5 ms·

Cryptomining is a waste of energy and compute resources. Imagine such an effort being put into protein folding, or finding a cure against rare diseases instead.

Cryptomining is a waste of energy and compute resources. Imagine such an effort being put into protein folding, or finding a cure against rare diseases instead. What makes it worse is that a tax, higher energy or hardware costs, or increased transaction fees only speed up crypotocurrency inflation relative to other currencies. It's hard for me to comprehend, that others don't see the pyramid scheme behind it.

ryebit 6y ago
Ethereum is working to address a lot of those points. When it switches to Proof of Stake (beacon chain is already live), energy costs will drop significantly (talking < 100 watts / node)... Just doing minimum to process blocks, no wasteful mining. That means network has to pay less in block reward under PoS, so inflation drops to 1% or less. Eip-1559 upgrade this summer will also start "burning" a portion of fees. Estimates have this around 0.5% - 1.5% deflation. Combine those features together, and Ethereum should have long term issuance at around 0% indefinitely, while still paying for validators to secure it. It's a feedback mechanism too... If usage goes down, burn drops, supply inflates slightly, stimulating use, increasing burn again. The idea is to make an elastic self-securing system. I don't understand where the pyramid scheme is in that... The money being paid out to validators will by nature barely cover costs (otherwise more people will validate, reducing margins to match). Since anyone can join, and the network punishes correlated misbehavior, that incentivizes decentralization and wide disbursement of block rewards. --- In the case of topic here, spare CPU cycles will no longer be valuable to exploit under PoS. The valuble qualities will be availability and uptime... Which won't be had by exploring in-broswer mining scripts, or CI exploits.
macspoofing 6y ago
>Cryptomining is a waste of energy and compute resources. I have my objections to crypto currencies, but this is not one of them. Most everything we do as humans is a 'waste' if you want to get philosophical. Blockchain is an interesting technology. It may or may not go anywhere, but there is value in thousands of people 'playing' with it to see what's possible. That is, there is value in exploring the solution space of the Blockchain because there is possibility in finding some local or global efficiency minima. Think of it as a R&D investment that may or may not pay off. Still too early to tell. Besides, the energy cost of the Blockchains is not and will not be the determining factor in fight against climate change or any other environmental concern. So the last thing you want is government bureaucracies cracking down on it from that angle. Let people explore and play and see where it goes. Having said that, if crypto mining does start to impact other infrastructure, regulators may have to look at it. And there's precedent for that kind of action. For example, regulators will typically work against silver speculation because silver is also an industrial product and if the price inflates to much, it will have deleterious effects on other industries and the wider economy. >It's hard for me to comprehend, that others don't see the pyramid scheme behind it. There is that aspect of it and most recognize it. When crypto intersects money and acts as an investment, it should be regulated because there are a lot of nefarious individuals who are using crypto currencies to swindle money from people. For example, my next door neighbor tried to enlist me to buy into some crypto scheme recently. It took me 5 mins of googling around to see how incredibly risky that 'sure-bet' is [1]. I'm pretty sure he sunk tens of thousands of his money into it and I'm pretty sure he doesn't quite understand what it is that these scammers are offering him (basically he's trading in crypto, that he had to buy, that is popular and therefore relatively liquid - i.e. something you can actually sell - for crypto that is not and has a good chance of collapsing in the near to mid future). Regulations will help in this area. [1]https://behindmlm.com/mlm-reviews/hypercapital-review-hypercash-resurrection-ponzi-scheme/ https://behindmlm.com/mlm-reviews/hypercapital-review-hyperc...
esaym 6y ago
> Cryptomining is a waste of energy and compute resources. As others have pointed out, there is a lot of waste everywhere. If I lived further up north, I would certainly take advantage of using a compute cluster to heat my house while also generating cash. Yes, there are more efficient ways to heat a house other than 100% electricity, but it is still quite common. But the point is, although it uses energy, it makes you money as well. And there are plenty of other such similar things. Take the financial markets for instance. It seems prior to 1980, if you wanted to create "wealth", you kind of actually had to do something. You know like found a company, invent something, claim a patent, etc. Since Greenspan cut interest rates in the 1980s, all efforts have gone into hedging against the stock market. Outside of semi-conductors, very little tech has been invented for a few decades now. Instead, a ton of manpower (and energy) has gone into inventing financial devices to the point where house mortgages end up being sold five or six times through various lenders until they end up in a pool of mortgages that one would buy slices of. And if you were worried about risk, you could then buy "insurance" to hedge against your slices in either direction. I mean that took a lot of energy, and I'm not sure what society got out of it... Of course there is more regulation now, but still, new ETFs are made every month to fit some niche, and stock options and calls... So in other words, we've spent the last 30 years not really inventing anything but just passing a giant ball of money around through various devices. Edit: and yes I am completely unqualified to make any of these claims. They are opinion, but they seem awfully close to reality.

