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I hope the rest of world follows. There is nothing more volatile than a decentralised crypto currency. The amount of people making a profit from it is less than

I hope the rest of world follows. There is nothing more volatile than a decentralised crypto currency. The amount of people making a profit from it is less than 5% and energy consumption is beyond acceptable. Crypto as a tech to serve something different is totally fine of course.

flenserboy 5y ago
So you'd rather a system where TPTB get to fudge the books as they see fit, impose taxes via intentional inflation, and keep tabs on your every transaction? Interesting.
- epgui 5y ago
  That’s not exactly how it works.
  - atatatat 5y ago
    Regardless of law, intent, etc, this is how it functionally ends up happening, a nonzero amount of the time.
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      That's what ends up happening when an asset becomes economically meaningful. Crypto is still a joke to global economy, but on the off chance it gains mainstream adoption, it'll have the same kind of regulations, taxation and fraud attached to it.
      - selfhoster11 5y ago
        Except crypto is less firmly anchored in the real world than in the digital realm. It's fundamentally harder to regulate it than a physical currency, which needs specialist equipment to generate.
        TeMPOraL 5y ago
        Money as a concept is even less anchored in the real world. So is the law. The two have been dancing together since first human society. We have thousands of years of experience with this, and cryptocurrencies don't introduce anything new here, despite what some advocates may think. As long as you can use something - be it a coin, a bill, a SWIFT transfer, a blockchain transaction or a Nuka-Cola bottle cap - to pay someone for something, and a third party would be able to identify it as a purchase, same things will happen. A criminal will be able to take your purchasing power and use it themselves. A taxman will be able to collect a percentage of your trade, and men with guns will take you in front of a judge if you refuse. The manifestation of value doesn't matter, because money isn't a thing, it's a shared belief.
        selfhoster11 5y ago
        While I agree, all of the ways you mentioned to pay for something are fundamentally something that requires infrastructure to create (industrial, banking, or a mint), and has a physical anchor that can be plucked from you by physical force (including the SWIFT transfer - though usually bank's prefer to comply than shut themselves down). A blockchain based currency will exist as long as there's someone with a sufficiently powerful computing device connected to a sufficiently low-risk network that can be accessed legally or illicitly. A blockchain wallet will exist and be yours alone as long as you keep the password in your brain, never write it down, and resist attempts to extract it from you. This means that, in comparison to conventional currency (including Nuka-Cola caps), a blockchain economy is much easier to operate undercover when it's outlawed.
  - macinjosh 5y ago
    Yes, that is exactly how it works.
  - the_third_wave 5y ago
    Not exactly, that is true - it is rather hard to describe international trade in 140 characters-or-less. It can not be denied that there is a lot of truth to the statement though even if it does not describe all factors of influence: > a system where TPTB get to fudge the books as they see fit This depends on whether the media are in to the party or not but when they are this is mostly true. > impose taxes via intentional inflation This is a fact in those countries which have control over their own currency. > and keep tabs on your every transaction This is a fact and one of the driving forces behind the "cashless society".
    - epgui 5y ago
      1) Central banks aren’t regulated by the media. 2) The expansion of the money supply is not necessarily inflationary. 3) Inflation is very different from taxation: if you hold cash you’re supposed to circulate it, either by spending it or by investing it. Inflation disincentivizes cash-hoarding, and also deflated the value of any debt you might have.
      - the_third_wave 5y ago
        1) ...but I can only assume you realise they are sensitive to political pressure which again derives from public opinion which is controlled by the media... 2) ...but it generally is just that, inflationary. The fact that there can be exceptions to the rule does not make the rule less valid. 3) ...and inflation is also used by governments to provide funds (by "printing money" in some way or other, the actual implementation depends on how the currency is regulated) which otherwise would be provided through taxation, leading to inflation and as such reducing tax payer's purchasing power - just like taxation does.
        epgui 5y ago
        1) central bank loss of independence is one of the hallmark of failed central banks. I hardly think it's reasonable to think that all central banks are dysfunctional in such a way: while these institutions can and do break down, they are not designed to break down in this way. You're free to argue whether a given central bank is or is not sufficiently independent, but that's a more specific problem than the over-generalization made here. 2) it's not an exception to the rule at all. The rule for inflation doesn't mention how much money exists, it only mentions how much money circulates. More money existing does not necessarily mean more money circulating (eg.: money tends to concentrate in certain places for various reasons, rather than diffusing freely). 3) Sure, but two things that have similar features are not always similar in essence or nature. Swords and needles are both sharp, but you wouldn't argue that they're essentially the same. In fact in your own example, taxation for certain purposes could be either inflationary or deflationary (eg.: austerity measures, including those that involve taxation, are deflationary by design).
Factorium 5y ago
Europe is currently facing electricity and chip shortages. Banning crypto in the EU would be an acceptable measure for addressing that.
- nix23 5y ago
  Or banning useless iot devices in cars fridges and toasters would be an even more acceptable measure. BTW the chip shortage has nothing todo with mining, but if you believe that lie Nvidia and AMD tells you since 5 years...well then that's to bad.
- noxer 5y ago
  Only PoW cryptos need extensive electricity and hardware. Its completely absurd to ban crypto. Thats like if you would ban all motorized vehicles to get rid of coal blasting diesel trucks without catalytic converter. Needless to say that its also technically impossible to ban crypto. Its like banning torrents or even harder and we all know torrent was attacked heavily in the past but it did not go away.
  - jeremyjh 5y ago
    If its banned then not only can government shutdown large mining operations but government resources can be spent on 51% attacks to discredit them.
    - noxer 5y ago
      Literally irrelevant for any non-PoW coin out there aka the majority of all coins.
      - jeremyjh 5y ago
        The majority in terms of number of altcoins that have a forum post? Or majority in terms of converted USD market cap?
      - noxer 5y ago
        Does it matter? Its basically just bitcoin that makes up almost all of PoW.
guilhas 5y ago
So don't use it duh
- deepsun 5y ago
  That's right, but those who are invested in crypto really want everyone to invest too.
  - zeven7 5y ago
    That's true for all types of investors
    - deepsun 5y ago
      No, why? I have investments in a couple of private startups. I definitely care who other investors are, and I don't want them to take money from bad guys.
      - zeven7 5y ago
        Ok, maybe "many investors in most publicly traded assets".
- paulgb 5y ago
  It’s an externalities problem. I can not use it, but I can’t opt out of the climate impact. (Save the “it’s not really that bad” arguments, I’ve heard all the industry’s gaslighting, but their claims don’t match reality)
  - floatboth 5y ago
    Yep, you also can't opt out of the impact on the semiconductor market, the e-waste production (kinda part of the climate too), the ransomware explosion, the wider economic consequences of LITERAL BILLION DOLLAR PONZI SCHEMES…
  - guilhas 5y ago
0FreedomInUSA 5y ago
Please educate yourself harder before making these ignorant statements, unless you have a motive behind
- mettamage 5y ago
  Instead of downvoting I decided to write this comment. I don't agree with the sentiment of the parent either, but: * Assume the best interpretation of a comment [1]. * Keep it on topic * Don't attack the person, also not implicitly (e.g. "please educate yourself", don't say that) Reread: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html One can claim many things about the parent comment. But it's all directed to the topic at hand. Cheers! [1] The best interpretation I can come up with is: yes the energy issue with crypto/bitcoin are an actual problem to solve. Yes, using crypto might be a good use-case in certain situations. While I don't believe the profit claim (there's no source), I can't disprove it either. So it poses an interesting question as to whether that's true.
  - 0FreedomInUSA 5y ago
    Got it, will make better comments next time
    - datavirtue 5y ago
      Just be yourself.
      - 0FreedomInUSA 5y ago
        yep, i meant my next comments on yc will try to provide better arguments and/or concrete proofs bringing value to the discussions
johanneskanybal 5y ago
