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The comments reflect the (perceived) state of the technology. One has to admit that the reputation of the entire space has been tarnished by snake oil salesmen

by corv 8y ago

The comments reflect the (perceived) state of the technology. One has to admit that the reputation of the entire space has been tarnished by snake oil salesmen. For some historical context it is worth looking at countless examples such as the Railway Mania[1] of the 1840s or the more recent Dot-Com bubble[2]. For more depth one can read Mackay[3]. Some of the most promising advancements in payment channels were only published as papers in 2016[4] and are understandably still being implemented. If anything the speed at which enthusiasts are willing to deploy experimental software at their own risk is breathtaking. Regarding the environmental impact of the Bitcoin network, while being widely derided for its energy use, it is in fact using less electricity than the major credit card networks. It is also using less energy than global gold mining. There are ways to reduce consumption should a consensus accept the tradeoffs. The term "Blockchain" as it is currently used often refers to private chains which are in vogue with corporate stakeholders. This appears to be a solution in search of a problem–I have not been able to identify a compelling use case here either. Most ICOs are outright scams. It is truly unfortunate that promising advancements of micropayments, smart contracts and the world's closet thing to an incorruptible currency are lumped together with so much rubbish. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Mania [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusion... [4]https://lightning.network/lightning-network-paper.pdf https://lightning.network/lightning-network-paper.pdf

