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Yes. This is just a category of attack whose growth has been incentivized by rising crypto prices. All providers of free compute are experiencing some level of

Yes. This is just a category of attack whose growth has been incentivized by rising crypto prices. All providers of free compute are experiencing some level of mining attack right now. Eventually a new equilibrium will emerge.

knorker 6y ago
A new equilibrium that thanks to cryptocurrency speculators is a worse world. This speculation is making some people rich, yes. But the amount of externalities is staggering. Thanks to PoW nobody can provide a free compute anymore without getting owned, and of course the environmental impact of bitcoin alone is worse than when Saddam Hussein set oil wells on fire while retreating. Let the world burn, and products rot to shit, as long as my HODL portfolio goes up. Cryptocurrency supporters really are sociopaths, worse than any hedge fund manager.
- teitoklien 6y ago
  So you’re blaming cryptocurrencies for .... Proof Of Work ?. A lot of em are already trying to shift to other viable alternative proofs. Your analogy of calling Cryptocurrency supporters as sociopaths. sounds similar to insulting Edison because he designed the inefficient incandescent bulbs , which consume waaay more energy compared to LEDs built these days. How would it sound , if someone insults artificial light , just because of that ? . Cryptocurrencies are perfectly good ideas/products. Proof of Work’s viability isn’t. The hate is aimed in the wrong direction.
  - matkoniecz 6y ago
    > Cryptocurrencies are perfectly good ideas/products. for scammers and speculators
    - teitoklien 6y ago
      Try doing a transaction comparison between any payment service that offers foreign transactions , and compare it to cryptocurrency transactions and use it once to do a real trade/purchase , or try using smart contracts in crypto , for once in your projects. You’ll know why it’s a great product/ service Once it’s environmental viability has been figured out . Hating crypto , because news reporters only show you the scammers and the speculators , is blind hatred. Crypto has/does much much more , than just act as a form of trading / speculation Scammers often steal money in dollars too. Speculators often trade currency pairs with dollar in them. Are you still gonna say people who use the dollar for daily transactions don’t exist ? That dollar is also a good idea only for scammers and speculators ?
      - knorker 6y ago
        > Try doing a transaction comparison between any payment service that offers foreign transactions I've done many. Order of magnitude better experience than bitcoin, which I've also done. And without knowing that your bitcoin transaction cost many tonnes of co2 on stolen electricity (~70% of which is based on fossil fuels, per a recent bitcoin energy use study). It's like building an instant messaging system based on throwing molotov cocktails on your neighbors houses to create smoke signals. "Works great!" > try using smart contracts in crypto Smart contracts is just the dumbest idea yet. Anyone who thinks they're a good idea clearly doesn't know what the actual challenges are in existing contracts. It's not solving these challenges at all, but instead making them much worse. > Hating crypto , because news reporters only show you the scammers and the speculators , is blind hatred. Seriously? But that's all there is. To a rounding error. And for good reason. Aside for committing crimes cryptocurrencies are worse in every single aspect. > Are you still gonna say people who use the dollar for daily transactions don’t exist ? That dollar is also a good idea only for scammers and speculators ? What do you think the percentage of dollar transaction that's crime? What do you think is the case for bitcoin?
      - matkoniecz 6y ago
