5 ms·

It's (looking like it's turning out to become) digital gold. When is the last time you bought a family dinner with gold?

criddell 9y ago
I wonder how the environmental impact of mining gold compares to mining bitcoin?
- alex_young 9y ago
  Both are pretty bad. Gold mining is mostly strip mining tons of ore, spraying it with cyanide, collecting the runoff, and refining that. Then you pack up and leave before someone makes you clean up.
- bmking 9y ago
  Pollution from Gold mining: https://sciencing.com/types-pollution-generated-gold-mining-22598.html https://sciencing.com/types-pollution-generated-gold-mining-... A very rough estimate: World wide Bitcoin mining operation spends per year around 60% as much electricity as all of USA's bank offices: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15615601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15615601 With Bitcoin mining there is a high incentive to actually use renewable energy sources and could be physically outsourced to places where building green power plants is otherwise not practical due to the limits of creating a power grid to make such a power plant profitable.
  - cjbenedikt 9y ago
    https://www.hydrominer.org/ https://www.hydrominer.org/
leereeves 9y ago
Maybe it's digital gold. Maybe when the price stops rising no one feels any desire to buy it anymore and people are left holding worthless numbers.
- charlesdm 9y ago
  Yes, maybe it will become digital gold. If it were true digital gold, it would have a similar valuation closer to gold, i.e. $8tn (a 60 fold increase of its current value).
  - leereeves 9y ago
    A whole lot of the world's gold is held by governments. For BTC to reach similar valuations, it would need governments to buy it. Why would they?
    - charlesdm 9y ago
      Pension funds will be buying next year. I don't know whether governments will buy Bitcoin, but I wouldn't consider it unlikely that some country decides to use crypto as a replacement to their fiat currency -- either the government of a developed nation does it, or the people just decide that their local money isn't worth the paper it's printed on, and decide to use some sort of cryptocurrency. I know this sounds crazy, and I would've called it a ridiculous notion if someone told me this 5 years ago, but I don't consider it too unlikely anymore. It has grown on me. Due to quantitative easing, money just isn't worth much anymore and asset prices have gone up a lot across the board. Just look at the recent acquisition of a painting by Leonardo da Vinci: $450m. That could not have happened 20 years ago.
      - leereeves 9y ago
        Would a country whose currency isn't worth the paper it's printed on have the infrastructure to use BTC? Would they be able to afford the transaction fees? BTC would really need the support of a developed government, but those governments aren't eager to give up control of their currency.
        charlesdm 9y ago
        Not saying it will be Bitcoin. It could be Ethereum, or some other crypto with (very) low transaction fees. I don't think Bitcoin is a currency anyway. Building a crypto banking service that can be controlled through a phone (e.g. in Africa) should have tremendous value given the very high inflation in some countries there.

criddell 9y ago

I wonder how the environmental impact of mining gold compares to mining bitcoin?

alex_young 9y ago
Both are pretty bad. Gold mining is mostly strip mining tons of ore, spraying it with cyanide, collecting the runoff, and refining that. Then you pack up and leave before someone makes you clean up.
bmking 9y ago
Pollution from Gold mining: https://sciencing.com/types-pollution-generated-gold-mining-22598.html https://sciencing.com/types-pollution-generated-gold-mining-... A very rough estimate: World wide Bitcoin mining operation spends per year around 60% as much electricity as all of USA's bank offices: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15615601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15615601 With Bitcoin mining there is a high incentive to actually use renewable energy sources and could be physically outsourced to places where building green power plants is otherwise not practical due to the limits of creating a power grid to make such a power plant profitable.
- cjbenedikt 9y ago
  https://www.hydrominer.org/ https://www.hydrominer.org/

leereeves 9y ago

Maybe it's digital gold. Maybe when the price stops rising no one feels any desire to buy it anymore and people are left holding worthless numbers.

charlesdm 9y ago
Yes, maybe it will become digital gold. If it were true digital gold, it would have a similar valuation closer to gold, i.e. $8tn (a 60 fold increase of its current value).
- leereeves 9y ago
  A whole lot of the world's gold is held by governments. For BTC to reach similar valuations, it would need governments to buy it. Why would they?
  - charlesdm 9y ago
    Pension funds will be buying next year. I don't know whether governments will buy Bitcoin, but I wouldn't consider it unlikely that some country decides to use crypto as a replacement to their fiat currency -- either the government of a developed nation does it, or the people just decide that their local money isn't worth the paper it's printed on, and decide to use some sort of cryptocurrency. I know this sounds crazy, and I would've called it a ridiculous notion if someone told me this 5 years ago, but I don't consider it too unlikely anymore. It has grown on me. Due to quantitative easing, money just isn't worth much anymore and asset prices have gone up a lot across the board. Just look at the recent acquisition of a painting by Leonardo da Vinci: $450m. That could not have happened 20 years ago.
    - leereeves 9y ago
      Would a country whose currency isn't worth the paper it's printed on have the infrastructure to use BTC? Would they be able to afford the transaction fees? BTC would really need the support of a developed government, but those governments aren't eager to give up control of their currency.
      - charlesdm 9y ago
        Not saying it will be Bitcoin. It could be Ethereum, or some other crypto with (very) low transaction fees. I don't think Bitcoin is a currency anyway. Building a crypto banking service that can be controlled through a phone (e.g. in Africa) should have tremendous value given the very high inflation in some countries there.