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This article is horrible. It fails to discuss the benefits of using proof of work as a consensus protocol. It uses chips, it doesn't waste chips.

lpcvoid 5y ago
There isn't a single redeeming quality about Cryptocurrency. The sooner it dies, the better. "Using" chips for useless heat generation has no benefit at all.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jsutton 5y ago
  I guess you'd say the same thing about open source cloud computing? Crypto is an evolution of that, after all.
  - lpcvoid 5y ago
    I seriously fail to see the relationship here. Please explain?
    - leesalminen 5y ago
      Using Ethereum as an example, the code is open source. The Ethereum Virtual Machine is a cloud computer. As in, when you execute code on the EVM it is executing on someone else's computer for a per-use price. Hence, "open source cloud computing". At least that's what I think the parent is getting at. I would agree it's a bit of an obtuse analogy and doesn't necessarily apply to all of crypto as a whole.
      - WalterSear 5y ago
        Due to the massive redundancy and waste involved, the entire EVM performs less useful computation than one of AWS's smallest EC2 instance types; less than a current Raspberry Pi attached to a 100 gig SSD. In practical terms, the machine I'm writing this on is closer to cloud computing than the EVM is.
        leesalminen 5y ago
        > Due to the massive redundancy and waste involved, the entire EVM performs less useful computation than one of AWS's smallest EC2 instance types; less than a current Raspberry Pi attached to a 100 gig SSD. Ok, yes, that's fair. That doesn't totally negate the analogy, though. It just shows that it's a potentially inferior solution. > In practical terms, the machine I'm writing this on is closer to cloud computing than the EVM is. I think what the parent was getting at is the whole "cloud == someone else's computer" trope. Without knowing more details about the computer you're using to post on HN it's impossible to know but I think it's pretty likely you own the computer you're currently using. You wouldn't be using your employer's computer for non-work purposes, right? ;)
  - __alexs 5y ago
    I don't think causality really works like that, even the Bible for this one right. "The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son."
  - zucker42 5y ago
    It's like cloud computing if any code I wanted to run ran redundantly and simultaneously on all of AWS's computers and I had to share those computers with the rest of world in a competitive bidding process.
- artursapek 5y ago
  Have
- FDSGSG 5y ago
  Cryptocurrency makes it much easier to buy and sell drugs online, this is a huge redeeming quality. Even if we assume that we are ideologically opposed to drug trade, we'd be liars to claim that cryptocurrency is useless. It de facto isn't.
  - dannyw 5y ago
    Also donating to WikiLeaks, snowdens...
    - artursapek 5y ago
      You guys are stuck in 2014 lmfao
- capableweb 5y ago
  I agree that people tend to over-hype cryptocurrencies, but there are examples of good being done in the ecosystem. Pineapple Fund (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineapple_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineapple_Fund) is probably the first that come into my mind, distributing $86 million worth of bitcoins to various organizations. That would not have happened if it wasn't for cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin specifically)
  - zucker42 5y ago
    Likewise Amway is a great company because its CEO sometimes donates to charity. I mean seriously, is this a real argument. Bitcoin is good because one person who got rich from it happened to be philanthropic? Where do you think that money came from? The answer is other "investors" who were told Bitcoin would make them rich. If the best justification for Bitcoin's existence is the Pineapple fund, Bitcoin must be the stupidest charity fundraising effort of all time, which is saying something. The intrinsic value which Bitcoin provides is that it is as a currency, i.e. a way to transfer and store value. But as the Bitcoin detractors in this thread point out, it's value in this role is far outweighed by its costs.
    - capableweb 5y ago
      > I mean seriously, is this a real argument. Yes, it's a real argument against "There isn't a single redeeming quality about Cryptocurrency". I agree that not everything with cryptocurrency is good. In fact, I'd argue most uses today are bad, and only a few are good. But I haven't argued for that everything about cryptocurrencies are good. Remember; "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
      - zucker42 5y ago
        A rich Bitcoin owner donating money to others isn't a redeeming quality of cryptocurrency, it's a redeeming quality of a person who owns cryptocurrency. It has nothing to do with intrinsic qualities of Bitcoin, and so I don't think it redeems Bitcoin in the slightest.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
VHRanger 5y ago
It uses them because they cost money. And securing the network costs money in a proportional amount to the market price of the coin. The network is no more or less efficient burning through 20% of the human race's energy output as it is burning 0.2% or 0.000002%. It produces no additional transactions, no more or fewer coins. Just more waste product.
- satronaut 5y ago
  it's way cheaper and more humanitarian to secure value in Bitcoin using computer chips than it is to send the US military into foreign countries to support the petro-dollar
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
__alexs 5y ago
Grinding up working RTX 3090s to use as aggregate for building roads also "uses chips" but might also be considered waste.
capableweb 5y ago
There seems to be two camps of opinions regarding cryptocurrencies. The first one is people who don't see any value whatsoever in cryptocurrencies. They typically say PoW is "waste" because they don't see value in the output, so there is no argument against them, as everything related to cryptocurrency is waste. It's largely a waste of time talking to these people, as they have made up their mind. The second group are people who see maybe a bit of value or more in PoW. Since there is a hypothetical value, there is no "waste" as much as "use" of doing this hashing. They see value in having a cryptocurrency network, so even if it's wasteful, the greater good is more important for them. It's largely a waste of time talking to these people, as they also have made up their mind.
- VHRanger 5y ago
  You could just move it to proof-of-stake. Seriously, even if you find value in Bitcoin, proof-of-work is unsustainable. At current rates it's burning 0.5% of world energy. If price went to $300k it would end up burning 3% of world energy. As the article notes, this is regardless of L2 solutions - energy use is purely a matter of market price.
  - limusrazor 5y ago
    PoS is not as decentralized as PoW. With PoW, you can literally transform energy into cash. In order to be part of a PoS network, then you need to buy the token/coin first. What if you are in a country that restricts crypto? How can you participate in the network? The whole point of using blockchain is to make something truly decentralized. If you are sacrificing decentralization, then you should ask yourself whether you are using the proper data structure for the problem that you are solving.
  - TimJRobinson 5y ago
    It's not quite market price, it's miner rewards. As Bitcoin gives off less and less rewards (it halves the amount every 4 years), the amount of miners should go down, as it then becomes unprofitable for a lot of them. This is actually a second problem of Bitcoin though - If in say 20 years it ends up being worth a lot, and gives very little mining revenue causing few people mine it, it becomes vulnerable to attack from nation states. Because the cost of a 51% attack is only a fraction of the possible rewards for a successful attack.

