5 ms·

Bitcoin and similars are the biggest waste of computing power and energy in the history of the planet. It will be nice for the environment when this is all over

Bitcoin and similars are the biggest waste of computing power and energy in the history of the planet. It will be nice for the environment when this is all over.

fastball 8y ago
Quite the claim. Obviously you haven't heard of the NSA or the US Military.
- superkuh 8y ago
  For anyone downvoting this I'll expand what he said so you can understand it before reflex downvoting. Nationstate backed fiat currencies require enormous amounts of energy waste in the form of standing armies and other tools of power. Compared to the energy Bitcoin uses to protect itself from attack or fraud this energy is very large.
  - mancerayder 8y ago
    The implication now is that there'd be no standing armies or other, as you say, tools of power? Do you believe this?
    - superkuh 8y ago
      Not sure where you are going with this, but yeah, Bitcoin does not have a standing army. It secures itself from attack by proof of work.
      - s73v3r_ 8y ago
        Ok, cool. How does that secure the rest of us?
        OedipusRex 8y ago
        It doesn't, Bitcoin is as safe as the security of the person who holds it. And as someone who had Bitcoin on Mt Gox, this is a moot point to argue.
        s73v3r_ 8y ago
        The point is that the military that the person claimed should be counted in the energy expenditures related to the USD does far, far, far more than "protect the dollar", and even if we all moved to Bitcoin, we'd still have to have the military.
      - root_axis 8y ago
        If your logic made any sense then only countries with standing armies could successfully issue their own currencies, but that's obviously not the case.
  - sleepless_on 8y ago
    Also one could argue the intrinsic value of Bitcoin is it's computing power, as that is worth something.
    - epicide 8y ago
      "Value" implies you can retrieve that work back out of it. Otherwise, it is a cost. Seeing as how I can't retrieve the computing power back out of Bitcoin that was mined, it is a cost.
      - starbugs 8y ago
        Well, couldn't you actually sell the coin in exchange for computing power?
        epicide 8y ago
        That's just buying computing power like you would do with USD.
        starbugs 8y ago
        My point is: it boils down to someone putting power into something which then conserves that power (and can be exchanged for something else). Another example of this is gold. To extract it out of the ground, you need to invest energy. That energy is then "stored" in the gold. You can release it by selling it for USD, then purchasing service from someone and so on. I think it's hard to argue that the energy you put into it is lost even if that seems unintuitive at first glance. The only currencies which exhibit that feature (no energy put in, hence no real intrinsic value) are fiat currencies, which come with their own set of unique issues.
        epicide 8y ago
        I never said the energy is lost. I'm saying I, the owner, cannot extract it back out. This is also true for gold-backed currency, but USD, among others, hasn't been backed by gold for some time now. My understanding is that a currency needs to be backed by something intrinsically (seen as) valuable as it goes through the bootstrapping process. Once it is generally accepted, it can stand on its own (at least for a while). No matter how big Bitcoin is, it can never get off of its "gold standard" -- i.e. the computing power required to mine it. On its own, this would be fine, but the parallels break down very quickly when we are talking about new *coins coming out at a MUCH higher velocity than traditional currencies.
  - OedipusRex 8y ago
    Yes a nationstate does protect the value of it's money with a standing army but to imply the purpose is to protect the currency is false. The armed forces and stability of the country bring about the value of the currency, not the other way around.
  - Cmerlyn 8y ago
    Yes, because if cryptocurrencies became the standard, armies will become obsolete and Nation states will dissolve their Military programs. Makes sense.
    - statguy 8y ago
      Ha. That would be true if the only purpose an army was to stabilize the currency. The army/military of any nation does far more than that.
  - ikfmpwdsoz 8y ago
    Armies are to protect people and national interests, not currency. I'd love to here more about your vision of a future without military, though.
  - jimjimjim 8y ago
    wut? nations will continue regardless of currency. nations will always have different levels of resources. nations will need to defend those resources. this has nothing to do with electricity used in current electronic financial transactions. bitcoin and it's ilk are wildly fantastically inefficient.
