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>> This would be a reasonable stance if Bitcoin were just another activity, but it’s unique in its energy profile. What other technology is designed so that ene
by ardy42 6y ago
>> This would be a reasonable stance if Bitcoin were just another activity, but it’s unique in its energy profile. What other technology is designed so that energy efficiency improvements are absorbed and nullified (through the difficulty adjustment mechanism)?
> Bitcoin is far from unique in this. When gas prices fall people have been shown to drive more. And buy less efficient cars and drive them less efficiently (faster, more aggressively).
I don't think that's true, or it's only true if you look at it from a consumption perspective that ignores important parts of the picture.
When gas prices fall, more energy is used, but travel miles increase. More work gets done per dollar.
When bitcoin mining gets more efficient or energy cheaper, the amount of bicoin "work" done stays constant, because the difficulty changes to compensate. It's like if roads got longer the cheaper gas gets.
- kingo55 6y ago> When bitcoin gets more efficient or energy cheaper, the amount of bicoin "work" done stays constant... Not quite. The extra work it does allows the network to secure itself better. We don't have to agree with this energy use, but it does do something.
- paulgb 6y agoDo you believe the Bitcoin network would be insufficiently secure if miners were incentivized only by the transaction fees and not the block rewards?
- xiphias2 6y agoBitcoin has to withstand an attack from central banks of the world in the future. Just look at some comments from Christine Legarde to see what is coming. It's the war of media companies vs internet coming back, just with something much more important. I hope Bitcoin wins, but I think that nobody knows the future for certain.
- SCLeo 6y agoOther cryptocurrencies? Maybe, I am not an expert on them. But definitely not bitcoin. Its transaction speed is simply way too slow. And it is not even close.
- xiphias2 6y agoMost cryptocurrencies are a joke, trivial to attack by any state, or even somebody renting machines on AWS
- logifail 6y ago> Bitcoin has to withstand an attack from central banks of the world in the future Q: How do we imagine central banks would 'attack' a cryptocurrency, and how is a cryptocurrency (or its users/owners/proponents) going to defend against whatever form such attacks might take?
- xiphias2 6y agoBuy / bribe miners to have a constant 50% attack even if they lose billions / tens of billions of dollars. Bitcoin mining should soon be seen as national security threat for countries that have the most bitcoins, that's why having so much hashing power in China is dangerous.
- logifail 6y ago> Buy / bribe miners to have a constant 50% attack even if they lose billions / tens of billions of dollars (This is a genuine question, I'm not nearly as well-read on this as I should be) What would this achieve, and whom would benefit? My naïve assumption would be that coordinated, deliberate (over-)regulating of cryptocurrencies and/or attempting to manipulate prices lower might be a) much cheaper, and b) much more effective. If you bring enough political pressure to bear on any particular international financial flow, it takes quite a lot of (political!) effort to stand up to that. Look at what happened between the US and Iran re: the reintroduction of sanctions; then look at the response from France, the United Kingdom, and Germany.[0][1] Can Bitcoin and its backers (yet?) muster sufficient political muscle to respond if there's a coordinated political attack? [0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=EPRS_ATA(2018)630273 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?re... [1] https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_trading_with_iran_special_purpose_vehicle_how_it_can_work/ https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_trading_with_iran_special...