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If the energy comes from a clean source, what does it matter? I think Dorsey believes that if there were cost effective mining equipment that requires little ma
by bko 5y ago
If the energy comes from a clean source, what does it matter? I think Dorsey believes that if there were cost effective mining equipment that requires little maintenance and is simple to maintain, you'd be able to use it in places that have abundant cheap and renewable resources. The cheapest forms of power are likely the ones that are going to go to waste anyway. Sure you'll still bid up the price you consume, but that's the point of the difficulty adjustment. The more valuable the network, the more valuable prize for a 51% attack. So you have to rely on market forces to ensure the network remains secure
- rz2k 5y agoThe opportunity cost means there is effectively no difference. A megawatt hour used to mine from a clean source means that a megawatt hour used for something else doesn't come from a clean energy source. Even if this project is the difference between building additional clean energy capacity or not, the resources for building that capacity have an opportunity cost—something that can't be built that would create value. Mining cryptocurrency doesn't create wealth any more than mining gold or printing money, it creates value in a zero sum manner, by discounting the value of all other currencies by a very tiny amount.
- aserafini 5y ago> Resources of building clean energy capacity have an opportunity cost I don’t understand this point, are you saying a project that stimulates additional clean energy capacity is a net negative somehow? Why?
- petmon 5y agoYes and very much so. Look at the GPU market: probably crypto has stimulated some GPU additional capacity, but overall crypto has been highly net-negative for non-crypto GPU uses. Imagine if crypto did to the solar market what it has already done to the GPU market.
- motioncuty 5y agoThis isnt true at all, theres tons of stranded energy production sources that are not being used now that would be made viable through mining crypto and transferring that "work" electronically rather than over wire.
- MandieD 5y agoLike those old coal power plants being retained or even fired up explicitly for crypto mining? https://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoin-miners-are-giving-new-life-to-old-fossil-fuel-power-plants-11621594803 https://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoin-miners-are-giving-new-l...
- lordentropy 5y agoI don't know which world people like Dorsey live in. There is a massive chip shortage (all over the world) and energy shortage (in China and Europe). We don't have enough energy to power homes, and there just aren't enough chips for automobiles. This got to be an absolutely worst time to start manufacturing bitcoin machines, opensource or otherwise.
- theK 5y agoI'd go one further and say it is the worst time to back any sort of wasteful(as in pow) crypto project, not specifically bitcoin.
- ashtonkem 5y ago> If the energy comes from a clean source, what does it matter? It matters because we don’t have enough clean energy to go around. Since energy is fungible, this means that turning on a bitcoin mine means that the energy provider has to turn on a fossil fuel plant to meet demand. Maybe if Dorsey agreed to only run his bitcoin machines when excess renewables were available and could not be stored that would be fine. But that’s tantamount to making him promise to never make a profit overnight or when the wind isn’t blowing. I don’t trust any company to keep that promise. > I think Dorsey believes that if there were cost effective mining equipment that requires little maintenance and is simple to maintain, you'd be able to use it in places that have abundant cheap and renewable resources. It’s worth pointing out that e waste is a thing. Mining equipment has an environmental cost even if it’s magically efficient. Furthermore the design of bitcoin encourages extra consumption. If Dorsey makes a machine that consumes half the energy of its competitors per hash, is he going to consume half the power, or is he going to make 2x as many of them to make double the profit? No need to answer, we already know that bitcoin farms always push to purchase as much hardware as they can in pursuit of greater hashing power. Oh, and that hardware gets thrown away the moment a slightly better machine gets invented. Unlike server hardware, the value of a bitcoin machine drops precipitously the moment it’s no longer the most efficient. There have been some darkly humorous videos of miners giving away free oranges in china as long as you agree to take an outdated ant miner off their hands. > Sure you'll still bid up the price you consume, but that's the point of the difficulty adjustment. Whoops. You undermined your own point here. > The more valuable the network, the more valuable prize for a 51% attack. So you have to rely on market forces to ensure the network remains secure Yeah, but why do we want that? Bitcoin has utterly failed as a currency, it’s just turned into a stupid casino for people to bet on because “number go up”. Why as a society do we want to tolerate literal nation states worth of electricity “securing” a network that doesn’t really do anything useful for society?
- tdeck 5y agoJack Dorsey tweets some crypto thing every time he wants attention. That's basically the whole story here.
- theK 5y ago1. It is still wasted energy 2. This concept fails miserably in the global scale test...