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People that complain that PoW cryptos spend too much energy don't understand that it's just another form of conversion of energy, just like every other action h
by spinny 5y ago
People that complain that PoW cryptos spend too much energy don't understand that it's just another form of conversion of energy, just like every other action human take.
Average Joe has a manual labor, his physical energy is converted into labor, which converts to fiat currency. The food that Joe ate also require some amount of energy to grow and become Joe's food.
PoW mining converts raw electric energy into a digitally transmissible currency
- smt88 5y agoYou don't understand the point that you're arguing against. Producing fiat currency through manual labor uses a mix of renewable resources, and value is provided. You can't just dig in the ground and get paid for it. You have to do something that improves someone's business or life. Producing crypto is just turning coal (or whatever) into numbers. There is no intrinsic value created in that chain. If the crypto loses value, you may have even destroyed resources in the world for no reason. It's a net-negative.
- spinny 5y agoThe cost of producing fiat currency is not the same for everybody. Producing crypto keeps a secure ledger, claiming it's just producing useless numbers is the same as claiming that a TLS session is just playing around with numbers. The value of fiat always goes to 0, resources have been destroyed in the world for no reason
- smt88 5y agoIf I pay someone to build me a house, I have a house and they have fiat. We converted energy into a house and fiat. If I convert the same amount of energy into crypto, I have nothing with intrinsic value. And before you say that fiat has no intrinsic value, consider that most people have fiat debt (loans, taxes, wages, etc.) that they can pay off with it. Currently very few people have any crypto debt.
- spinny 5y agocrypto/fiat is not an apples to apples comparison. it's an apples to oranges. cryptos are a new class of asset If you convert energy into crypto, you have crypto, may not have intrinsic value for you. right now it's worth 42k usd for somebody which of those have/don't have intrinsic value: - gold, silver and other precious metals - stocks - options - house - car - fiat - cryptos
- smt88 5y agoGold, silver, all precious metals, stock, houses, and cars all have intrinsic value. You can use them. In the case of stock, you have a legal stake in an ongoing enterprise.
- pornel 5y agoThe complaint isn't that thermodynamics exists, but that PoW uses huge amounts of energy proportionally to the little value it delivers.