lpcvoid 5y ago

There isn't a single redeeming quality about Cryptocurrency. The sooner it dies, the better. "Using" chips for useless heat generation has no benefit at all.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jsutton 5y ago
I guess you'd say the same thing about open source cloud computing? Crypto is an evolution of that, after all.
- lpcvoid 5y ago
  I seriously fail to see the relationship here. Please explain?
  - leesalminen 5y ago
    Using Ethereum as an example, the code is open source. The Ethereum Virtual Machine is a cloud computer. As in, when you execute code on the EVM it is executing on someone else's computer for a per-use price. Hence, "open source cloud computing". At least that's what I think the parent is getting at. I would agree it's a bit of an obtuse analogy and doesn't necessarily apply to all of crypto as a whole.
    - WalterSear 5y ago
      Due to the massive redundancy and waste involved, the entire EVM performs less useful computation than one of AWS's smallest EC2 instance types; less than a current Raspberry Pi attached to a 100 gig SSD. In practical terms, the machine I'm writing this on is closer to cloud computing than the EVM is.
      - leesalminen 5y ago
        > Due to the massive redundancy and waste involved, the entire EVM performs less useful computation than one of AWS's smallest EC2 instance types; less than a current Raspberry Pi attached to a 100 gig SSD. Ok, yes, that's fair. That doesn't totally negate the analogy, though. It just shows that it's a potentially inferior solution. > In practical terms, the machine I'm writing this on is closer to cloud computing than the EVM is. I think what the parent was getting at is the whole "cloud == someone else's computer" trope. Without knowing more details about the computer you're using to post on HN it's impossible to know but I think it's pretty likely you own the computer you're currently using. You wouldn't be using your employer's computer for non-work purposes, right? ;)
- __alexs 5y ago
  I don't think causality really works like that, even the Bible for this one right. "The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son."
- zucker42 5y ago
  It's like cloud computing if any code I wanted to run ran redundantly and simultaneously on all of AWS's computers and I had to share those computers with the rest of world in a competitive bidding process.
artursapek 5y ago
Have
FDSGSG 5y ago
Cryptocurrency makes it much easier to buy and sell drugs online, this is a huge redeeming quality. Even if we assume that we are ideologically opposed to drug trade, we'd be liars to claim that cryptocurrency is useless. It de facto isn't.
- dannyw 5y ago
  Also donating to WikiLeaks, snowdens...
  - artursapek 5y ago
    You guys are stuck in 2014 lmfao
capableweb 5y ago
I agree that people tend to over-hype cryptocurrencies, but there are examples of good being done in the ecosystem. Pineapple Fund (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineapple_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineapple_Fund) is probably the first that come into my mind, distributing $86 million worth of bitcoins to various organizations. That would not have happened if it wasn't for cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin specifically)
- zucker42 5y ago
  Likewise Amway is a great company because its CEO sometimes donates to charity. I mean seriously, is this a real argument. Bitcoin is good because one person who got rich from it happened to be philanthropic? Where do you think that money came from? The answer is other "investors" who were told Bitcoin would make them rich. If the best justification for Bitcoin's existence is the Pineapple fund, Bitcoin must be the stupidest charity fundraising effort of all time, which is saying something. The intrinsic value which Bitcoin provides is that it is as a currency, i.e. a way to transfer and store value. But as the Bitcoin detractors in this thread point out, it's value in this role is far outweighed by its costs.
  - capableweb 5y ago
    > I mean seriously, is this a real argument. Yes, it's a real argument against "There isn't a single redeeming quality about Cryptocurrency". I agree that not everything with cryptocurrency is good. In fact, I'd argue most uses today are bad, and only a few are good. But I haven't argued for that everything about cryptocurrencies are good. Remember; "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
    - zucker42 5y ago
      A rich Bitcoin owner donating money to others isn't a redeeming quality of cryptocurrency, it's a redeeming quality of a person who owns cryptocurrency. It has nothing to do with intrinsic qualities of Bitcoin, and so I don't think it redeems Bitcoin in the slightest.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