CPLX 8y ago
> the reputation of the entire space has been tarnished by snake oil salesmen The market for snake oil wasn't much without the salespeople in the end though, was it?
Qworg 8y ago
Do you have a source on the electricity use of major card networks? Lightning is broken, sadly - not enough trust.
- corv 8y ago
  It was part of a talk by Anthony Towns at Scaling Bitcoin 2018 in Tokyo. https://youtu.be/y8hJ0VTPE34 https://youtu.be/y8hJ0VTPE34 I suggest you ask him e.g. on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ajtowns https://twitter.com/ajtowns I think the jury is still out on Lightning.
- xur17 8y ago
  > Lightning is broken, sadly - not enough trust. Can you elaborate on this?
  - Qworg 8y ago
    In short, people aren't holding enough value in their online node accounts. Here's a short article on the phenomenon: https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/06/26/lighting-network-transactions/ https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/06/26/lighting-network-...
hendzen 8y ago
" it is in fact using less electricity than the major credit card networks." - citation needed
- corv 8y ago
  I should have been more careful in my wording here. What I meant by this is the total energy expenditure of current payment systems (Credit cards, PayPal, WeChat Pay, Alipay, SWIFT, ACH, SEPA) including the overhead of fraud detection, chargebacks and the cost of fees on the economy. To be entirely fair you would also factor in the cost of QE & inflation. Although cryptocurrency isn’t widely used as such, notarization and its associated costs could also be taken into account. All of these factors are obviously extremely difficult to estimate properly. I still stand by my assertion that a mature cryptocurrency would be less costly for the global economy than the current systems of regional central banking and the damaging credit & debt cycles it brings with it.
minikomi 8y ago
> the Bitcoin network, while being widely derided for its energy use, it is in fact using less electricity than the major credit card networks Isn't this kind of like comparing a moped to a big rig in terms of transaction rate?
TeMPOraL 8y ago
> Regarding the environmental impact of the Bitcoin network, while being widely derided for its energy use, it is in fact using less electricity than the major credit card networks. It is also using less energy than global gold mining. There are ways to reduce consumption should a consensus accept the tradeoffs. That's not the point. The issue is with its growth trajectory. Setting aside how little Bitcoin network can handle vs. major credit cards per unit of energy used, the "mainstream" financial system treats energy use as waste that has to be minimized. Per constant number of players, it is expected to stay stable or even decrease. Bitcoin treats energy use as a security feature, and is designed up front to grow it continuously. Per constant number of players, it'll still grow fast as the difficulty of mining is increased. Even with growing populations, mainstream system seems at worst O(n log n), and Bitcoin is definitely faster[0]. Another thing is - the mainstream financial system already works, and does its job well. Bitcoin is seen as a way for some mix of greedy and politically fringe types to make money quick, exploiting cheap electricity. -- [0] - I'm giving a tentative O(n^2) here, I have a feeling it might be faster, but didn't check it. I'd love if someone could list here the sources of growth of energy usage in Bitcoin network.
- corv 8y ago
  Yes, the expenditure of energy is a defining feature of Proof of Work security, however there is going to be a plateau. The immutable base layer Bitcoin provides is also on a trajectory of feature completion and second layer technology will increase the amount of transactions per kWh tremendously. Who knows what benefits micropayments or smart contracts are poised to bring to further increase the efficiency of the global economy?
  - asynchrony 8y ago
    If you can’t offer a concrete example of more efficient micropayments or useful smart contracts, you’re basically talking about how great the second coming of Jesus might be.
timmaxw 8y ago
> using less electricity than the major credit card networks I googled around for "Bitcoin vs. VISA energy consumption"; the only argument I found in favor of VISA using more is here [0]. This compares Bitcoin to the entire global banking system, including the cost of e.g. keeping the lights on at physical bank branches. It very approximately guesstimates that the entire global banking system requires ~100 TWh/year, compared to Bitcoin's ~30 TWh/year [1]. For comparison: all data centers worldwide combined use about ~400 TWh/year [2]. I very much doubt that the credit card networks account for 7% of all data center energy consumption. [0] https://hackernoon.com/the-bitcoin-vs-visa-electricity-consumption-fallacy-8cf194987a50 https://hackernoon.com/the-bitcoin-vs-visa-electricity-consu... [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/bitcoins-insane-energy-consumption-explained/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/bitcoins-insane-... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/12/15/why-energy-is-a-big-and-rapidly-growing-problem-for-data-centers/#701c2d815a30 https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/12/15/wh...
- arcticbull 8y ago
  @corv come on, even if we go with the incredibly generous hypothesis that Bitcoin alone currently uses 1/3 the energy of the entire global banking system including physical lamps at desks (!!!), it is still only providing a tiny, teeny, percentage of the value store or of transaction volume. It's not even remotely a fair comparison. It's like saying my car consumes 1/3 of the world's entire output of gasoline so it's way more efficient than the sum total of all the transportation on the planet.
  - corv 8y ago
    I didn’t say it’s currently more efficient. I’m saying what it is designed to replace eventually, is already using more energy. Currencies are adopted and developed on a different time scale than most other technologies we are used to. Saying cryptocurrency has failed after being around for 10 years is shortsighted and not giving the incredible minds working on these problems enough credit.
    - arcticbull 8y ago

by corv 8y ago

CPLX 8y ago

> the reputation of the entire space has been tarnished by snake oil salesmen The market for snake oil wasn't much without the salespeople in the end though, was it?

Qworg 8y ago

Do you have a source on the electricity use of major card networks? Lightning is broken, sadly - not enough trust.

corv 8y ago
It was part of a talk by Anthony Towns at Scaling Bitcoin 2018 in Tokyo. https://youtu.be/y8hJ0VTPE34 https://youtu.be/y8hJ0VTPE34 I suggest you ask him e.g. on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ajtowns https://twitter.com/ajtowns I think the jury is still out on Lightning.
xur17 8y ago
> Lightning is broken, sadly - not enough trust. Can you elaborate on this?
- Qworg 8y ago
  In short, people aren't holding enough value in their online node accounts. Here's a short article on the phenomenon: https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/06/26/lighting-network-transactions/ https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/06/26/lighting-network-...

hendzen 8y ago

" it is in fact using less electricity than the major credit card networks." - citation needed

corv 8y ago
I should have been more careful in my wording here. What I meant by this is the total energy expenditure of current payment systems (Credit cards, PayPal, WeChat Pay, Alipay, SWIFT, ACH, SEPA) including the overhead of fraud detection, chargebacks and the cost of fees on the economy. To be entirely fair you would also factor in the cost of QE & inflation. Although cryptocurrency isn’t widely used as such, notarization and its associated costs could also be taken into account. All of these factors are obviously extremely difficult to estimate properly. I still stand by my assertion that a mature cryptocurrency would be less costly for the global economy than the current systems of regional central banking and the damaging credit & debt cycles it brings with it.

minikomi 8y ago

> the Bitcoin network, while being widely derided for its energy use, it is in fact using less electricity than the major credit card networks Isn't this kind of like comparing a moped to a big rig in terms of transaction rate?

