do a 51% attack.