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Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

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

#761

Post by thebean11 »

hannasanarion wrote: post #756
thebean11 wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's been around for 8 years and nobody is using it That's laughably wrong, go look up how much revenue the Ethereum network is bringing in with smart contract fees.

And what are those smart contract fees being used for? - Speculators buying ETH to ride the bubble - A revolving door of Proof-of-concept startups with backing from starry-eyed VCs and no viable business plans that pop up, use a bunch of compute, and then fail, every couple of months. Ethereum mining conglomerates don't even use Smart Contracts, they just cite "a long history of successful payouts", trust, and old-fa…

So you're moving the goalpost from "no users" to "no users I approve of"?

A few other use cases: DeFi (mainly crypto backed loans), NFTs (so far not too interesting to me), distributed ETH2 staking pools, distributed betting markets (the coolest one in my opinion).

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

#762

Post by throwaway20875 »

ethagnawl wrote: post #750
throwaway20875 wrote: post #749

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you saying? That we should take the mission statement of the Gates foundation at face value and as something that represents the motivations behind everything he does and says?

I'm saying that the Gates Foundation is _fixing the power imbalances that are the root cause of his supposed gripe_.

No you are not, and the Gates foundation has absolutely not done anything to address the actions of central banks or the the United States' weaponization of the current financial system. Giving out malaria nets in Africa has nothing to do with any of this.

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

#763

Post by silentsea90 »

terse_malvolio wrote: post #748
silentsea90 wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't with US banks but central banks, and it isn't with concentration of wealth but confiscation of wealth through money printing We very well might have Coinbase, BlockFi etc. act as crypto banks, and BTC whales as the new rich. That's reward for their work and belief. What do you think is the threat vector from BTC miners? The protocol nullifies such threats. What would be bad is if a central authority…

Coinbase is not decoupled from government

It certainly isn't. Hence, we will continue to have taxes and regulation.

However, the BTC mantra is "not your keys not your coin". So if you leave it on Coinbase, you are welcoming attack by nation states to confiscate your cryptocurrency. This isn't an imagined threat. The confiscation of gold by FDR was a very real event that forced citizens to sell gold to the Government at a fixed price (of USD that the state printed at a whim) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

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

#764

Post by HeadsUpHigh »

hannasanarion wrote: post #753
HeadsUpHigh wrote: post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least you could try a quick googling before you write a comment.

I love how this comment amounts to "nuh-uh!" because you can't think of a single example even though you're an enthusiast. The only people using smart-contracts are enthusiasts and proof-of-concept startups that have no traction in the market because smart contracts don't offer any advantage over any other computing system.

So users you don't like?

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

#766

Post by HeadsUpHigh »

w0de0 wrote: post #732
silentsea90 wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I am aware of SF county being unable to print (only the central bank can). The point I am making is that this is an instance of wasteful expenditure that would be expensive in a world where nations lose control over currency and are operating on a tight budget that enforces skin in the game and discipline.

This is also an argument for a gold standard. What is a society to do when collective debt can help? For example: existential war, economic turmoil. Do you contend that governments should never spend on credit? I contend that printing money may sometimes be a good idea. What society would undertake moonshots like DARPA... or going to the moon... if it could not invest with debt collateralized on a future generation's…

Spending on credit that you never pay is different. With a smart contract a government would have to release it's collateral. Now they can just keep the inflation up.

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

#767

Post by hannasanarion »

HeadsUpHigh wrote: post #764
hannasanarion wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how this comment amounts to "nuh-uh!" because you can't think of a single example even though you're an enthusiast. The only people using smart-contracts are enthusiasts and proof-of-concept startups that have no traction in the market because smart contracts don't offer any advantage over any other computing system.

So users you don't like?

Somebody, somewhere, is using glass jars to drive nails. That doesn't mean it's the right tool for the job.

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

#768

Post by jayd16 »

capableweb wrote: post #719
jayd16 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, with POS aren't we just back to a (now programatically enforced!) cabal of bankers that control the money system?

Nope, it's still distributed consensus rather than centralized. If one banker stops being nice, he'll loose all his funds. The current system either ignores people not-being-nice or ejects them, but they'll never lose what they made. Compared to PoS where the biggest incentive is to be nice.

The fear is that there will be a powerful in-group that has majority control, not just a single bad actor.

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

#769

Post by whitepaint »

rfd4sgmk8u wrote: post #731
whitepaint wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody has the right to say how others use energy. Bitcoin will get destroyed eventually by the free markets because of how inferior it is to many alternatives. One being its usage of energy.

You can believe that. I believe that existing, inferior stores of value like the USD and EURO will be destroyed by the alternative (Bitcoin). Energy usage is its biggest strength. Lets see who is correct in 10 years?

I don't think US or EU will collapse within 10 years that's for sure.

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

#770

Post by jasonlaramburu »

koonsolo wrote: post #755
jasonlaramburu wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto is 'backed' by the sunk cost of the energy used to mine it.

Proof of Stake cryptocurrencies are not mined, so where do they get their value from? Plenty of them have high market caps.

I suppose the value is derived from staking your coins on PoS. There is real opportunity cost associated with locking up assets.
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