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A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

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Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#731

Post by 5partan »

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…

If you care about the environment the best you can do is to stop using bitcoin and become vegan. And don’t use the Internet. Every single human wastes energy. Make something more efficient and it will gain currency, thus harming the environment even more. Technology and environment just don’t mix. You can talk as much as you want, but unless you become a full fledged Amish, that talk will always be hypocritical.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#732

Post by skohan »

beatgammit wrote: post #217
skohan wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story of cryptocurrency over the past couple years has been a really interesting case-study in the application of Libertarian principals. 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 an…

Sorry to be "that guy", but libertarianism != laissez faire, it's a principle about governance of people. The gold standard is just as libertarian as cryptocurrencies, and that doesn't require governance to function, and governance through a private centralized bank that everyone opts into is also libertarian. Governance certainly helps in making things more convenient, but it's not required or necessarily desired. F…

> And since cryptocurrencies aren't really used for real transactions, we can't really see how they would fare in a competitive currency market.

They used to be. I made online purchases and bought coffee in real life using Bitcoin just a few years ago. The evolution of Cryptocurrency has been away from any real-world usefulness, and toward its current incarnation as a largely speculative instrument.

And I would argue that in fact this has been the result of a Libertarian experiment playing out. Everything about Bitcoin has been opt-in: in principal anyone is free to own a node, and the community would have been free to opt-in to a governance structure which would have discouraged actions which made Bitcoin less useful to the majority of users, but this is not what happened. Instead power was consolidated in the hands of a few, who chose their own self-interest to the detriment of the larger community.

I am not a fan of coercive government, but I struggle to see how the story of cryptocurrency to this point does not provide evidence that some strategy is needed, beyond maximal personal liberty, to discourage bad actors from causing disproportionate harm to the collective.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#733

Post by [deleted] »

westurner wrote: post #529
identity_zero wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ripple is not decentralized. I don't know enough about Stellar to answer. Bitcoin is software and can easily implement these features but the community is divided and can't reach consensus on anything. Lightning Network as layer two solution is pretty good from what I know. Ethereum improvements are coming along very slowly and that's good. They're the only blockchain with active engagement by thousands of multiple p…

People argue this all day. There's a lot of FUD. Ripple only runs ~7% of validator nodes; which is far less centralized control than major Bitcoin mining pools and businesses (who do the deciding in regards to the many Bitcoin hard forks); that's one form of decentralization. Ripple clients can use their own UNL or use the Ripple-approved UNL. Ripple is traded on a number of exchanges (though fewer than Bitcoin for c…

[deleted]

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#734

Post by ForHackernews »

trsfgbb wrote: post #661
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…

>pathetic ~10 transactions per second. It's only an artificial limit of Core fork of Bitcoin. Increasing it to 10 000 transactions per second doesn't use more energy for mining. https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7nn5wa/bitcoin_cash_is...

Right, so bitcoin main stands out as especially terrible, even among the ecosystem of terribly inefficient PoW cryptocurrencies.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#735

Post by ForHackernews »

yownie wrote: post #682
plankers wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can use bitcoin to buy things on the internet, or send money across borders, or bring money across borders, all without anybody's permission. So it's pretty successful in my book. Oh wait, you're bringing sin into the argument. My bad, I thought we were being rational. And just a side-note, it irks me when people say that bitcoin uses as much energy as the country of Iceland like that's some kind of horror. Iceland…

It also doesn't use as much energy as the country of Iceland (living in Iceland here). You what we use the MOST electricity for here? Aluminum smelting. No one seems to care a lot about that waste, it seems.

Making aluminum isn't a waste! You can build airplanes out of aluminum. You can also relatively easily recycle aluminum into more aluminum things, so it's not like you have to pay that smelting cost every single time you want to purchase anything.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#736

Post by AgentME »

resters wrote: post #594
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…

Isn't the environmental concern temporary? Once all the bitcoin has been mined, the computational requirements for maintenance of the network will certainly decrease significantly. One could argue that Bitcoin should reach the limit sooner, so that mining difficulty would not increase so much, but the mining incentive is mainly a bootstrapping strategy for a currency. Now that everyone is familiar with how the ecosys…

The energy cost isn't exactly in creating bitcoins. The energy cost is in securing the network against people doing 51%-attacks, and bitcoins are set to be minted out of thin air and transaction fees are paid out in order to incentivize people to protect the network. Mining will still be necessary after all bitcoins are minted, or else anyone could 51%-attack the network and double-spend bitcoins.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#737

Post by AgentME »

scarejunba wrote: post #638
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…

All we have to do is price externalities into power generation and we’ll be fine.

Every country would need to, or else all the cryptocurrency mining will just happen where the externalities aren't priced in.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#738

Post by ForHackernews »

sjeohp wrote: post #512
root_axis wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is bitcoin sufficiently trustworthy without proof of work? I'm not a bitcoin expert, but my understanding was that this is an integral part of the trust model. If so then we're just back to talking about inefficiencies. Yes, that's exactly the point. Bitcoin is insanely inefficient because PoW is insanely inefficient. Unlike other "inefficiencies" where there is a logical relationship between "energy spent" and "us…

Mining gold gets harder over time. If you want more gold that's the price you pay. Trust-less consensus may be the same. Nature doesn't care either way.

Nature has nothing to do with it. Bitcoin is a poorly-engineered human-designed, human-built system.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#739

Post by AgentME »

heimatau wrote: post #680
malloreon wrote: post #16

I have long wondered how cryptocurrency fans would answer the question: ‘Would you be happy if the crypto-utopia you bring up happens in the next 10 years, and all value is stored/transacted through a cryptocurrency, but it was a coin that you do not possess now, nor could you transfer any of you current currencies into it?’ Say tomorrow someone releases the one true coin, but no one notices. All other cryptocurrenci…

Why does everyone, especially within crypto, seem to believe a One Coin theory? Plurality is the name of the game. History has endless examples. Yes nothing would last but...the better monies would move to a better monies. It's called competition. There is very little competition when it comes to monetary policies. Crypto will foster more of it. It can get messy but hopefully it won't get deadly.

The question also presumes that all cryptocurrency fans want cryptocurrency to replace fiat currency in general. I mainly want cryptocurrency to get a niche like what PayPal has. A decentralized PayPal sounds good. It doesn't need to overthrow governments in order to useful.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#740

Post by AgentME »

manifestsilence wrote: post #44
Synaesthesia wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a cryptocurrency which is egalitarian - evenly distributed among people in the world, rather than one in which a few people own the majority and profit hugely.

Yes! And I think there is one aspect of Bitcoin that is precisely backwards in relation to both this and the energy crisis: proof of work is a substitute for proof of identity so it can be anonymous. Imagine a currency that everyone is born with a certain amount of, with the only price of admission your ability to prove your identity. Suddenly, we have solved the problem of proof of work for allowing this to be a dis…

I don't think you could possibly have a decentralized proof of identity though.
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