6 ms·

> It also uses less than all idle devices plugged in, in the US I'd bet that _all_ idle "devices" in in the US are providing far more utility by being ready an

by tomxor 6y ago

> It also uses less than all idle devices plugged in, in the US I'd bet that _all_ idle "devices" in in the US are providing far more utility by being ready and available to do ... anything (you did say all), than bitcoin which is _only_ a vehicle for speculating on intrinsic value being used by a tiny minority. Sorry but I'm fed up of these stupid comparisons, if bitcoin uses 0.56% of the worlds electricity, there are a maximum of 178 ways to divide up the rest... it's simply not on that scale of usefulness, _and_ it is not comparable to fucking visa because it doesn't serve the worlds transactions, no one buys coffee with bitcoin. It's also not comparable to the USD for the same reason. Everything you compare it to will be of more material value to the world and almost always consume less energy, even if it's icecream. </rant>

Consultant32452 6y ago
I know this is just a matter of opinion, but I feel it would be hard to over-estimate the value in getting humanity off centrally planned currencies that are manipulated to cyclically transition massive amounts of wealth from the poor to the wealthy. Of course there's no guarantee that bitcoin or any of the other cryptos will resolve this issue for us, but they are our best chance at the moment.
- tomxor 6y ago
  > I feel it would be hard to over-estimate the value in getting humanity off centrally planned currencies That's not what this is about, Bitcoin has utterly failed at that mission, and nothing about cryptocurrencies necessitates computationally wasteful proof of work. The only reason Bitcoin is still popular is because of people using it for speculating, it's not a viable currency.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    Bitcoin continues to grow at an enormous rate. It hasn't failed at anything. Soon BTC will surpass the value of gold. We are actually on our way to getting off fiat.
    - tomxor 6y ago
      > It hasn't failed at anything. It has failed at being a usable currency, and not merely for socioeconomic reasons. A currency is more than just intrinsic value.
      - briefcomment 6y ago
        We need an uninflatable store of value more than anything, which Bitcoin is. Think of how much unnecessary transacting and consumption is going on right now to escape a constantly inflating dollar. "Investments" and consumptions will tank with a deflationary store of value.
        SantalBlush 6y ago
        >We need an uninflatable store of value more than anything People keep repeating this as if it's a well known truth, and I'm wondering where they came up with the idea. Why are we to believe that inflation is the source of our current economic woes?
        briefcomment 6y ago
        Do you feel like you're getting the appropriate share of money printing needed to maintain your purchasing power? Don't the really desirable assets, like the best land and houses, and the best education, get increasingly more expensive, relative to your purchasing power? Certainly someone is gobbling up those dollars. I don't think it's most people though.
        SantalBlush 6y ago
        That isn't really how it works. Banks do not "print money," they expand the money supply through loans. When interest rates are low, savers move their existing money away from assets like bonds toward higher yielding assets like stock and real estate. If the money supply were to suddenly shrink, the average person would not become richer; that added value would be concentrated in fewer hands. That's basically what is happening with bitcoin.
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    The computationally wasteful bit is a temporary problem for which solutions are already being created. The Lightning Network is one such effort. Governments are already taking efforts to fight against crypto. The fact that bitcoin is classified as an "asset" is the government adding friction to using it. Every time you transact in bitcoin you have to put that on your taxes because there's some capital gains/loss. Of course, they don't talk about it as if that is an attack, but it is. And they wouldn't be attacking it if they weren't scared. It's surely not guaranteed, maybe not even likely, but it's still possible that we will win.
    - dTal 6y ago
      The computationally wasteful bit is the proof-of-work, which is an inherent part of bitcoin. The Lightning Network is just about scaling transactions. Your government rant is a non-sequitor - bitcoin doesn't become any more efficient just because The Man doesn't like it.
      - Consultant32452 6y ago
        The computationally wasteful bit will go away with things like the visa network where they will only have to persist back to the blockchain when you transact with a wallet that isn't on their network. Otherwise it'll just be records in a database not unlike regular currency.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    Bitcoin is deflationary, isn’t it? How could it ever replace fiat if just by merely holding it you are guaranteed in the long run to increase value? You need mild inflation to get people to actually spend and not hoard. Bitcoin’s supply is fix so there is no point in ever spending it unless you want to cash out.
    - trident5000 6y ago
