6 ms·

"So, this is the next attack vector? Bitcoin is not green? The energy put into Proof-of-work is what makes the system immutable. People who complain about bitco

by PKop 9y ago

"So, this is the next attack vector? Bitcoin is not green? The energy put into Proof-of-work is what makes the system immutable. People who complain about bitcoin's energy use, don't seem to grasp what makes the bitcoin Blockchain immutable. In order to change the Database, you have to go back > and do the "work" which becomes practically impossible after approx. 10 blocks. You take that away and you'll make the system Tamper evident, and not Tamper Proof as it is right now. It's the only secure data base ever invented, and thats because of the energy used to secure it. I don't see these people complaining how much energy Las Vegas wastes. Or Hollywood. What about professional sports? How much energy does going to war cost? All of these are less important than the only sovereign moneys system in the history of man-kind. So, please, stop complaining about the energy use, i left my violin at home." - daggerhashimoto In addition, if Bitcoin disrupts the banking industry and a portion of wall street, we'd have to subtract their energy consumption. It's just logically lazy to not consider if the benefits outweigh the costs, and sound immutable finite hard money out of reach of central authorities brings with it enormous benefits.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
w-ll 9y ago
Exactly. Energy for gold mines, armourded trucks, petrol moving it all around the world, printing synthetics and chemicals, 24/7 always on ATMS all over the world. Bitcoin mining allows me to send money to my family halfway across the world, nearly instantly, without a bank.
ihuman 9y ago
Why did you quote a comment made 10 minutes before yours? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15665273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15665273
- PKop 9y ago
  Because it was dead when I got here, which I disagreed with but couldn't change.
tahw 9y ago
Why do you have such a persecution complex about this? You make fine points but your attitude is pretty off-putting, man.
- PKop 9y ago
  Most of the quote was someone else's words whose comment was flagged which I thought was odd and I wanted to highlight his main point which I agreed with. But to your question, I think Bitcoin is and will be persecuted by many powerful entities, wanting to control or kill it. Money that has a fixed monetary policy is without question a threat to political and banking power in my opinion. Politicians and banks live off of inflationary fiat and debt. Also, fractional reserve banking. [Of course, a nation would benefit collectively from a move off of fiat money, but special interests would suffer] Both things that Bitcoin is resistant to, which means it protects value these groups are stealing out of the currency (and the economy by 2nd order effects of bad money) and puts it back in the hands of individuals. I don't think enough people have enough of a persecution complex when it comes to attacks on their money... and the superior alternative that is Bitcoin.
- rothbardrand 9y ago
  The control of money is the way society is enslaved. He may not have a complex, but we are all being exploited.
naveen99 9y ago
> In order to change the Database, you have to go back > and do the "work" which becomes practically impossible after approx. 10 blocks. I think if some entity devoted 1000x the current mining power, they would catch up in less than a year. Historical hash rates were negligible.
- AgentME 9y ago
  They could also profit extremely by legitimately mining now. Even if you assume they had magnitudes better and cheaper hashing technology, the opportunity cost to them of such an attack would be massive.
- michaeltoth 9y ago
  1000x the current mining power is 10% of global energy consumption. So they'd be spending 10% of global energy consumption for a year. This is infeasible unless done by a consortium of world governments, and to what end?
jacobr 9y ago
> I don't see these people complaining how much energy Las Vegas wastes. Or Hollywood. What about professional sports? How much energy does going to war cost? We should, though. War destroys the planet. Energy consumption needs to go down across all areas, including entertainment and other things that we consider fun or useful.
rothbardrand 9y ago
Yes. The people who hate bitcoin -- despite all it does for them-- generally are hating it for political reasons. They may hate sound money, they may worship at the alter of neo-keynsianism and think inflation is necessary (how else will you pay for bombing brown people?) But they will use the "its anti-environment" claim because that has gotten traction. We already have a massive global propaganda campaign spreading leftist views of the environment. When bitcoin defeats these people, I will be very happy.
- CJefferson 9y ago
  bitcoin is currently inflationary -- what do you think is paying the miners, but new bitcoins created out of nothing?
  - rtkwe 9y ago
    It's mostly new BTC but there's also ~1-2 BTC per block of transaction fees now too. Some spikes up to around 4. https://www.smartbit.com.au/charts/transaction-fees-per-block https://www.smartbit.com.au/charts/transaction-fees-per-bloc...
- nosuchthing 9y ago
  Bitcoin maximalists are a curious bunch who fail to realize the service Bitcoin offers is functionally identical to other Blockchain coins, and in many cases the newer iterations add improvements and features.. whereas the Bitcoin core team holds the software with ideological constraints prohibiting upgrades to the design, to the detriment of user experience. Additionally, the majority of Bitcoins were minted prior to 2014 so the incentive is skewed for old users to attempt to psychologically convince new adopters to purchase the "coins" they produced for low capital input by selling for a higher cost.
- cromwellian 9y ago
  So, people bring up inefficiencies, scalability issues, problems with energy use, and you claim it's politics, but then immediately start attacking Keynesism, the "left", and elsewhere digging up ghost of Ayn Rand. Do you see the irony?
Asdfbla 9y ago
> In addition, if Bitcoin disrupts the banking industry and a portion of wall street, we'd have to subtract their energy consumption. Do you seriously think that? The cost of stuff like VISA's server farms or office buildings (and the rest of the financial industry) is probably globally negligible. Not to mention similar institutions would inevitably appear for cryptocurrencies (or already have, like Exchanges, etc.). What remains is the horrendous cost for a Bitcoin transaction vs. the negligible cost for a 'normal' transaction in most trust-based systems.
- cwkoss 9y ago
  Gotta count the energy cost of staff food, transport, facilities, etc. for every VISA employee to really make an accurate comparison. Plus power drain of each of millions of POS systems, cost of maintaining redundant secure backups of records... Bitcoin requires no other infrastructure than computers. VISA needs a lot of various things to keep it's infrastructure working.
  - andrewchambers 9y ago
    You think people mining bitcoin don't need food too?
    - baddox 9y ago
      People generally don’t mine bitcoin. Their computers do. And they don’t even need to sit at the mining rigs for 8 hours a day like most employees do.
      - cwkoss 9y ago
        Somebody made a video of manually bitcoin mining on paper once, kind of amusing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3dqhixzGVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3dqhixzGVo
        baddox 9y ago
nerdponx 9y ago
I don't see these people complaining how much energy Las Vegas wastes. Or Hollywood. What about professional sports? How much energy does going to war cost? FWIW I complain about these things all the time and I just get weird looks.
Houshalter 9y ago
The cost of bitcoin is not even comparable to Hollywood or sports or any of the things you mentioned. Bitcoin is entirely based on energy and those things are not. You buy a $5 movie ticket and most of that money is going to actors, visual effects artists, and all the other names you see on the credits. You buy $5 worth of bitcoin and you have bought almost $5 worth of electricity. Gwern estimates folding@home kills about 2 people every year just in the direct cost of air pollution (to say nothing of the effects of climate change.) https://www.gwern.net/Charity-is-not-about-helping https://www.gwern.net/Charity-is-not-about-helping Bitcoin is orders of magnitude bigger than folding@home. It's a complete massacre.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- thisisit 9y ago
  > You buy a $5 movie ticket and most of that money is going to actors, visual effects artists, and all the other names you see on the credits. You buy $5 worth of bitcoin and you have bought almost $5 worth of electricity. So your defense effectively is if I buy $5 of food and eat it, well it is any lost any way so I should buy $5 of bitcoin instead? I am sorry but it is exactly this kind of flawed reasoning which ensures people don't take bitcoin seriously.
  - Houshalter 9y ago
    I'm sorry I can't understand your comment. I am arguing against bitcoin. The environmental destruction and human loss of life caused by bitcoin is enormous.