        > or try using smart contracts in crypto , for once in your projects. If someone is willing to fund time spend on researching how to do it safely I would do it. But I am not aware of anyone willing to fund hundreds of hours on such research. And it includes myself. > Hating crypto , because news reporters only show you the scammers and the speculators , is blind hatred. I do not care what 'news' reporters 'report'. I am in contact with several crypto-adjacent messages each week, all of them scammers in in mail inbox, on Telegram, in Discord. Crypto-adjacent scam spam is over half of ads that managed to reach my on my own computer. I consider it perfectly good reason to heavily dislike BTC and BTC-adjacent things. > Crypto has/does much much more , than just act as a form of trading / speculation Yes, it is also scam platform. > Are you still gonna say people who use the dollar for daily transactions don’t exist ? That dollar is also a good idea only for scammers and speculators ? No, because it is untrue. Unlike crypto.
  - toomanybeersies 6y ago
    Lots of countries have banned incandescent bulbs due to their abysmal energy efficiency. Maybe the cryptocurrency industry needs some environmental regulation thrown at it?
  - knorker 6y ago
    > sounds similar to insulting Edison because he designed the inefficient incandescent bulbs If he designed and sold that in 2021, trying to replace LED lightbulbs, and lying through his teeth to pump up the value of his lightbulbs, well then yes. Can blockchain people please first come up with a use case, that isn't crime, before saying it's worth using more energy that many countries? (for a rounding error away from 0 number of transactions) All the enumerated use cases are so naive and uninformed that clearly they've just been invented without knowledge about the field. "Move aside, expert in field, I'll just solve this with technology. No I don't need to hear you describe the issues".
- pcthrowaway 6y ago
  To be clear, these are very specific problems to proof of work. It's almost to the point where I'm in favour of banning or heavily taxing proof of work mining. There are lots of things driving for crypto besides speculation though. Suggesting cryptocurrency supporters are sociopaths is quite simplistic, and overlooks the majority who are not involved in anything like this article discusses
  - knorker 6y ago
    > There are lots of things driving for crypto besides speculation though. Like what? I mean aside from crime. E.g. the "Venezuela argument" has been debunked, from my reading. In my own life I've seen employees ask to be paid in bitcoin, because of the large fees involved in getting your salary and transferring it into Brazil. So… those "fees" are mainly taxes, and not paying them is illegal. To steal manned argument I guess is that some people actually do want to buy stuff online without a third party knowing who paid whom. First of all BTC is terrible for that. But second, most people don't care if a third party knows they bought pizza. Especially since the pizza place still knows, and they need to keep records anyway, because tax laws. Fourth, if they don't keep records then they can just say you didn't pay them. They can say "oh, that was not our wallet, you must have mistyped". Fifth, if the pizza has poop on it you can't even reverse the charge. Sixth, every pizza place will now be a money laundering scheme. This is not what we want as individuals, nor as a society. But yes, some people do want to buy a pizza online and not have a third party know. It's basically LARPing. Buying a house or a car anonymously? That was made illegal on purpose. Buying a big mansion anonymously? Well that's clearly at the very least tax fraud. Anyway, I truly want to hear about any legit use case for cryptocurrencies that is not just LARPing, because as far as I've seen nobody in the 12 years since bitcoin launched has come up with one that actually makes sense. > Suggesting cryptocurrency supporters are sociopaths is quite simplistic, Yeah, it is. It's like the old expression "it's very hard to make someone understand something when their livelihood depends on them not understanding it", or something like that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU But the amount of rationalization from cryptocurrency proponents I do think is sociopathic. > and overlooks the majority who are not involved in anything like this article discusses When you're in the mob you're still one of the baddies, even if you're not actually the one murdering. I do blame every cryptocurrency supporter. They are complicit in making the world worse for their own profits. They have a moral obligation to recognize their supporting role in this, and to stop it.
bko 6y ago
Bitcoin is priced pretty much on par with low cost energy consumption. It's not any more profitable to mine Bitcoin now in terms of energy per dollar worth of Bitcoin then before

