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It does not really matter if it's 2 miles or 2 million miles per bitcoin transaction. You cannot stop bitcoin. Edit: You would end up burning even more if you

It does not really matter if it's 2 miles or 2 million miles per bitcoin transaction. You cannot stop bitcoin. Edit: You would end up burning even more if you tried to stop it.

davidgerard 7y ago
nah, there's approaches. I meet with politicians and suggest a carbon tax on crypto exchange conversion to fiat - miners have to cash out, after all. You have to tax the clean coins too, otherwise buyers will just exchange dirtycoin for cleancoin before cashing out.
- lifty 7y ago
  Why not tax or make all energy more expensive? That way all wasteful usage will be curtailed and only the valuable use cases will be left after a while. If we do what you proposed it sounds like we should start taxing other behavior on the internet based on its usefulness to society and electricity usage.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    We definitely should tax all dirty energy, and the shifting price landscape will do a lot to fix the environmental issues we're facing. That said, it's not enough - because the market isn't some NP-complete-problem-solving magic oracle. It's just a greedy optimization algorithm. It's very prone to falling into bad local optima. We know that for a fact, that's the basis of most regulations around markets. Left unattended, the market would happily prioritize mining Bitcoin over producing food, as running Bitcoins in circles is more profitable than selling grain - up until there's an actual shortage of food and the market self-destructs.
    - reportgunner 7y ago
      Energy on it's own is not dirty or clean. You cannot test the wires in the wall to say yep, this energy is clean. You can of course tax the energy producers, but that does not prevent fraud on it's own - see oil tankers converting gas pollutants to water and causing even more harm.
      - TeMPOraL 7y ago
        > Energy on it's own is not dirty or clean. You cannot test the wires in the wall to say yep, this energy is clean. Yes. "Clean/dirty energy" is a shorthand for clean/dirty energy sources. > You can of course tax the energy producers, but that does not prevent fraud on it's own Sure. Taxing emissions is a necessary but not sufficient component of a sane energy policy.
        reportgunner 7y ago
        > Yes. "Clean/dirty energy" is a shorthand for clean/dirty energy sources. So how do you make sure you are not getting dirty energy ?
        TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
        What is the purpose of this questions? You purchase electricity with clean production guarantees. That doesn't necessarily mean the electricity you use comes from that, or any, clean source, but that clean sources are used to contribute to grid supply equally. If that's not actually happening then we can call that fraud, but that's a separate issue. Are you claiming you were not aware of this?
  - davidgerard 7y ago
    Do you mean instead of taking on bitcoin? Please be clear.
- reportgunner 7y ago
  Putting new taxes in place is not free of charge.
TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
That’s an interesting opinion. In the spirit of Hacker News, would you mind expanding on why you believe that to be the case? We’re generally concerned with comments being progressively more detailed as the discussion gets progressively more decisive.
- reportgunner 7y ago
  Also the critical thinkers seem to never have even checked the source of this 600KWh / transaction claim. If you actually cared to check [0] you would see that this claim is coming from estimating mining revenue and then sending 60% of that revenue to mining costs. That calculation is actually: Mining revenue(in USD) * 0.6 / 0.05 / amount of transactions = KWh per transaction Embarassing! [0](https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption#assumptions https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption#assumpti...)
- reportgunner 7y ago
  Let me start with > You cannot stop bitcoin. See the way bitcoin works is anyone who wants to run a node on the network can just start without asking anyone for anything, or even letting anyone know they are starting. There is no door you can bang on to stop new users from joining. There is no server you can bring down to prevent people from joining. > It does not really matter if it's 2 miles or 2 million miles per bitcoin transaction. This kind of comparison is flawed: Tesla was made for efficient mileage from electricity, but Bitcoin never aimed at transactions that require little electricity. You could compare an electric kettle to a smartphone and say that electric kettles are really bad because you could talk on the phone for 50 years instead of boiling water for some tea. ( If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry. ) > Edit: You would end up burning even more if you tried to stop it. Based on the above and other properties of bitcoin, it would not be cost free at all to try and stop it. I am convinced that the costs related to attempts to stop bitcoin would be much higher than the costs required to leave it be. > We’re generally concerned with comments being progressively more detailed as the discussion gets progressively more decisive. Yeah I'd too appreciate if the debate here was more than yeah just tax it bro, they gotta cash out bro

