8 ms·

Smelting metals actually produces something, proof of work just burns electricity for the random chance of winning a lottery

rmbyrro 5y ago
PoW produces something intangible. You're probably basing on an assumption that tangible products are more worthy or justifiable of resources consumed than intangibles. If you work with software development - which you probably do - I'd suggest checking what you do for a living, how much energy it consumes and how much physical product it generates.
- DarylZero 5y ago
  It produces just what the person said. A lottery win.
- DemocracyFTW 5y ago
  That argument could even be somehow valid if it were only possible to demonstrate that these intangibles improve life for people, like contributing to food, housing, education or even only entertainment. They do not. We do not have to care for those who are affluent enough to burn electricity just in order to gamble. Those people have the resources to gamble in less harmful ways without raising electricity prices and polluting the air the way they do. Those people could even do something helpful and productive if they chose to. Cryptomining is wasting energy for the sake of wasting energy. You may argue we (the 99.999% who do not cryptomine) are too stupid to see the value of your imaginary intangibles but that's not true. We are the ones who want no part in a pyramid scheme, who do not want to succumb to gambling, and whose time and money are too scarce and too precious to be put on the line. Sure, all activity has its price, its waste, and sure, there are other occupations whose overall usefulness is doubtful and askew with the accompanying resource consumption. Doesn't mean you have too excuse bad behavior just because there are other guys doing no good. Just as an aside, when you move a newspaper or a magazine from print to only existing as a web page, you certainly have 'dematerialized' it to a degree. However you still need hardware to keep and display the data and energy to move it around and light up the screens. In so far it does not stop being physical. The 'intangible' is somewhat of a red herring. Yes, it is less haptic, but it's still physics, physical all the way down. Other than that, currencies, freedom, equality, education, entertainment—we've been having intangibles all the time, at least from the dawn of human culture onward. Cryptomining does not bring anything genuinely new to the table in this respect. It's not even new in being a fraudulent, volatile scheme that betrays traits of a cult, one that benefits a few and hurts the many.
inter_netuser 5y ago
Simply because something is intangible and invisible, like atoms, does not make it any less valuable. It's a system with an immutable monetary policy. Literally unprecedented in human history.
- lottin 5y ago
  > Literally unprecedented in human history. Hardly unprecedented, considering that until very recently nations did not have a monetary policy.
  - javert 5y ago
    Monetary policy goes at least as far back as the Roman Empire, which adulterated their money supply over time.
    - lottin 5y ago
      I don't think this what economists understand by monetary policy.
- meribold 5y ago
  > It's a system with an immutable monetary policy. Is it though? It seems minor protocol tweaks aren't uncommon and hard forks managing to eclipse the original protocol in popularity are also conceivable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bitcoin_forks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bitcoin_forks
  - javert 5y ago
    Every time there is a fork, the market decides how much to value each of the forks. Personally, I think people will value bitcoin as good money if fiat money fails. And because they are seeking good money, will value the fork(s) that preserve bitcoin's prior monetary policy. A fork that changes the monetary policy drastically (particularly, changing the 21M cap) would obviously make for bad money in practical terms.
marcus_cemes 5y ago
It's burning electricity (that could in an ideal world be renewable, maybe one day) to provide a service to the network, therefore making it more secure by providing additional processing capacity that is controlled by a good actor, making it harder for a bad actor to get 51% of the pie. It is a waste, but there are also a lot of other sources of wasted resources/energy that we could tackle first and get larger returns from. You get compensated for your service, it may seem like a lottery, but if you do it for a long enough time, you'll get fairly steady returns as in theory it should be random and proportional to your hashrate. I don't mine, and I think it's definitely overhyped at the moment, but maybe it will settle in the future and actually provide a useful service to us folk. It doesn't seem to be going away for now, and it is really easy to send money to friends and family, whether they're nextdoor or in another country.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  It is not a waste, as it provides physical security, exactly the same as idle nuclear missiles on standby do, or standing armies that are "doing nothing", until a war happens. The vast majority of mining today uses sustainable energy (70%+), because it is actually cheaper. Dishwashers and heated swimming pools use WAY more energy globally, but because pleasant luxuries are quite enjoyable, nobody seems to attack them.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    > It is not a waste, as it provides physical security, exactly the same as idle nuclear missiles on standby do, or standing armies that are "doing nothing", until a war happens. You don't think those get very wasteful in the real world? And there's no equivalent to a real war situation. You can set it up so you don't need to defend against the equivalent of enemy armies. > The vast majority of mining today uses sustainable energy (70%+), because it is actually cheaper. What kind of sustainable? When miners locate next to hydro, and buy it up, that doesn't help anything. That hydro could have been sold as somewhat less cheap power elsewhere, after going over long wires, and then it would have reduced the load on coal plants. Miners that eat up excess solar can theoretically do a lot to encourage the installation of solar, but they need to be happy letting their machines be turned off a large fraction of the time. If it's still profitable to run 20 hours a day, then they're still encouraging fossil power plants. > Dishwashers and heated swimming pools use WAY more energy globally, but because pleasant luxuries are quite enjoyable, nobody seems to attack them. Dishwashers are better than hand-washing, aren't they? Having plates is a lot more important than running cryptocurrencies in a particular way. If heated swimming pools use that much, then sure let's go after that and use some kind of billing or taxes so they pay extra and encourage sustainable power sources.
jakupovic 5y ago
When I write code for my work does it not exist? I'm in essence minting new programs using my time as proof of work.
- newswasboring 5y ago
  No, I'm quite sure the proof of work is a program which works.
amelius 5y ago
Perhaps we should insert humans in the loop, to verify whether useful work was performed. Or some AI because humans are prone to bribery to some extent. Or we could make it democratic. "Jeff Bezos asserts that he provided useful work for society and that he therefore deserves $1B this year. Please cast your votes".
- kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
  PoB: Proof of Bullshit
  - lukifer 5y ago
    PoW should actually stand for Proof of Waste. It's not even unprecedented in nature: many species will intentionally waste energy or resources to demonstrate mating fitness, as with a peacock's tail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - amelius 5y ago
      ... or people going to the gym. The problems start, of course, when you take a concept to its logical extreme.
      - lukifer 5y ago
        I'm less concerned with wasting resources (which is highly subjective), than with ecological and systemic harms. I don't care whether a terawatt is "wasted" on pointless SHA256 hashes, or calculating triangles for Yet Another Marvel Movie, so long as the externality is being paid for [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax
        yellowapple 5y ago