TeMPOraL 8y ago

> Regarding the environmental impact of the Bitcoin network, while being widely derided for its energy use, it is in fact using less electricity than the major credit card networks. It is also using less energy than global gold mining. There are ways to reduce consumption should a consensus accept the tradeoffs. That's not the point. The issue is with its growth trajectory. Setting aside how little Bitcoin network can handle vs. major credit cards per unit of energy used, the "mainstream" financial system treats energy use as waste that has to be minimized. Per constant number of players, it is expected to stay stable or even decrease. Bitcoin treats energy use as a security feature, and is designed up front to grow it continuously. Per constant number of players, it'll still grow fast as the difficulty of mining is increased. Even with growing populations, mainstream system seems at worst O(n log n), and Bitcoin is definitely faster[0]. Another thing is - the mainstream financial system already works, and does its job well. Bitcoin is seen as a way for some mix of greedy and politically fringe types to make money quick, exploiting cheap electricity. -- [0] - I'm giving a tentative O(n^2) here, I have a feeling it might be faster, but didn't check it. I'd love if someone could list here the sources of growth of energy usage in Bitcoin network.

corv 8y ago
Yes, the expenditure of energy is a defining feature of Proof of Work security, however there is going to be a plateau. The immutable base layer Bitcoin provides is also on a trajectory of feature completion and second layer technology will increase the amount of transactions per kWh tremendously. Who knows what benefits micropayments or smart contracts are poised to bring to further increase the efficiency of the global economy?
- asynchrony 8y ago
  If you can’t offer a concrete example of more efficient micropayments or useful smart contracts, you’re basically talking about how great the second coming of Jesus might be.

timmaxw 8y ago

> using less electricity than the major credit card networks I googled around for "Bitcoin vs. VISA energy consumption"; the only argument I found in favor of VISA using more is here [0]. This compares Bitcoin to the entire global banking system, including the cost of e.g. keeping the lights on at physical bank branches. It very approximately guesstimates that the entire global banking system requires ~100 TWh/year, compared to Bitcoin's ~30 TWh/year [1]. For comparison: all data centers worldwide combined use about ~400 TWh/year [2]. I very much doubt that the credit card networks account for 7% of all data center energy consumption. [0] https://hackernoon.com/the-bitcoin-vs-visa-electricity-consumption-fallacy-8cf194987a50 https://hackernoon.com/the-bitcoin-vs-visa-electricity-consu... [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/bitcoins-insane-energy-consumption-explained/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/bitcoins-insane-... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/12/15/why-energy-is-a-big-and-rapidly-growing-problem-for-data-centers/#701c2d815a30 https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/12/15/wh...

arcticbull 8y ago
@corv come on, even if we go with the incredibly generous hypothesis that Bitcoin alone currently uses 1/3 the energy of the entire global banking system including physical lamps at desks (!!!), it is still only providing a tiny, teeny, percentage of the value store or of transaction volume. It's not even remotely a fair comparison. It's like saying my car consumes 1/3 of the world's entire output of gasoline so it's way more efficient than the sum total of all the transportation on the planet.
- corv 8y ago
  I didn’t say it’s currently more efficient. I’m saying what it is designed to replace eventually, is already using more energy. Currencies are adopted and developed on a different time scale than most other technologies we are used to. Saying cryptocurrency has failed after being around for 10 years is shortsighted and not giving the incredible minds working on these problems enough credit.
  - arcticbull 8y ago