4 ms·

Bitcoin Is a Dirty Business

19 points by samizdis 6y ago

Proven 6y ago
Central banking is dirtier. What can be dirtier than operating year-in year-out with the intent to plunder the savers through inflation? Fractional reserve banking is probably close second, followed by premined cryptos.
Miner49er 6y ago
> The defense from Bitcoiners is that this is still “good” overall: This is energy that would otherwise be wasted, and the share of renewables will grow. This could be true, depending on the balance of mining rewards, the price of Bitcoin, and difficulty. There is wasted energy out there being used to mine Bitcoin, and if it becomes the only profitable way to mine it, then that's all that will be used to mine it. Right now, it doesn't seem to be the case.
lucasyvas 6y ago
Bloomberg's cryptocurrency reporting has always seemed self-serving to me - and not even that well concealed. While I AM a believer in it, I don't find Bloomberg's articles on it any more trustworthy than hobbiest "moon" posts. They don't seem to report on anything that hasn't been mentioned many times before. It's all a bit fluffy for my liking. My guess is Michael Bloomberg is bullish on Ethereum, hence the knocking of PoW in this article.
- spurdoman77 6y ago
  Though Ethereum is still PoW, and I am pretty sceptical that they will transition to PoS successfully.
  - latchkey 6y ago
    As you should be! It is a rube goldberg solution to a massively difficult problem. Nobody has done it at this scale before and switching billions of value over to a whole new consensus model is going to be an insanely difficult computer science / mathematical / social problem to solve. That said, I do think the core devs will eventually solve it, which I fully support. We have BTC and ETH 1.0 today and that in itself is amazing. I just don't think it will happen as quickly as everyone hopes it will. It can't. There is just too much ever increasing value on the line pushing on both ends of the demand spectrum. Dan Held has a good thread on power usage: https://twitter.com/danheld/status/1351235080103096331 https://twitter.com/danheld/status/1351235080103096331 Disclosure: I am very large scale eth pow miner that consumes excess hydropower.
    - jki275 6y ago
      POS is a solved problem, and is running successfully on ADA and XTZ right now. ETH is not transitioning because they don't want to transition. As you are a miner making money do you want to have your entire business model turned off?
- godelzilla 6y ago
  Agreed. These articles about the environmental impact of Bitcoin and PoW are valid, but they're ancient news. It's telling that there's no mention of Ethererum or PoS. Are they simply unaware? I doubt it. While I'm also concerned about the ability of ETH to smoothly transition to PoS, it would be an enormous win for crypto. So why publish this article now? It could just be the usual profiting from cyptophobia. But many people probably want prices to go down so they can stock up before the ETH upgrade.
kipchak 6y ago
>Researchers have suggested that alternatives to a carbon tax could include more direct taxation of mining — though with a high likelihood of chasing such activities away. Framing regulations of Bitcoin in terms of in terms of environmental concerns versus economic ones seems like a potentially effective approach.
me_me_me 6y ago
Yeah BTC bad, unregulated waste dumping into seasonal rivers good. This recent spam of anti btc narrative is getting tiring. We literally have oil spills that coat massive areas and companies are getting away with not paying for cleanup, but yeah btc is 'dirty' - oh and also 99% of btc is used for crime, and drugs and terrorism, and terrorism-crime!
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  So BTC gets a pass for its wastefulness and contribution to climate change because there exists other bad actors in the world?
  - me_me_me 6y ago
    No, this is like whining that plastic straws are bad for environment. Yes they are, they kill animals in the wild but stray/old nets are far bigger problem for sea turtles. Is it worth investigating a stolen candy bar? Maybe going after organized crime is more worthwhile. Both are tangential issues that we shouldn't be talking right now as we have far bigger problems to deal with. That doesn't mean its a free pass, just that priorities should be not hijacked by publicity etc
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      So your contention is that we should continue to do things that are known to be harmful because there is a bigger harm being perpetuated somewhere else and we have to solve that before we can even talk about other issues? Do you really not see how that isn't a very smart way to go about things?
      - me_me_me 6y ago
        > So your contention is that we should continue to do things that are known to be harmful because... No, as a matter of fact I stated that bad thing (pollution, stealing )are bad. And i am not advocating for never focusing on it. My point is that btc is being targeted as big bad meanwhile same people who demonize it for its environmental damage are perfectly fine with heavy industry causing global warming. This is just hijacking global warming as a problem to bash btc. Do you really not see how political PR works?