by PKop 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

w-ll 9y ago

Exactly. Energy for gold mines, armourded trucks, petrol moving it all around the world, printing synthetics and chemicals, 24/7 always on ATMS all over the world. Bitcoin mining allows me to send money to my family halfway across the world, nearly instantly, without a bank.

ihuman 9y ago

Why did you quote a comment made 10 minutes before yours? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15665273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15665273

PKop 9y ago
Because it was dead when I got here, which I disagreed with but couldn't change.

tahw 9y ago

Why do you have such a persecution complex about this? You make fine points but your attitude is pretty off-putting, man.

PKop 9y ago
Most of the quote was someone else's words whose comment was flagged which I thought was odd and I wanted to highlight his main point which I agreed with. But to your question, I think Bitcoin is and will be persecuted by many powerful entities, wanting to control or kill it. Money that has a fixed monetary policy is without question a threat to political and banking power in my opinion. Politicians and banks live off of inflationary fiat and debt. Also, fractional reserve banking. [Of course, a nation would benefit collectively from a move off of fiat money, but special interests would suffer] Both things that Bitcoin is resistant to, which means it protects value these groups are stealing out of the currency (and the economy by 2nd order effects of bad money) and puts it back in the hands of individuals. I don't think enough people have enough of a persecution complex when it comes to attacks on their money... and the superior alternative that is Bitcoin.
rothbardrand 9y ago
The control of money is the way society is enslaved. He may not have a complex, but we are all being exploited.

naveen99 9y ago

> In order to change the Database, you have to go back > and do the "work" which becomes practically impossible after approx. 10 blocks. I think if some entity devoted 1000x the current mining power, they would catch up in less than a year. Historical hash rates were negligible.

