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> It seems if you want to do crypto things without burning the planet down, you can. Right, but what if you consider it a bad thing to introduce an economic in

by Nursie 5y ago

> It seems if you want to do crypto things without burning the planet down, you can. Right, but what if you consider it a bad thing to introduce an economic incentive for other people to burn the planet down? This is beyond a matter of personal choice, until and unless we all get our own personal planets.

pcthrowaway 5y ago
I agree, but our problem is with proof of work, not crypto. I don't buy/use bitcoin any more because of this. Ethereum is moving (the sooner the better), and the only other PoW crypto I have a bit of is innovating PoW and (hopefully) becomes more environmentally friendly as a result. To be honest, I'm still unclear on if this is even possible, and if energy usage becomes significant relative to what it does, I would drop it as well.
- varajelle 5y ago
  The price of cryptocurrencies are strongly correlated. I have the feeling that if you inject money in any cryptocurrency, you inject money in the "cypto market" which eventually mean that the price of PoW money also increase. And the energy usage follow the price of the PoW money.
  - leppr 5y ago
    The "crypto market" is also very correlated to the US stock market, and risk assets in general. The best way to push the energy usage of PoW money down is to get back fiat money under control and stop incentivizing reckless gambling, like the FED finally seems to be doing.
  - pcthrowaway 5y ago
    This may be true short term, but it doesn't hold long term. When you support a competitor you improve the narrative for its relative strength. Eventually I think Bitcoin will lose out to PoS cryptocurrencies (probably Ethereum), and many people such as myself are specifically rallying behind this narrative, which is why we see bitcoin dominance at near historic lows, and I suspect it's unlikely to recover to >70% and perhaps not even >60%.
- space_rock 5y ago
  Ethereum uses pow. Their pos mechanism doesn't work and is a perpetual coming soon promise
  - pcthrowaway 5y ago
    The transition is not straightforward, and with what's at stake they absolutely need to take their time to get it right; they only get one chance. I don't really use Ethereum, but I commend the devs for recognizing the problem years ago (before I was even aware of it) and taking steps to remedy the situation. In the short-term, yes, it is incredibly wasteful (though recent changes have disincentivized mining somewhat, even with a bit of protest) and there are many other cryptocurrencies which are already proof of stake available. This year, hopefully, Ethereum will finally move to PoS.
    - space_rock 5y ago
      They need a working theory for how this PoS will work first. Wishful thinking and handwaving does not equal theory. PoW is the only tech that has solved the problem so far. Many things were tried before bitcoin with no results
- Nursie 5y ago
  Yes, PoW is the major problem here. I just don’t agree that it can be dismissed as easily as the article does there, by saying that you can choose not to use it. We only have one planet we share and other people’s choices are also important.
  - andrewingram 5y ago
    Yeah, it may be right to dismiss the environmental criticism as the weakest one, but I don't think the article sufficiently makes the case for that dismissal. In a system centred around the premise that money is the only thing that motivates, for thing A to beat thing B, there has to be more money to be made from doing thing A. I don't think the case has been made here (though perhaps it has elsewhere) that PoS can beat PoW on these grounds -- are there sufficient incentives to make that shift?
- Geee 5y ago
  Bitcoin and PoW is our only shot at decentralized monetary system. PoS has many problems, and it can't provide the same level of confidence in the system as PoW. There's no way to reach objective consensus in a PoS system.[0] From this angle, I see PoS as an adversarial attack against decentralization. Failing to understand this is dangerous. Bitcoin mining uses increasingly clean or otherwise wasted energy, which solves the actual problem, which is unclean energy production. Ethereum has many problems, which prevent it ever competing with bitcoin as money. It can do NFTs and games, sure. However, there are many competitors who do these better, like BSC and Solana, and other more centralized blockchains. So, in the end there is really no place for Ethereum to be competitive in. [0] https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/old-pos.pdf https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/old-pos.pdf
  - Nursie 5y ago
    Bitcoin adds a whole new country to an international power economy that already cannot provide enough green power. In some places (notably the US) fossil power is being brought back online to service it. These assertions that it is clean are not based on anything more than wishful thinking.
    - pcthrowaway 5y ago
      Greenwashing and people defending their bags against what they see as attacks. I suspect a number of people are aware that it's bullshit but handwave anyway, and then a lot of people buy the bullshit because they're emotionally invested. I like(d) everything else about bitcoin even though it's dated technology now, but proof of work is unjustifiable, the incentives create an extremely negative externality that aren't offset by its potential as borderless, uncensorable money. Especially when other blockchains avoid this issue entirely.