rmbyrro 5y ago

PoW produces something intangible. You're probably basing on an assumption that tangible products are more worthy or justifiable of resources consumed than intangibles. If you work with software development - which you probably do - I'd suggest checking what you do for a living, how much energy it consumes and how much physical product it generates.

DarylZero 5y ago
It produces just what the person said. A lottery win.
DemocracyFTW 5y ago
That argument could even be somehow valid if it were only possible to demonstrate that these intangibles improve life for people, like contributing to food, housing, education or even only entertainment. They do not. We do not have to care for those who are affluent enough to burn electricity just in order to gamble. Those people have the resources to gamble in less harmful ways without raising electricity prices and polluting the air the way they do. Those people could even do something helpful and productive if they chose to. Cryptomining is wasting energy for the sake of wasting energy. You may argue we (the 99.999% who do not cryptomine) are too stupid to see the value of your imaginary intangibles but that's not true. We are the ones who want no part in a pyramid scheme, who do not want to succumb to gambling, and whose time and money are too scarce and too precious to be put on the line. Sure, all activity has its price, its waste, and sure, there are other occupations whose overall usefulness is doubtful and askew with the accompanying resource consumption. Doesn't mean you have too excuse bad behavior just because there are other guys doing no good. Just as an aside, when you move a newspaper or a magazine from print to only existing as a web page, you certainly have 'dematerialized' it to a degree. However you still need hardware to keep and display the data and energy to move it around and light up the screens. In so far it does not stop being physical. The 'intangible' is somewhat of a red herring. Yes, it is less haptic, but it's still physics, physical all the way down. Other than that, currencies, freedom, equality, education, entertainment—we've been having intangibles all the time, at least from the dawn of human culture onward. Cryptomining does not bring anything genuinely new to the table in this respect. It's not even new in being a fraudulent, volatile scheme that betrays traits of a cult, one that benefits a few and hurts the many.

inter_netuser 5y ago

Simply because something is intangible and invisible, like atoms, does not make it any less valuable. It's a system with an immutable monetary policy. Literally unprecedented in human history.

