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Bitcoin miners in Abkhazia are causing blackouts in remote villages [video]

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Re: Bitcoin miners in Abkhazia are causing blackouts in remote villages [video]

#51

Post by capableweb »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #21
shawabawa3 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's at least planning to switch over to proof of stake though

How's that going? Been hearing that it's happening "really soon now" for at least 3 years.

Moving forward, slowly but steadily. Vitalik been hinting that the work to get of PoW might speed up now, as PoW miners are not too happy about some proposed changes (they'll earn less fees soon, and in the future they will be unnecessary at all).

So, things take time. Who knew building a global decentralized computer for everyone was hard work, gonna be difficult and take long time?

(Side-note: no one has said that ETH 2.0 is "really soon now", at least not anyone who either works on it or watches the development closely. ETH 2.0 has been far away for a long time, and it's still not close to being deployed, so you might want to look for better sources for your information)

Re: Bitcoin miners in Abkhazia are causing blackouts in remote villages [video]

#52

Post by abledon »

tho234234987 wrote: post #38

I'm surprised the rich farmers of India (yes, the kind "protesting" recently) haven't started Bitcoin mining - electricity for agriculture is free in much of India (along with a lot more freebies, and no taxes). I guess it's mostly the intermittent state of the supply that's the problem.

Aren't those people struggling to buy food? How are they gonna afford an antminer?

Re: Bitcoin miners in Abkhazia are causing blackouts in remote villages [video]

#53

Post by oleganza »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #45
theragra wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are pretty poor there, and Russia supports them a lot (you can have russian passport if you live there). I assume most infrastructure is supported using russian help. It is logical Russia does not want her money spent by miners, who are probably not even from Abkhazia.

There is Russia and then Russians there running things. They have different goals. If Abkhazia is anything like I think it is...you just pay someone up and you can do whatever you want. That includes stealing electricity, or killing someone. "Now I'm in power so it's my chance to grab something" is the mentality in a lot of countries.

*virtually all of countries.

Re: Bitcoin miners in Abkhazia are causing blackouts in remote villages [video]

#54

Post by thresh »

f311a wrote: post #2

Electricity there is very cheap (ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 US cents per kWh). The government has closed around 300 mining facilities in order to reduce energy shortages. There are tens of such videos on the Youtube channel.

The electricity there isnt just cheap, it's virtually free. They just dont shut you off it you don't pay.

Re: Bitcoin miners in Abkhazia are causing blackouts in remote villages [video]

#55

Post by danlugo92 »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #11
WanderPanda wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of trying to remove the symptoms, the government should focus on increasing their peoples productivity to put them in a position to pay higher electricity prices

No, the Government should petition bigger Governments to regulate (/ban) what is clearly a waste of Earth's and Humanity's resources.

If bitcoin is so bad why not let the free market tank it eventually?

Re: Bitcoin miners in Abkhazia are causing blackouts in remote villages [video]

#56

Post by dgellow »

disruptalot wrote: post #22
ArkanExplorer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am talking about Proof-of-Work being attached to an 'asset' of astronomical value. Governments should ban the transaction of PoW cryptocurrencies on environmental grounds, in addition to the misallocation of computer chips.

Bitcoin without PoW has no value. It's the entire reason it works. Without expending a finite resource to produce another, you can't constrain a money supply nor prevent it from attacks. Governments would be unwise to ban a voluntary system for the same reason they don't ban any other uses of energy that people question the value of (there are plenty). In any case, it will not stop, only move. If not to another massi…

> Bitcoin without PoW has no value

Exactly. It’s broken by design. Let’s get rid of it ASAP and instead focus on blockchains that may have value without the horrible incentives of PoW.

We shouldn’t keep Bitcoin alive just because it was the first successful attempt. That has been tried, it’s now clear it’s not sustainable over the long-term. We should learn the lesson and move on to a better approach.

Re: Bitcoin miners in Abkhazia are causing blackouts in remote villages [video]

#57

Post by _Microft »

We should define something like a "Nakamoto scale".

A Nakamoto Type I civilization would be one that converts all available power of a planet into waste heat and funny numbers, a Nakamoto Type II civilization does that with all the power output of a star and so on... basically the Kardashev scale [0] but with the restriction that useful output SHOULD NOT be produced [1].

Edit: lowered requirement level from MUST NOT to SHOULD NOT to allow for situations in which a limited amount of energy could be expended to either increase the hashrate further or to get closer to the limits of computation [2].

Edit 2: the more I think about it, the more it reminds me of the Universal Paperclips game.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

[1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2119

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limits_of_computation

Re: Bitcoin miners in Abkhazia are causing blackouts in remote villages [video]

#58

Post by UncleMeat »

danlugo92 wrote: post #55
ArkanExplorer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the Government should petition bigger Governments to regulate (/ban) what is clearly a waste of Earth's and Humanity's resources.

If bitcoin is so bad why not let the free market tank it eventually?

Because the free market isn't great at finding solutions that incorporate externalities, especially not quickly.

Re: Bitcoin miners in Abkhazia are causing blackouts in remote villages [video]

#59

Post by dgellow »

eejjjj82 wrote: post #49
7_my_mind wrote: post #30

So now the developing world will start using their energy to mine BTC instead of manufacturing goods for us to consume. Will this ultimately cause inflation then? Because demand for goods will not be met? This crypto experiment keeps yielding more interesting results.

"This crypto experiment keeps yielding more interesting results." I completely agree. I don't pay attention to a lot (or any) online economic circles, but I'm astounded at the pushback of high profile economists (Krugman, et al) against the shear novelty of the moment for their discipline. Regardless of whether or not someone "believes" in bitcoin, the reality of the times is that cryptocurrencies are creating fantas…

These “experiments” have real life consequences on ”subjects” who never agreed to be part of it.

We should maybe create a crypto-country where crypto-currencies fanatics are free to experiment all of this on themselves instead of all of us… (it’s a joke, please don’t create a crypto country!)

Re: Bitcoin miners in Abkhazia are causing blackouts in remote villages [video]

#60

Post by dgellow »

Jonnax wrote: post #5

How does the network protocol of bitcoin work? Would governments be able to block it? Can it be DDoS-ed?

Governments can regulate at the edge:

- regulate electricity consumption

- regulate bank accepting crypto-related money

- regulate exchanges listing Bitcoin or other crypto-currencies, etc

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