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A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

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Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#721

Post by Nursie »

naasking wrote: post #655
good-idea wrote: post #242

I'm shocked and disheartened by how infrequently environmental concerns are brought up when discussing crypto. Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake, security, storage size - these are problems for the network and those that want to see it become a real part of our economy. (I am one of those) But the amount of energy being used to mine bitcoin is a real problem - it's not just a technical challenge (like the problems abov…

> But the amount of energy being used to mine bitcoin is a real problem - it's not just a technical challenge (like the problems above). This is something that literally affects every human being. How much energy was used to establish and perpetuate the existing fiat currency infrastructure? Has any such comparative analysis been done? Without such an analysis, it seems a little premature to unilaterally declare that…

This canard is tiresome.

The exiting infrastructure does far, far more than cryptocurrencies do, including credit, investment, protection of funds and all sorts of stuff.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#722

Post by Nursie »

keymone wrote: post #444
Scarblac wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it's still using up renewable energy that could have been used on something else. Electricity is mostly fungible.

Energy is a product on the market. Whoever wants to pay for it is free to do it, what’s your problem? Besides you seem to be missing one important fact about energy - it is very expensive to store much of it, which is why many bitcoin farms use up available excessive energy because that way it makes them more profitable and the grid more stable.

> Energy is a product on the market. Whoever wants to pay for it is free to do it, what’s your problem?

Carbon output, on a global scale, which is already hard enough to keep under control. We don't need yet another massive source of energy use, particularly one that gives us virtually nothing in return.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#723

Post by thisisit »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #623
orthecreedence wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can memorize 20 words and cross whatever border I want with $100 million in my brain, and full confidence that that money is mine. That's pretty damn cool. No, you can have 30K BTC in your brain, but unfortunately the USD value fluctuates so wildly that as a store of value, it's useless. > It sounds like you're projecting what you think Bitcoin should be. Probably, yes. Bitcoin is a failed project. It spawned man…

In response to stability criticism, chadski on Lobsters told me about so-called stablecoins with MakerDAO and Dai being in active use: https://makerdao.com/en/whitepaper/ It's an Ethereum-based scheme that's tied in value to the U.S. dollar. That sounds good. The methods to achieve that look... complex... to say the least. If they work, then there's at least one of them that's stable so long as there's no serious pro…

>If they work

That is a big "if". Stability is a principle which has been tried time and again in fiat money and failed. Too many times to count. See GBP peg etc. for examples.

If something is unstable, it is because the market deems it to be. Adding an artificial support goes against that same market.

Cryptocurrency circles like to talk about government control being a bad thing. But in the same vein cheer stablcoins which exert near similar control - by algos or by adding coin supply. They want to have their cake and eat it too.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#724

Post by IanCal »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #698
IanCal wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's try and run some numbers then. Estimated energy consumption - 46TWh [0]. Average transaction rate seems lower than 4/s at all times so let's use 4 [1]. That makes 126M/year. Visa process 111B transactions per year [2] and mastercard 65B [3] for a total of 176B. If those transactions alone were as energy expensive, then that would account for about 64,000 TWh. Global energy consumption (all kinds) is about 110,0…

https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-mining-renewable-coinshares/

I'm not sure how that's relevant to the calculation here.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#725

Post by IanCal »

IanCal wrote: post #619
handzbagz wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's literally all Facebook and Google do.

It absolutely and obviously is not. They do significantly more than this, even if you wanted to (incorrectly) classify all of their products like this, they actually do more than that to entice people in.

It seems remarkable to me that anyone can honestly hold the opinion that Google do not do anything other than serve adverts or send marketing emails.

They have a search engine. Does that really need actually pointing out?

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#726

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

GrumpyNl wrote: post #308
sametmax wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you think bitcoin started ? You'd had to be crazy to believe in it 9 years ago, and spend time and energy in the community, nlt to lention monney, to foster the project. My family and friends said i was stupid, utopist, being conned, wasting my time, and so lany things. Btc was banana money at first, and only people believing it would be a great thing as a concept made it work. We didn't expect to make banks,…

BTC will always be banana money.

I disagree, one day it will be a footnote in a history book about banana money. Sooner than some think.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#727

Post by Walf »

baddox wrote: post #499
orthecreedence wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An enormous amount of energy used to support a tiny minority of people participating in a highly-manipulated wealth redistribution mechanism is, objectively, a complete fucking waste. You cannot look at bitcoin by any measure and say that it's a practical success for any of its goals. And given the amount of energy it uses to perpetuate its own failure, it's nearly sinful to keep it going. That said, I do support som…

> An enormous amount of energy used to support a tiny minority of people participating in a highly-manipulated wealth redistribution mechanism is, objectively, a complete fucking waste. Objectively? No, I'm pretty sure that isn't "a complete fucking waste" to the people who are benefitting from it. Which is literally the definition of "subjective." Removing externalities of electricity pricing solves this. That's the…

>Objectively? No, I'm pretty sure that isn't "a complete fucking waste" to the people who are benefitting from it. Which is literally the definition of "subjective."

You just proved their point. The beneficiaries of Bitcoin – like you – have a subjective viewpoint. You are few, and, objectively the cost to the stakeholders (inhabitants of Earth) is disproportionate to the benefit to the shareholders (the relatively few people who hold Bitcoin and actually profit from it). Objectively, it's largely a method to siphon real wealth from many to few, bearing a striking resemblance to Tulip Mania. That doesn't mean that all crypto and blockchain tech is somehow inherently evil, it's just not doing a lot of public good in this particular incarnation. One can argue it does the opposite by facilitating criminal enterprise.

Your point about externalities is correct but moot, as no one is successfully passing on the full cost of electricity production to the consumer.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#728

Post by koonsolo »

beefield wrote: post #693
koonsolo wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But I would still as a depositor have the promise from the bank that the bank will give me back my cryptocurrency when I want? If I do, there is practically zero difference how banks would work with crypto and fiat. And that promise can be used as money just like it can now with fiat. Thus banks would be able to monetarily multiply crypto at will as well. If not, well, how exactly are you planning to stop me and my b…

In practice, there would be 1 big difference: payments are made in cryptocurrency, not in bank credits. And this difference has an impact on all the rest.

We use bank money now because it's more convenient than paying with gold. But imagine that paying with gold was more convenient and preferred. In that case, we would see money in the bank as an investment, not as a wallet.

Your employer does not wire transfers money to your bank, but to your wallet. He pays you "in gold" so to speak. Same when you go shopping etc. There is no bank involved in transferring money anymore.

If you put money on the bank, you cannot use those credits to pay other people, as you are able to do now. Because people expect "gold", not bank credits.

You are correct that in a cryptocurrency world, banks could still have fractional reserves. But the main difference is that there will be a clear distinction between "real money", which is cryptocurrency, and "bank notes", which are a promise of the bank to pay you cryptocurrency. Right now, you cannot make the distinction between the two.

This is also the reason why they were able to let the gold standard disappear, because nobody would notice. If everyone trades in gold, the gold standard cannot just be abolished.

Basically a cryptocurrency world is a gold standard, where gold is the preferred way of paying.

This would also mean that banks will go back to how they operated when there was no central bank. And even further back than that, because payments are more conveniently made with "gold".

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#729

Post by throwaway415415 »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #604
throwaway415415 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't. Coda can work with Algorand's byzantine agreement protocol.

Sure, but Coda targets a different scalability bottleneck.

Hence why it can work with algorand.
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