  - jcranmer 8y ago
    The government's monopoly of force and the stability of its currency are not strongly correlated. A country like Somalia had a stable currency despite the fact that its notional government barely exerted any power beyond the walls of its offices, and a country like Zimbabwe has seen its currency lose any value despite the government lacking any reasonable prospect of invasion and the military/security forces preventing any reasonable prospect of internal rebellion. If anything, a powerful standing army is more likely to result in failure of fiat currency (hyperinflation)--hyperinflation is fundamentally caused by a government pursuing really bad economic policies to the detriment of the economy, and the failing economy will tend to precipitate an internal (potentially violent) rebellion if there is space to do so.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- beager 8y ago
  I'll bite. The Department of Defense has a much larger purview than propping up the value of currency. Cryptocurrency doesn't fight terrorism (at best, it's agnostic to terrorism, at worst, it aids it). It won't fight back against the next Pearl Harbor or 9/11. And if your reasoning reduces everything about society to the economic output/currency value of that society, it might be time to get some fresh air. Additionally, regardless of whether the DoD and all governments of all nations spend more energy or warm the planet faster than global cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency is superfluous—the global financial system was working without it, and could work without it again. Everything cryptocurrency "fixes" about the global financial system could be fixed more surgically, and without a system that exerts so much stress on the planet.
  - PunchTornado 8y ago
    yeah right. I think NSA has a much more evil role in society than bitcoin and other crypto.
    - JAlexoid 8y ago
      I disagree. Compared to cryptocurrency, NSA has at least done something good. Cryptocurrency, I mean the stupid push and people wasting energy on it, at best changes nothing... maybe just making Winkelvoss rich, at the expense of other idiots. Hey! I think Madoff might have done more good things for human kind, than bitcoin mania. I'm sorry if you lost the money... But I'm not using cryptocurrency in any public space. Considering that cash is still way more anonymous... and US Dollars are fairly widely accepted notes.
    - beager 8y ago
      I actually agree with you. Cryptocurrency is not inherently "evil" nor does it do anything evil by design. The NSA has many programs and actors that could be construed as evil. However, that's separate from the point I was making.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
pvaldes 8y ago
> the biggest waste of computing power and energy in the history of the planet If we except the tetris, or minesweeper...
- knicholes 8y ago
  Unless you consider its possible therapeutic effects: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/playing-tetris-could-stop-traumatic-memories-becoming-flashbacks-180955862/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/playing-tetris-cou...
- root_axis 8y ago
  When will this horrible argument stop being thrown around? Tetris and minesweeper use a minuscule amount of power and typically provide many hours of entertainment. As technology has advanced, the power efficiency of these games increased exponentially. On the other hand, blockchain mining responds to more efficient hardware by increasing difficulty in order to compensate for the impact of improved hardware on the hash rate, while still doing the same amount of work (i.e. processing the same amount of transactions). The comparison is absurd and intellectually dishonest.
  - stanleydrew 8y ago
    Yes but you're ignoring the many hours of entertainment derived from obsessively refreshing your Coinbase account balance.
    - root_axis 8y ago
      Sounds like an idea for an idle game.
      - Xylakant 8y ago
        If you enjoy that, I can totally recommend cookie clicker. http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/ http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/
sodafountan 8y ago
what an ignorant and short-sighted comment. The amount of economic good cryptocurrency can do will far outweigh any negative environmental costs incurred over the long term. Bitcoin is good for a world that is teetering on the edge economic enslavement from debt. When bitcoin inevitably hits 100,000 dollars, 1,000,000 dollars and so on (it's an algorithm, it will happen, you're just investing in an algorithm) people will use that money to buy Tesla's, start eco-friendly businesses, upgrade their outdated appliances and so on. Just wait and see.

