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The extreme energy waste is the most salient point to me. Imagine what you could have if you took all the energy spent mining crypto and instead had spent it on

The extreme energy waste is the most salient point to me. Imagine what you could have if you took all the energy spent mining crypto and instead had spent it on building solar panels or N95 masks or high speed rail.

StavrosK 7y ago
I don't know, how much energy is spent producing reality TV shows? To me, those have less value than instant, trustless payments. That's not to say that I don't hope non-PoW cryptocurrencies become more popular, we should conserve energy when we can. I haven't looked very much into it, but Stellar seems interesting, and it's not PoW.
- irishloop 7y ago
  While I'm not a fan of reality TV, I know plenty of people who are, and whose lives are enriched because of reality television. There is no accounting for taste. I don't know how much people's lives are enriched by cryptocurrency. Other than the people directly involved in mining and speculating on it.
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    I, for one, enjoy watching all the speculator drama, much like watching a reality TV show. Plus, it lets me buy LSD online, which is something that I believe I should definitely be able to do but currently cannot. Unjust laws change by disobeying them, and if you clamped down on that 100%, neither homosexuality nor cannabis would be legal now.
- onion2k 7y ago
  I don't know, how much energy is spent producing reality TV shows? A fraction of a percent of what gets used on cryptocurrencies.
twomoretime 7y ago
Energy is nowhere near the limiting constraint for either of those things, this comparison doesn't make sense.
- bootlooped 7y ago
  What if you take "energy" to mean more than just electricity? The money to pay for the electricity to mine could be spent on something else. Or going even further back the work that was done to make the money to mine could be allocated differently. What could you build instead of the video cards and warehouses and A/C's used in mining?

StavrosK 7y ago

I don't know, how much energy is spent producing reality TV shows? To me, those have less value than instant, trustless payments. That's not to say that I don't hope non-PoW cryptocurrencies become more popular, we should conserve energy when we can. I haven't looked very much into it, but Stellar seems interesting, and it's not PoW.

irishloop 7y ago
While I'm not a fan of reality TV, I know plenty of people who are, and whose lives are enriched because of reality television. There is no accounting for taste. I don't know how much people's lives are enriched by cryptocurrency. Other than the people directly involved in mining and speculating on it.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  I, for one, enjoy watching all the speculator drama, much like watching a reality TV show. Plus, it lets me buy LSD online, which is something that I believe I should definitely be able to do but currently cannot. Unjust laws change by disobeying them, and if you clamped down on that 100%, neither homosexuality nor cannabis would be legal now.
onion2k 7y ago
I don't know, how much energy is spent producing reality TV shows? A fraction of a percent of what gets used on cryptocurrencies.

twomoretime 7y ago

Energy is nowhere near the limiting constraint for either of those things, this comparison doesn't make sense.

bootlooped 7y ago
What if you take "energy" to mean more than just electricity? The money to pay for the electricity to mine could be spent on something else. Or going even further back the work that was done to make the money to mine could be allocated differently. What could you build instead of the video cards and warehouses and A/C's used in mining?