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Title should say (2018). Good article, especially for my extended family who live in that part of WA and have been wondering what this is all about. Does anyo

Title should say (2018). Good article, especially for my extended family who live in that part of WA and have been wondering what this is all about. Does anyone know if this is still holding up? I would assume that minors are currently cashing in given the price has increased so much very recently, so new mines are only just now coming online. On the other hand we should be due for an explosion of mining difficulty. I was talking about this with my wife just a few days ago actually. I think that one of the base risks to bitcoin is that as the power demand continues to skyrocket, nation states begin to ban bitcoin mining, or more harshly regulate it to control power demand. You could imagine mining shutting down in more and more countries, until there’s a “last man standing” somewhere with almost all the mining activity, and hence a highly centralized and highly vulnerable blockchain.

vmception 6y ago
Its more likely that more nation states vie for control of bitcoin mining, causing more competition over the resource and continual decentralization, much like how Iran has put a lot of support into the industry so that they dont have to use the sanctioned state-sponsored payment rails like SWIFT As bitcoin mining is mostly using clean energy or a sustainability solution for economic reasons, people should put their energy on making sure it stays that way, because nation states competing would be able to undermine the economics and make mining an actual environmental disaster instead of the imagined one people have assumed is happening
- lalaland1125 6y ago
  > As bitcoin mining is mostly using clean energy or a sustainability solution This is misleading and Bitcoin is currently an actual environmental disaster. Electricity is fungible and Bitcoin miners using green power sources are preventing the shutdown of coal power plants that would have otherwise shut down.
  - vmception 6y ago
    > misleading only because it's not a simple binary answer that people wish for. its a long answer with variables that have to be actively monitored. an annual dissertation really. even your acknowledgement of bitcoin miners using green power sources runs counter to detractor's worldview, and forces people to need to understand it better than "huh thats a lot of energy must be bad" so now we're at "wait they are green but now here is this indirect other problem when the goal post moves because I don't like how the energy is being used and I presuppose that energy is fungible" okay, yeah sure we can move the goal post a lot further and still show that its a working economic sustainability solution which can be improved when people direct their mental energy in a more nuanced way. your position is not to improve it, its to deflect towards there being no energy use at all, and that will never get you anywhere as the people that would actually have the authority to represent your wishes would look at it and come to my conclusion for example, not all the energy is fungible which is why it is being used by miners, and that's only in some of the variety cases, although a major case
    - lalaland1125 6y ago
      You realize that the article is quite explicit that the power being used here would otherwise be exported? The prices of electricity in that town aren't cheap because there is some non fungible surplus of power. They are cheap because the local government sells the electricity at below market rates due to political reasons. > The combined output of the basin’s five dams averages around 3,000 megawatts, or enough for the population of Los Angeles. Until fairly recently, perhaps 80 percent of this massive output was exported via contracts that were hugely advantageous for locals. Cryptocurrency mining has been changing all that, to a degree that is only now becoming clear. The miners aren't consuming free or spare power: they are directly using fungible electricity that would have otherwise been exported and used to shut down coal power plants. This isn't some minor indirect problem, the article literally points out that this is going on.
      - vmception 6y ago
        This is matches my point, although the energy that they had tapped into was being exported where possible, the local area doesnt even have substations to take advantage of it all. Correct me if I’m wrong, but other parts of the article are suggesting that 80% of what was harnessed was being exported. Which means if the town is using 200 megawatts then another 800 megawatts was being used, and another two gigawatts were not being used. Please confirm. Also we don't know whether Seattle or Los Angeles is going to switch to coal, thats a problem you have to address in those places. My point is that as this keeps growing they need to continually be addressed to make sure it doesnt start using unclean energy. But a reality is that this is a perfect example of miners using up to 2 gigawatts of energy, which can absolutely be more than several countries, but it all still being clean as it was not previously being utilized. The article talks about building new power stations and getting contracts for all the power immediately, which means this is still an ongoing process while the dam has been there for quite a while. All that energy all this time just not having enough demand to justify harnessing, till now.

vmception 6y ago

Its more likely that more nation states vie for control of bitcoin mining, causing more competition over the resource and continual decentralization, much like how Iran has put a lot of support into the industry so that they dont have to use the sanctioned state-sponsored payment rails like SWIFT As bitcoin mining is mostly using clean energy or a sustainability solution for economic reasons, people should put their energy on making sure it stays that way, because nation states competing would be able to undermine the economics and make mining an actual environmental disaster instead of the imagined one people have assumed is happening

lalaland1125 6y ago
> As bitcoin mining is mostly using clean energy or a sustainability solution This is misleading and Bitcoin is currently an actual environmental disaster. Electricity is fungible and Bitcoin miners using green power sources are preventing the shutdown of coal power plants that would have otherwise shut down.
- vmception 6y ago
  > misleading only because it's not a simple binary answer that people wish for. its a long answer with variables that have to be actively monitored. an annual dissertation really. even your acknowledgement of bitcoin miners using green power sources runs counter to detractor's worldview, and forces people to need to understand it better than "huh thats a lot of energy must be bad" so now we're at "wait they are green but now here is this indirect other problem when the goal post moves because I don't like how the energy is being used and I presuppose that energy is fungible" okay, yeah sure we can move the goal post a lot further and still show that its a working economic sustainability solution which can be improved when people direct their mental energy in a more nuanced way. your position is not to improve it, its to deflect towards there being no energy use at all, and that will never get you anywhere as the people that would actually have the authority to represent your wishes would look at it and come to my conclusion for example, not all the energy is fungible which is why it is being used by miners, and that's only in some of the variety cases, although a major case
  - lalaland1125 6y ago
    You realize that the article is quite explicit that the power being used here would otherwise be exported? The prices of electricity in that town aren't cheap because there is some non fungible surplus of power. They are cheap because the local government sells the electricity at below market rates due to political reasons. > The combined output of the basin’s five dams averages around 3,000 megawatts, or enough for the population of Los Angeles. Until fairly recently, perhaps 80 percent of this massive output was exported via contracts that were hugely advantageous for locals. Cryptocurrency mining has been changing all that, to a degree that is only now becoming clear. The miners aren't consuming free or spare power: they are directly using fungible electricity that would have otherwise been exported and used to shut down coal power plants. This isn't some minor indirect problem, the article literally points out that this is going on.
    - vmception 6y ago
      This is matches my point, although the energy that they had tapped into was being exported where possible, the local area doesnt even have substations to take advantage of it all. Correct me if I’m wrong, but other parts of the article are suggesting that 80% of what was harnessed was being exported. Which means if the town is using 200 megawatts then another 800 megawatts was being used, and another two gigawatts were not being used. Please confirm. Also we don't know whether Seattle or Los Angeles is going to switch to coal, thats a problem you have to address in those places. My point is that as this keeps growing they need to continually be addressed to make sure it doesnt start using unclean energy. But a reality is that this is a perfect example of miners using up to 2 gigawatts of energy, which can absolutely be more than several countries, but it all still being clean as it was not previously being utilized. The article talks about building new power stations and getting contracts for all the power immediately, which means this is still an ongoing process while the dam has been there for quite a while. All that energy all this time just not having enough demand to justify harnessing, till now.