It's ok to not like crypto but how about sticking to the truth? * There's many things much more volatile than crypto, the biggest markets being vix if you're a hedgefund and pretty much all derivates like options if you're a gambling man. btc in particular is only 2x from many traditional markets: https://charts.woobull.com/bitcoin-volatility-vs-other-assets/ https://charts.woobull.com/bitcoin-volatility-vs-other-asset... * The second part of only 5% making a profit is made up and makes no sense. There's not a lot of days since it's inception where you could buy and hold some btc and it wouldn't be more worth later on. Sure if you fomo at a local top and panic sell the bottom you can get burned but it's an easy trade my guess would be more like 80% but like your number it's also just made up. * Energy consumption you need to put it into relation of comparable resources, of course if you're determined it's worthless it's hard to justify any cost even if it's minor in comparison but that's a personal opinion of yours and many disagree.
- moepstar 5y ago
  I also wonder when people voicing environmental concerns will accept that there's a whole slew of newer Proof-of-stake blockchains that aren't using that much energy. One example being Algorand which is carbon neutral: https://www.algorand.com/resources/blog/how-algorand-offsets-carbon-footprint https://www.algorand.com/resources/blog/how-algorand-offsets... Oh and speaking of usage of crypto in China - i wonder how that affects VET / VeChain which is, largely, used by Walmart China to track their wares: https://seevechain.com/contracts https://seevechain.com/contracts https://www.vechain.com/ https://www.vechain.com/
- sobellian 5y ago
  One might disagree on what exactly is a comparable resource. A digital currency could just as well store everyone's balance in a giant SQL database. In exchange for utter centralization the energy consumption drops to essentially zero. IIUC a PoS coin will also have much smaller energy consumption. So we have a situation where a collection of people are using huge, huge amounts of energy to speculate not only on digital assets, but on decentralized PoW digital assets.
  - 5y ago
Pmop 5y ago
You probably live in the first world and had never to worry about inflation or politicians/bureaucrats just straight destroying the fiat currency and your wealth in the process. That's why crypto sounds so "wasteful" to you. BTW, if we give the government the power to judge what is a waste of energy and what's not, I can assure you life would be 100% more miserable, to everyone.
- ulfw 5y ago
  There's actual real fiat currencies for that. The USD, the EUR, the YEN, the CHF... plenty of choices that have been used for decades in the developing world. I'd much rather have my money in a stable-ish fiat currency like those than in some Bitcoin that goes up and down 10% at will or by Elon-tweet. In fact some countries, e.g. Kosovo and Montenegro, in the Balkans, use the euro as a de facto domestic currency since 2002, even though they have no agreements with the EU.
- dmytrish 5y ago
  Crypto"currencies" are not the only way to store value when an official currency is failing: people who want their savings preserved can get USD, EUR, gold. Crypto *is* volatile and wasteful compared to any of those.
  - MillenialMan 5y ago
    All of those things can be tracked and confiscated - crypto is a lot harder. It's volatile, but it's significantly more secure against state actors.
    - otterley 5y ago
      Yes, and they should be, in order to deter and punish crime.
      - ghostwriter 5y ago
        who defines what a crime is? Isn't it the same government that at some point decides to confiscate your assets? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulak
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bmitc 5y ago
> energy consumption is beyond acceptable Do you have any resources or studies to describe this more? I have really struggled to find actually nuanced discussions and unbiased sources for this. It’s all at the extremes of it’s either the worst thing ever to not a problem at all. I’d also be interested in comparisons to energy usage of say servers that run Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc.
- whoisjohnkid 5y ago
  A lot of the energy consumption argument against bitcoin stems from this study [1]. Some have pointed out flaws in the study that over inflate the consumption numbers. This has sparked various indexes that have tried to measure the consumption in an unbiased way [2]. Additional studies [3] have shown that 39% of bitcoin miners are using renewables. The energy consumption argument has led some to investigate the energy consumption of other assets such as gold with some estimating the energy requirements for gold to be 50x that of mining bitcoin [4]. Whenever energy consumption of other assets are pointed out to be higher than bitcoin the debate then shifts to utility; e.g it’s ok if Y consumes X energy because Y provides Z to society. Some bitcoin miners are finding interesting way to utilize the heat produced by their mining equipment [5]. And some say that bitcoin mining can help reduce the cost of producing new green energy infrastructure since excess power that would’ve been wasted could be used for bitcoin mining to offset costs. I agree with you that it is tough to find unbiased info on the subject. - [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328581842_Bitcoin_emissions_alone_could_push_global_warming_above_2C https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328581842_Bitcoin_e... - [2] https://cbeci.org/ https://cbeci.org/ - [3] https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2021-ccaf-3rd-global-cryptoasset-benchmarking-study.pdf https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2021-cc... - [4] https://simon.medium.com/bitcoin-and-pollution-the-definitive-answer-a010b0826f2a https://simon.medium.com/bitcoin-and-pollution-the-definitiv... - [5] https://braiins.com/blog/green-innovation-in-bitcoin-mining-recycling-asic-heat https://braiins.com/blog/green-innovation-in-bitcoin-mining-...
  - bmitc 5y ago
    Thank you for the references!
hacknews20 5y ago
“Nothing more volatile…” erm energy prices in the UK just jumped 70% and it’s not to do with crypto, co2 supply shrank to levels never seen before again nothing to do with crypto both of which affect whole populations. Try to avoid crypto hyperbole. Lastly, I don’t know anybody invested in crypto that hasn’t made money, so anecdotally that indicates the number is much higher than 5%.
- ddorian43 5y ago
  > Lastly, I don’t know anybody invested in crypto that hasn’t made money, so anecdotally that indicates the number is much higher than 5%. You make money when you exit and sell the asset for cash. Have they sold ?
  - jhgb 5y ago
    I thought this "asset" was supposed to replace cash. Why would you "sell it for cash"? Other than an equivalent for selling US dollars for Euros.
    - ddorian43 5y ago
      > I thought this "asset" was supposed to replace cash. When you can buy food, house/rent and the doctor accepts bitcoins it will become cash.
      - jhgb 5y ago
        That's the massive problem with decentralized "currencies". Even if the Colombian peso is used by 0.6% of people in the world, it's still a currency because lots of people can pay with it in almost all their interactions with the economy. If a decentralized global "currency" is used by 0.6% of people, it's not a currency because almost nobody around you accepts it. Even at 6% it would not be a currency. Maybe at 60%, but how do you get there from 0.6% in the first place?
      - ryanlol 5y ago
        That’s great, the concierge company I work with handles all of these things and accepts bitcoin.
trident5000 5y ago
Define volatile. The only currency that has stood the test of time is gold, a private currency. Every fiat currency in history has failed. Probably because heads of state like to print it to solve their short term problems essentially robbing everyone with an inflation tax. I dont call that stable or just. I work and save and expect my currency to hold up and not be abused which is not happening currently. Edit: HN must be the worst platform in existence to debate. I have about 700 karma and cant comment more than 3 times on this thread. Your rules are not helping discussion or clearing clutter, they're just really annoying. Retrac: no ive hit a limit and cant respond anymore on the whole thread even with only a few comments.
- FabHK 5y ago
  > Every fiat currency in history has failed. That's funny. The extant fiat currencies haven't failed. So, the only ones that have failed... are the failed ones. And those have failed, 100%, indeed.
  - nickthemagicman 5y ago
    What's the percentage of failed to non-failed? Are we pushing close to 100% ?
  - shapefrog 5y ago
    Actually all the euro area currencies that were removed from circulation in exchange for euros; franc, deutchmark, lira etc. did not fail at all. Thus, not every currency has failed, although it could be argued that they still exist in a 'shadow' form, thus have not yet existed to the end of the infinite timeline. Either way every failed currency has indeed failed, thus every currency in the future that fails will also be considered to be a failure, maintaining the 100% record for failure.
  - pbaka 5y ago
    But which one hasn't failed ? All of Europe's have. All of Asia's have. The Euro is too new. Only the dollar arguably has endured the last 150 years, depending on how you consider its three redefinition with the foundation of the Fed system, then Bretton Woods and then with the abandonment of the gold standard..
mypastself 5y ago
There is plenty of profit being made from selling hardware and software services in the space. Also, are you suggesting banning all assets whose volatility crosses a certain threshold? As for energy consumption, does this also apply to Proof of Stake networks?
- vnchr 5y ago
  Only those that challenge existing economic power structures.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    > challenge existing economic power structures That's quite a polite way of saying "facilitate tax evasion".
    - macinjosh 5y ago
      That is a feature, not a bug.
