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> But now the price seems relatively stable at $7000-$9000. And payments go through quickly enough. Great. Is this system that provides, so far, minimal to no

> But now the price seems relatively stable at $7000-$9000. And payments go through quickly enough. Great. Is this system that provides, so far, minimal to no advantage over other transaction systems worth expending the same electric power that a small developed country (Portugal) uses?

mirimir 8y ago
If you know another way to make anonymous payments, please share. I had a Liberty Reserve account, but they got busted. I have a Pecunix account, but it's not accepted anywhere. If I were wealthy, I could setup shell corporations and so on. But I'm not. I do agree that a system that used less energy would be better. When it's available, and widely enough accepted, I'll switch.
- mamon 8y ago
  If you think that Bitcoin transactions are anonymous then you are grossly mistaken. All transactions are part of PUBLIC ledger and are there to stay forever. The illusion of anonimity comes from thr fact that you don’t need an ID to create a Bitcoin wallet, but still it’s possible to trace your transactions back to you.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    Well, it may or may not be possible. The ledger may record a series of transactions like A → B → C → D → E, and you may know that A belongs to Joe and E to Mary, but it's not certain that you can know whether B, C and D are decoys created by one of them (and so they actually transacted directly) or if they're other people and the money simply circulated. There are techniques to try to find that out, but they're not infallible.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    From my parent comment: > And about anonymity. Yes, Bitcoin itself is not at all anonymous. Everything's in the public blockchain. But one can use mixing services, through Tor, and get different Bitcoin. Which aren't linked to the starting Bitcoin, or to any identity or IPv4 address that's linked to the user in meatspace. Maybe it's not perfect, but it's good enough for me. So yes, usably anonymous.
    - yesforwhat 8y ago
      You can also launder money after swapping it, doesn't make it anonymous either.
    - freeone3000 8y ago
      Engage the services of your local money launderer, they're doing the same thing. Wait, you're saying they're criminals? I wonder why the bitcoin guys aren't.
      - mirimir 8y ago
        The term "criminal" can mean so many things. It's like "terrorist". One person's criminal/terrorist is another's freedom fighter. People hurting others (what's criminal to me) will use any system that's secure, hidden, anonymous, etc. Tor is a good example. But in a sense, they serve as canaries for other users.
scalesolved 8y ago
This is a genuine question with no snark intended (sometimes we need to clarify stuff like this on the internet hah). What's the overall energy expenditure for all fiat production,maintenance, asset storage (gold), mining of assets etc? There are some interesting developments in the crypto sphere moving away from high energy proof or work to a holding system (Proof of stake).
- mirimir 8y ago
  I have no clue. But I don't doubt that systems as energy-intensive as Bitcoin would consume far more energy. Likely, orders of magnitude more. I like to think of myself as caring about ecosystems. But after decades of work on decentralized electronic payment systems, Bitcoin is what we got. I'm no expert, but I suspect that the Bitcoin protocol could be tweaked to make humongous mining operations unprofitable. But the chances of that are likely not so great. I do hope that proof-of-stake systems will develop. Stake still means wealth, but at least it's not wealth that's funding energy-intensive proof-of-work.

mirimir 8y ago

If you know another way to make anonymous payments, please share. I had a Liberty Reserve account, but they got busted. I have a Pecunix account, but it's not accepted anywhere. If I were wealthy, I could setup shell corporations and so on. But I'm not. I do agree that a system that used less energy would be better. When it's available, and widely enough accepted, I'll switch.

mamon 8y ago
If you think that Bitcoin transactions are anonymous then you are grossly mistaken. All transactions are part of PUBLIC ledger and are there to stay forever. The illusion of anonimity comes from thr fact that you don’t need an ID to create a Bitcoin wallet, but still it’s possible to trace your transactions back to you.
- icebraining 8y ago
  Well, it may or may not be possible. The ledger may record a series of transactions like A → B → C → D → E, and you may know that A belongs to Joe and E to Mary, but it's not certain that you can know whether B, C and D are decoys created by one of them (and so they actually transacted directly) or if they're other people and the money simply circulated. There are techniques to try to find that out, but they're not infallible.
- mirimir 8y ago
  From my parent comment: > And about anonymity. Yes, Bitcoin itself is not at all anonymous. Everything's in the public blockchain. But one can use mixing services, through Tor, and get different Bitcoin. Which aren't linked to the starting Bitcoin, or to any identity or IPv4 address that's linked to the user in meatspace. Maybe it's not perfect, but it's good enough for me. So yes, usably anonymous.
  - yesforwhat 8y ago
    You can also launder money after swapping it, doesn't make it anonymous either.
  - freeone3000 8y ago
    Engage the services of your local money launderer, they're doing the same thing. Wait, you're saying they're criminals? I wonder why the bitcoin guys aren't.
    - mirimir 8y ago
      The term "criminal" can mean so many things. It's like "terrorist". One person's criminal/terrorist is another's freedom fighter. People hurting others (what's criminal to me) will use any system that's secure, hidden, anonymous, etc. Tor is a good example. But in a sense, they serve as canaries for other users.

scalesolved 8y ago

This is a genuine question with no snark intended (sometimes we need to clarify stuff like this on the internet hah). What's the overall energy expenditure for all fiat production,maintenance, asset storage (gold), mining of assets etc? There are some interesting developments in the crypto sphere moving away from high energy proof or work to a holding system (Proof of stake).

mirimir 8y ago
I have no clue. But I don't doubt that systems as energy-intensive as Bitcoin would consume far more energy. Likely, orders of magnitude more. I like to think of myself as caring about ecosystems. But after decades of work on decentralized electronic payment systems, Bitcoin is what we got. I'm no expert, but I suspect that the Bitcoin protocol could be tweaked to make humongous mining operations unprofitable. But the chances of that are likely not so great. I do hope that proof-of-stake systems will develop. Stake still means wealth, but at least it's not wealth that's funding energy-intensive proof-of-work.