5 ms·

It seems they found a way to make the blockchain even more carbon intensive by burning up rocket fuel as well.

by gregwebs 5y ago

rriepe 5y ago
It only starts out inefficient. Eventually you have enough of them to capture most of the energy of the star.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Yeah, we'll end up building a Dyson sphere just to secure a goddamn "financial network". Been worried about this for a while (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21280454 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21280454 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24309932 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24309932). EDIT: Merged pull request: quotes around "financial network" (usrusr) EDIT 2: _Microft wins this day. I'm going to start using Nakamoto scale from now on. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27368015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27368015
  - h4kor 5y ago
    Basically doing the same as in Accelerando https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando
  - usrusr 5y ago
    Heh, knowing humanity this is definitely the least unlikely scenario for a Dyson sphere to come into existence. Pull request: quotes around "financial network"
  - piva00 5y ago
    I've seen your comments throughout the years and it's been one of the sparks for me to learn more about Bitcoin's power consumption, it is truly bizarre how easily shoved aside the argument about the climate impact of PoW cryptocurrencies is by their proponents. Seems that some on the Bitcoin train didn't realise that the concept and technology have been coopted by miners, etc. since the rift about increasing block size or not, the miners and others with high stakes in maintaining the status quo have won. They won't ever allow their investments to become worthless (or at least non-profitable) and now all the other smaller agents have to fight a war against that to ever have a chance to change the massive ecological impact of Bitcoin. Thanks for shaping a path to educate myself on this issue, I recognised the Dyson sphere analogy pretty quickly, haha.
    - zenethian 5y ago
      There's a really strong movement inside the crypto community to move away from any sort of technology that requires a Proof of Work system like Bitcoin. Bitcoin is like the racist grandfather that started the family: nobody _actually_ likes it except the people trying to get close to get rich off of it someday. There are lots of blockchains that are very promising that are excellent alternatives that are gaining major traction. Even Ethereum itself recognizes that Proof of Work is terrible and is restructuring how the blockchain itself operates to correct it. But something nobody ever even questions is: How much power does Wall Street consume? Or every bank, and every bank chain in the world? It's so easy to point the finger directly at coin mining as "that's bad" because people used to try to do it at home and it became increasingly impossible to do because of the power consumption, but nobody sees the power consumption by the huge amount of computational automation that goes into stock trading. Ethereum is facing that very scenario of miners versus environment and has told the miners: too bad, your way will die, prepare for it. I don't know if Bitcoin will do that or follow suit, but I would argue that Ethereum is the worst of the two since it still uses GPUs for mining rather than customized ASIC processors (which only have one purpose: to calculate, in hardware, a SHA256 hash using parallel micro-cores that can run hundreds simultaneously per chip) like Bitcoin does. I'm looking forward to the day when a smart, environmentally-friendly blockchain like EOS/WAX, Stellar, Solana, and the likes take over and slowly "wrap" BTC into them, burning them on one chain to activate their value on another.
  - vsareto 5y ago
    Here I was hoping we'd spend it on virtual environments where we could just set account balances to whatever we want
- _Microft 5y ago
  According to my definition, that's a Nakamoto Type II civilization, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26435464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26435464 (Spoiler: it's just the Kardashev scale with the additional condition that all available energy has to be burned on crypto mining)
swiley 5y ago
haha Etherium is the one doing away with mining though. Most people think it will replace bitcoin (for that and other reasons.)
- patates 5y ago
  > Most people think it (Etherium) will replace bitcoin Sorry for going full meta and I hope this doesn't come across as mean but, coin speculation is something I hope to see less on HN. There's enough of this on Twitter and everywhere else.
- donkeyd 5y ago
  > replace bitcoin Replace Bitcoin as a speculative asset? Because I don't really see Bitcoin as anything else. Just to clarify why, according to Coinmarketcap, trade volume for june 1st was about $35B. The transaction volume on the actual Blockchain was about $5B, according to Blockchain explorer. So yesterday, 85% of Bitcoin transactions wasn't even on the blockchain. They were trades within markets that use the same old technology that banks do. They (often) have the same KYC that banks do. And have no direct connection to the blockchain. I doubt most people who 'own crypto' actually own any crypto and they just have the right to crypto that is stored in the wallets of their markets. I realize this rant went a bit off topic, but I really wonder what 'replace bitcoin' means in this context. Edit: I realized that coinmarketcap and blockhain explorer numbers are probably cumulative, so it'd be more like 87,5% of transactions off blockchain. Doesn't really change anything about my point, just thought it was worth an edit.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    Yeah, I think people forget what is it that makes cryptocurrencies popular. It's not about all the ideals about decentralization, innovation, working around dictatorships and Big Banks, etc. Few people understand any of this, and even less people care. Cryptocurrencies are popular first and foremost because they streamlined the ability to run financial scams, which otherwise are much more difficult to pull off. Secondly, because they make it easier to gamble. Thirdly, because they make it easier to exchange illegal goods and services.
agumonkey 5y ago
and ~improve~ transaction latency