  - mypastself 5y ago
    I’m giving the parent comment the benefit of the doubt that they’re not an agent working to preserve the current financial system, at least not deliberately. Especially since their sentiment is so frequently expressed on these boards, it is bordering on consensus.
  - plebianRube 5y ago
    This hits a little too close to truth.
floatboth 5y ago
There's pretty much nothing different to serve with bitcoin-style "public blockchain" tech. Nothing needs to be trustless, and nothing would securely work as trustless without currency-style incentives (why namecoin is a coin, etc.). (And "private blockchain" is just a term based on marketing hype tied to bitcoin, there's no new tech there, that fundamentally just means incorporating the same concepts as Git.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCHab0dNnj4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCHab0dNnj4
hgibbs 5y ago
Is what you say less true of traditional exchanges? Maybe it is, but I haven't seen someone crunch the numbers - I'd be happy to read a comparison to that effect.
noxer 5y ago
Only PoW cryptos need extensive electricity and hardware. Dont make crypto just bitcoins. If you really want to help make a dent in the energy consumption then people need to move away from PoW coins not from crypto in general.
- floatboth 5y ago
  How exactly do you incentivize anyone ever to abandon PoW coins rather than just adding non-PoW on the side? How exactly do you think you could dethrone Bitcoin, overcoming its gigantic first-mover advantage? I believe BTC could only come down with the rest of that "economy".
  - spottybanana 5y ago
    If you believe in free market capitalism, people should migrate from PoW to PoS coins, because PoS coins provide the same features with less expenses. In practice this won't happen, because PoS coins don't deliver the same features (security, decentralization, permissionless) or the market doesn't believe they do. Also the savings with PoS are not passed to the users of the cryptocurrency, but to the stakers, or big holders of the cryptocurrency. How do we even know, that these people will spend the money they make using some more enviromentally friendly way? Maybe they just buy lambos with the money and fly around with private jets. Mining is quite small amount of the total transacted amount of BTC daily, and people are willing to pay the cost. If you want to replace Bitcoin with some more enviromentally friendly thing, you have to offer the same capabilities (or better). PoS coins fail to deliver this.
    - New_California 5y ago
      I believe in free market capitalism and you are incorrect. Please see my recent comments history for the "why PoW".
    - noxer 5y ago
      PoS is not the successor of PoW. FBA consensus is. PoS is and always was just a adjusted new version of same idea that only removed the energy problem. The comparison between PoW and PoS is a useless distraction. Its like comparing diesel ICEs with gas ICEs ignoring EVs completely. >and people are willing to pay the cost. No they are not. BTC runs on the block reward not on the fees. Without block reward the average Tx fee would be like 150 USD. (Not accounting for the fact that this would significantly drop the number of Tx which would then raise the cost for the rest of the transaction even higher.)
UltraViolence 5y ago
You can always dream, of course, but it ain't gonna happen. Crypto's, especially Bitcoin, are too enshrined in the financial world to be banned in the West.
pid-1 5y ago
I won't downplay the environmental consequences of PoW, but the actual reason so many governments are speeding the push against crypto might be related to a future of high inflation and high gov debt. It would be the perfect storm for mainstream crypto adoption.
- eli 5y ago
  I sincerely think the main motivation is to protect people from losing too much when the bubble pops.
  - roenxi 5y ago
    The bubble has been ongoing for a decade now. I suppose the challenge will be what is the line in the sand where it isn't a bubble? There isn't a lot of good evidence it is in a bubble. This thing also poses a real threat to SWIFT and anyone trying to put together a successor to SWIFT. The US has been weaponising international currency transfers for a while now, and China would be facing problems controlling capital flows if people could just send money internationally without much consequence. There are good, selfish, reasons for why governments would intervene.
- mn678 5y ago
  Nonsense. Why would any sane person move a large part of their assets into something as volatile as crypto? If you want to protect yourself against inflation, buy real estate or equities if your time horizon is long enough. Even fixed income once rates are a bit better. But for the average person please stay clear of crypto!
  - pskiba 5y ago
    If your time horizon is long enough, volatility shouldn't matter. Historically speaking Bitcoin is getting less volatile with every market cycle. I would not be surprised if in the future its volatility is comparable to the S&P500. Why would any sane person invest in real estate? You have maintenance costs, property taxes, it's not liquid and you can go years with little growth. Not to mention if your area see's hard economic times (i.e. Detroit), the chance of a rebound is slim.
basisword 5y ago
Shall we just ban everything volatile and/or that uses more energy than you personally find acceptable? Or anything that isn’t profitable for an arbitrary number of its users? I don’t particularly care about cryptocurrency but seeing bandwagon arguments like this at the top of HN threads is frustrating.
Offpics 5y ago
You should educate yourself. Energy consumption is an old myth and cryptocurrency pushes a lot of innovations in this field. There is a great documentary on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-7dMVcVWgc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-7dMVcVWgc.
- avianlyric 5y ago
  Energy is a zero sum game. Every watt you use for crypto mining is a watt not used for something more productive. Every watt of renewable power generated to power a crypto miner, is a watt not being used to reduce the use of non-renewables in the wider energy grid. I don’t care if your crypto gear is hooked up to a dedicated hydro plant, I care that the hydroplant is not connected to the wider grid and shutting down gas fired power stations.
  - cortic 5y ago
    So you are against investment in renewables. That is not as progressive as you think.
    - jhgb 5y ago
      Clearly he thinks that investments in renewables are a good thing, since those would also "reduce the use of non-renewables in the wider energy grid". So I'm puzzled why you'd think what you just wrote.
      - cortic 5y ago
        "Every watt of renewable power generated to power a crypto miner," IS investment in renewable energy.. which he would rather was not invested in renewable energy. I don't see any other way to interpret that, unless you think that paying monies for renewables is somehow not 'investing' in renewables.
        jhgb 5y ago
        > "Every watt of renewable power generated to power a crypto miner," IS investment in renewable energy Yes, that is true... > which he would rather was not invested in renewable energy ...no, he would have used the generated electricity for something more useful, NOT make it so that it isn't generated in the first place.
Graffur 5y ago
Yours is the top comment on this thread and it's a bit surprising. When you say less than 5%, what are you talk about? Can you point to any sources that back that up?
- ceilingcorner 5y ago
  HN has a well known hatred for anything crypto. I’m not really sure why, to be honest. Very odd that an authoritarian action by an extremely centralized government is being applauded on here.
  - salawat 5y ago
    You have not been looking hard if you haven't the crypto fawns here.
    - ceilingcorner 5y ago
      No, actually this has been a known thing for years. There have even been topics asking why HN hates crypto so much, which appear every six months or so.
      - Jensson 5y ago
        Every crypto thread has lots of crypto lovers and lots of crypto haters. If you only see the hater then you are probably a lover.
      - Applejinx 5y ago
        I'm thinking the answer to such topics would be 'HN has large numbers of poster who are either smart and ethical, or smart, unethical, and not convinced the scam of crypto is safe to work on people for your personal gain'. With China turning against bitcoin (regardless of their motivation), the latter category has even more reason to think cryptocurrency is a lousy way to fleece people for your personal gain. You don't have to be ethical to be against crypto, you can be a scammer yourself and simply be unsatisfied with the quality of the exploit being proposed. "There is no future in this" is a fine reason to be against a thing even if you have no ethical qualms about exploiting people's foolishness. You have to be able to build a plausible case for why somebody ought to buy into it, and that just got observably harder.
tuesdayrain 5y ago
> The amount of people making a profit from it is less than 5% I find it amusing how casually you just made up a statistic and used it as justification to ban something. Here's an actual statistic: 100% of people who held Bitcoin for longer than 4 years are up on their investment. edit: Lots of downvotes for an easily verifiable fact. Anyone can look at the BTC chart and see that there is no 4 year span where the price ends up lower than it was at the start.
- ricardobeat 5y ago
  Even more amusing to call what is supposed to be a currency, an “investment”.
  - tuesdayrain 5y ago
    Nitpicking based on your definition of "investment" isn't really a dig at Bitcoin. I would argue that even fiat currencies are often used as investments to hedge against various types of risks. Bitcoin is not "supposed" to be anything, it's just a technology that has different uses for different people. Something that outperforms a majority of investments is certainly an investment to anyone who isn't gatekeeping.