VHRanger 5y ago

It uses them because they cost money. And securing the network costs money in a proportional amount to the market price of the coin. The network is no more or less efficient burning through 20% of the human race's energy output as it is burning 0.2% or 0.000002%. It produces no additional transactions, no more or fewer coins. Just more waste product.

satronaut 5y ago
it's way cheaper and more humanitarian to secure value in Bitcoin using computer chips than it is to send the US military into foreign countries to support the petro-dollar
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

__alexs 5y ago

Grinding up working RTX 3090s to use as aggregate for building roads also "uses chips" but might also be considered waste.

capableweb 5y ago

There seems to be two camps of opinions regarding cryptocurrencies. The first one is people who don't see any value whatsoever in cryptocurrencies. They typically say PoW is "waste" because they don't see value in the output, so there is no argument against them, as everything related to cryptocurrency is waste. It's largely a waste of time talking to these people, as they have made up their mind. The second group are people who see maybe a bit of value or more in PoW. Since there is a hypothetical value, there is no "waste" as much as "use" of doing this hashing. They see value in having a cryptocurrency network, so even if it's wasteful, the greater good is more important for them. It's largely a waste of time talking to these people, as they also have made up their mind.

VHRanger 5y ago
You could just move it to proof-of-stake. Seriously, even if you find value in Bitcoin, proof-of-work is unsustainable. At current rates it's burning 0.5% of world energy. If price went to $300k it would end up burning 3% of world energy. As the article notes, this is regardless of L2 solutions - energy use is purely a matter of market price.
- limusrazor 5y ago
  PoS is not as decentralized as PoW. With PoW, you can literally transform energy into cash. In order to be part of a PoS network, then you need to buy the token/coin first. What if you are in a country that restricts crypto? How can you participate in the network? The whole point of using blockchain is to make something truly decentralized. If you are sacrificing decentralization, then you should ask yourself whether you are using the proper data structure for the problem that you are solving.
- TimJRobinson 5y ago
  It's not quite market price, it's miner rewards. As Bitcoin gives off less and less rewards (it halves the amount every 4 years), the amount of miners should go down, as it then becomes unprofitable for a lot of them. This is actually a second problem of Bitcoin though - If in say 20 years it ends up being worth a lot, and gives very little mining revenue causing few people mine it, it becomes vulnerable to attack from nation states. Because the cost of a 51% attack is only a fraction of the possible rewards for a successful attack.