It seems they found a way to make the blockchain even more carbon intensive by burning up rocket fuel as well.

rriepe 5y ago

It only starts out inefficient. Eventually you have enough of them to capture most of the energy of the star.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
Yeah, we'll end up building a Dyson sphere just to secure a goddamn "financial network". Been worried about this for a while (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21280454 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21280454 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24309932 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24309932). EDIT: Merged pull request: quotes around "financial network" (usrusr) EDIT 2: _Microft wins this day. I'm going to start using Nakamoto scale from now on. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27368015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27368015
- h4kor 5y ago
  Basically doing the same as in Accelerando https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando
- usrusr 5y ago
  Heh, knowing humanity this is definitely the least unlikely scenario for a Dyson sphere to come into existence. Pull request: quotes around "financial network"
- piva00 5y ago
  I've seen your comments throughout the years and it's been one of the sparks for me to learn more about Bitcoin's power consumption, it is truly bizarre how easily shoved aside the argument about the climate impact of PoW cryptocurrencies is by their proponents. Seems that some on the Bitcoin train didn't realise that the concept and technology have been coopted by miners, etc. since the rift about increasing block size or not, the miners and others with high stakes in maintaining the status quo have won. They won't ever allow their investments to become worthless (or at least non-profitable) and now all the other smaller agents have to fight a war against that to ever have a chance to change the massive ecological impact of Bitcoin. Thanks for shaping a path to educate myself on this issue, I recognised the Dyson sphere analogy pretty quickly, haha.
  - zenethian 5y ago
    There's a really strong movement inside the crypto community to move away from any sort of technology that requires a Proof of Work system like Bitcoin. Bitcoin is like the racist grandfather that started the family: nobody _actually_ likes it except the people trying to get close to get rich off of it someday. There are lots of blockchains that are very promising that are excellent alternatives that are gaining major traction. Even Ethereum itself recognizes that Proof of Work is terrible and is restructuring how the blockchain itself operates to correct it. But something nobody ever even questions is: How much power does Wall Street consume? Or every bank, and every bank chain in the world? It's so easy to point the finger directly at coin mining as "that's bad" because people used to try to do it at home and it became increasingly impossible to do because of the power consumption, but nobody sees the power consumption by the huge amount of computational automation that goes into stock trading. Ethereum is facing that very scenario of miners versus environment and has told the miners: too bad, your way will die, prepare for it. I don't know if Bitcoin will do that or follow suit, but I would argue that Ethereum is the worst of the two since it still uses GPUs for mining rather than customized ASIC processors (which only have one purpose: to calculate, in hardware, a SHA256 hash using parallel micro-cores that can run hundreds simultaneously per chip) like Bitcoin does. I'm looking forward to the day when a smart, environmentally-friendly blockchain like EOS/WAX, Stellar, Solana, and the likes take over and slowly "wrap" BTC into them, burning them on one chain to activate their value on another.
- vsareto 5y ago
  Here I was hoping we'd spend it on virtual environments where we could just set account balances to whatever we want
_Microft 5y ago
According to my definition, that's a Nakamoto Type II civilization, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26435464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26435464 (Spoiler: it's just the Kardashev scale with the additional condition that all available energy has to be burned on crypto mining)

swiley 5y ago

haha Etherium is the one doing away with mining though. Most people think it will replace bitcoin (for that and other reasons.)

patates 5y ago
> Most people think it (Etherium) will replace bitcoin Sorry for going full meta and I hope this doesn't come across as mean but, coin speculation is something I hope to see less on HN. There's enough of this on Twitter and everywhere else.
donkeyd 5y ago
> replace bitcoin Replace Bitcoin as a speculative asset? Because I don't really see Bitcoin as anything else. Just to clarify why, according to Coinmarketcap, trade volume for june 1st was about $35B. The transaction volume on the actual Blockchain was about $5B, according to Blockchain explorer. So yesterday, 85% of Bitcoin transactions wasn't even on the blockchain. They were trades within markets that use the same old technology that banks do. They (often) have the same KYC that banks do. And have no direct connection to the blockchain. I doubt most people who 'own crypto' actually own any crypto and they just have the right to crypto that is stored in the wallets of their markets. I realize this rant went a bit off topic, but I really wonder what 'replace bitcoin' means in this context. Edit: I realized that coinmarketcap and blockhain explorer numbers are probably cumulative, so it'd be more like 87,5% of transactions off blockchain. Doesn't really change anything about my point, just thought it was worth an edit.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Yeah, I think people forget what is it that makes cryptocurrencies popular. It's not about all the ideals about decentralization, innovation, working around dictatorships and Big Banks, etc. Few people understand any of this, and even less people care. Cryptocurrencies are popular first and foremost because they streamlined the ability to run financial scams, which otherwise are much more difficult to pull off. Secondly, because they make it easier to gamble. Thirdly, because they make it easier to exchange illegal goods and services.

agumonkey 5y ago

and ~improve~ transaction latency