- rspeele 5y ago
  95% is clearly a number pulled out of thin air, but it is likely that most people have not realized a profit from Bitcoin. Where would the money come from? The only way for a majority of investors to realize a (small) gain is for the minority to pay for it in a (larger) loss. And that's for a zero-sum game. In Bitcoin, since running the system involves continuously consuming real world value in the form of billions of dollars worth of energy per year, it's most likely that the majority of participants end up at a loss. Just imagine everybody in the world buys as much Bitcoin as they can afford, immediately. How much richer are we all, in aggregate, at the end of the day?
- czl 5y ago
  Madoff ran his scheme for decades. Till the day it fell apart 100% of his clients were up on their investments. They also learned that when you multiply decades of fantastic returns by a single zero your outcome is zero. Millions can be wrong for decades. If history teaches anything is has to be this.
arnold_palmur 5y ago
I know HN's sentiment around cryptocurrency, regardless, how is this the top comment in this thread?
selfhoster11 5y ago
I am not fine with having every one of my transactions being 100% transparent to my government. Because that's the only alternative to Bitcoin^W cryptocurrency, given that real cash is on its deathbed for some reason. Bitcoin may very transparent, but other currencies like Monero are much better in that regard. As to why >100% transparency is a desirable property, see recent regime changes and imagine how easy it would be to persecute the friends of the old regime by simply looking at their purchase history. Edit:
- scrose 5y ago
  Huh? Bitcoin records every transaction you make on a public ledger that anyone in the world can view. Anyone who knows your wallet address can track your purchases
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    Bitcoin does, but it's not the only blockchain currency around. Some have more robust privacy guarantees. As far as I can tell, this rule in China bans those too.
- FabHK 5y ago
  I'd say that cash transactions are less transparent than BTC's public ledger.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    Monero and similar currencies are available for those interested.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    I'm not saying I agree, but GP didn't say the converse - the framing was 'cash is going ['on its deathbed'], and I'm not happy with the mainstream replacements'.
    - FabHK 5y ago
netcan 5y ago
Bitcoin wanted to be the world's currency, with a techno goldbug understanding of what money is. That shades a lot of what we think of as crypto. There are a lot of different versions of the idea though. A lot of variety exists in crypto now, and very little is deterministic. I don't want to rule out the positive possibilities, and outlawing is broad brush. The PCB grunted at crypto here. We can do That said, the variety of possibilities also creates danger. Underregulated stable coins, for example, get very sketchy once you reach a certain size. If they keep growing, start embellished with dolaralized interest payments and such.... you now have a rogue banking system issuing its own US dollars. Good luck with that. The scale of fraud, and treacherously borderline fraud can be epic. I don't think we should downplay these. OTOH, this is true of every part of the financial sector. Lets not pretend the current way the financial sector is structured isn't riddled with the kinds of problems crypto poses. A country with some clever CB people, even a small one, should be bold and bring crypto into the pax. There's a lot you can do with a designed-4-a-purpose currency, and crypto is a very viable way to do many things. Bitcoin's origins, and much of crypto's present, is secrecy oriented. But, it's actually more natural to design a cryptocurrency for transparency. That's useful in a lot of circumstances. Take time to understand wtf is going on and regulate, ban or encourage specific things for specific reasons. There's a lot to be gained, not just a lot to be lost. A properly regulated stable coin might be a great idea. Keynes has made a comeback during the pandemic, and people are relearning war era ideas about controlling inflation. In that context and considering 2021's low interest rates, national savings bonds will probably soon be considered in various places. You don't need crypto to do this, but it does give you more flexibility in how you do it.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  > with a techno goldbug understanding of what money is I think this isn't emphasized enough. With existing fiat money I have some degree of democratic control over monetary policy. With BTC, critical monetary policy was set by one person and if that monetary policy ever changes it will be decided by a combination of engineers and mining conglomerates. Given how critical these policies are and how ideologically focused many of the non-speculators are, I am worried about growing systems with disastrous policy consequences.
adventured 5y ago
I'm not a cryptophile, cryptobug or whatever crypto nuts are called, however I do like to see HN turning so extremely negative on crypto. A few years ago such negative sentiment about crypto was rare on HN, now it's common. Why is that interesting? Because popular sentiment (in the comments) on HN is very frequently wrong. HN is a tremendous resource for contrarian purposes.
ChrisRR 5y ago
Exactly. It's literally just burning the world's resources just for the modern equivalent of beanie babies For those who genuinely want decentralised currency, there's so many more efficient options
- FabHK 5y ago
  "imagine if keeping your car idling 24/7 produced solved Sudokus you could trade for heroin" https://twitter.com/Theophite/status/1030225104234373121 https://twitter.com/Theophite/status/1030225104234373121
  - zionic 5y ago
    I traded mine for ~50% of my house.
macinjosh 5y ago
If you care so much about climate change have you completely stopped flying? Have you been in a car lately? The energy consumption from those activities is _beyond unacceptable_. I don't fly in airplanes but I use crypto. So why should you get to choose to do some activities that blast CO2 directly into the atmosphere but I can't? It is a disgusting, authoritarian ideology you have. Besides that crypto can run on solar. Airplanes cannot. So I propose we ban airplanes. /s The reality is you just don't like the politics behind the crypto movement. The climate is just a convenient bludgeon for you.
- chinathrow 5y ago
  > If you care so much about climate change have you completely stopped flying? Have you been in a car lately? Isn't this whataboutism? A is not so bad because you know, B does it too.
New_California 5y ago
Do you really want to ban holding 12 words in your head? Or maybe you meant private keys to remain legal but let's ban cryptographic signatures? What exactly do you want to make illegal?
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  The law works fine without needing to be fully general at the base level. This is the same "illegal number" problem that tech people like to worry about but which isn't actually a problem. The law can distinguish between a private key extracted from some system and an arbitrary pair of prime numbers just fine.
- barneygale 5y ago
  This is an american-centric view of the law; elsewhere in the world (including europe) judges don't reach silly decisions because a law was imperfectly drafted.
billycorben2 5y ago
It blows my mind that a community dedicated to technology would support this.
- JJseiko 5y ago
  agreed!!!
rastafang 5y ago
I don't know where you got that 5% from but either way, you sound like you fell in the 95%.
DebtDeflation 5y ago
>Crypto as a tech to serve something different is totally fine of course. Like what, NFTs for farts? Near as I can tell, the other main use cases for crypto - smart contracts, supply chain provenance tracking, and securities settlement processing really haven't panned out. Others have pointed out why it's not working as a currency. Literally all we have left is a vehicle for speculation.
- singularity2001 5y ago
  maybe PoS powered micro payment in the browser instead of ads... one day in utopia
barrenko 5y ago
All money is highly volatile, but the goverments and the military work hard to hide that. That's why we have the occasional bubble where banks lose everything we ever made.
zeven7 5y ago
What do you actually want Western nations to ban? The purchase and sale of digital currencies?? What if a nation adopts Bitcoin as its national currency? You can no longer buy and sell another nation's currency? What if you want to visit that country? (The what ifs will not end at these few examples.) I don't clearly see what you would actually propose banning. My opinion is it's technology, an idea, and that shouldn't be banned.
- tommiegannert 5y ago
  First we should ban giftcards. I never understood the idea of using my versatile, national, currency to buy a restricted, local, currency. Esp. without getting a discount for the risk I take.
  - zeven7 5y ago
    You do have a point there
drukenemo 5y ago
The hate for crypto in HN is just tiring.
toomanydoubts 5y ago
Because PoW is the only consensus protocol, right? Because the amount of people making money from fiat printing is larger than 5%, right?
lmilcin 5y ago
I think your conclusions are wrong even if I agree that bitcoin is overall bad for humanity. Just because one crypto currency is like that doesn't mean there cannot be another decentralized crypto currency that is better. Just because your or mine imagination does not reach there doesn't mean there can't be somebody that can figure it out.

