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Since HN generally does not like mentions of Bitcoin, here are some stats. Bitcoin was launched 12 years ago, reached $1'000'000'000'000 monetization this year

Since HN generally does not like mentions of Bitcoin, here are some stats. Bitcoin was launched 12 years ago, reached $1'000'000'000'000 monetization this year (>1.5x larger than IMF), exploded interest and funding for cryptography and p2p networking over the past 6-8 years, and is marching towards reaching monetization of gold ($11T). Lightning network runs over 3 years already and growing its capacity exponentially, offering truly "digital cash" capability: no trusted third parties and instant transactions. Yes, Bitcoin is volatile and it will remain so until it saturates the market like gold did, and every person has as much bitcoin as they want to carry, relative to other assets.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
>and every person has as much bitcoin as they want to carry People never have enough, they can never be satisfied if there is someone else who might have more than them.
- oleganza 5y ago
  I mean, relative to other other assets in your own portfolio. You can always switch between 1%, 10% and 100%, however you like at any point in time. As of Bitcoin, there are plenty of people who have 0% and haven't come about to increase it to X%. If you want to maximize your $$$ _compared to others_, that's up for your enterprising skills, and nothing to do with bitcoin monetization progress.
pornel 5y ago
Now do stats about energy usage!
- oleganza 5y ago
  Sorry, that's a purely political take, nothing to do with economics or technology. Everyone is using energy to do the things they want to do. Notice that Bitcoin is somehow specially demonized, but vacation travels or Li-Ion battery production is not. (Although, travels are largerly banned, so there's some progress there.) I'm pretty sure even if everyone transitioned to "renewable energy" (also largely ideological concept), it would still be useful to demonize Bitcoin for using too much energy, like it's not good to "hoard" money. The reason for that is that Bitcoin is the hardest money there has ever been, so people are fighting to accumulate as much of it as possible before everyone else.
  - pornel 5y ago
    Security of PoW depends on continuously using more resources than an adversary can gather. It has to always cancel out any advancements in efficiency, by design. It's unfixable in this aspect. This is unlike any other activity where resource usage is roughly proportional to the value delivered, rather than maximized on purpose. Even if we had a Dyson Sphere, we'd have to waste more than a half of it on mining.
FireBeyond 5y ago
> Bitcoin was launched 12 years ago, reached $1'000'000'000'000 monetization this year (>1.5x larger than IMF), exploded interest and funding for cryptography and p2p networking over the past 6-8 years, and is marching towards reaching monetization of gold ($11T). 12 years to get to 8% is not really "marching towards". And then your flippant "everyone uses energy to do things" dismissal doesn't help. Yes, they do. But people don't buy power plants just to run payment processors. But they do buy them to mine Bitcoin.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago

>and every person has as much bitcoin as they want to carry People never have enough, they can never be satisfied if there is someone else who might have more than them.

oleganza 5y ago
I mean, relative to other other assets in your own portfolio. You can always switch between 1%, 10% and 100%, however you like at any point in time. As of Bitcoin, there are plenty of people who have 0% and haven't come about to increase it to X%. If you want to maximize your $$$ _compared to others_, that's up for your enterprising skills, and nothing to do with bitcoin monetization progress.

pornel 5y ago

Now do stats about energy usage!

oleganza 5y ago
Sorry, that's a purely political take, nothing to do with economics or technology. Everyone is using energy to do the things they want to do. Notice that Bitcoin is somehow specially demonized, but vacation travels or Li-Ion battery production is not. (Although, travels are largerly banned, so there's some progress there.) I'm pretty sure even if everyone transitioned to "renewable energy" (also largely ideological concept), it would still be useful to demonize Bitcoin for using too much energy, like it's not good to "hoard" money. The reason for that is that Bitcoin is the hardest money there has ever been, so people are fighting to accumulate as much of it as possible before everyone else.
- pornel 5y ago
  Security of PoW depends on continuously using more resources than an adversary can gather. It has to always cancel out any advancements in efficiency, by design. It's unfixable in this aspect. This is unlike any other activity where resource usage is roughly proportional to the value delivered, rather than maximized on purpose. Even if we had a Dyson Sphere, we'd have to waste more than a half of it on mining.

FireBeyond 5y ago

> Bitcoin was launched 12 years ago, reached $1'000'000'000'000 monetization this year (>1.5x larger than IMF), exploded interest and funding for cryptography and p2p networking over the past 6-8 years, and is marching towards reaching monetization of gold ($11T). 12 years to get to 8% is not really "marching towards". And then your flippant "everyone uses energy to do things" dismissal doesn't help. Yes, they do. But people don't buy power plants just to run payment processors. But they do buy them to mine Bitcoin.