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A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

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Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#401

Post by zjaffee »

hanniabu wrote: post #240
ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A predetermined monetary policy would be great when a financial crisis or credit crunch hit, causing a collapse in the velocity of money /s While I have invested in crypto and believe it has great potential, one of its touted benefits by its supporters is also one of its biggest pitfalls, namely that its money supply is predetermined. The inability to actively manage a money supply given exogenous shocks to the econo…

I think it makes sense. You have an economy built on an economic model rather than an economic model based on an economy. With the latter you're constantly guessing and tweaking the model and roughly every 10 years there's a crash and the economists say okay, NOW we have it perfect and we'll never get it wrong again. Why do you need an unlimited money supply? The only thing causing these shocks is that the economy is…

Economic growth is very heavily tied to increases in the money supply less inflation for developed countries. Without this debt, the cost of doing anything in our economy would be way too large and it would be very difficult for our society to operate. Additionally the need for economic solvency to protect the current social structure is what necessitates government involvement.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#402

Post by stale2002 »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #309
yqx wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Independent of whether this is true (and I'm sceptical), Bitcoin mining requires computation (and lots of it). Computation requires power. Even if that power is renewable and would be difficult to use for things other than computation, there is still a huge demand for computation. Hence it's still a choice to spend that power on Bitcoin mining rather than other computation tasks such as simulations for scientific res…

Yes that’s a thing. The problem for cryptocurrency is there’s no free lunch, and to gain significant security of a public ledger you have to spend some resources to do so. Bitcoin spends electricity, Chia.Network is working to spend unused disk space instead which is an interesting approach. Others like Algorand, Dfinity, Ethereum 2.0 etc are working to hopefully prove that rule can be overcome with less resource-hun…

> The problem for cryptocurrency is there’s no free lunch

There absolutely is a free lunch.

In renewable energy, there is a massive amount of "free" energy that is not being used for anything, and is literally being thrown away, because it can't be stored or used during the time of day that it is generate.

That energy is free. There is zero downsize to spending it on guessing number. It might even be negative value energy, actually.

Did you know that sometimes energy prices go into the negative, and people will pay you to use it? Something to do with the electric grid, and difficulty of destroying energy, I am not sure.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#403

Post by c22 »

aidanlister wrote: post #392
SilasX wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we don't. Bitcoin is one way to use energy. There are hundreds of thousands of other ways. When you say Bitcoin "hurts the environment", what, concretely do you mean? Presumably, you mean it in a stronger sense than "using energy to produce food hurts the environment" or "using energy to run an ER hurts the environment". That is, you think that relative to the benefit provided , the use of (harmful) energy to run…

Oh come on. Bitcoin uses the same amount of energy that the country of Iraq [1] uses, home to 38 million people. Bitcoin has about 500k active bitcoin addresses [2], most of which contain less than $100 [3]. So what are we actually getting for all this energy usage, and couldn't we get that same result for a fraction of the energy usage? [1] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption [2] https://bitinfochart…

You think bitcoin is bad?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1s8219SGDIjMnkzdFI2QjhwNm8...

My gut instinct is that the vast majority of all computing cycles used by humanity are completely wasted on irrelevant tasks and inefficiencies.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#404

Post by zjaffee »

sbenitoj wrote: post #304
hanniabu wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need inflation for proper incentives. It's like a tax on the entire network to keep it supported. Without proper incentives, the game theory collapses. The difference here is that inflation is predetermined and set instead of printing money on demand like we do in the traditional financial system.

“You need inflation for proper incentives. It's like a tax on the entire network to keep it supported. Without proper incentives, the game theory collapses.” What, specifically, do you think the consequences of a stable money supply are?