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  But you're missing an important point: PoW is the foundational building block of the biggest cryptocurrencie promise: decentralization and “permissionlessness”. With “Proof of Stakes”, the creator of the chain start with all power and then they'll slowly distribute it to a group of investors in exchange of something (usually money, but it could be other tokens, advertising, or anything). The investors can in turn sell some of all of their power on the market to make a profit, or keep it a receive dividends (newly minted tokens). In the end, you have a small group of people, closely related to the chain developer/creator with aligned interest holding all the power on the chain. Hybrid systems like Ethereum, bootstrapping with PoW and then switching to a PoS system afterwards seemingly solve this problem, but such a switch implies that the social structure around the blockchain is centralized: Ethereum is technologically decentralized, but politically very centralized (you can also see in their way of handling the DAO “hack”, violating the Ethereum protocol and rolling back the blockchain) and that's why the developers can just go “screw the miners and their hardware, we're moving to PoS now”. You couldn't do this kind of switch for bitcoin, because it's really decentralized, with stakeholders having deeply unaligned interests.
randomhodler84 5y ago
It’s a good thing. Secure money is pretty much one of the most important thing we have invented in this age. The energy today is nothing to the energy can harness tomorrow. The planet burners ain’t the energy buyers // it’s the energy sellers. Fix production to be green and grow grow grow.
- Nursie 5y ago
  Just like that, “fix” production? Wow, glad to know you have the global carbon emissions problem in hand! Back in the real world, until we have actually got that problem in hand, PoW cryptocurrencies are a huge extra amount of consumption, where we already have more consumption than green energy producers can keep up with. And now crypto miners are bringing decommissioned fossil fuel plants back on line in some places, purely to service PoW. The planet burners are the buyers. Sorry.
  - randomhodler84 5y ago
    I’m not a fan of the fossil power plants coming online, but this is one small example. Many fossil fuel plants actually increased production during the pandemic too. Nuclear plants were taken offline too. But this is not cryptocurrency to blame. The fundamental disconnect here is that you want to tell people how they can and can’t use energy. That’s authoritarian nonsense and I reject your wishes. I am saying use it how you wish, but optimize it to be green. Ideally, the use will drive it to be more green as that is the cheapest and more sustainable way to generate power in the long run. Do you see the difference in position?
    - 8note 5y ago
      Green and crypto are incompatible ideas. You don't waste for the sake of wasting when you're looking to be green.
      - 0x0nyandesu 5y ago
        Banks use way more electricity just cooling and heating their offices for the meat sacks that run their business than crypto ever will.
oarabbus_ 5y ago
Why do you consider the energy usage from GPUs mining cryptocurrency worse than energy usage from GPUs used for playing video games or rendering CGI graphics? Or porn? TV commercials? Why is it considered OK to generate massive amounts of pollution and expend tremendous energy flying beef from Japan to New York for people's consumption, when there are perfectly edible cuts of beef which require at most a short train ride? What if the crypto is mined in part or full by renewable energy, which many crypto miners do (it's economically to their advantage in certain areas/climates)? If the goal is saving the planet, there are plenty of activities like flying internationally for pleasure, or eating meat that do far more environmental damage than cryptocurrency mining.
- bigdubs 5y ago
  This is not a good comparison because big mining farms are not equivalent to people playing video games at home.
  - oarabbus_ 5y ago
    So then is the problem "crypto currency mining" or "large bitcoin mining farms"? If that's the case it shouldn't be a problem if an individual wants to mine ethereum in their home. Regardless there are 1.5+ billion gamers which does make it comparable. Video streaming in aggregate consumes an incredible amount of energy, as does non-essential plane travel. But people seem to not mind that. It's fine if people want to enjoy their movies or fly around the world for pleasure but it's a bit of cognitive dissonance.
    - ryan93 5y ago
      most of those 1.5 billion graphics cards are off at any given time and not running full bore even when they are on.
- Nursie 5y ago
  We’ll, firstly the largest contributor, BTC, doesn’t use GPUs. Secondly, many of us don’t think that beef example is really “OK” either. Third, the idea that Bitcoin or crypto in general runs predominantly on green power is bullshit. Fourth, BTC now consumes more power and has more associated carbon output than many mid sized countries, it is not some piddling little thing that we can safely ignore. Fifth, and last - My point that you replied to was about the article writing the problem off as personal choice. While we only have one planet it is not just personal choice.