flenserboy 5y ago

So you'd rather a system where TPTB get to fudge the books as they see fit, impose taxes via intentional inflation, and keep tabs on your every transaction? Interesting.

epgui 5y ago
That’s not exactly how it works.
- atatatat 5y ago
  Regardless of law, intent, etc, this is how it functionally ends up happening, a nonzero amount of the time.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    That's what ends up happening when an asset becomes economically meaningful. Crypto is still a joke to global economy, but on the off chance it gains mainstream adoption, it'll have the same kind of regulations, taxation and fraud attached to it.
    - selfhoster11 5y ago
      Except crypto is less firmly anchored in the real world than in the digital realm. It's fundamentally harder to regulate it than a physical currency, which needs specialist equipment to generate.
      - TeMPOraL 5y ago
        Money as a concept is even less anchored in the real world. So is the law. The two have been dancing together since first human society. We have thousands of years of experience with this, and cryptocurrencies don't introduce anything new here, despite what some advocates may think. As long as you can use something - be it a coin, a bill, a SWIFT transfer, a blockchain transaction or a Nuka-Cola bottle cap - to pay someone for something, and a third party would be able to identify it as a purchase, same things will happen. A criminal will be able to take your purchasing power and use it themselves. A taxman will be able to collect a percentage of your trade, and men with guns will take you in front of a judge if you refuse. The manifestation of value doesn't matter, because money isn't a thing, it's a shared belief.
        selfhoster11 5y ago
        While I agree, all of the ways you mentioned to pay for something are fundamentally something that requires infrastructure to create (industrial, banking, or a mint), and has a physical anchor that can be plucked from you by physical force (including the SWIFT transfer - though usually bank's prefer to comply than shut themselves down). A blockchain based currency will exist as long as there's someone with a sufficiently powerful computing device connected to a sufficiently low-risk network that can be accessed legally or illicitly. A blockchain wallet will exist and be yours alone as long as you keep the password in your brain, never write it down, and resist attempts to extract it from you. This means that, in comparison to conventional currency (including Nuka-Cola caps), a blockchain economy is much easier to operate undercover when it's outlawed.
- macinjosh 5y ago
  Yes, that is exactly how it works.
- the_third_wave 5y ago
  Not exactly, that is true - it is rather hard to describe international trade in 140 characters-or-less. It can not be denied that there is a lot of truth to the statement though even if it does not describe all factors of influence: > a system where TPTB get to fudge the books as they see fit This depends on whether the media are in to the party or not but when they are this is mostly true. > impose taxes via intentional inflation This is a fact in those countries which have control over their own currency. > and keep tabs on your every transaction This is a fact and one of the driving forces behind the "cashless society".
  - epgui 5y ago
    1) Central banks aren’t regulated by the media. 2) The expansion of the money supply is not necessarily inflationary. 3) Inflation is very different from taxation: if you hold cash you’re supposed to circulate it, either by spending it or by investing it. Inflation disincentivizes cash-hoarding, and also deflated the value of any debt you might have.
    - the_third_wave 5y ago
      1) ...but I can only assume you realise they are sensitive to political pressure which again derives from public opinion which is controlled by the media... 2) ...but it generally is just that, inflationary. The fact that there can be exceptions to the rule does not make the rule less valid. 3) ...and inflation is also used by governments to provide funds (by "printing money" in some way or other, the actual implementation depends on how the currency is regulated) which otherwise would be provided through taxation, leading to inflation and as such reducing tax payer's purchasing power - just like taxation does.
      - epgui 5y ago
        1) central bank loss of independence is one of the hallmark of failed central banks. I hardly think it's reasonable to think that all central banks are dysfunctional in such a way: while these institutions can and do break down, they are not designed to break down in this way. You're free to argue whether a given central bank is or is not sufficiently independent, but that's a more specific problem than the over-generalization made here. 2) it's not an exception to the rule at all. The rule for inflation doesn't mention how much money exists, it only mentions how much money circulates. More money existing does not necessarily mean more money circulating (eg.: money tends to concentrate in certain places for various reasons, rather than diffusing freely). 3) Sure, but two things that have similar features are not always similar in essence or nature. Swords and needles are both sharp, but you wouldn't argue that they're essentially the same. In fact in your own example, taxation for certain purposes could be either inflationary or deflationary (eg.: austerity measures, including those that involve taxation, are deflationary by design).

Factorium 5y ago

Europe is currently facing electricity and chip shortages. Banning crypto in the EU would be an acceptable measure for addressing that.

nix23 5y ago
Or banning useless iot devices in cars fridges and toasters would be an even more acceptable measure. BTW the chip shortage has nothing todo with mining, but if you believe that lie Nvidia and AMD tells you since 5 years...well then that's to bad.
noxer 5y ago
Only PoW cryptos need extensive electricity and hardware. Its completely absurd to ban crypto. Thats like if you would ban all motorized vehicles to get rid of coal blasting diesel trucks without catalytic converter. Needless to say that its also technically impossible to ban crypto. Its like banning torrents or even harder and we all know torrent was attacked heavily in the past but it did not go away.
- jeremyjh 5y ago
  If its banned then not only can government shutdown large mining operations but government resources can be spent on 51% attacks to discredit them.
  - noxer 5y ago
    Literally irrelevant for any non-PoW coin out there aka the majority of all coins.
    - jeremyjh 5y ago
      The majority in terms of number of altcoins that have a forum post? Or majority in terms of converted USD market cap?
    - noxer 5y ago
      Does it matter? Its basically just bitcoin that makes up almost all of PoW.

guilhas 5y ago

So don't use it duh

deepsun 5y ago
That's right, but those who are invested in crypto really want everyone to invest too.
- zeven7 5y ago
  That's true for all types of investors
  - deepsun 5y ago
    No, why? I have investments in a couple of private startups. I definitely care who other investors are, and I don't want them to take money from bad guys.
    - zeven7 5y ago
      Ok, maybe "many investors in most publicly traded assets".
paulgb 5y ago
It’s an externalities problem. I can not use it, but I can’t opt out of the climate impact. (Save the “it’s not really that bad” arguments, I’ve heard all the industry’s gaslighting, but their claims don’t match reality)
- floatboth 5y ago
  Yep, you also can't opt out of the impact on the semiconductor market, the e-waste production (kinda part of the climate too), the ransomware explosion, the wider economic consequences of LITERAL BILLION DOLLAR PONZI SCHEMES…
- guilhas 5y ago

0FreedomInUSA 5y ago

Please educate yourself harder before making these ignorant statements, unless you have a motive behind

mettamage 5y ago
Instead of downvoting I decided to write this comment. I don't agree with the sentiment of the parent either, but: * Assume the best interpretation of a comment [1]. * Keep it on topic * Don't attack the person, also not implicitly (e.g. "please educate yourself", don't say that) Reread: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html One can claim many things about the parent comment. But it's all directed to the topic at hand. Cheers! [1] The best interpretation I can come up with is: yes the energy issue with crypto/bitcoin are an actual problem to solve. Yes, using crypto might be a good use-case in certain situations. While I don't believe the profit claim (there's no source), I can't disprove it either. So it poses an interesting question as to whether that's true.
- 0FreedomInUSA 5y ago
  Got it, will make better comments next time
  - datavirtue 5y ago
    Just be yourself.
    - 0FreedomInUSA 5y ago
      yep, i meant my next comments on yc will try to provide better arguments and/or concrete proofs bringing value to the discussions

johanneskanybal 5y ago

It's ok to not like crypto but how about sticking to the truth? * There's many things much more volatile than crypto, the biggest markets being vix if you're a hedgefund and pretty much all derivates like options if you're a gambling man. btc in particular is only 2x from many traditional markets: https://charts.woobull.com/bitcoin-volatility-vs-other-assets/ https://charts.woobull.com/bitcoin-volatility-vs-other-asset... * The second part of only 5% making a profit is made up and makes no sense. There's not a lot of days since it's inception where you could buy and hold some btc and it wouldn't be more worth later on. Sure if you fomo at a local top and panic sell the bottom you can get burned but it's an easy trade my guess would be more like 80% but like your number it's also just made up. * Energy consumption you need to put it into relation of comparable resources, of course if you're determined it's worthless it's hard to justify any cost even if it's minor in comparison but that's a personal opinion of yours and many disagree.