It does not really matter if it's 2 miles or 2 million miles per bitcoin transaction. You cannot stop bitcoin. Edit: You would end up burning even more if you tried to stop it.

davidgerard 7y ago

nah, there's approaches. I meet with politicians and suggest a carbon tax on crypto exchange conversion to fiat - miners have to cash out, after all. You have to tax the clean coins too, otherwise buyers will just exchange dirtycoin for cleancoin before cashing out.

lifty 7y ago
Why not tax or make all energy more expensive? That way all wasteful usage will be curtailed and only the valuable use cases will be left after a while. If we do what you proposed it sounds like we should start taxing other behavior on the internet based on its usefulness to society and electricity usage.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  We definitely should tax all dirty energy, and the shifting price landscape will do a lot to fix the environmental issues we're facing. That said, it's not enough - because the market isn't some NP-complete-problem-solving magic oracle. It's just a greedy optimization algorithm. It's very prone to falling into bad local optima. We know that for a fact, that's the basis of most regulations around markets. Left unattended, the market would happily prioritize mining Bitcoin over producing food, as running Bitcoins in circles is more profitable than selling grain - up until there's an actual shortage of food and the market self-destructs.
  - reportgunner 7y ago
    Energy on it's own is not dirty or clean. You cannot test the wires in the wall to say yep, this energy is clean. You can of course tax the energy producers, but that does not prevent fraud on it's own - see oil tankers converting gas pollutants to water and causing even more harm.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      > Energy on it's own is not dirty or clean. You cannot test the wires in the wall to say yep, this energy is clean. Yes. "Clean/dirty energy" is a shorthand for clean/dirty energy sources. > You can of course tax the energy producers, but that does not prevent fraud on it's own Sure. Taxing emissions is a necessary but not sufficient component of a sane energy policy.
      - reportgunner 7y ago
        > Yes. "Clean/dirty energy" is a shorthand for clean/dirty energy sources. So how do you make sure you are not getting dirty energy ?
        TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
        What is the purpose of this questions? You purchase electricity with clean production guarantees. That doesn't necessarily mean the electricity you use comes from that, or any, clean source, but that clean sources are used to contribute to grid supply equally. If that's not actually happening then we can call that fraud, but that's a separate issue. Are you claiming you were not aware of this?
- davidgerard 7y ago
  Do you mean instead of taking on bitcoin? Please be clear.
reportgunner 7y ago
Putting new taxes in place is not free of charge.

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago

That’s an interesting opinion. In the spirit of Hacker News, would you mind expanding on why you believe that to be the case? We’re generally concerned with comments being progressively more detailed as the discussion gets progressively more decisive.

reportgunner 7y ago
Also the critical thinkers seem to never have even checked the source of this 600KWh / transaction claim. If you actually cared to check [0] you would see that this claim is coming from estimating mining revenue and then sending 60% of that revenue to mining costs. That calculation is actually: Mining revenue(in USD) * 0.6 / 0.05 / amount of transactions = KWh per transaction Embarassing! [0](https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption#assumptions https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption#assumpti...)
reportgunner 7y ago
Let me start with > You cannot stop bitcoin. See the way bitcoin works is anyone who wants to run a node on the network can just start without asking anyone for anything, or even letting anyone know they are starting. There is no door you can bang on to stop new users from joining. There is no server you can bring down to prevent people from joining. > It does not really matter if it's 2 miles or 2 million miles per bitcoin transaction. This kind of comparison is flawed: Tesla was made for efficient mileage from electricity, but Bitcoin never aimed at transactions that require little electricity. You could compare an electric kettle to a smartphone and say that electric kettles are really bad because you could talk on the phone for 50 years instead of boiling water for some tea. ( If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry. ) > Edit: You would end up burning even more if you tried to stop it. Based on the above and other properties of bitcoin, it would not be cost free at all to try and stop it. I am convinced that the costs related to attempts to stop bitcoin would be much higher than the costs required to leave it be. > We’re generally concerned with comments being progressively more detailed as the discussion gets progressively more decisive. Yeah I'd too appreciate if the debate here was more than yeah just tax it bro, they gotta cash out bro