Bitcoin Is Time • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#371

Post by ttul » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

vntok wrote: post #37

ttul wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s enormous? A colleague just finished putting together a 125MW BTC mining operation. That’s sheer insanity. Nobody has ever been able to explain how Bitcoin saves the world from climate catastrophe by using 0.3% of all electricity.

> Nobody has ever been able to explain how Bitcoin saves the world from climate catastrophe by using 0.3% of all electricity. Why would you think that Bitcoin needs to accomplish that particular task? As far as I know ending climate change has never been mentioned as a goal or desirable outcome of the project.

The maintainers of Bitcoin could make changes to the mining protocol that reduce its reliance on energy. By choosing to not do so, they are directly contributing - in a substantial way - to civilization-ending climate catastrophe. I do think that Bitcoin's maintainers have an obligation to do their part, considering that they are very materially a part of the problem.

Ethereum is at least working hard on other algorithms that are energy efficient. But in the Bitcoin space, the tremendous investment in energy-intensive mining equipment means that the entrenched players have an interest in persisting the way that things currently work, rather than seeking an energy conserving replacement.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#372

Post by snarf21 » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #55

Nothing is less material than money. . . . Money is abstract, I repeated, money is future time. It can be an evening in the suburbs, it can be the music of Brahms, it can be maps, it can be chess, it can be coffee, it can be the words of Epictetus teaching us to despise gold. Money is a Proteus more versatile than the one on the island of Pharos. —Jorge Luis Borges, “The Zahir” https://longreads.com/2016/06/14/borges…

I've always thought about it this way: We trade our time (work) for money and later trade that money for time (other's work). We see this manifestation in lots of places: bus is cheap but also costs time vs limousine is expensive but uses minimum time. Growing food is dirt cheap but also costs time vs buying produce is expensive but uses minimum time. This exchange has also allowed the producers to invest in efficiencies and economies of scale. All told, this is why I generally have a rule to not spend money on anything that doesn't buy me time, it is my most limited resource.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#373

Post by fredfoobar » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

boredpandas777 wrote: post #348

Let me fix that title. Happy to be downvoted into negative territory. I only have 11 points. Go ahead. "Bitcoin Is A Waste of Time (and Resources)" What Bitcoin has done is that it taught people they can come together in a sustained flash mob (like an on-the-fly hedge fund operation) and manipulate the price of speculative assets by creating artificial short-term pump-n-dump type demand. Bitcoin has trained our colle…

I've been saying the same damn thing about automobiles man, horses already have self driving even! and they don't pollute like cars.

Look at the mess we're in now! who's laughing?? Cars pollute and need roads, we had to build so many roads and gas stations. We even had to go to war to make sure we have enough oil.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#374

Post by thebean11 » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

boredpandas777 wrote: post #348

Let me fix that title. Happy to be downvoted into negative territory. I only have 11 points. Go ahead. "Bitcoin Is A Waste of Time (and Resources)" What Bitcoin has done is that it taught people they can come together in a sustained flash mob (like an on-the-fly hedge fund operation) and manipulate the price of speculative assets by creating artificial short-term pump-n-dump type demand. Bitcoin has trained our colle…

Are you implying a cause and effect relationship from crypto to the GME stuff?

I think thats a big "citation needed" from me..seems more likely both are on the "effect" side.

> Let me fix that title. Happy to be downvoted into negative territory. I only have 11 points. Go ahead.

How brave..

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#375

Post by PragmaticPulp » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

arbawk wrote: post #117

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…

Actually it's pretty important for many: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLYYh4aPXAM It's being widely adopted in countries with inflating currencies: Nigeria, Vietnma, and Argentina made it to #3 today (this link is slightly old). https://www.statista.com/chart/18345/crypto-currency-adoptio...

Ironically, the number of people who use Bitcoin directly (that is, on the blockchain with their own address) is significantly smaller.

Most people use Bitcoin via exchanges, where they keep the coins. The average crypto user from Nigeria has zero interest in paying $10+ transaction fees every time they need to do anything with their money.

At this point, it doesn't matter if they own BTC or ETH or DOGE or whatever. They just want whatever allows them to move money around. The exchanges could simply keep balances in a database and reconcile them amongst each other via contracts, and it wouldn't make any difference as far as the end users are concerned (There are examples of this happening between exchanges).