AgentME 9y ago
They could also profit extremely by legitimately mining now. Even if you assume they had magnitudes better and cheaper hashing technology, the opportunity cost to them of such an attack would be massive.
michaeltoth 9y ago
1000x the current mining power is 10% of global energy consumption. So they'd be spending 10% of global energy consumption for a year. This is infeasible unless done by a consortium of world governments, and to what end?

jacobr 9y ago

> I don't see these people complaining how much energy Las Vegas wastes. Or Hollywood. What about professional sports? How much energy does going to war cost? We should, though. War destroys the planet. Energy consumption needs to go down across all areas, including entertainment and other things that we consider fun or useful.

rothbardrand 9y ago

Yes. The people who hate bitcoin -- despite all it does for them-- generally are hating it for political reasons. They may hate sound money, they may worship at the alter of neo-keynsianism and think inflation is necessary (how else will you pay for bombing brown people?) But they will use the "its anti-environment" claim because that has gotten traction. We already have a massive global propaganda campaign spreading leftist views of the environment. When bitcoin defeats these people, I will be very happy.

CJefferson 9y ago
bitcoin is currently inflationary -- what do you think is paying the miners, but new bitcoins created out of nothing?
- rtkwe 9y ago
  It's mostly new BTC but there's also ~1-2 BTC per block of transaction fees now too. Some spikes up to around 4. https://www.smartbit.com.au/charts/transaction-fees-per-block https://www.smartbit.com.au/charts/transaction-fees-per-bloc...
nosuchthing 9y ago
Bitcoin maximalists are a curious bunch who fail to realize the service Bitcoin offers is functionally identical to other Blockchain coins, and in many cases the newer iterations add improvements and features.. whereas the Bitcoin core team holds the software with ideological constraints prohibiting upgrades to the design, to the detriment of user experience. Additionally, the majority of Bitcoins were minted prior to 2014 so the incentive is skewed for old users to attempt to psychologically convince new adopters to purchase the "coins" they produced for low capital input by selling for a higher cost.
cromwellian 9y ago
So, people bring up inefficiencies, scalability issues, problems with energy use, and you claim it's politics, but then immediately start attacking Keynesism, the "left", and elsewhere digging up ghost of Ayn Rand. Do you see the irony?

Asdfbla 9y ago

> In addition, if Bitcoin disrupts the banking industry and a portion of wall street, we'd have to subtract their energy consumption. Do you seriously think that? The cost of stuff like VISA's server farms or office buildings (and the rest of the financial industry) is probably globally negligible. Not to mention similar institutions would inevitably appear for cryptocurrencies (or already have, like Exchanges, etc.). What remains is the horrendous cost for a Bitcoin transaction vs. the negligible cost for a 'normal' transaction in most trust-based systems.

cwkoss 9y ago
Gotta count the energy cost of staff food, transport, facilities, etc. for every VISA employee to really make an accurate comparison. Plus power drain of each of millions of POS systems, cost of maintaining redundant secure backups of records... Bitcoin requires no other infrastructure than computers. VISA needs a lot of various things to keep it's infrastructure working.
- andrewchambers 9y ago
  You think people mining bitcoin don't need food too?
  - baddox 9y ago
    People generally don’t mine bitcoin. Their computers do. And they don’t even need to sit at the mining rigs for 8 hours a day like most employees do.
    - cwkoss 9y ago
      Somebody made a video of manually bitcoin mining on paper once, kind of amusing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3dqhixzGVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3dqhixzGVo
      - baddox 9y ago

nerdponx 9y ago

I don't see these people complaining how much energy Las Vegas wastes. Or Hollywood. What about professional sports? How much energy does going to war cost? FWIW I complain about these things all the time and I just get weird looks.

Houshalter 9y ago

The cost of bitcoin is not even comparable to Hollywood or sports or any of the things you mentioned. Bitcoin is entirely based on energy and those things are not. You buy a $5 movie ticket and most of that money is going to actors, visual effects artists, and all the other names you see on the credits. You buy $5 worth of bitcoin and you have bought almost $5 worth of electricity. Gwern estimates folding@home kills about 2 people every year just in the direct cost of air pollution (to say nothing of the effects of climate change.) https://www.gwern.net/Charity-is-not-about-helping https://www.gwern.net/Charity-is-not-about-helping Bitcoin is orders of magnitude bigger than folding@home. It's a complete massacre.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
thisisit 9y ago
> You buy a $5 movie ticket and most of that money is going to actors, visual effects artists, and all the other names you see on the credits. You buy $5 worth of bitcoin and you have bought almost $5 worth of electricity. So your defense effectively is if I buy $5 of food and eat it, well it is any lost any way so I should buy $5 of bitcoin instead? I am sorry but it is exactly this kind of flawed reasoning which ensures people don't take bitcoin seriously.
- Houshalter 9y ago
  I'm sorry I can't understand your comment. I am arguing against bitcoin. The environmental destruction and human loss of life caused by bitcoin is enormous.