knorker 6y ago

A new equilibrium that thanks to cryptocurrency speculators is a worse world. This speculation is making some people rich, yes. But the amount of externalities is staggering. Thanks to PoW nobody can provide a free compute anymore without getting owned, and of course the environmental impact of bitcoin alone is worse than when Saddam Hussein set oil wells on fire while retreating. Let the world burn, and products rot to shit, as long as my HODL portfolio goes up. Cryptocurrency supporters really are sociopaths, worse than any hedge fund manager.

teitoklien 6y ago
So you’re blaming cryptocurrencies for .... Proof Of Work ?. A lot of em are already trying to shift to other viable alternative proofs. Your analogy of calling Cryptocurrency supporters as sociopaths. sounds similar to insulting Edison because he designed the inefficient incandescent bulbs , which consume waaay more energy compared to LEDs built these days. How would it sound , if someone insults artificial light , just because of that ? . Cryptocurrencies are perfectly good ideas/products. Proof of Work’s viability isn’t. The hate is aimed in the wrong direction.
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  > Cryptocurrencies are perfectly good ideas/products. for scammers and speculators
  - teitoklien 6y ago
    Try doing a transaction comparison between any payment service that offers foreign transactions , and compare it to cryptocurrency transactions and use it once to do a real trade/purchase , or try using smart contracts in crypto , for once in your projects. You’ll know why it’s a great product/ service Once it’s environmental viability has been figured out . Hating crypto , because news reporters only show you the scammers and the speculators , is blind hatred. Crypto has/does much much more , than just act as a form of trading / speculation Scammers often steal money in dollars too. Speculators often trade currency pairs with dollar in them. Are you still gonna say people who use the dollar for daily transactions don’t exist ? That dollar is also a good idea only for scammers and speculators ?
    - knorker 6y ago
      > Try doing a transaction comparison between any payment service that offers foreign transactions I've done many. Order of magnitude better experience than bitcoin, which I've also done. And without knowing that your bitcoin transaction cost many tonnes of co2 on stolen electricity (~70% of which is based on fossil fuels, per a recent bitcoin energy use study). It's like building an instant messaging system based on throwing molotov cocktails on your neighbors houses to create smoke signals. "Works great!" > try using smart contracts in crypto Smart contracts is just the dumbest idea yet. Anyone who thinks they're a good idea clearly doesn't know what the actual challenges are in existing contracts. It's not solving these challenges at all, but instead making them much worse. > Hating crypto , because news reporters only show you the scammers and the speculators , is blind hatred. Seriously? But that's all there is. To a rounding error. And for good reason. Aside for committing crimes cryptocurrencies are worse in every single aspect. > Are you still gonna say people who use the dollar for daily transactions don’t exist ? That dollar is also a good idea only for scammers and speculators ? What do you think the percentage of dollar transaction that's crime? What do you think is the case for bitcoin?
    - matkoniecz 6y ago
      > or try using smart contracts in crypto , for once in your projects. If someone is willing to fund time spend on researching how to do it safely I would do it. But I am not aware of anyone willing to fund hundreds of hours on such research. And it includes myself. > Hating crypto , because news reporters only show you the scammers and the speculators , is blind hatred. I do not care what 'news' reporters 'report'. I am in contact with several crypto-adjacent messages each week, all of them scammers in in mail inbox, on Telegram, in Discord. Crypto-adjacent scam spam is over half of ads that managed to reach my on my own computer. I consider it perfectly good reason to heavily dislike BTC and BTC-adjacent things. > Crypto has/does much much more , than just act as a form of trading / speculation Yes, it is also scam platform. > Are you still gonna say people who use the dollar for daily transactions don’t exist ? That dollar is also a good idea only for scammers and speculators ? No, because it is untrue. Unlike crypto.
- toomanybeersies 6y ago
  Lots of countries have banned incandescent bulbs due to their abysmal energy efficiency. Maybe the cryptocurrency industry needs some environmental regulation thrown at it?
- knorker 6y ago
  > sounds similar to insulting Edison because he designed the inefficient incandescent bulbs If he designed and sold that in 2021, trying to replace LED lightbulbs, and lying through his teeth to pump up the value of his lightbulbs, well then yes. Can blockchain people please first come up with a use case, that isn't crime, before saying it's worth using more energy that many countries? (for a rounding error away from 0 number of transactions) All the enumerated use cases are so naive and uninformed that clearly they've just been invented without knowledge about the field. "Move aside, expert in field, I'll just solve this with technology. No I don't need to hear you describe the issues".
pcthrowaway 6y ago
To be clear, these are very specific problems to proof of work. It's almost to the point where I'm in favour of banning or heavily taxing proof of work mining. There are lots of things driving for crypto besides speculation though. Suggesting cryptocurrency supporters are sociopaths is quite simplistic, and overlooks the majority who are not involved in anything like this article discusses
- knorker 6y ago
  > There are lots of things driving for crypto besides speculation though. Like what? I mean aside from crime. E.g. the "Venezuela argument" has been debunked, from my reading. In my own life I've seen employees ask to be paid in bitcoin, because of the large fees involved in getting your salary and transferring it into Brazil. So… those "fees" are mainly taxes, and not paying them is illegal. To steal manned argument I guess is that some people actually do want to buy stuff online without a third party knowing who paid whom. First of all BTC is terrible for that. But second, most people don't care if a third party knows they bought pizza. Especially since the pizza place still knows, and they need to keep records anyway, because tax laws. Fourth, if they don't keep records then they can just say you didn't pay them. They can say "oh, that was not our wallet, you must have mistyped". Fifth, if the pizza has poop on it you can't even reverse the charge. Sixth, every pizza place will now be a money laundering scheme. This is not what we want as individuals, nor as a society. But yes, some people do want to buy a pizza online and not have a third party know. It's basically LARPing. Buying a house or a car anonymously? That was made illegal on purpose. Buying a big mansion anonymously? Well that's clearly at the very least tax fraud. Anyway, I truly want to hear about any legit use case for cryptocurrencies that is not just LARPing, because as far as I've seen nobody in the 12 years since bitcoin launched has come up with one that actually makes sense. > Suggesting cryptocurrency supporters are sociopaths is quite simplistic, Yeah, it is. It's like the old expression "it's very hard to make someone understand something when their livelihood depends on them not understanding it", or something like that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU But the amount of rationalization from cryptocurrency proponents I do think is sociopathic. > and overlooks the majority who are not involved in anything like this article discusses When you're in the mob you're still one of the baddies, even if you're not actually the one murdering. I do blame every cryptocurrency supporter. They are complicit in making the world worse for their own profits. They have a moral obligation to recognize their supporting role in this, and to stop it.

bko 6y ago

Bitcoin is priced pretty much on par with low cost energy consumption. It's not any more profitable to mine Bitcoin now in terms of energy per dollar worth of Bitcoin then before