lottin 5y ago
> Literally unprecedented in human history. Hardly unprecedented, considering that until very recently nations did not have a monetary policy.
- javert 5y ago
  Monetary policy goes at least as far back as the Roman Empire, which adulterated their money supply over time.
  - lottin 5y ago
    I don't think this what economists understand by monetary policy.
meribold 5y ago
> It's a system with an immutable monetary policy. Is it though? It seems minor protocol tweaks aren't uncommon and hard forks managing to eclipse the original protocol in popularity are also conceivable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bitcoin_forks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bitcoin_forks
- javert 5y ago
  Every time there is a fork, the market decides how much to value each of the forks. Personally, I think people will value bitcoin as good money if fiat money fails. And because they are seeking good money, will value the fork(s) that preserve bitcoin's prior monetary policy. A fork that changes the monetary policy drastically (particularly, changing the 21M cap) would obviously make for bad money in practical terms.

marcus_cemes 5y ago

It's burning electricity (that could in an ideal world be renewable, maybe one day) to provide a service to the network, therefore making it more secure by providing additional processing capacity that is controlled by a good actor, making it harder for a bad actor to get 51% of the pie. It is a waste, but there are also a lot of other sources of wasted resources/energy that we could tackle first and get larger returns from. You get compensated for your service, it may seem like a lottery, but if you do it for a long enough time, you'll get fairly steady returns as in theory it should be random and proportional to your hashrate. I don't mine, and I think it's definitely overhyped at the moment, but maybe it will settle in the future and actually provide a useful service to us folk. It doesn't seem to be going away for now, and it is really easy to send money to friends and family, whether they're nextdoor or in another country.

inter_netuser 5y ago
It is not a waste, as it provides physical security, exactly the same as idle nuclear missiles on standby do, or standing armies that are "doing nothing", until a war happens. The vast majority of mining today uses sustainable energy (70%+), because it is actually cheaper. Dishwashers and heated swimming pools use WAY more energy globally, but because pleasant luxuries are quite enjoyable, nobody seems to attack them.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  > It is not a waste, as it provides physical security, exactly the same as idle nuclear missiles on standby do, or standing armies that are "doing nothing", until a war happens. You don't think those get very wasteful in the real world? And there's no equivalent to a real war situation. You can set it up so you don't need to defend against the equivalent of enemy armies. > The vast majority of mining today uses sustainable energy (70%+), because it is actually cheaper. What kind of sustainable? When miners locate next to hydro, and buy it up, that doesn't help anything. That hydro could have been sold as somewhat less cheap power elsewhere, after going over long wires, and then it would have reduced the load on coal plants. Miners that eat up excess solar can theoretically do a lot to encourage the installation of solar, but they need to be happy letting their machines be turned off a large fraction of the time. If it's still profitable to run 20 hours a day, then they're still encouraging fossil power plants. > Dishwashers and heated swimming pools use WAY more energy globally, but because pleasant luxuries are quite enjoyable, nobody seems to attack them. Dishwashers are better than hand-washing, aren't they? Having plates is a lot more important than running cryptocurrencies in a particular way. If heated swimming pools use that much, then sure let's go after that and use some kind of billing or taxes so they pay extra and encourage sustainable power sources.

jakupovic 5y ago

When I write code for my work does it not exist? I'm in essence minting new programs using my time as proof of work.

newswasboring 5y ago
No, I'm quite sure the proof of work is a program which works.

amelius 5y ago

Perhaps we should insert humans in the loop, to verify whether useful work was performed. Or some AI because humans are prone to bribery to some extent. Or we could make it democratic. "Jeff Bezos asserts that he provided useful work for society and that he therefore deserves $1B this year. Please cast your votes".

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
PoB: Proof of Bullshit
- lukifer 5y ago
  PoW should actually stand for Proof of Waste. It's not even unprecedented in nature: many species will intentionally waste energy or resources to demonstrate mating fitness, as with a peacock's tail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - amelius 5y ago
    ... or people going to the gym. The problems start, of course, when you take a concept to its logical extreme.
    - lukifer 5y ago
      I'm less concerned with wasting resources (which is highly subjective), than with ecological and systemic harms. I don't care whether a terawatt is "wasted" on pointless SHA256 hashes, or calculating triangles for Yet Another Marvel Movie, so long as the externality is being paid for [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax
      - yellowapple 5y ago