19 points by samizdis 6y ago

Central banking is dirtier. What can be dirtier than operating year-in year-out with the intent to plunder the savers through inflation? Fractional reserve banking is probably close second, followed by premined cryptos.

Miner49er 6y ago

> The defense from Bitcoiners is that this is still “good” overall: This is energy that would otherwise be wasted, and the share of renewables will grow. This could be true, depending on the balance of mining rewards, the price of Bitcoin, and difficulty. There is wasted energy out there being used to mine Bitcoin, and if it becomes the only profitable way to mine it, then that's all that will be used to mine it. Right now, it doesn't seem to be the case.

lucasyvas 6y ago

Bloomberg's cryptocurrency reporting has always seemed self-serving to me - and not even that well concealed. While I AM a believer in it, I don't find Bloomberg's articles on it any more trustworthy than hobbiest "moon" posts. They don't seem to report on anything that hasn't been mentioned many times before. It's all a bit fluffy for my liking. My guess is Michael Bloomberg is bullish on Ethereum, hence the knocking of PoW in this article.

spurdoman77 6y ago
Though Ethereum is still PoW, and I am pretty sceptical that they will transition to PoS successfully.
- latchkey 6y ago
  As you should be! It is a rube goldberg solution to a massively difficult problem. Nobody has done it at this scale before and switching billions of value over to a whole new consensus model is going to be an insanely difficult computer science / mathematical / social problem to solve. That said, I do think the core devs will eventually solve it, which I fully support. We have BTC and ETH 1.0 today and that in itself is amazing. I just don't think it will happen as quickly as everyone hopes it will. It can't. There is just too much ever increasing value on the line pushing on both ends of the demand spectrum. Dan Held has a good thread on power usage: https://twitter.com/danheld/status/1351235080103096331 https://twitter.com/danheld/status/1351235080103096331 Disclosure: I am very large scale eth pow miner that consumes excess hydropower.
  - jki275 6y ago
    POS is a solved problem, and is running successfully on ADA and XTZ right now. ETH is not transitioning because they don't want to transition. As you are a miner making money do you want to have your entire business model turned off?
godelzilla 6y ago
Agreed. These articles about the environmental impact of Bitcoin and PoW are valid, but they're ancient news. It's telling that there's no mention of Ethererum or PoS. Are they simply unaware? I doubt it. While I'm also concerned about the ability of ETH to smoothly transition to PoS, it would be an enormous win for crypto. So why publish this article now? It could just be the usual profiting from cyptophobia. But many people probably want prices to go down so they can stock up before the ETH upgrade.

kipchak 6y ago

>Researchers have suggested that alternatives to a carbon tax could include more direct taxation of mining — though with a high likelihood of chasing such activities away. Framing regulations of Bitcoin in terms of in terms of environmental concerns versus economic ones seems like a potentially effective approach.

me_me_me 6y ago

Yeah BTC bad, unregulated waste dumping into seasonal rivers good. This recent spam of anti btc narrative is getting tiring. We literally have oil spills that coat massive areas and companies are getting away with not paying for cleanup, but yeah btc is 'dirty' - oh and also 99% of btc is used for crime, and drugs and terrorism, and terrorism-crime!

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
So BTC gets a pass for its wastefulness and contribution to climate change because there exists other bad actors in the world?
- me_me_me 6y ago
  No, this is like whining that plastic straws are bad for environment. Yes they are, they kill animals in the wild but stray/old nets are far bigger problem for sea turtles. Is it worth investigating a stolen candy bar? Maybe going after organized crime is more worthwhile. Both are tangential issues that we shouldn't be talking right now as we have far bigger problems to deal with. That doesn't mean its a free pass, just that priorities should be not hijacked by publicity etc
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    So your contention is that we should continue to do things that are known to be harmful because there is a bigger harm being perpetuated somewhere else and we have to solve that before we can even talk about other issues? Do you really not see how that isn't a very smart way to go about things?
    - me_me_me 6y ago
      > So your contention is that we should continue to do things that are known to be harmful because... No, as a matter of fact I stated that bad thing (pollution, stealing )are bad. And i am not advocating for never focusing on it. My point is that btc is being targeted as big bad meanwhile same people who demonize it for its environmental damage are perfectly fine with heavy industry causing global warming. This is just hijacking global warming as a problem to bash btc. Do you really not see how political PR works?