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There is a lot of energy that is at the source of generation which looses efficiency to getting to residential or commercial areas. This energy is wasted. In ma

There is a lot of energy that is at the source of generation which looses efficiency to getting to residential or commercial areas. This energy is wasted. In many forms of energy generation the result is pollution. Crypto mining is unique because it is the first thing that requires no infrastructure. These are heavy computational services that don't need heavy internet infrastructure as mining is not bandwidth intensive and even satellite latency is good enough to submit the hashes. Its better than other use cases because those other use cases were more expensive than throwing pollution into the atmosphere simple as that. The entire story that crypto is “taking away” is wrong when it is giving in more cases than not because its the only economical way to mine. This goes hand in hand with the e-waste fallacy. The hardware doesn't go obsolete if the power costs are low enough, and at the remote power source it is low enough. There is a robust trade of “obsolete” hardware from people that have higher power costs to people that have lower power costs. Is new single purpose hardware being created for a purpose you don't respect even when confronted with new information? Yes. Is the impact overblown and oversimplified? Yes. Should you make sure the reality doesn't turn into the imagined nightmare? Yes. Remain vigilant, just have more accurate arguments so you know what to watch out for.

mulmen 6y ago
Are you suggesting crypto mines are colocated with power plants and make up for their energy use with gains in transmission loss? Couldn't a DC in a power plant do some other low bandwidth task instead? Why is crypto a unique "low bandwidth" application? Again, even if the hardware has a longer life due to "cheaper" energy why is crypto uniquely suited to take advantage of this? > Is new single purpose hardware being created for a purpose you don't respect even when confronted with new information? Yes. Is the impact overblown and oversimplified? Yes. Should you make sure the reality doesn't turn into the imagined nightmare? Yes. Remain vigilant, just have more accurate arguments so you know what to watch out for. This kind of cryptic condescension raises red flags for me. If you have information please share it. I am capable of making up my own mind without being talked down to.
- vmception 6y ago
  Its unique in that it is profitable and all the infrastructure is right there, yes, they are co-located with the energy sources and this will increase. The only roadblock has just been old energy and commodities decision makers being confused about the word bitcoin until they see revenue and sustainability graphs. Other things just aren't profitable and didnt satisfy anything for the energy provider. And again, nobody is looking for other things just for the sake of proving that something else can use less energy because there isn't a problem. Computers with no* emissions are reducing emissions and adding a use for energy that was not otherwise going to be used. It is literally the opposite of the story being peddled by pointing at the amount of power being used. This wasn't available beforehand, it isn't important to anyone if “unique” is too strong of a word or not. *its annoying that I can perceive someone will argue that instead of the rest of the point.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    There’s no such thing as magical unused energy that for the first time in history can only be harnessed thanks to the magic of blockchain. You can colocate so many useful things with power supplies, like electric metalworks. The mining incentive structure and automatic deoptimization of the algorithm mean that there’s a constant arms race to build faster hashing hardware that lasts a few months and then gets thrown out without improving the performance characteristics of the underlying system. 7 transactions per second costs 620kWh and yields 107g of garbage. Each pair of transactions is like chucking your phone out the window and powering a home for 45 days. Do you see how shameful that is? A Tesla gets 4 miles per kWh, so each pair of transactions - where you scribbled down an IOU into a big multiplayer excel sheet - consumes as much resources as driving round-trip across the United States and throwing your iPhone out when you get back. The crazy thing is there's frequently a big overlap between the crypto enthusiasts and people who you know, believe in global warming and recycling. > And again, nobody is looking for other things just for the sake of proving that something else can use less energy because there isn't a problem. And I bet global warming isn't real either huh? I mean those oil companies aren't looking for alternative sources of energy because there isn't a problem. The reality is economic incentives beat rationality pretty much every time hands down.
arcticbull 6y ago
> Crypto mining is unique because it is the first thing that requires no infrastructure. That could not be more wrong. It requires piles of infrastructure: energy generation, transmission, cooling for miners, miners themselves, and so on. > The entire story that crypto is “taking away” is wrong when it is giving in more cases than not because its the only economical way to mine. Literally if people stopped wasting a country of power, generating stations would go offline. > This goes hand in hand with the e-waste fallacy. The hardware doesn't go obsolete if the power costs are low enough, and at the remote power source it is low enough. There is a robust trade of “obsolete” hardware from people that have higher power costs to people that have lower power costs. Absolutely not a fallacy. People literally throw out old miners and replace them with new miners to get a leg up on their peers. This is the waste. You can't pretend this away. 107 grams worth per transaction.