      Yeah because Ill never buy food and housing until I die because my currency is deflationary. That logic is so tired. Also the fact that you can convert US dollars to investments instantly instead of consuming basically extends the same situation, yet we still spend when we need to.
      - IgorPartola 6y ago
        You see a lot of people buying groceries with BTC currently? What I see most people do is buy BTC and hold it, living off their regular paychecks, waiting for the BTC portfolio to hit some goal. They then trade it to the next investor who does the same. It’s not a currency so much as a store of value. It’s a stock, not money.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        trident5000 6y ago
        Obviously thats going to be the case through rampant price discovery. Youre not saying anything original. Are you smarter than Visa and Mastercard and Paypal? Maybe they know something about future consumers that you dont.
        IgorPartola 6y ago
        You clearly have some kind of chip on your shoulder either about me or about this subject. Acting like a snob won’t get you many conversation partners. Take care.
- undersuit 6y ago
  The first government to move their money onto a crypto us going to have massive control over their economy. Roll their own crypto, keep the keys that allow more money to be printed, have the ability to lock people out of their wallets on a whim? They could even extract taxation by running all the nodes and taking the transaction fees.
undersuit 6y ago
How much energy does encrypting all our video transmissions cost? I don't care how efficient the hardware running HDCP is, it's still wasteful to do so for every application and it's not even to protect the users nor would it be effective in the current form as such.
- tomxor 6y ago
  Encryption of video specifically is a bit narrow, but lets widen it a bit: we watch a lot of video, video is neat right? I wonder how much energy goes into the transmission of _all_ video on the entire planet? end-to-end, the encoding, the hosting, the network transmission, the decoding on billions of devices and lighting up all those LED backlights, (and the extra overhead added by copyright protection crap)... It's got to be on a similar playing field right? i wouldn't be surprised if it was a little more than 0.56% globally. But look at how much _billions_ of people get out of it all over the world: entertainment, art, education, something to connect to people with... it has a huge and invaluable impact on society - i dare anyone to try compare that to Bitcoin (not blockchain, not the utopian crypto dream, but Bitcoin).
  - bobviolier 6y ago
    The digiconomist actually compared watching Youtube with a single bitcoin transaction (don't know the specifics and how accurate), but they said 1 btc transaction is the same as 51.000 hours of watching YouTube: https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/ https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/
    - Natfan 6y ago
      To clarify, that's fifty one thousand, correct? Some countries use a period (.) as their "digit group separator"[0], and others use a comma (,). [0]: https://english.stackexchange.com/a/110693 https://english.stackexchange.com/a/110693
      - BillinghamJ 6y ago
rzz3 6y ago
> than bitcoin which is _only_ a vehicle for speculating on intrinsic value being used by a tiny minority That’s a bit simplistic and completely lacking in big picture perspective. You even underline “only” as if you’re very confident in what you’re saying. Please do some research.
- tomxor 6y ago
  Oh sorry, please replace "only" with 99.9%. Because of $20 transaction fees, because of the trend of companies that once accepted it shunning it due to aforementioned ridiculous transaction fees, and finally due to numerous papers presenting a statistical analysis of bitcoin transaction behaviour and coming to the same conclusion e.g DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2017.12
oraphalous 6y ago
Having a reliable store of value - is itself extremely valuable. At least to me... and to quite a few others apparently, with more and more by the day.
- whateveracct 6y ago
  i can't believe this "store of value" hype pivot that BTC pulled actually worked
  - shawnz 6y ago
    Alternatively, there was no "hype pivot" and that's simply what the market decided they valued most about Bitcoin (for now).
- Stevvo 6y ago
  Bitcoin is about as "reliable" as a store of value as a casino chip placed on black on the blackjack table. Bitcoin has many virtues, but a "store or value" is demonstrably not one of them. Why do you, and many others, feel that it is in spite of its volatility?
  - shawnz 6y ago
    There are a few counterarguments to this. > about as "reliable" as a store of value as a casino chip Casino analogies are misleading because the problem with the casino is that the expected outcome is negative. The problem with the casino isn't the volatility. There are plenty of stores of value which have extreme volatility but are still prized by investors, like real estate or artwork. > demonstrably not one of them We are talking about an asset class that has existed for about 1 decade. Nobody is really sure what it will be able to achieve, but its ability to act as a store of value seems promising. As more people form their opinion about this and other matters related to cryptocurrencies, we should expect the volatility to decrease. So the volatility at the current moment is not really a good indicator for the long-term volatility.