Bitcoin and similars are the biggest waste of computing power and energy in the history of the planet. It will be nice for the environment when this is all over.

fastball 8y ago

Quite the claim. Obviously you haven't heard of the NSA or the US Military.

superkuh 8y ago
For anyone downvoting this I'll expand what he said so you can understand it before reflex downvoting. Nationstate backed fiat currencies require enormous amounts of energy waste in the form of standing armies and other tools of power. Compared to the energy Bitcoin uses to protect itself from attack or fraud this energy is very large.
- mancerayder 8y ago
  The implication now is that there'd be no standing armies or other, as you say, tools of power? Do you believe this?
  - superkuh 8y ago
    Not sure where you are going with this, but yeah, Bitcoin does not have a standing army. It secures itself from attack by proof of work.
    - s73v3r_ 8y ago
      Ok, cool. How does that secure the rest of us?
      - OedipusRex 8y ago
        It doesn't, Bitcoin is as safe as the security of the person who holds it. And as someone who had Bitcoin on Mt Gox, this is a moot point to argue.
        s73v3r_ 8y ago
        The point is that the military that the person claimed should be counted in the energy expenditures related to the USD does far, far, far more than "protect the dollar", and even if we all moved to Bitcoin, we'd still have to have the military.
    - root_axis 8y ago
      If your logic made any sense then only countries with standing armies could successfully issue their own currencies, but that's obviously not the case.
- sleepless_on 8y ago
  Also one could argue the intrinsic value of Bitcoin is it's computing power, as that is worth something.
  - epicide 8y ago
    "Value" implies you can retrieve that work back out of it. Otherwise, it is a cost. Seeing as how I can't retrieve the computing power back out of Bitcoin that was mined, it is a cost.
    - starbugs 8y ago
      Well, couldn't you actually sell the coin in exchange for computing power?
      - epicide 8y ago
        That's just buying computing power like you would do with USD.
        starbugs 8y ago
        My point is: it boils down to someone putting power into something which then conserves that power (and can be exchanged for something else). Another example of this is gold. To extract it out of the ground, you need to invest energy. That energy is then "stored" in the gold. You can release it by selling it for USD, then purchasing service from someone and so on. I think it's hard to argue that the energy you put into it is lost even if that seems unintuitive at first glance. The only currencies which exhibit that feature (no energy put in, hence no real intrinsic value) are fiat currencies, which come with their own set of unique issues.
        epicide 8y ago
        I never said the energy is lost. I'm saying I, the owner, cannot extract it back out. This is also true for gold-backed currency, but USD, among others, hasn't been backed by gold for some time now. My understanding is that a currency needs to be backed by something intrinsically (seen as) valuable as it goes through the bootstrapping process. Once it is generally accepted, it can stand on its own (at least for a while). No matter how big Bitcoin is, it can never get off of its "gold standard" -- i.e. the computing power required to mine it. On its own, this would be fine, but the parallels break down very quickly when we are talking about new *coins coming out at a MUCH higher velocity than traditional currencies.
- OedipusRex 8y ago
  Yes a nationstate does protect the value of it's money with a standing army but to imply the purpose is to protect the currency is false. The armed forces and stability of the country bring about the value of the currency, not the other way around.
- Cmerlyn 8y ago
  Yes, because if cryptocurrencies became the standard, armies will become obsolete and Nation states will dissolve their Military programs. Makes sense.
  - statguy 8y ago
    Ha. That would be true if the only purpose an army was to stabilize the currency. The army/military of any nation does far more than that.
- ikfmpwdsoz 8y ago
  Armies are to protect people and national interests, not currency. I'd love to here more about your vision of a future without military, though.
- jimjimjim 8y ago
  wut? nations will continue regardless of currency. nations will always have different levels of resources. nations will need to defend those resources. this has nothing to do with electricity used in current electronic financial transactions. bitcoin and it's ilk are wildly fantastically inefficient.
- jcranmer 8y ago
  The government's monopoly of force and the stability of its currency are not strongly correlated. A country like Somalia had a stable currency despite the fact that its notional government barely exerted any power beyond the walls of its offices, and a country like Zimbabwe has seen its currency lose any value despite the government lacking any reasonable prospect of invasion and the military/security forces preventing any reasonable prospect of internal rebellion. If anything, a powerful standing army is more likely to result in failure of fiat currency (hyperinflation)--hyperinflation is fundamentally caused by a government pursuing really bad economic policies to the detriment of the economy, and the failing economy will tend to precipitate an internal (potentially violent) rebellion if there is space to do so.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
beager 8y ago
I'll bite. The Department of Defense has a much larger purview than propping up the value of currency. Cryptocurrency doesn't fight terrorism (at best, it's agnostic to terrorism, at worst, it aids it). It won't fight back against the next Pearl Harbor or 9/11. And if your reasoning reduces everything about society to the economic output/currency value of that society, it might be time to get some fresh air. Additionally, regardless of whether the DoD and all governments of all nations spend more energy or warm the planet faster than global cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency is superfluous—the global financial system was working without it, and could work without it again. Everything cryptocurrency "fixes" about the global financial system could be fixed more surgically, and without a system that exerts so much stress on the planet.
- PunchTornado 8y ago
  yeah right. I think NSA has a much more evil role in society than bitcoin and other crypto.
  - JAlexoid 8y ago
    I disagree. Compared to cryptocurrency, NSA has at least done something good. Cryptocurrency, I mean the stupid push and people wasting energy on it, at best changes nothing... maybe just making Winkelvoss rich, at the expense of other idiots. Hey! I think Madoff might have done more good things for human kind, than bitcoin mania. I'm sorry if you lost the money... But I'm not using cryptocurrency in any public space. Considering that cash is still way more anonymous... and US Dollars are fairly widely accepted notes.
  - beager 8y ago
    I actually agree with you. Cryptocurrency is not inherently "evil" nor does it do anything evil by design. The NSA has many programs and actors that could be construed as evil. However, that's separate from the point I was making.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

pvaldes 8y ago

> the biggest waste of computing power and energy in the history of the planet If we except the tetris, or minesweeper...

knicholes 8y ago
Unless you consider its possible therapeutic effects: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/playing-tetris-could-stop-traumatic-memories-becoming-flashbacks-180955862/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/playing-tetris-cou...
root_axis 8y ago
When will this horrible argument stop being thrown around? Tetris and minesweeper use a minuscule amount of power and typically provide many hours of entertainment. As technology has advanced, the power efficiency of these games increased exponentially. On the other hand, blockchain mining responds to more efficient hardware by increasing difficulty in order to compensate for the impact of improved hardware on the hash rate, while still doing the same amount of work (i.e. processing the same amount of transactions). The comparison is absurd and intellectually dishonest.
- stanleydrew 8y ago
  Yes but you're ignoring the many hours of entertainment derived from obsessively refreshing your Coinbase account balance.
  - root_axis 8y ago
    Sounds like an idea for an idle game.
    - Xylakant 8y ago
      If you enjoy that, I can totally recommend cookie clicker. http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/ http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/

sodafountan 8y ago

what an ignorant and short-sighted comment. The amount of economic good cryptocurrency can do will far outweigh any negative environmental costs incurred over the long term. Bitcoin is good for a world that is teetering on the edge economic enslavement from debt. When bitcoin inevitably hits 100,000 dollars, 1,000,000 dollars and so on (it's an algorithm, it will happen, you're just investing in an algorithm) people will use that money to buy Tesla's, start eco-friendly businesses, upgrade their outdated appliances and so on. Just wait and see.