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More capital wasted to entrench a fairly useless commodity[1] that requires electrical energy expenditure that rivals entire nations' usages[2]. We are bounding

More capital wasted to entrench a fairly useless commodity[1] that requires electrical energy expenditure that rivals entire nations' usages[2]. We are bounding toward climate catastrophe and our largest institutions are taking stakes in actively destructive tulips. 1. https://www.tik.ee.ethz.ch/file/74bc987e6ab4a8478c04950616612f69/main.pdf https://www.tik.ee.ethz.ch/file/74bc987e6ab4a8478c0495061661... [pdf] 2. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/how-much-energy-does-bitcoin-mining-really-use https://www.wired.co.uk/article/how-much-energy-does-bitcoin...

seibelj 8y ago
The energy is available on the free market. Or acquired for the express purpose of blockchain mining (I.e. new geothermal energy created specifically for this industry and impractical to transmit other places). If you want to ban bitcoin mining because it “wastes” energy, there is an argument to be made for banning any industry not absolutely necessary for society because it destroys the planet. Why do we have sports stadiums? Rock concerts? Car racing? The other argument is that what bitcoin achieves through mining is only possible with financial institutions, the court system, and so on. What power does that system use? And finally, new innovations will likely end PoW mining for some major block chains like Ethereum, but it is extremely doubtful bitcoin will ever switch. Also, your first link is a white paper on scaling unrelated to the statement that bitcoin is a “useless commodity”, so I’m not sure why you are using it to back up your assertion.
- omegaworks 8y ago
  The paper describes the problems inherent to bitcoin. I think blockchain might be a good fit for some things, but bitcoin makes a terrible currency. The relevant section: >Today’s representative blockchain such as Bitcoin takes 10 min or longer to confirm transactions, achieves 7 transactions/sec maximum throughput. In comparison, a mainstream payment processor such as Visa credit card confirms a transaction within seconds, and processes 2000 transactions/sec on average, with a peak rate of 56,000 transactions/secnsactions/sec on average, with a peak rate of 56,000 transactions/sec
  - icelancer 8y ago
    The blockchain is not comparable to the Visa network as you use it as a consumer. It is comparable to the Visa network regarding settlement, which is extremely slow and periodic, just like the blockchain. Your bank has a series of pending charges that settles 24-48 hours later, which is similar to a dual-layer model - for example, Bitcoin's blockchain (settlement layer) and the Lightning network (consumer Visa network).
  - seibelj 8y ago
    That doesn't mean it's useless, it's just that the current state of the technology does not have the same throughput as other technologies in regards to payment processing. Bitcoin has many other aspects that make it more than a "useless commodity", which wasn't implied by the linked article or the fact you quoted.
    - omegaworks 8y ago
      >it's just that the current state of the technology does not have the same throughput as other technologies in regards to payment processing. This makes it an extremely poor currency. It is also an extremely poor distributed linked list with that throughput. If you use the energy resources of a small country just to get 7 transactions per second max recorded in a ledger, you've failed as a system designer. If the intent was to create a currency, Satoshi failed. If the intent was to create a white elephant, Satoshi succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. If our largest institutions are buying in, we will be collectively saddled with the maintenance of the network for the foreseeable future.
  - DINKDINK 8y ago
    Bringing up a comparison to Visa is immaterial: Bitcoin isn't competing with Visa. Visa's purpose is to update the bank accounts of distrusting parties (and credit and quality dispute issues). You need FedWire and an entire banking apparatus to use Visa. Bitcoin is competing with central banks with a state-backed monopoly on currency creation, and the court systems that enforce settlement. If you live in a first-world country where those banking systems work relatively well (Read require bailouts every 10-20 years, never innovated, leach value) and are subsidized by industry great for you but for bitcoin to offer such a service, for fractions of what it would cost a lawyer to do, to the rest of the world. Do you honestly believe the government has a magic/economic-violating ability to create $100 worth of value when it spends $0.13 printing a new paper bill? [1] Or even less when it's digitally inflated? How much consumptive waste is created by artificial demand induced by central banks? Bitcoin has already has a compelling solution to its layer 1 scaling bottleneck with reasonable trade offs: Layer 2 payments that are layer 1 enforceable, inflation proof, cryptography enforced. [1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm
latchkey 8y ago
Here is another one for you. [3] 3. https://www.academia.edu/37178295/The_Cost_and_Sustainability_of_Bitcoin_August_2018_ https://www.academia.edu/37178295/The_Cost_and_Sustainabilit...
- omegaworks 8y ago
  From your source: >When the Gold Standard was abandoned, our paper currency became backed by nothing but promises. Ever since then, the value of currency has tended to zero, and money to infinity. It fails the sniff test with its naive understanding of what currency is.

