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I'm not here to support worldcoin because I think it's a bad idea. However, proof-of-work is also a bad idea. What bitcoin is is a decentralized clock rewarding

by mempko 5y ago

I'm not here to support worldcoin because I think it's a bad idea. However, proof-of-work is also a bad idea. What bitcoin is is a decentralized clock rewarding random machines every tick. It produces bad dynamics. Parento distribution of reward, huge amount of energy waste. All so rich people (Yes, most bitcoin is held by a few rich people) can transfer wealth. It's a stupid idea. You can appreciate it's simplicity and how everything fits together like puzzle pieces, but it is ultimately a stupid idea because it lives in the real world and has predictable real world consequences.

fleddr 5y ago
It's not a stupid idea. It's the invention of digital scarcity. It is supposed to be real world costly. High energy use in itself is not the issue, it's CO2 emissions. Energy can be locally abundant, renewable, yet remote, hard to transport to civilization. That would be an idealistic example of sustainable mining. Bitcoin mining isn't fully at that level of sustainability yet, but it's a solvable problem. Bitcoin isn't for rich people. It's for all people. It's highly popular in deeply inflationary regimes, amidst refugees and particular immigrants. The fastest growth in Bitcoin addresses for years has come from the African continent.
- chriswarbo 5y ago
  > Bitcoin mining isn't fully at that level of sustainability yet, but it's a solvable problem. No it's not. These sorts of arguments fundamentally misunderstand the Sisyphean design of Bitcoin's proof-of-work algorithm: difficulty is scaled to absorb any changes in hash power, and expending hash power is rewarded with a chance of minting coins and/or collecting fees. Bitcoin could be made sustainable and clean today, with no extra infrastructure, no optimised hardware, no new solar panel breakthrough, etc.: miners simply have to turn off their equipment, then difficulty will adjust downwards, and Bitcoin would become efficient enough to run off a solar-powered RaspberryPi. That won't happen; and for exactly the same reason miners won't stop burning cheap fossil fuels as well as diverting as much renewable power as they can away from useful projects like electrified transport, desalination, aluminium smelting, HVAC, etc.
  - fleddr 5y ago
    Difficulty cannot scale downwards to the level you describe because then it ceases to be Bitcoin. It's supposed to be extremely difficult, this is what secures digital scarcity. It doesn't help to speak in simplistic absolutes. Miners can definitely become more green and rapidly so. The massive move from China to the US that took place over the last few months likely has dramatically changed the energy mix to mine Bitcoin, for the better. There's also a Bitcoin mining council to promote best practices in renewable mining. There can be additional incentive structures (CO2 tax) to further discourage dirty mining.
    - chriswarbo 5y ago
      > There can be additional incentive structures (CO2 tax) to further discourage dirty mining. Bitcoin interprets carbon tax as damage and routes around it
- toshk 5y ago
  The dollar is highly popular in inflationary regimes, crypto is a popular thing to write about, and a few use it but the main defacto backup currency almost always becomes the dollar. (For instance in Venezuala)
- arcticbull 5y ago
  Everything everyone else said plus e-waste. My lord, Bitcoin produces as much e-waste as the entirety of the Netherlands to scribble a few bytes into a ledger once every 10 minutes lol. 97% of all mining devices will never successfully mine a single block. Each transaction produces as much e-waste as throwing out an iPad. That's on top of the power demand. You cannot make that sustainable. It's grey goo.
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    We're going to need to figure out how to recycle e-waste at massive scale irregardless of bitcoin. Silicon brains are the spice of civilization. The only limit on who much e-waste we produce is how fast we can churn them out.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Cool and when we do we can revisit Bitcoin.
      - anonporridge 5y ago
        That's not how progress in anything, whether it's increasing complexity in evolution of life or the advance of civilization, has ever worked. We do new things, and figure out how to manage the fallout for the successful things after the fact.
        arcticbull 5y ago
        Also when we realize things are bad, we stop.
        anonporridge 5y ago
        Not when the thing we're doing has a positive feedback loop. We continue until we overextend, collapse, and then start over. Humans are intelligent, so we usually try to do things differently after the collapse. Sometimes, individuals are smart enough to see the collapse coming and build an ark to ride out the chaos. There is clearly is no strong consensus that bitcoin is bad, since it's worth over a trillion dollars. In fact, people are jumping into bitcoin because they believe the existing financial system is bad and on the verge of collapse. We'll see.