moepstar 5y ago
I also wonder when people voicing environmental concerns will accept that there's a whole slew of newer Proof-of-stake blockchains that aren't using that much energy. One example being Algorand which is carbon neutral: https://www.algorand.com/resources/blog/how-algorand-offsets-carbon-footprint https://www.algorand.com/resources/blog/how-algorand-offsets... Oh and speaking of usage of crypto in China - i wonder how that affects VET / VeChain which is, largely, used by Walmart China to track their wares: https://seevechain.com/contracts https://seevechain.com/contracts https://www.vechain.com/ https://www.vechain.com/
sobellian 5y ago
One might disagree on what exactly is a comparable resource. A digital currency could just as well store everyone's balance in a giant SQL database. In exchange for utter centralization the energy consumption drops to essentially zero. IIUC a PoS coin will also have much smaller energy consumption. So we have a situation where a collection of people are using huge, huge amounts of energy to speculate not only on digital assets, but on decentralized PoW digital assets.
- 5y ago

Pmop 5y ago

You probably live in the first world and had never to worry about inflation or politicians/bureaucrats just straight destroying the fiat currency and your wealth in the process. That's why crypto sounds so "wasteful" to you. BTW, if we give the government the power to judge what is a waste of energy and what's not, I can assure you life would be 100% more miserable, to everyone.

ulfw 5y ago
There's actual real fiat currencies for that. The USD, the EUR, the YEN, the CHF... plenty of choices that have been used for decades in the developing world. I'd much rather have my money in a stable-ish fiat currency like those than in some Bitcoin that goes up and down 10% at will or by Elon-tweet. In fact some countries, e.g. Kosovo and Montenegro, in the Balkans, use the euro as a de facto domestic currency since 2002, even though they have no agreements with the EU.
dmytrish 5y ago
Crypto"currencies" are not the only way to store value when an official currency is failing: people who want their savings preserved can get USD, EUR, gold. Crypto *is* volatile and wasteful compared to any of those.
- MillenialMan 5y ago
  All of those things can be tracked and confiscated - crypto is a lot harder. It's volatile, but it's significantly more secure against state actors.
  - otterley 5y ago
    Yes, and they should be, in order to deter and punish crime.
    - ghostwriter 5y ago
      who defines what a crime is? Isn't it the same government that at some point decides to confiscate your assets? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulak

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bmitc 5y ago

> energy consumption is beyond acceptable Do you have any resources or studies to describe this more? I have really struggled to find actually nuanced discussions and unbiased sources for this. It’s all at the extremes of it’s either the worst thing ever to not a problem at all. I’d also be interested in comparisons to energy usage of say servers that run Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc.

whoisjohnkid 5y ago
A lot of the energy consumption argument against bitcoin stems from this study [1]. Some have pointed out flaws in the study that over inflate the consumption numbers. This has sparked various indexes that have tried to measure the consumption in an unbiased way [2]. Additional studies [3] have shown that 39% of bitcoin miners are using renewables. The energy consumption argument has led some to investigate the energy consumption of other assets such as gold with some estimating the energy requirements for gold to be 50x that of mining bitcoin [4]. Whenever energy consumption of other assets are pointed out to be higher than bitcoin the debate then shifts to utility; e.g it’s ok if Y consumes X energy because Y provides Z to society. Some bitcoin miners are finding interesting way to utilize the heat produced by their mining equipment [5]. And some say that bitcoin mining can help reduce the cost of producing new green energy infrastructure since excess power that would’ve been wasted could be used for bitcoin mining to offset costs. I agree with you that it is tough to find unbiased info on the subject. - [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328581842_Bitcoin_emissions_alone_could_push_global_warming_above_2C https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328581842_Bitcoin_e... - [2] https://cbeci.org/ https://cbeci.org/ - [3] https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2021-ccaf-3rd-global-cryptoasset-benchmarking-study.pdf https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2021-cc... - [4] https://simon.medium.com/bitcoin-and-pollution-the-definitive-answer-a010b0826f2a https://simon.medium.com/bitcoin-and-pollution-the-definitiv... - [5] https://braiins.com/blog/green-innovation-in-bitcoin-mining-recycling-asic-heat https://braiins.com/blog/green-innovation-in-bitcoin-mining-...
- bmitc 5y ago
  Thank you for the references!

hacknews20 5y ago

“Nothing more volatile…” erm energy prices in the UK just jumped 70% and it’s not to do with crypto, co2 supply shrank to levels never seen before again nothing to do with crypto both of which affect whole populations. Try to avoid crypto hyperbole. Lastly, I don’t know anybody invested in crypto that hasn’t made money, so anecdotally that indicates the number is much higher than 5%.

ddorian43 5y ago
> Lastly, I don’t know anybody invested in crypto that hasn’t made money, so anecdotally that indicates the number is much higher than 5%. You make money when you exit and sell the asset for cash. Have they sold ?
- jhgb 5y ago
  I thought this "asset" was supposed to replace cash. Why would you "sell it for cash"? Other than an equivalent for selling US dollars for Euros.
  - ddorian43 5y ago
    > I thought this "asset" was supposed to replace cash. When you can buy food, house/rent and the doctor accepts bitcoins it will become cash.
    - jhgb 5y ago
      That's the massive problem with decentralized "currencies". Even if the Colombian peso is used by 0.6% of people in the world, it's still a currency because lots of people can pay with it in almost all their interactions with the economy. If a decentralized global "currency" is used by 0.6% of people, it's not a currency because almost nobody around you accepts it. Even at 6% it would not be a currency. Maybe at 60%, but how do you get there from 0.6% in the first place?
    - ryanlol 5y ago
      That’s great, the concierge company I work with handles all of these things and accepts bitcoin.

trident5000 5y ago

Define volatile. The only currency that has stood the test of time is gold, a private currency. Every fiat currency in history has failed. Probably because heads of state like to print it to solve their short term problems essentially robbing everyone with an inflation tax. I dont call that stable or just. I work and save and expect my currency to hold up and not be abused which is not happening currently. Edit: HN must be the worst platform in existence to debate. I have about 700 karma and cant comment more than 3 times on this thread. Your rules are not helping discussion or clearing clutter, they're just really annoying. Retrac: no ive hit a limit and cant respond anymore on the whole thread even with only a few comments.

FabHK 5y ago
> Every fiat currency in history has failed. That's funny. The extant fiat currencies haven't failed. So, the only ones that have failed... are the failed ones. And those have failed, 100%, indeed.
- nickthemagicman 5y ago
  What's the percentage of failed to non-failed? Are we pushing close to 100% ?
- shapefrog 5y ago
  Actually all the euro area currencies that were removed from circulation in exchange for euros; franc, deutchmark, lira etc. did not fail at all. Thus, not every currency has failed, although it could be argued that they still exist in a 'shadow' form, thus have not yet existed to the end of the infinite timeline. Either way every failed currency has indeed failed, thus every currency in the future that fails will also be considered to be a failure, maintaining the 100% record for failure.
- pbaka 5y ago
  But which one hasn't failed ? All of Europe's have. All of Asia's have. The Euro is too new. Only the dollar arguably has endured the last 150 years, depending on how you consider its three redefinition with the foundation of the Fed system, then Bretton Woods and then with the abandonment of the gold standard..

mypastself 5y ago

There is plenty of profit being made from selling hardware and software services in the space. Also, are you suggesting banning all assets whose volatility crosses a certain threshold? As for energy consumption, does this also apply to Proof of Stake networks?