mulmen 6y ago

Are you suggesting crypto mines are colocated with power plants and make up for their energy use with gains in transmission loss? Couldn't a DC in a power plant do some other low bandwidth task instead? Why is crypto a unique "low bandwidth" application? Again, even if the hardware has a longer life due to "cheaper" energy why is crypto uniquely suited to take advantage of this? > Is new single purpose hardware being created for a purpose you don't respect even when confronted with new information? Yes. Is the impact overblown and oversimplified? Yes. Should you make sure the reality doesn't turn into the imagined nightmare? Yes. Remain vigilant, just have more accurate arguments so you know what to watch out for. This kind of cryptic condescension raises red flags for me. If you have information please share it. I am capable of making up my own mind without being talked down to.

vmception 6y ago
Its unique in that it is profitable and all the infrastructure is right there, yes, they are co-located with the energy sources and this will increase. The only roadblock has just been old energy and commodities decision makers being confused about the word bitcoin until they see revenue and sustainability graphs. Other things just aren't profitable and didnt satisfy anything for the energy provider. And again, nobody is looking for other things just for the sake of proving that something else can use less energy because there isn't a problem. Computers with no* emissions are reducing emissions and adding a use for energy that was not otherwise going to be used. It is literally the opposite of the story being peddled by pointing at the amount of power being used. This wasn't available beforehand, it isn't important to anyone if “unique” is too strong of a word or not. *its annoying that I can perceive someone will argue that instead of the rest of the point.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  There’s no such thing as magical unused energy that for the first time in history can only be harnessed thanks to the magic of blockchain. You can colocate so many useful things with power supplies, like electric metalworks. The mining incentive structure and automatic deoptimization of the algorithm mean that there’s a constant arms race to build faster hashing hardware that lasts a few months and then gets thrown out without improving the performance characteristics of the underlying system. 7 transactions per second costs 620kWh and yields 107g of garbage. Each pair of transactions is like chucking your phone out the window and powering a home for 45 days. Do you see how shameful that is? A Tesla gets 4 miles per kWh, so each pair of transactions - where you scribbled down an IOU into a big multiplayer excel sheet - consumes as much resources as driving round-trip across the United States and throwing your iPhone out when you get back. The crazy thing is there's frequently a big overlap between the crypto enthusiasts and people who you know, believe in global warming and recycling. > And again, nobody is looking for other things just for the sake of proving that something else can use less energy because there isn't a problem. And I bet global warming isn't real either huh? I mean those oil companies aren't looking for alternative sources of energy because there isn't a problem. The reality is economic incentives beat rationality pretty much every time hands down.

arcticbull 6y ago

> Crypto mining is unique because it is the first thing that requires no infrastructure. That could not be more wrong. It requires piles of infrastructure: energy generation, transmission, cooling for miners, miners themselves, and so on. > The entire story that crypto is “taking away” is wrong when it is giving in more cases than not because its the only economical way to mine. Literally if people stopped wasting a country of power, generating stations would go offline. > This goes hand in hand with the e-waste fallacy. The hardware doesn't go obsolete if the power costs are low enough, and at the remote power source it is low enough. There is a robust trade of “obsolete” hardware from people that have higher power costs to people that have lower power costs. Absolutely not a fallacy. People literally throw out old miners and replace them with new miners to get a leg up on their peers. This is the waste. You can't pretend this away. 107 grams worth per transaction.