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Hard to do this when you can have other countries with much looser regulations allow Bitcoin miners run rampant. What probably should happen is to make convert
by SwimSwimHungry 5y ago
Hard to do this when you can have other countries with much looser regulations allow Bitcoin miners run rampant.
What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. I have no delusions that this will halt activity in this sector entirely, but it will make it reasonably difficult to make any substantial money this way without raising some serious eyebrows.
- jude- 5y ago> Hard to do this when you can have other countries with much looser regulations allow Bitcoin miners run rampant. You tariff their imports and apply economic sanctions. > What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. Why cryptocurrencies? There are plenty of things that pollute far more.
- SwimSwimHungry 5y agoWhy are you handwaving away my concerns? You do realize cryptocurrencies (and to be specific, PoW ones) aren't replacing any of these so called other things that pollute. Speaking of which, can you quantify what things pollute more? At any rate, I get the feeling we are going to be talking past each other and wasting time and energy (heh) on this conversation.
- px43 5y agoWhat's your bias? You seem to have created your HN account 8 months ago and comment almost exclusively about trying to get cryptocurrencies banned. We don't need a world with more Luddites trying to outlaw math. The future will be secured and cryptographically verified, and there's not anything you can do to stop it.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- SwimSwimHungry 5y agoWe want to outlaw math now? Are we even arguing in good faith at this point? And so what if my post history is mostly anti-cryptocurrency. This is a position I hold to strongly, and someone needs to give the other side so these four walls aren't filled with infinite circle jerks.
- bawolff 5y agoYou'll never be able to convince the other side of anything if you don't take the time to understand where they are coming from. Shouting into the void may feel good, but does not change hearts and minds.
- SwimSwimHungry 5y agoThe problem with text based conversations like this is that you really aren't able to perceive my physical or emotional state easily over text. Using all caps and multiple punctuation marks are also not only extremely rude in polite company, but I'm sure HN has rules against that kind of thing. :) And bawolff... my aim is to at least give those reading from the sidelines some things to think about. I am sure as heck unable to convince a hardcore proponent of Bitcoin to change in a 15-20 minute back and forth, not because my points are necessarily bad, but because human beings are a stubborn lot (I know I can be too!) I think I did OK overall. I know some of my comments were reacted to negatively, but that's fine. I don't expect agreement easily.
- bawolff 5y ago> And bawolff... my aim is to at least give those reading from the sidelines some things to think about. And are you under the impression that you're the only voice that people on the sidelines are going to hear? You need to understand the counter arguments so you can adapt your own arguments to counter them. You can't defeat an enemy you don't understand.
- SwimSwimHungry 5y agoRight. I thought that was already obvious. Are you done pontificating to me?
- jude- 5y ago> Why are you handwaving away my concerns? Calm down. > Speaking of which, can you quantify what things pollute more? You're all over the comments trying to pin the blame for CO2 emissions on the the existence of PoW cryptocurrencies. But if you stop and think about the problem for more than 5 seconds, you'll realize that it's the CO2 emissions, not cryptocurrencies, that are the problem. They were a problem before cryptocurrencies, and would continue to be a problem even if cryptocurrencies didn't exist. I think you'll find that many cryptocurrency fans are also green-energy fans, and would love to live in a world where all energy was 100% renewable. Like, no one here wants to burn more fossil fuels.
- abduhl 5y agoYou didn’t answer their question. Can you quantify what things pollute more?
- jude- 5y agoHere, let me Google that for you. First, let's assume for a moment that this February 2021 CNBC source [1] is correct in that Bitcoin mining produces 36.94 megatons of CO2 per year. The original source the CNBC article cited can be found here: [3] (which currently pegs Bitcoin at 47.62 megatons/year). According to the EPA, the US economy alone produced 6,558 megatons of CO2 [2] in 2019 (i.e. under pre-COVID emissions). So, Bitcoin's CO2 annualized output as of February 2021 was 0.5% of the US economy's CO2 output from 2 years ago. This works out to be: * 5.6% of the US agricultural sector emissions, OR * 4.3% of US commercial and residential building emissions (heating, cooling, waste), OR * 2.4% of the US manufacturing industry, OR * 2.2% of all US electricity generation, OR * 1.9% of all US transportation emissions According to this article from 2016 published in Environmental Research Letters [4], the US could save a combined 110 megatons of CO2 emissions simply by using better building insulation, since it would reduce heating/cooling energy expenditure. That's about 3x the Bitcoin CO2 emission rate I quoted above. So, @SwimSwimHungry, I'll ask once again: why the outrage over cryptocurrencies? Can I expect you to have 3x the outrage over bad building insulation? [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/bitcoin-btc-surge-renews-worries-about-its-massive-carbon-footprint.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/bitcoin-btc-surge-renews-wor... [2] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... [3] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption [4] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/034017 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/03...