vnchr 5y ago
Only those that challenge existing economic power structures.
- jhgb 5y ago
  > challenge existing economic power structures That's quite a polite way of saying "facilitate tax evasion".
  - macinjosh 5y ago
    That is a feature, not a bug.
- mypastself 5y ago
  I’m giving the parent comment the benefit of the doubt that they’re not an agent working to preserve the current financial system, at least not deliberately. Especially since their sentiment is so frequently expressed on these boards, it is bordering on consensus.
- plebianRube 5y ago
  This hits a little too close to truth.

floatboth 5y ago

There's pretty much nothing different to serve with bitcoin-style "public blockchain" tech. Nothing needs to be trustless, and nothing would securely work as trustless without currency-style incentives (why namecoin is a coin, etc.). (And "private blockchain" is just a term based on marketing hype tied to bitcoin, there's no new tech there, that fundamentally just means incorporating the same concepts as Git.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCHab0dNnj4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCHab0dNnj4

hgibbs 5y ago

Is what you say less true of traditional exchanges? Maybe it is, but I haven't seen someone crunch the numbers - I'd be happy to read a comparison to that effect.

noxer 5y ago

Only PoW cryptos need extensive electricity and hardware. Dont make crypto just bitcoins. If you really want to help make a dent in the energy consumption then people need to move away from PoW coins not from crypto in general.

floatboth 5y ago
How exactly do you incentivize anyone ever to abandon PoW coins rather than just adding non-PoW on the side? How exactly do you think you could dethrone Bitcoin, overcoming its gigantic first-mover advantage? I believe BTC could only come down with the rest of that "economy".
- spottybanana 5y ago
  If you believe in free market capitalism, people should migrate from PoW to PoS coins, because PoS coins provide the same features with less expenses. In practice this won't happen, because PoS coins don't deliver the same features (security, decentralization, permissionless) or the market doesn't believe they do. Also the savings with PoS are not passed to the users of the cryptocurrency, but to the stakers, or big holders of the cryptocurrency. How do we even know, that these people will spend the money they make using some more enviromentally friendly way? Maybe they just buy lambos with the money and fly around with private jets. Mining is quite small amount of the total transacted amount of BTC daily, and people are willing to pay the cost. If you want to replace Bitcoin with some more enviromentally friendly thing, you have to offer the same capabilities (or better). PoS coins fail to deliver this.
  - New_California 5y ago
    I believe in free market capitalism and you are incorrect. Please see my recent comments history for the "why PoW".
  - noxer 5y ago
    PoS is not the successor of PoW. FBA consensus is. PoS is and always was just a adjusted new version of same idea that only removed the energy problem. The comparison between PoW and PoS is a useless distraction. Its like comparing diesel ICEs with gas ICEs ignoring EVs completely. >and people are willing to pay the cost. No they are not. BTC runs on the block reward not on the fees. Without block reward the average Tx fee would be like 150 USD. (Not accounting for the fact that this would significantly drop the number of Tx which would then raise the cost for the rest of the transaction even higher.)

UltraViolence 5y ago

You can always dream, of course, but it ain't gonna happen. Crypto's, especially Bitcoin, are too enshrined in the financial world to be banned in the West.

pid-1 5y ago

I won't downplay the environmental consequences of PoW, but the actual reason so many governments are speeding the push against crypto might be related to a future of high inflation and high gov debt. It would be the perfect storm for mainstream crypto adoption.

eli 5y ago
I sincerely think the main motivation is to protect people from losing too much when the bubble pops.
- roenxi 5y ago
  The bubble has been ongoing for a decade now. I suppose the challenge will be what is the line in the sand where it isn't a bubble? There isn't a lot of good evidence it is in a bubble. This thing also poses a real threat to SWIFT and anyone trying to put together a successor to SWIFT. The US has been weaponising international currency transfers for a while now, and China would be facing problems controlling capital flows if people could just send money internationally without much consequence. There are good, selfish, reasons for why governments would intervene.
mn678 5y ago
Nonsense. Why would any sane person move a large part of their assets into something as volatile as crypto? If you want to protect yourself against inflation, buy real estate or equities if your time horizon is long enough. Even fixed income once rates are a bit better. But for the average person please stay clear of crypto!
- pskiba 5y ago
  If your time horizon is long enough, volatility shouldn't matter. Historically speaking Bitcoin is getting less volatile with every market cycle. I would not be surprised if in the future its volatility is comparable to the S&P500. Why would any sane person invest in real estate? You have maintenance costs, property taxes, it's not liquid and you can go years with little growth. Not to mention if your area see's hard economic times (i.e. Detroit), the chance of a rebound is slim.

basisword 5y ago

Shall we just ban everything volatile and/or that uses more energy than you personally find acceptable? Or anything that isn’t profitable for an arbitrary number of its users? I don’t particularly care about cryptocurrency but seeing bandwagon arguments like this at the top of HN threads is frustrating.

Offpics 5y ago

You should educate yourself. Energy consumption is an old myth and cryptocurrency pushes a lot of innovations in this field. There is a great documentary on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-7dMVcVWgc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-7dMVcVWgc.

avianlyric 5y ago
Energy is a zero sum game. Every watt you use for crypto mining is a watt not used for something more productive. Every watt of renewable power generated to power a crypto miner, is a watt not being used to reduce the use of non-renewables in the wider energy grid. I don’t care if your crypto gear is hooked up to a dedicated hydro plant, I care that the hydroplant is not connected to the wider grid and shutting down gas fired power stations.
- cortic 5y ago
  So you are against investment in renewables. That is not as progressive as you think.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    Clearly he thinks that investments in renewables are a good thing, since those would also "reduce the use of non-renewables in the wider energy grid". So I'm puzzled why you'd think what you just wrote.
    - cortic 5y ago
      "Every watt of renewable power generated to power a crypto miner," IS investment in renewable energy.. which he would rather was not invested in renewable energy. I don't see any other way to interpret that, unless you think that paying monies for renewables is somehow not 'investing' in renewables.
      - jhgb 5y ago
        > "Every watt of renewable power generated to power a crypto miner," IS investment in renewable energy Yes, that is true... > which he would rather was not invested in renewable energy ...no, he would have used the generated electricity for something more useful, NOT make it so that it isn't generated in the first place.

Graffur 5y ago

Yours is the top comment on this thread and it's a bit surprising. When you say less than 5%, what are you talk about? Can you point to any sources that back that up?

ceilingcorner 5y ago
HN has a well known hatred for anything crypto. I’m not really sure why, to be honest. Very odd that an authoritarian action by an extremely centralized government is being applauded on here.
- salawat 5y ago
  You have not been looking hard if you haven't the crypto fawns here.
  - ceilingcorner 5y ago
    No, actually this has been a known thing for years. There have even been topics asking why HN hates crypto so much, which appear every six months or so.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      Every crypto thread has lots of crypto lovers and lots of crypto haters. If you only see the hater then you are probably a lover.
    - Applejinx 5y ago
      I'm thinking the answer to such topics would be 'HN has large numbers of poster who are either smart and ethical, or smart, unethical, and not convinced the scam of crypto is safe to work on people for your personal gain'. With China turning against bitcoin (regardless of their motivation), the latter category has even more reason to think cryptocurrency is a lousy way to fleece people for your personal gain. You don't have to be ethical to be against crypto, you can be a scammer yourself and simply be unsatisfied with the quality of the exploit being proposed. "There is no future in this" is a fine reason to be against a thing even if you have no ethical qualms about exploiting people's foolishness. You have to be able to build a plausible case for why somebody ought to buy into it, and that just got observably harder.

tuesdayrain 5y ago

> The amount of people making a profit from it is less than 5% I find it amusing how casually you just made up a statistic and used it as justification to ban something. Here's an actual statistic: 100% of people who held Bitcoin for longer than 4 years are up on their investment. edit: Lots of downvotes for an easily verifiable fact. Anyone can look at the BTC chart and see that there is no 4 year span where the price ends up lower than it was at the start.

