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I wonder how many people defending bitcoin here are _aren't_ bitcoin holders. I suspect very few, as I suspect that if you're holding an asset that's appreciate

I wonder how many people defending bitcoin here are _aren't_ bitcoin holders. I suspect very few, as I suspect that if you're holding an asset that's appreciated 1000% in the last year you're going to have a hard time being very objective about any criticism that seems to undermine that asset. The amount of power bitcoin is sucking up is truly astounding. There will eventually come a point where states are motivated to act against the network, and I'd consider it wishful thinking on the part of bitcoin investors/true believers that states have no real recourse. All that power comes from very large physical sources, which can be controlled with violence. Short of that, China could nationalize the miners and run a 51% attack, driving the price to zero. TLA's have sufficient resources to deanonymize transactions and enforce civil or criminal penalties. People keep viewing bitcoin as this abstract cryptographic thing, but it exists in the physical world, and in this world sovereign states hold ultimate power. When major powers decide that bitcoin is not in their interest, they will end the experiment. The truest believers will be left holding the bag.

splintercell 9y ago
Cryptocurrencies are one of those cats which have gotten out of the bag, and now it is very difficult for it to be put back in. > Short of that, China could nationalize the miners and run a 51% attack, driving the price to zero. A hard fork which renders nearly all existing ASIC architecture useless can defeat that attack. It would be a huge cost to China, with all that mining infrastructure go to waste. What China could do better is to disable bitcoin traffic to pass through their firewall, and that would be a better attack, because then it would be chaos in the rest of the world, with really high difficulty level, which would take time to readjust because no new blocks would be mind for a while. Then when difficultly readjust, they open the firewall again, and now you got all these China vs non-China btc transactions to consolidate. This is a big concern of bitcoiners, and there are attempts to figure that out, but it isn't an impossible problem. Keep in mind, Bitcoin isn't the only cryptocurrency, PoW isn't the only consensus algorithm, the current snapshot of the chain isn't immutable. In case of catastrophic disruption, the chain will be forked, that disruption removed, and business will continue. > When major powers decide that bitcoin is not in their interest, they will end the experiment. This is an issue for prisoner's dilemma. Major powers aren't a monolithic entity. The interests of Russia are vastly different from the interests of USA. A LOT of world powers are interested in getting off Dollar as a reserve currency. This alone makes any decision on bitcoin between the world powers far from agreeable.
mrb 9y ago
«is truly astounding» Would you say that the worldwide electricity consumption of Christmas decorative lights (2.3 GW assuming it's 3× the US) is "astounding"? Well, Bitcoin miners consume less than that: I estimate 1.7 GW based on my previous research bounding it to 0.6-1.2 GW as of July. http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-electricity-consumption http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-electricity-consumption Why do miners receive such a disproportionate amount of criticism considering that so many other energy uses are vastly more wasteful by multiple orders of magnitudes... Cars alone waste 95% of their fuel energy. The US wastes 61-86% of its energy: https://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/26/us-wastes-61-86-of-its-energy/ https://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/26/us-wastes-61-86-of-its-... But, no, the average HN reader seems more concerned by these miners using 0.01% of the world's energy. In the future, we may eventually reach a point where the energy use starts becoming worrying, but we are currently very far from that point.
- Frogolocalypse 9y ago
  I have no problem energy increasing in price if people think it is an issue. It will have little effect on the architecture of bitcoin. If anything, it will benefit it by increasing decentralization.
- panarky 9y ago
  Cryptocurrencies consume a miniscule fraction of the energy that the legacy financial system wastes on office buildings, data centers, air travel and commuting employees. Why doesn't anyone complain that JPMorgan will "cost us our clean-energy future"? The great thing about a financial system defined by open-source software is that true innovation happens every day. Already we see testing with proof-of-stake, lightning network, etc. that are vastly more energy efficient.
  - xiphias 9y ago
    The biggest waste of the legacy systems are currency wars. Keeping up the petrodollar is wasting millions or at least hundres of thousends of people's life every year. There may be one more war agains Bitcoin, but if all of us convert to sound money, the ROI of wars go down substantially.

splintercell 9y ago

Cryptocurrencies are one of those cats which have gotten out of the bag, and now it is very difficult for it to be put back in. > Short of that, China could nationalize the miners and run a 51% attack, driving the price to zero. A hard fork which renders nearly all existing ASIC architecture useless can defeat that attack. It would be a huge cost to China, with all that mining infrastructure go to waste. What China could do better is to disable bitcoin traffic to pass through their firewall, and that would be a better attack, because then it would be chaos in the rest of the world, with really high difficulty level, which would take time to readjust because no new blocks would be mind for a while. Then when difficultly readjust, they open the firewall again, and now you got all these China vs non-China btc transactions to consolidate. This is a big concern of bitcoiners, and there are attempts to figure that out, but it isn't an impossible problem. Keep in mind, Bitcoin isn't the only cryptocurrency, PoW isn't the only consensus algorithm, the current snapshot of the chain isn't immutable. In case of catastrophic disruption, the chain will be forked, that disruption removed, and business will continue. > When major powers decide that bitcoin is not in their interest, they will end the experiment. This is an issue for prisoner's dilemma. Major powers aren't a monolithic entity. The interests of Russia are vastly different from the interests of USA. A LOT of world powers are interested in getting off Dollar as a reserve currency. This alone makes any decision on bitcoin between the world powers far from agreeable.

mrb 9y ago

«is truly astounding» Would you say that the worldwide electricity consumption of Christmas decorative lights (2.3 GW assuming it's 3× the US) is "astounding"? Well, Bitcoin miners consume less than that: I estimate 1.7 GW based on my previous research bounding it to 0.6-1.2 GW as of July. http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-electricity-consumption http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-electricity-consumption Why do miners receive such a disproportionate amount of criticism considering that so many other energy uses are vastly more wasteful by multiple orders of magnitudes... Cars alone waste 95% of their fuel energy. The US wastes 61-86% of its energy: https://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/26/us-wastes-61-86-of-its-energy/ https://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/26/us-wastes-61-86-of-its-... But, no, the average HN reader seems more concerned by these miners using 0.01% of the world's energy. In the future, we may eventually reach a point where the energy use starts becoming worrying, but we are currently very far from that point.

Frogolocalypse 9y ago
I have no problem energy increasing in price if people think it is an issue. It will have little effect on the architecture of bitcoin. If anything, it will benefit it by increasing decentralization.
panarky 9y ago
Cryptocurrencies consume a miniscule fraction of the energy that the legacy financial system wastes on office buildings, data centers, air travel and commuting employees. Why doesn't anyone complain that JPMorgan will "cost us our clean-energy future"? The great thing about a financial system defined by open-source software is that true innovation happens every day. Already we see testing with proof-of-stake, lightning network, etc. that are vastly more energy efficient.
- xiphias 9y ago
  The biggest waste of the legacy systems are currency wars. Keeping up the petrodollar is wasting millions or at least hundres of thousends of people's life every year. There may be one more war agains Bitcoin, but if all of us convert to sound money, the ROI of wars go down substantially.