ryebit 6y ago

Ethereum is working to address a lot of those points. When it switches to Proof of Stake (beacon chain is already live), energy costs will drop significantly (talking < 100 watts / node)... Just doing minimum to process blocks, no wasteful mining. That means network has to pay less in block reward under PoS, so inflation drops to 1% or less. Eip-1559 upgrade this summer will also start "burning" a portion of fees. Estimates have this around 0.5% - 1.5% deflation. Combine those features together, and Ethereum should have long term issuance at around 0% indefinitely, while still paying for validators to secure it. It's a feedback mechanism too... If usage goes down, burn drops, supply inflates slightly, stimulating use, increasing burn again. The idea is to make an elastic self-securing system. I don't understand where the pyramid scheme is in that... The money being paid out to validators will by nature barely cover costs (otherwise more people will validate, reducing margins to match). Since anyone can join, and the network punishes correlated misbehavior, that incentivizes decentralization and wide disbursement of block rewards. --- In the case of topic here, spare CPU cycles will no longer be valuable to exploit under PoS. The valuble qualities will be availability and uptime... Which won't be had by exploring in-broswer mining scripts, or CI exploits.

macspoofing 6y ago

>Cryptomining is a waste of energy and compute resources. I have my objections to crypto currencies, but this is not one of them. Most everything we do as humans is a 'waste' if you want to get philosophical. Blockchain is an interesting technology. It may or may not go anywhere, but there is value in thousands of people 'playing' with it to see what's possible. That is, there is value in exploring the solution space of the Blockchain because there is possibility in finding some local or global efficiency minima. Think of it as a R&D investment that may or may not pay off. Still too early to tell. Besides, the energy cost of the Blockchains is not and will not be the determining factor in fight against climate change or any other environmental concern. So the last thing you want is government bureaucracies cracking down on it from that angle. Let people explore and play and see where it goes. Having said that, if crypto mining does start to impact other infrastructure, regulators may have to look at it. And there's precedent for that kind of action. For example, regulators will typically work against silver speculation because silver is also an industrial product and if the price inflates to much, it will have deleterious effects on other industries and the wider economy. >It's hard for me to comprehend, that others don't see the pyramid scheme behind it. There is that aspect of it and most recognize it. When crypto intersects money and acts as an investment, it should be regulated because there are a lot of nefarious individuals who are using crypto currencies to swindle money from people. For example, my next door neighbor tried to enlist me to buy into some crypto scheme recently. It took me 5 mins of googling around to see how incredibly risky that 'sure-bet' is [1]. I'm pretty sure he sunk tens of thousands of his money into it and I'm pretty sure he doesn't quite understand what it is that these scammers are offering him (basically he's trading in crypto, that he had to buy, that is popular and therefore relatively liquid - i.e. something you can actually sell - for crypto that is not and has a good chance of collapsing in the near to mid future). Regulations will help in this area. [1]https://behindmlm.com/mlm-reviews/hypercapital-review-hypercash-resurrection-ponzi-scheme/ https://behindmlm.com/mlm-reviews/hypercapital-review-hyperc...

esaym 6y ago

> Cryptomining is a waste of energy and compute resources. As others have pointed out, there is a lot of waste everywhere. If I lived further up north, I would certainly take advantage of using a compute cluster to heat my house while also generating cash. Yes, there are more efficient ways to heat a house other than 100% electricity, but it is still quite common. But the point is, although it uses energy, it makes you money as well. And there are plenty of other such similar things. Take the financial markets for instance. It seems prior to 1980, if you wanted to create "wealth", you kind of actually had to do something. You know like found a company, invent something, claim a patent, etc. Since Greenspan cut interest rates in the 1980s, all efforts have gone into hedging against the stock market. Outside of semi-conductors, very little tech has been invented for a few decades now. Instead, a ton of manpower (and energy) has gone into inventing financial devices to the point where house mortgages end up being sold five or six times through various lenders until they end up in a pool of mortgages that one would buy slices of. And if you were worried about risk, you could then buy "insurance" to hedge against your slices in either direction. I mean that took a lot of energy, and I'm not sure what society got out of it... Of course there is more regulation now, but still, new ETFs are made every month to fit some niche, and stock options and calls... So in other words, we've spent the last 30 years not really inventing anything but just passing a giant ball of money around through various devices. Edit: and yes I am completely unqualified to make any of these claims. They are opinion, but they seem awfully close to reality.