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#376

Post by SideburnsOfDoom » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #143

yerwhat01010 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will Bitcoin lead to the defunding of the US military? Can I get a specific, plausible answer that isn't some vague utopian libertarian handwave?

That's not the point. The point is, it hypocritical to complain about bitcoin energy consumption without also complaining about the energy, material and human deaths consumption caused by for example US military, which is in essense what is required for something like a USD as a reserve currency to function.

Textbook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#377

Post by Aunche » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

hfsp wrote: post #356

toto444 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sour grapes syndrome is a result of pride, I think. Or maybe it comes from people who have read an Econo101 textbook and who have spent a lot of time trying to explain a crowd of Bitcoin enthusiasts why their reasoning is wrong but no one has been listening to them so far so they are bored. Back in the time I used to spend my days on a forum about Economics. Every other week there was a random guy who signed up jus…

>Or maybe it comes from people who have read an Econo101 textbook and who have spent a lot of time trying to explain a crowd of Bitcoin enthusiasts why their reasoning is wrong The market decides. Not an economics "expert", nor fitting btc to an arbitrary theoretical definition of money. >It seems that tech has enabled a grand new theory about money to be implemented. Are you aware of the Austrian school of economics…

The market is currently deciding that Bitcoin is almost entirely a vehicle of speculation, which is exactly what economists had predicted.

The Austrian school of economics is completely adverse to empirical data, which makes it functionally useless.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#378

Post by PragmaticPulp » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

andreygrehov wrote: post #202

bena wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this being thrown about as a talking point a lot, but I think it ignores what's fundamentally happening here. Bitcoin is essentially a proxy for another currency. Mostly the USD. These people need a way to protect their assets from what their own governments are doing to the value of their native currencies. They cannot buy securities or foreign currencies for various reasons. Bitcoin gives them a way. A way to…

> Bitcoin is essentially a proxy for another currency. Yes, but this is only temporarily. It's like refactoring systems. You create a new system and a proxy and then have the old system communicate with the new one via the proxy (or vice versa). Eventually, the old system becomes obsolete, so you kill it and get rid of the proxy.

But if your proxy takes at least $10 of your currency every time you use it, you would expect people to look for a different proxy.

In your example, Bitcoin would obviously be the "old system" if everyone wanted to use it for moving money around, because there are plenty of more advanced alternatives that work far better.

So why is Bitcoin so popular? Because it's a speculative investment. A new asset class divorced from fundamentals, making it impossible to say when the value is too high. That's why people like it.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#379

Post by ForHackernews » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

fredfoobar wrote: post #373

boredpandas777 wrote: post #348

Let me fix that title. Happy to be downvoted into negative territory. I only have 11 points. Go ahead. "Bitcoin Is A Waste of Time (and Resources)" What Bitcoin has done is that it taught people they can come together in a sustained flash mob (like an on-the-fly hedge fund operation) and manipulate the price of speculative assets by creating artificial short-term pump-n-dump type demand. Bitcoin has trained our colle…

I've been saying the same damn thing about automobiles man, horses already have self driving even! and they don't pollute like cars. Look at the mess we're in now! who's laughing?? Cars pollute and need roads, we had to build so many roads and gas stations. We even had to go to war to make sure we have enough oil.

I guess the difference is cars are useful.

What can I do with a bitcoin except hope to sell it for more USD later?

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#380

Post by anthropodie » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #362

anthropodie wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The study that raised concerns regarding Bitcoin's energy usage also suggests the amount of electricity consumed every year by always-on but inactive home devices in the US alone could power the entire Bitcoin network for a year[1]. I am not trying to undermine Bitcoin's energy problem. We need more discussion and awareness on this than just labeling "Bitcoin bad" because it consumes more energy. [1]: https://www.bbc…

Two wrongs don't make a right. No amount of whataboutisms will offset the fact that Bitcoin's energy usage is additive on top of everything else. We don't get to choose between vampire device energy use or Bitcoin. We have to deal with both. The very nature of Bitcoin incentivizes ever-increasing competition to spend more energy on mining. As long as the price continues to rise (as Bitcoin proponents hope) then the i…

I see now how my comment can be labelled as whataboutism. But I am trying to point out how "Bitcoin is Bad" is the agenda here.

Can the energy problem be solved? I had like a discussion on that rather than "It's bad" arguments.