by mempko 5y ago

fleddr 5y ago

It's not a stupid idea. It's the invention of digital scarcity. It is supposed to be real world costly. High energy use in itself is not the issue, it's CO2 emissions. Energy can be locally abundant, renewable, yet remote, hard to transport to civilization. That would be an idealistic example of sustainable mining. Bitcoin mining isn't fully at that level of sustainability yet, but it's a solvable problem. Bitcoin isn't for rich people. It's for all people. It's highly popular in deeply inflationary regimes, amidst refugees and particular immigrants. The fastest growth in Bitcoin addresses for years has come from the African continent.

chriswarbo 5y ago
> Bitcoin mining isn't fully at that level of sustainability yet, but it's a solvable problem. No it's not. These sorts of arguments fundamentally misunderstand the Sisyphean design of Bitcoin's proof-of-work algorithm: difficulty is scaled to absorb any changes in hash power, and expending hash power is rewarded with a chance of minting coins and/or collecting fees. Bitcoin could be made sustainable and clean today, with no extra infrastructure, no optimised hardware, no new solar panel breakthrough, etc.: miners simply have to turn off their equipment, then difficulty will adjust downwards, and Bitcoin would become efficient enough to run off a solar-powered RaspberryPi. That won't happen; and for exactly the same reason miners won't stop burning cheap fossil fuels as well as diverting as much renewable power as they can away from useful projects like electrified transport, desalination, aluminium smelting, HVAC, etc.
- fleddr 5y ago
  Difficulty cannot scale downwards to the level you describe because then it ceases to be Bitcoin. It's supposed to be extremely difficult, this is what secures digital scarcity. It doesn't help to speak in simplistic absolutes. Miners can definitely become more green and rapidly so. The massive move from China to the US that took place over the last few months likely has dramatically changed the energy mix to mine Bitcoin, for the better. There's also a Bitcoin mining council to promote best practices in renewable mining. There can be additional incentive structures (CO2 tax) to further discourage dirty mining.
  - chriswarbo 5y ago
    > There can be additional incentive structures (CO2 tax) to further discourage dirty mining. Bitcoin interprets carbon tax as damage and routes around it
toshk 5y ago
The dollar is highly popular in inflationary regimes, crypto is a popular thing to write about, and a few use it but the main defacto backup currency almost always becomes the dollar. (For instance in Venezuala)
arcticbull 5y ago
Everything everyone else said plus e-waste. My lord, Bitcoin produces as much e-waste as the entirety of the Netherlands to scribble a few bytes into a ledger once every 10 minutes lol. 97% of all mining devices will never successfully mine a single block. Each transaction produces as much e-waste as throwing out an iPad. That's on top of the power demand. You cannot make that sustainable. It's grey goo.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  We're going to need to figure out how to recycle e-waste at massive scale irregardless of bitcoin. Silicon brains are the spice of civilization. The only limit on who much e-waste we produce is how fast we can churn them out.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    Cool and when we do we can revisit Bitcoin.
    - anonporridge 5y ago
      That's not how progress in anything, whether it's increasing complexity in evolution of life or the advance of civilization, has ever worked. We do new things, and figure out how to manage the fallout for the successful things after the fact.
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        Also when we realize things are bad, we stop.
        anonporridge 5y ago
        Not when the thing we're doing has a positive feedback loop. We continue until we overextend, collapse, and then start over. Humans are intelligent, so we usually try to do things differently after the collapse. Sometimes, individuals are smart enough to see the collapse coming and build an ark to ride out the chaos. There is clearly is no strong consensus that bitcoin is bad, since it's worth over a trillion dollars. In fact, people are jumping into bitcoin because they believe the existing financial system is bad and on the verge of collapse. We'll see.