seibelj 8y ago

The energy is available on the free market. Or acquired for the express purpose of blockchain mining (I.e. new geothermal energy created specifically for this industry and impractical to transmit other places). If you want to ban bitcoin mining because it “wastes” energy, there is an argument to be made for banning any industry not absolutely necessary for society because it destroys the planet. Why do we have sports stadiums? Rock concerts? Car racing? The other argument is that what bitcoin achieves through mining is only possible with financial institutions, the court system, and so on. What power does that system use? And finally, new innovations will likely end PoW mining for some major block chains like Ethereum, but it is extremely doubtful bitcoin will ever switch. Also, your first link is a white paper on scaling unrelated to the statement that bitcoin is a “useless commodity”, so I’m not sure why you are using it to back up your assertion.

omegaworks 8y ago
The paper describes the problems inherent to bitcoin. I think blockchain might be a good fit for some things, but bitcoin makes a terrible currency. The relevant section: >Today’s representative blockchain such as Bitcoin takes 10 min or longer to confirm transactions, achieves 7 transactions/sec maximum throughput. In comparison, a mainstream payment processor such as Visa credit card confirms a transaction within seconds, and processes 2000 transactions/sec on average, with a peak rate of 56,000 transactions/secnsactions/sec on average, with a peak rate of 56,000 transactions/sec
- icelancer 8y ago
  The blockchain is not comparable to the Visa network as you use it as a consumer. It is comparable to the Visa network regarding settlement, which is extremely slow and periodic, just like the blockchain. Your bank has a series of pending charges that settles 24-48 hours later, which is similar to a dual-layer model - for example, Bitcoin's blockchain (settlement layer) and the Lightning network (consumer Visa network).
- seibelj 8y ago
  That doesn't mean it's useless, it's just that the current state of the technology does not have the same throughput as other technologies in regards to payment processing. Bitcoin has many other aspects that make it more than a "useless commodity", which wasn't implied by the linked article or the fact you quoted.
  - omegaworks 8y ago
    >it's just that the current state of the technology does not have the same throughput as other technologies in regards to payment processing. This makes it an extremely poor currency. It is also an extremely poor distributed linked list with that throughput. If you use the energy resources of a small country just to get 7 transactions per second max recorded in a ledger, you've failed as a system designer. If the intent was to create a currency, Satoshi failed. If the intent was to create a white elephant, Satoshi succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. If our largest institutions are buying in, we will be collectively saddled with the maintenance of the network for the foreseeable future.
- DINKDINK 8y ago
  Bringing up a comparison to Visa is immaterial: Bitcoin isn't competing with Visa. Visa's purpose is to update the bank accounts of distrusting parties (and credit and quality dispute issues). You need FedWire and an entire banking apparatus to use Visa. Bitcoin is competing with central banks with a state-backed monopoly on currency creation, and the court systems that enforce settlement. If you live in a first-world country where those banking systems work relatively well (Read require bailouts every 10-20 years, never innovated, leach value) and are subsidized by industry great for you but for bitcoin to offer such a service, for fractions of what it would cost a lawyer to do, to the rest of the world. Do you honestly believe the government has a magic/economic-violating ability to create $100 worth of value when it spends $0.13 printing a new paper bill? [1] Or even less when it's digitally inflated? How much consumptive waste is created by artificial demand induced by central banks? Bitcoin has already has a compelling solution to its layer 1 scaling bottleneck with reasonable trade offs: Layer 2 payments that are layer 1 enforceable, inflation proof, cryptography enforced. [1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm

latchkey 8y ago

Here is another one for you. [3] 3. https://www.academia.edu/37178295/The_Cost_and_Sustainability_of_Bitcoin_August_2018_ https://www.academia.edu/37178295/The_Cost_and_Sustainabilit...

omegaworks 8y ago
From your source: >When the Gold Standard was abandoned, our paper currency became backed by nothing but promises. Ever since then, the value of currency has tended to zero, and money to infinity. It fails the sniff test with its naive understanding of what currency is.