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> I don't see any scientific or technological application That's a defensible position. But how does that justify the government going to "total war". There ar

> I don't see any scientific or technological application That's a defensible position. But how does that justify the government going to "total war". There are plenty of things that have no scientific or technological application. Reality TV, social media, fashion, nightclubs, sports, bakeries, those stupid outfits people dress pets up in. At what point did people stop saying "it's a free country"? So you don't like some thing and don't see much merit in it. At what point did people's knee-jerk response to that change from "not my cup of tea, but you do you, man" to "that thing is completely worthless, everyone who likes it must be an idiot, and therefore the government should abolish it"

henearkr 5y ago
Well, you're right, my comment actually lacks of the spelling out of the negative part of this technology!! As the usefulness is very doubtful but the energy consumption is utterly real, that is a net negative for the environment. The electronic garbage, too, a huge problem.
- dcolkitt 5y ago
  I actually agree with you! PoW (proof-of-work) coins produce a big negative externality. That being said Ethereum is migrating to a PoS (proof-of-stake) system by year end that virtually eliminates all the problems you enumerate. Even if you believe in a policy response, wouldn't you agree that it'd be better specifically target proof-of-work blockchains rather than crypto in general? Ironically this bill may actually do the opposite. It places a much higher burden of DeFi and stablecoins, which are mostly Ethereum native. It will probably shift usage to large centralized exchanges, which generally favors PoW based Bitcoin.
  - henearkr 5y ago
    Well, a finer policy would probably be better, I agree. But, in this case, even if the loss of a beautiful peace of engineering is always a pity (but it is not even lost, because the source code itself has no reason to be forbidden!), I don't see really what is the loss for the world. As I said in another comment, if you use a VPN, you can access preexisting online banking like PayPal, and to it while escaping surveillance and censure from any dictatorship you live in. So e.g. if you reimplement whatever usage you found for some Ethereum contracts, in a non-blockchain technology, then you can just access it through VPNs whenever that becomes necessary.

henearkr 5y ago

Well, you're right, my comment actually lacks of the spelling out of the negative part of this technology!! As the usefulness is very doubtful but the energy consumption is utterly real, that is a net negative for the environment. The electronic garbage, too, a huge problem.

dcolkitt 5y ago
I actually agree with you! PoW (proof-of-work) coins produce a big negative externality. That being said Ethereum is migrating to a PoS (proof-of-stake) system by year end that virtually eliminates all the problems you enumerate. Even if you believe in a policy response, wouldn't you agree that it'd be better specifically target proof-of-work blockchains rather than crypto in general? Ironically this bill may actually do the opposite. It places a much higher burden of DeFi and stablecoins, which are mostly Ethereum native. It will probably shift usage to large centralized exchanges, which generally favors PoW based Bitcoin.
- henearkr 5y ago
  Well, a finer policy would probably be better, I agree. But, in this case, even if the loss of a beautiful peace of engineering is always a pity (but it is not even lost, because the source code itself has no reason to be forbidden!), I don't see really what is the loss for the world. As I said in another comment, if you use a VPN, you can access preexisting online banking like PayPal, and to it while escaping surveillance and censure from any dictatorship you live in. So e.g. if you reimplement whatever usage you found for some Ethereum contracts, in a non-blockchain technology, then you can just access it through VPNs whenever that becomes necessary.