ricardobeat 5y ago
Even more amusing to call what is supposed to be a currency, an “investment”.
- tuesdayrain 5y ago
  Nitpicking based on your definition of "investment" isn't really a dig at Bitcoin. I would argue that even fiat currencies are often used as investments to hedge against various types of risks. Bitcoin is not "supposed" to be anything, it's just a technology that has different uses for different people. Something that outperforms a majority of investments is certainly an investment to anyone who isn't gatekeeping.
rspeele 5y ago
95% is clearly a number pulled out of thin air, but it is likely that most people have not realized a profit from Bitcoin. Where would the money come from? The only way for a majority of investors to realize a (small) gain is for the minority to pay for it in a (larger) loss. And that's for a zero-sum game. In Bitcoin, since running the system involves continuously consuming real world value in the form of billions of dollars worth of energy per year, it's most likely that the majority of participants end up at a loss. Just imagine everybody in the world buys as much Bitcoin as they can afford, immediately. How much richer are we all, in aggregate, at the end of the day?
czl 5y ago
Madoff ran his scheme for decades. Till the day it fell apart 100% of his clients were up on their investments. They also learned that when you multiply decades of fantastic returns by a single zero your outcome is zero. Millions can be wrong for decades. If history teaches anything is has to be this.

arnold_palmur 5y ago

I know HN's sentiment around cryptocurrency, regardless, how is this the top comment in this thread?

selfhoster11 5y ago

I am not fine with having every one of my transactions being 100% transparent to my government. Because that's the only alternative to Bitcoin^W cryptocurrency, given that real cash is on its deathbed for some reason. Bitcoin may very transparent, but other currencies like Monero are much better in that regard. As to why >100% transparency is a desirable property, see recent regime changes and imagine how easy it would be to persecute the friends of the old regime by simply looking at their purchase history. Edit:

scrose 5y ago
Huh? Bitcoin records every transaction you make on a public ledger that anyone in the world can view. Anyone who knows your wallet address can track your purchases
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  Bitcoin does, but it's not the only blockchain currency around. Some have more robust privacy guarantees. As far as I can tell, this rule in China bans those too.
FabHK 5y ago
I'd say that cash transactions are less transparent than BTC's public ledger.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  Monero and similar currencies are available for those interested.
- OJFord 5y ago
  I'm not saying I agree, but GP didn't say the converse - the framing was 'cash is going ['on its deathbed'], and I'm not happy with the mainstream replacements'.
  - FabHK 5y ago

netcan 5y ago

Bitcoin wanted to be the world's currency, with a techno goldbug understanding of what money is. That shades a lot of what we think of as crypto. There are a lot of different versions of the idea though. A lot of variety exists in crypto now, and very little is deterministic. I don't want to rule out the positive possibilities, and outlawing is broad brush. The PCB grunted at crypto here. We can do That said, the variety of possibilities also creates danger. Underregulated stable coins, for example, get very sketchy once you reach a certain size. If they keep growing, start embellished with dolaralized interest payments and such.... you now have a rogue banking system issuing its own US dollars. Good luck with that. The scale of fraud, and treacherously borderline fraud can be epic. I don't think we should downplay these. OTOH, this is true of every part of the financial sector. Lets not pretend the current way the financial sector is structured isn't riddled with the kinds of problems crypto poses. A country with some clever CB people, even a small one, should be bold and bring crypto into the pax. There's a lot you can do with a designed-4-a-purpose currency, and crypto is a very viable way to do many things. Bitcoin's origins, and much of crypto's present, is secrecy oriented. But, it's actually more natural to design a cryptocurrency for transparency. That's useful in a lot of circumstances. Take time to understand wtf is going on and regulate, ban or encourage specific things for specific reasons. There's a lot to be gained, not just a lot to be lost. A properly regulated stable coin might be a great idea. Keynes has made a comeback during the pandemic, and people are relearning war era ideas about controlling inflation. In that context and considering 2021's low interest rates, national savings bonds will probably soon be considered in various places. You don't need crypto to do this, but it does give you more flexibility in how you do it.

UncleMeat 5y ago
> with a techno goldbug understanding of what money is I think this isn't emphasized enough. With existing fiat money I have some degree of democratic control over monetary policy. With BTC, critical monetary policy was set by one person and if that monetary policy ever changes it will be decided by a combination of engineers and mining conglomerates. Given how critical these policies are and how ideologically focused many of the non-speculators are, I am worried about growing systems with disastrous policy consequences.

adventured 5y ago

I'm not a cryptophile, cryptobug or whatever crypto nuts are called, however I do like to see HN turning so extremely negative on crypto. A few years ago such negative sentiment about crypto was rare on HN, now it's common. Why is that interesting? Because popular sentiment (in the comments) on HN is very frequently wrong. HN is a tremendous resource for contrarian purposes.

ChrisRR 5y ago

Exactly. It's literally just burning the world's resources just for the modern equivalent of beanie babies For those who genuinely want decentralised currency, there's so many more efficient options

FabHK 5y ago
"imagine if keeping your car idling 24/7 produced solved Sudokus you could trade for heroin" https://twitter.com/Theophite/status/1030225104234373121 https://twitter.com/Theophite/status/1030225104234373121
- zionic 5y ago
  I traded mine for ~50% of my house.

macinjosh 5y ago

If you care so much about climate change have you completely stopped flying? Have you been in a car lately? The energy consumption from those activities is _beyond unacceptable_. I don't fly in airplanes but I use crypto. So why should you get to choose to do some activities that blast CO2 directly into the atmosphere but I can't? It is a disgusting, authoritarian ideology you have. Besides that crypto can run on solar. Airplanes cannot. So I propose we ban airplanes. /s The reality is you just don't like the politics behind the crypto movement. The climate is just a convenient bludgeon for you.

chinathrow 5y ago
> If you care so much about climate change have you completely stopped flying? Have you been in a car lately? Isn't this whataboutism? A is not so bad because you know, B does it too.

New_California 5y ago

Do you really want to ban holding 12 words in your head? Or maybe you meant private keys to remain legal but let's ban cryptographic signatures? What exactly do you want to make illegal?

UncleMeat 5y ago
The law works fine without needing to be fully general at the base level. This is the same "illegal number" problem that tech people like to worry about but which isn't actually a problem. The law can distinguish between a private key extracted from some system and an arbitrary pair of prime numbers just fine.
barneygale 5y ago
This is an american-centric view of the law; elsewhere in the world (including europe) judges don't reach silly decisions because a law was imperfectly drafted.

billycorben2 5y ago

It blows my mind that a community dedicated to technology would support this.

JJseiko 5y ago
agreed!!!

rastafang 5y ago

I don't know where you got that 5% from but either way, you sound like you fell in the 95%.

DebtDeflation 5y ago

>Crypto as a tech to serve something different is totally fine of course. Like what, NFTs for farts? Near as I can tell, the other main use cases for crypto - smart contracts, supply chain provenance tracking, and securities settlement processing really haven't panned out. Others have pointed out why it's not working as a currency. Literally all we have left is a vehicle for speculation.

singularity2001 5y ago
maybe PoS powered micro payment in the browser instead of ads... one day in utopia

barrenko 5y ago

All money is highly volatile, but the goverments and the military work hard to hide that. That's why we have the occasional bubble where banks lose everything we ever made.

zeven7 5y ago

What do you actually want Western nations to ban? The purchase and sale of digital currencies?? What if a nation adopts Bitcoin as its national currency? You can no longer buy and sell another nation's currency? What if you want to visit that country? (The what ifs will not end at these few examples.) I don't clearly see what you would actually propose banning. My opinion is it's technology, an idea, and that shouldn't be banned.

tommiegannert 5y ago
First we should ban giftcards. I never understood the idea of using my versatile, national, currency to buy a restricted, local, currency. Esp. without getting a discount for the risk I take.
- zeven7 5y ago
  You do have a point there

drukenemo 5y ago

The hate for crypto in HN is just tiring.

toomanydoubts 5y ago

Because PoW is the only consensus protocol, right? Because the amount of people making money from fiat printing is larger than 5%, right?

lmilcin 5y ago

I think your conclusions are wrong even if I agree that bitcoin is overall bad for humanity. Just because one crypto currency is like that doesn't mean there cannot be another decentralized crypto currency that is better. Just because your or mine imagination does not reach there doesn't mean there can't be somebody that can figure it out.