by tomxor 6y ago

Consultant32452 6y ago

I know this is just a matter of opinion, but I feel it would be hard to over-estimate the value in getting humanity off centrally planned currencies that are manipulated to cyclically transition massive amounts of wealth from the poor to the wealthy. Of course there's no guarantee that bitcoin or any of the other cryptos will resolve this issue for us, but they are our best chance at the moment.

tomxor 6y ago
> I feel it would be hard to over-estimate the value in getting humanity off centrally planned currencies That's not what this is about, Bitcoin has utterly failed at that mission, and nothing about cryptocurrencies necessitates computationally wasteful proof of work. The only reason Bitcoin is still popular is because of people using it for speculating, it's not a viable currency.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  Bitcoin continues to grow at an enormous rate. It hasn't failed at anything. Soon BTC will surpass the value of gold. We are actually on our way to getting off fiat.
  - tomxor 6y ago
    > It hasn't failed at anything. It has failed at being a usable currency, and not merely for socioeconomic reasons. A currency is more than just intrinsic value.
    - briefcomment 6y ago
      We need an uninflatable store of value more than anything, which Bitcoin is. Think of how much unnecessary transacting and consumption is going on right now to escape a constantly inflating dollar. "Investments" and consumptions will tank with a deflationary store of value.
      - SantalBlush 6y ago
        >We need an uninflatable store of value more than anything People keep repeating this as if it's a well known truth, and I'm wondering where they came up with the idea. Why are we to believe that inflation is the source of our current economic woes?
        briefcomment 6y ago
        Do you feel like you're getting the appropriate share of money printing needed to maintain your purchasing power? Don't the really desirable assets, like the best land and houses, and the best education, get increasingly more expensive, relative to your purchasing power? Certainly someone is gobbling up those dollars. I don't think it's most people though.
        SantalBlush 6y ago
        That isn't really how it works. Banks do not "print money," they expand the money supply through loans. When interest rates are low, savers move their existing money away from assets like bonds toward higher yielding assets like stock and real estate. If the money supply were to suddenly shrink, the average person would not become richer; that added value would be concentrated in fewer hands. That's basically what is happening with bitcoin.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  The computationally wasteful bit is a temporary problem for which solutions are already being created. The Lightning Network is one such effort. Governments are already taking efforts to fight against crypto. The fact that bitcoin is classified as an "asset" is the government adding friction to using it. Every time you transact in bitcoin you have to put that on your taxes because there's some capital gains/loss. Of course, they don't talk about it as if that is an attack, but it is. And they wouldn't be attacking it if they weren't scared. It's surely not guaranteed, maybe not even likely, but it's still possible that we will win.
  - dTal 6y ago
    The computationally wasteful bit is the proof-of-work, which is an inherent part of bitcoin. The Lightning Network is just about scaling transactions. Your government rant is a non-sequitor - bitcoin doesn't become any more efficient just because The Man doesn't like it.
    - Consultant32452 6y ago
      The computationally wasteful bit will go away with things like the visa network where they will only have to persist back to the blockchain when you transact with a wallet that isn't on their network. Otherwise it'll just be records in a database not unlike regular currency.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  Bitcoin is deflationary, isn’t it? How could it ever replace fiat if just by merely holding it you are guaranteed in the long run to increase value? You need mild inflation to get people to actually spend and not hoard. Bitcoin’s supply is fix so there is no point in ever spending it unless you want to cash out.
  - trident5000 6y ago
    Yeah because Ill never buy food and housing until I die because my currency is deflationary. That logic is so tired. Also the fact that you can convert US dollars to investments instantly instead of consuming basically extends the same situation, yet we still spend when we need to.
    - IgorPartola 6y ago
      You see a lot of people buying groceries with BTC currently? What I see most people do is buy BTC and hold it, living off their regular paychecks, waiting for the BTC portfolio to hit some goal. They then trade it to the next investor who does the same. It’s not a currency so much as a store of value. It’s a stock, not money.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - trident5000 6y ago
        Obviously thats going to be the case through rampant price discovery. Youre not saying anything original. Are you smarter than Visa and Mastercard and Paypal? Maybe they know something about future consumers that you dont.
        IgorPartola 6y ago
        You clearly have some kind of chip on your shoulder either about me or about this subject. Acting like a snob won’t get you many conversation partners. Take care.
undersuit 6y ago
The first government to move their money onto a crypto us going to have massive control over their economy. Roll their own crypto, keep the keys that allow more money to be printed, have the ability to lock people out of their wallets on a whim? They could even extract taxation by running all the nodes and taking the transaction fees.

