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(Note: Since most HN readers are technical, this comment is being downvoted by bitcoin enthusiasts among them. You won't see many replies from them to this com

(Note: Since most HN readers are technical, this comment is being downvoted by bitcoin enthusiasts among them. You won't see many replies from them to this comment, since their reaciton is political and not a technical statement. Still, I'll keep it up. This comment is currently at -2.) To put this into context, by comparing it with a centralized version, an equivalent number of actual transactions could be done at a bank with a crud app running on a $5 complete desktop PC which the Raspberry Pi foundation just released[1]. It is a 1 ghz computer with 512 MB of RAM. It draws up to 0.7 Watts. Wait, wait, wait. did I say an equivalent number? Since Bitcoin is limited to 7 TPS (7 transactions per second), I should modify this to 100x more transactions (700 transactions per second), if you wrote it in C, or if not a hundred times, then at least ten times as many in python. If it were a crud app running at a bank, a $5 computer could do 100 times the transactions that 650 Phash/s of wasted effort collectively give. And 40 megawatts. Bitcoin is a supreme waste of resources through the proof of work hack. It is like emulating a GPU in a CPU...in javascript. I mean, sure, you can do that. You can run Open GL by emulating a GPU in single-threaded Javascript. But it's a stupid, wrong solution. The basic idea sucks. It's bad. (by the by my target price for btc is $600,000 based on a comparison with how bad gold is physically, and the market cap of gold. :-P.) I love fiat currencies, they're one of the great achievements of modern civilization. (This sentence isn't ironic, it's actually how I feel.) Despite my target price I don't hold any bitcoins at all. I hope some of the numbers I've given can put into perspective why. [1] https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-zero/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-zero/

ikeboy 11y ago
You're wrong. Even without any mining, running a full node requires 2GB of RAM. Even if you do less than a full node, you'll find it hard to fully process 100x transactions on less than 2GB. Also, you don't seem to understand the point of PoW.
- lsseckman 11y ago
  You misunderstood him. He was talking about running a non-bitcoin program on that small computer.
  - ikeboy 11y ago
    He's talking about running something that does bitcoin, but without the inefficiencies of PoW. I pointed out that the RPi 0 doesn't have enough power to handle that scale, even if we took out the PoW stuff.
    - throwaway45872 11y ago
      lsseckman had it right. I'm comparing it with a non-bitcoin cenralized little app. In an edit I added "by comparing it with a centralized version" to my first sentence. crud is this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Create,_read,_update_and_delete https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Create,_read,_update_and_delet... I'm comparing it with, basically, a spreadsheet/database at a bank (i.e. if trust isn't an issue). to put into perspective the scale of the difference.
maaku 11y ago
What the expense of mining buys you is censorship-resistance.
stefantalpalaru 11y ago
> Since most HN readers are technical, this comment is being downvoted by bitcoin enthusiasts among them. No, you're being downvoted by technical people because you're missing the whole point of decentralized digital currencies. Educate yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency#Timestamping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency#Timestamping > I love fiat currencies, they're one of the great achievements of modern civilization. Yeah, unless you want to export some Cuban cigars from Germany to Denmark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Worldwide_Interbank_Financial_Telecommunication#US_control_over_transactions_within_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Worldwide_Interban...
bertil 11y ago
I believe that your being down-voted for writing: > But it's a stupid, wrong solution. The basic idea sucks. It's bad. instead of explaining that the cost is the cost of guaranteeing the authenticity of the transaction. HackerNews likes technical comments, and will happily burry expletives. You could find more compelling example, such as estimate the ecological cost of having most of the current world-wide banking transactions on BitCoin, and prove your point.

ikeboy 11y ago

You're wrong. Even without any mining, running a full node requires 2GB of RAM. Even if you do less than a full node, you'll find it hard to fully process 100x transactions on less than 2GB. Also, you don't seem to understand the point of PoW.

lsseckman 11y ago
You misunderstood him. He was talking about running a non-bitcoin program on that small computer.
- ikeboy 11y ago
  He's talking about running something that does bitcoin, but without the inefficiencies of PoW. I pointed out that the RPi 0 doesn't have enough power to handle that scale, even if we took out the PoW stuff.
  - throwaway45872 11y ago
    lsseckman had it right. I'm comparing it with a non-bitcoin cenralized little app. In an edit I added "by comparing it with a centralized version" to my first sentence. crud is this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Create,_read,_update_and_delete https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Create,_read,_update_and_delet... I'm comparing it with, basically, a spreadsheet/database at a bank (i.e. if trust isn't an issue). to put into perspective the scale of the difference.

maaku 11y ago

What the expense of mining buys you is censorship-resistance.

stefantalpalaru 11y ago

> Since most HN readers are technical, this comment is being downvoted by bitcoin enthusiasts among them. No, you're being downvoted by technical people because you're missing the whole point of decentralized digital currencies. Educate yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency#Timestamping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency#Timestamping > I love fiat currencies, they're one of the great achievements of modern civilization. Yeah, unless you want to export some Cuban cigars from Germany to Denmark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Worldwide_Interbank_Financial_Telecommunication#US_control_over_transactions_within_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Worldwide_Interban...

bertil 11y ago

I believe that your being down-voted for writing: > But it's a stupid, wrong solution. The basic idea sucks. It's bad. instead of explaining that the cost is the cost of guaranteeing the authenticity of the transaction. HackerNews likes technical comments, and will happily burry expletives. You could find more compelling example, such as estimate the ecological cost of having most of the current world-wide banking transactions on BitCoin, and prove your point.