Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

technologyelevation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

611–620 of 862 posts

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#611

Post by hannasanarion »

dmingod666 wrote: post #586
hannasanarion wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deflationary currency is useless currency. There is a reason that every deflationary period in modern monetary history was immediately followed by a catastrophic depression. Contrary to the dollar-sign-eyed bitcoin hacks, the purpose of money is to be exchanged for goods and services, not to sit in an account forever while you watch numbers go up.

As a person holding a certain amount of currency, the last thing you want is the govt to print more. That is essentially the govt putting a hand in your pocket and taking away cash by diluting what you already have. Is land a bad thing to buy because they are not making more of it? I'm sure you know you can exchange those numbers for other numbers that show up in your bank if you're inclined..

The purpose of land is not exchange for goods and services.

The purpose of money is not so that you can "hodl".

I swear, this speculation bubble has melted y'alls brains.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#612

Post by jasonlaramburu »

codehalo wrote: post #560
jasonlaramburu wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really censorship resistant though? In order to actually buy anything with BTC, you need a fiat offramp which is 100% vulnerable to censorship.

Do you really think you cannot by anything with Bitcoin? Are you uninformed or just dishonest?

Yes, you can buy some items online with BTC, but almost no household daily essentials. Show me a grocery store, gas station or pharmacy that accepts crypto. There are plenty of companies selling Crypto payment gateway software, so it’s clearly not a technology limitation.

The reality is there is no consumer demand for crypto as a means to purchase things.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#613

Post by debbiedowner »

jetpackjoe wrote: post #9

There are so many better crypto-currencies. Better for the environment because they use proof-of-stake, and not proof-of-work. Better for users because transactions are confirmed in seconds, not hours, and without the ridiculous fees that Bitcoin has. I think this shows how truly powerful the network effect, and being first to market is. Because without those things, Bitcoin would be nothing.

Why is proof of work so much more popular than proof of stake?

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#614

Post by dheera »

kitcar wrote: post #11

Bitcoin is an almost perfect exploitation of humanities fatal flaws (greed, unwillingness to acknowledge externalities - i.e. selfishness). It's that old SF-trope that the cause of many of humanity's biggest problems is humans.

Thought question here. What if we hyped up bitcoin to 10X its current value? Wouldn't that mean that per real-world transaction / per unit dollar value it would use 1/10th of its current amount of energy? For example something that would normally cost 0.1 BTC would now cost 0.01 BTC.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#615

Post by jfim »

nelsontodd wrote: post #499
jfim wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with you, I just don't personally believe that it will become a major instrument of trade due to it removing a major component of economic policy. I believe that most countries would rather have their citizens use their national currency as opposed to a foreign or electronic one, since that allows them a lot more control on inflation. From that perspective, it seems to follow that most governments wo…

I don't really know either. Maybe you're right, but as a (maybe ridiculous) counterpoint, what benefit does it give a government to have their own currency? I think the main benefit is not having to rely on another government to keep it stable... or to avoid the subservience that follows from having to rely on acquiring said currency from another government. For most countries now practically I think this means 'not…

This would be a pretty long topic to discuss, but in general monetary policy is something that governments really do want to control. If a national economy is not doing well or there is little demand for their goods or currency, the value of their currency is lower, making their exports cheaper and allowing them to participate in the global markets.

One example of having monetary policy out of a country's control is the EU, which has both strong economies (eg. Germany) and weaker ones (eg. Greece). A strong Euro works well for Germany, since they get more effective purchasing power out of their trade surplus. For Greece, a strong Euro means that their exports are probably not competitive price wise.