Deflation, which given a growing population would always be a given. In turn deflation makes the entire debt system collapse , which is the backbone of economic growth especially in the developed world.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#405

Post by koonsolo »

beefield wrote: post #342
koonsolo wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this as a disadvantage of using banks. They act as if you can freely access your money in your account, but actually you can't. That money is loaned out for the most part, and it's a trick that keeps the current system going. But once you have a bank run, reality will kick in on how banks really work. At least the cryptocurrency that you own is really yours today. The numbers on your bank account are yours some…

So, how would you then like to arrange your mortgage if banks are not allowed as intermediaries managing the credit risk between depositors and yourself?

Banks could still lend out cryptocurrency, but in that case you know it is lended out (because you don't have it).

In other words, banks multiply money right now, but you cannot multiply cryptocurrency.

It's much more honest and clear.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#406

Post by jstanley »

syrrim wrote: post #130
pepesza wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's interesting how something which was built on the idea of decentralization by design has given way to a clear power structure, where those who have the sway to control the fate of the technology have largely used it to pursue their own personal enrichment over the health and success of the system as a whole. Care to elaborate? Some examples?

The ten MB block size limit lowers the number of transactions that can occur in a single block therefore inflating what miners can charge for a transaction. Increasing the blocksise would require miners to choose to mine a hard fork. See the DAO hack for what can happen with strong governance.

The Bitcoin block size limit is not 10 MB.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#407

Post by dsr_ »

mandeepj wrote: post #169
paulgb wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“First they think you're crazy, then they fight you, then you change the world.” - Elizabeth Holmes

I don't think she is the original author of this quote. Going to share another quote, which I think is relative here - “Those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world usually do.” - Steve Jobs

If Jobs had been just a little less crazy, he might still be changing the world.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#408

Post by sjeohp »

ForHackernews wrote: post #394
SilasX wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we don't. Bitcoin is one way to use energy. There are hundreds of thousands of other ways. When you say Bitcoin "hurts the environment", what, concretely do you mean? Presumably, you mean it in a stronger sense than "using energy to produce food hurts the environment" or "using energy to run an ER hurts the environment". That is, you think that relative to the benefit provided , the use of (harmful) energy to run…

Bitcoin is a terrible way to use energy. It's deliberately inefficient, and it's a constant arms race to become even more inefficient . You're literally killing the planet to enable...what? Tax evasion? Selling drugs and child porn? It's a moral and ecological atrocity. I agree that capping and/or taxing carbon emissions is the right policy approach, but I would seriously question the values of any humans who then de…

> You're literally killing the planet

This kind of hyperbole suggests you didn’t read the person’s comment very closely.

How is using X joules mining bitcoin worse than using it for anything else? Eg. mining gold?

If the energy grid was 100% sustainable would bitcoin still be “literally killing the planet”? Surely not, so maybe the problem is actually the energy source, not this particular use case.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#409

Post by jstanley »

jayd16 wrote: post #135
beaner wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> those who have the sway to control the fate of the technology have largely used it to pursue their own personal enrichment over the health and success of the system as a whole You say this like it's a fact but I feel like it's the opposite. There aren't many compelling examples of this. And to the extent that there are, they exist in a competitive market and their fate is determined by users and investors, who weig…

What decentralization of power has occurred in a way that significantly different than any other market? Exchanges presumably control most of the coin. Pump and dumps seem to been extremely likely. It might not be worse but IMO it hasn't proven to be better.

How are you going to hold any amount of digital money without entrusting another organisation to hold it for you?

That's the decentralisation of power that has occurred.

You don't have to prove your identity. You don't have to prove anything to anyone. You just download some software and generate a private key. Bitcoin is to money what the internet was to book publishing.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#410

Post by creato »

dorgo wrote: post #328
ckastner wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would gladly trade all my gains for a world where governments have no control over the creation and regulation of money. In that world, there would also be nothing to stop anyone else from just taking your money by force and without any consequences. The loudest voices against government regulation of finance usually belong to those with the least understanding of it. Most of the regulation is just there to prote…

> without any consequences there are going to be consequences. It's just that they will be enforced by smart contracts instead of governments..

I can't tell if this is a joke or not...
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