undersuit 6y ago

How much energy does encrypting all our video transmissions cost? I don't care how efficient the hardware running HDCP is, it's still wasteful to do so for every application and it's not even to protect the users nor would it be effective in the current form as such.

tomxor 6y ago
Encryption of video specifically is a bit narrow, but lets widen it a bit: we watch a lot of video, video is neat right? I wonder how much energy goes into the transmission of _all_ video on the entire planet? end-to-end, the encoding, the hosting, the network transmission, the decoding on billions of devices and lighting up all those LED backlights, (and the extra overhead added by copyright protection crap)... It's got to be on a similar playing field right? i wouldn't be surprised if it was a little more than 0.56% globally. But look at how much _billions_ of people get out of it all over the world: entertainment, art, education, something to connect to people with... it has a huge and invaluable impact on society - i dare anyone to try compare that to Bitcoin (not blockchain, not the utopian crypto dream, but Bitcoin).
- bobviolier 6y ago
  The digiconomist actually compared watching Youtube with a single bitcoin transaction (don't know the specifics and how accurate), but they said 1 btc transaction is the same as 51.000 hours of watching YouTube: https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/ https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/
  - Natfan 6y ago
    To clarify, that's fifty one thousand, correct? Some countries use a period (.) as their "digit group separator"[0], and others use a comma (,). [0]: https://english.stackexchange.com/a/110693 https://english.stackexchange.com/a/110693
    - BillinghamJ 6y ago

rzz3 6y ago

> than bitcoin which is _only_ a vehicle for speculating on intrinsic value being used by a tiny minority That’s a bit simplistic and completely lacking in big picture perspective. You even underline “only” as if you’re very confident in what you’re saying. Please do some research.

tomxor 6y ago
Oh sorry, please replace "only" with 99.9%. Because of $20 transaction fees, because of the trend of companies that once accepted it shunning it due to aforementioned ridiculous transaction fees, and finally due to numerous papers presenting a statistical analysis of bitcoin transaction behaviour and coming to the same conclusion e.g DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2017.12

oraphalous 6y ago

Having a reliable store of value - is itself extremely valuable. At least to me... and to quite a few others apparently, with more and more by the day.

whateveracct 6y ago
i can't believe this "store of value" hype pivot that BTC pulled actually worked
- shawnz 6y ago
  Alternatively, there was no "hype pivot" and that's simply what the market decided they valued most about Bitcoin (for now).
Stevvo 6y ago
Bitcoin is about as "reliable" as a store of value as a casino chip placed on black on the blackjack table. Bitcoin has many virtues, but a "store or value" is demonstrably not one of them. Why do you, and many others, feel that it is in spite of its volatility?
- shawnz 6y ago
  There are a few counterarguments to this. > about as "reliable" as a store of value as a casino chip Casino analogies are misleading because the problem with the casino is that the expected outcome is negative. The problem with the casino isn't the volatility. There are plenty of stores of value which have extreme volatility but are still prized by investors, like real estate or artwork. > demonstrably not one of them We are talking about an asset class that has existed for about 1 decade. Nobody is really sure what it will be able to achieve, but its ability to act as a store of value seems promising. As more people form their opinion about this and other matters related to cryptocurrencies, we should expect the volatility to decrease. So the volatility at the current moment is not really a good indicator for the long-term volatility.