If these countries had their own currency, the Deutsche Mark would be a strong currency (making their exports relatively more expensive) and the Greek Drachma a weaker currency (making their exports relatively less expensive), giving them a push towards a more even trade balance. As citizens tend to transact in local currency, this also encourages Greek citizens to seek more local goods (eg. Greek tomatoes grown on Greek soil with Greek labor) as foreign goods are more expensive, hence further stimulating their economy.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#616

Post by asenna »

acd10j wrote: post #495

Bitcoin seems like a huge Ponzi scheme, just with any other Ponzi scheme, its adopters fiercely fighting and trying to silence anyone who dares to utter anything opposing it. Bitcoin as it stands today has potential to destroy all the gains we have made in clean energy and bringing zero carbon offsets. Bill gates is right that it is massively inefficient in what is supposed to be doing. That is doing transactions. Ju…

> Bitcoin seems like a huge Ponzi scheme

Can you please point out which previous ponzi scheme / bubble / tulip mania has gone through so many cyclic wave pattern and held up it's value despite all the crashes?

"Bitcoin is going to crash" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbZ8zDpX2Mg

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#617

Post by jf22 »

yunvme wrote: post #581
kitcar wrote: post #11

Bitcoin is an almost perfect exploitation of humanities fatal flaws (greed, unwillingness to acknowledge externalities - i.e. selfishness). It's that old SF-trope that the cause of many of humanity's biggest problems is humans.

You don't understand Bitcoin. It is a system to remove human greed from the equation. However, currently we are in the monetization stage. People will get rich. Greed will prevail and it jump starts the system. The beauty of Bitcoin is that no human can increase supply to address short-term interests, like central banks can. The energy is not wasted. To the contrary, it is used to ensure that the supply is distribute…

This sounds like to remove human greed we must embrace human greed and expend a lot of energy.

In what future world are we not trying to create more Bitcoin?

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#618

Post by Zamicol »

SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #345
Shorel wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually something that Bjarne Stroustrup addressed when talking about C++: There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses. In the case of cryptocurrencies, as soon as a cryptocurrency has any important percentage of use, these transactions are not confirmed in seconds anymore, and transaction fees starts to grow up. No one is really using PoS right now, so let'…

You're spot on. The ETH fans love to wax poetic about PoS and how it's always around the corner and coming soon. It's been that way for ages. Lightning Network is similar. It's been perpetually 6 months away for years. Frankly, I'll be impressed if the current power structure within PoW cryptos doesn't find any way to hamstring PoS, mostly because they have a vested interest in keeping everything the way it is now.

Eth 2.0 is running right now. It is 100% PoS.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#619

Post by rcrisan »

mancerayder wrote: post #579
rcrisan wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, thanks for the reply, makes sense what you said. I am not looking for strong stances or arguing; I just want to expand my understanding. I get from you that institutions pour real money into it and they rely on bitcoin's scarcity to overcome inflation. Makes sense. However, I want to understand why using banks or FinTech companies for money transfer is so bad? Nowadays there are low fees, way lower than what Bitc…

> However, I want to understand why using banks or FinTech companies for money transfer is so bad? I've never done it, but when I lived abroad and I had to transfer money, I got fleeced by banks and then (a few years ago) there weren't really any alternatives. I don't have any skin in the game with Bitcoin, but I guess that left a foul taste in my mouth. There've been other comments about Bitcoin that are a bit more…

Certainly the most important value proposition from the companies behind the established cryptocurrencies is the decentralized network for value transfers. No more "brokerage" firms. Getting rid of these feels like an emotional fulfillment; and today this beats pragmatism. Thanks for writing.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#620

Post by olalonde »

toomim wrote: post #566
olalonde wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another armchair cryptographer on HN who has no idea what they're talking about... somehow this is acceptable when it comes to Bitcoin. I feel like I'm being charitable here but what exists are other cryptocurrencies which trade-off security and/or decentralization in favor of some other properties. Regarding proof-of-stake for example, I'll defer to this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25007874

This attitude that people who disagree with you are stupid or don't know cryptography about is part of the problem, and why people still buy into BTC when there are technologically far-superior coins out there. So you just demonstrated the problem that the OP was talking about.

My point was that OP's point and yours, "there are technologically far-superior coins out there", is not true by any stretch of the imagination. Pardon my attitude but this is getting out of hand on HN lately. It seems the idea that you shouldn't authoritatively comment on subjects you are barely familiar with goes out of the window when it comes to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. If you disagree, I'd invite you to cite some respected cryptographers and researchers who have made such claim.
Post reply on HN