- young_unixer 5y agoOr kill all people. Both are effective at fixing the emissions problem. Both are also extremely oppressive and unjust.
- SwimSwimHungry 5y agoThat's quite a stretch of a response. Wiping out humans and curtailing bitcoin are not at all equitable. One is unconscionable. The other is the right thing to do, in my opinion.
- Glavnokoman 5y agoWhy taking the extremes? Maybe just a bit of this and a bit of that... :)
- zapdrive 5y ago> What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. Lol.. and that will stop all crypto-world currency trading? Just like how making drugs illegal stopped all drug trade?
- SwimSwimHungry 5y agoIf you read past that next sentence, I admitted it won't actually cause such activities to completely cease. It just needs to be stunted so that the majority of such transactions are disincentivized. Disincentivized enough that nobody would bother adding it to their retirement strategy or use it out in the open. The dark web will continue to do their own thing.
- bawolff 5y ago> Hard to do this when you can have other countries with much looser regulations allow Bitcoin miners run rampant. And yet we've done this for other pollutants. CFC's aren't destroying the ozone layer anymore.
- kolinko 5y agoThis would halt any legal activity and keep the illegal activity intact.
- birracerveza 5y ago>What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. I have a better idea, let's make everything that causes pollution a crime. Bought a plastic water bottle? Straight to jail. Refueled your car? Yep, jail. You used your heater? Believe it or not, jail. I'm sure we'll live in a pollution free utopia in no time. Thank you for your insightful contribution. This is the quality comments I come to HN for.
- politician 5y agoBreathing? Right to jail.
- batirch 5y agoReminds of Haven episode S1 of Star Trek Next Gen. Any crime is punishable by death. So there won't be any more crime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfqa596xxbc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfqa596xxbc
- KSteffensen 5y agoEveryone will be happy, then. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0LUUFQ4MNM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0LUUFQ4MNM
- odiroot 5y agoDon't even think of eating beans. Methane is illegal too.
- itsyaboi 5y agoYou joke, but this is the exact thought process behind gun-free zones.
- Glavnokoman 5y agoAny idea can be exaggerated out of sanity bounds. If you do not see the difference between the incentives and criminalizing/punishment this is your own problem.
- UncleMeat 5y agoIt is also hard to manage humanity if the temperature increases by 5 degrees celsius. Yes, this is hard policy to get right. So what? We have the entire world to figure this out and we are on a timer. Any first attempt will have flaws and loopholes and need to be improved over time. But this is just an excuse for people to avoid acting. We need to do something. A carbon tax is the least extreme solution that has any chance of functioning.
- snarf21 5y agoA carbon tax won't halt activity but it could cause the price to drop. If Bitcoin drops to $300, it is no longer profitable to mine. I agree that making it illegal would help. Main street would be loathe to depend on wire transfers to Hong Kong to transfer in/out. However, given Coinbase just went public, there will (unfortunately) be way too much political pressure to kill the segment.
- yreg 5y agoWhy would the carbon tax drastically drop bitcoin price? If electricity price increases, the difficulty dicreases. As far as the difficulty stays high enough to keep the network secure the markets don't have a reason to care.
- snarf21 5y agoThe problem with the difficulty decreasing is that it depends on how much and how fast. It depends on how much the tax is relative to the cost to mine. Also, it could also politically be positioned as a "bitcoin tax" instead of a climate change thing to make it bi-partisan. I personally think these are the things that causes Main Street to move on. If all of the commoners sell their BTC the price will drop.
- yreg 5y agoAn international carbon tax could not be surprisingly high (innitially) nor come fast enough to shock the markets.