by Nursie 5y ago

pcthrowaway 5y ago

I agree, but our problem is with proof of work, not crypto. I don't buy/use bitcoin any more because of this. Ethereum is moving (the sooner the better), and the only other PoW crypto I have a bit of is innovating PoW and (hopefully) becomes more environmentally friendly as a result. To be honest, I'm still unclear on if this is even possible, and if energy usage becomes significant relative to what it does, I would drop it as well.

varajelle 5y ago
The price of cryptocurrencies are strongly correlated. I have the feeling that if you inject money in any cryptocurrency, you inject money in the "cypto market" which eventually mean that the price of PoW money also increase. And the energy usage follow the price of the PoW money.
- leppr 5y ago
  The "crypto market" is also very correlated to the US stock market, and risk assets in general. The best way to push the energy usage of PoW money down is to get back fiat money under control and stop incentivizing reckless gambling, like the FED finally seems to be doing.
- pcthrowaway 5y ago
  This may be true short term, but it doesn't hold long term. When you support a competitor you improve the narrative for its relative strength. Eventually I think Bitcoin will lose out to PoS cryptocurrencies (probably Ethereum), and many people such as myself are specifically rallying behind this narrative, which is why we see bitcoin dominance at near historic lows, and I suspect it's unlikely to recover to >70% and perhaps not even >60%.
space_rock 5y ago
Ethereum uses pow. Their pos mechanism doesn't work and is a perpetual coming soon promise
- pcthrowaway 5y ago
  The transition is not straightforward, and with what's at stake they absolutely need to take their time to get it right; they only get one chance. I don't really use Ethereum, but I commend the devs for recognizing the problem years ago (before I was even aware of it) and taking steps to remedy the situation. In the short-term, yes, it is incredibly wasteful (though recent changes have disincentivized mining somewhat, even with a bit of protest) and there are many other cryptocurrencies which are already proof of stake available. This year, hopefully, Ethereum will finally move to PoS.
  - space_rock 5y ago
    They need a working theory for how this PoS will work first. Wishful thinking and handwaving does not equal theory. PoW is the only tech that has solved the problem so far. Many things were tried before bitcoin with no results
Nursie 5y ago
Yes, PoW is the major problem here. I just don’t agree that it can be dismissed as easily as the article does there, by saying that you can choose not to use it. We only have one planet we share and other people’s choices are also important.
- andrewingram 5y ago
  Yeah, it may be right to dismiss the environmental criticism as the weakest one, but I don't think the article sufficiently makes the case for that dismissal. In a system centred around the premise that money is the only thing that motivates, for thing A to beat thing B, there has to be more money to be made from doing thing A. I don't think the case has been made here (though perhaps it has elsewhere) that PoS can beat PoW on these grounds -- are there sufficient incentives to make that shift?
Geee 5y ago
Bitcoin and PoW is our only shot at decentralized monetary system. PoS has many problems, and it can't provide the same level of confidence in the system as PoW. There's no way to reach objective consensus in a PoS system.[0] From this angle, I see PoS as an adversarial attack against decentralization. Failing to understand this is dangerous. Bitcoin mining uses increasingly clean or otherwise wasted energy, which solves the actual problem, which is unclean energy production. Ethereum has many problems, which prevent it ever competing with bitcoin as money. It can do NFTs and games, sure. However, there are many competitors who do these better, like BSC and Solana, and other more centralized blockchains. So, in the end there is really no place for Ethereum to be competitive in. [0] https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/old-pos.pdf https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/old-pos.pdf
- Nursie 5y ago
  Bitcoin adds a whole new country to an international power economy that already cannot provide enough green power. In some places (notably the US) fossil power is being brought back online to service it. These assertions that it is clean are not based on anything more than wishful thinking.
  - pcthrowaway 5y ago
    Greenwashing and people defending their bags against what they see as attacks. I suspect a number of people are aware that it's bullshit but handwave anyway, and then a lot of people buy the bullshit because they're emotionally invested. I like(d) everything else about bitcoin even though it's dated technology now, but proof of work is unjustifiable, the incentives create an extremely negative externality that aren't offset by its potential as borderless, uncensorable money. Especially when other blockchains avoid this issue entirely.
littlestymaar 5y ago
But you're missing an important point: PoW is the foundational building block of the biggest cryptocurrencie promise: decentralization and “permissionlessness”. With “Proof of Stakes”, the creator of the chain start with all power and then they'll slowly distribute it to a group of investors in exchange of something (usually money, but it could be other tokens, advertising, or anything). The investors can in turn sell some of all of their power on the market to make a profit, or keep it a receive dividends (newly minted tokens). In the end, you have a small group of people, closely related to the chain developer/creator with aligned interest holding all the power on the chain. Hybrid systems like Ethereum, bootstrapping with PoW and then switching to a PoS system afterwards seemingly solve this problem, but such a switch implies that the social structure around the blockchain is centralized: Ethereum is technologically decentralized, but politically very centralized (you can also see in their way of handling the DAO “hack”, violating the Ethereum protocol and rolling back the blockchain) and that's why the developers can just go “screw the miners and their hardware, we're moving to PoS now”. You couldn't do this kind of switch for bitcoin, because it's really decentralized, with stakeholders having deeply unaligned interests.

randomhodler84 5y ago

It’s a good thing. Secure money is pretty much one of the most important thing we have invented in this age. The energy today is nothing to the energy can harness tomorrow. The planet burners ain’t the energy buyers // it’s the energy sellers. Fix production to be green and grow grow grow.

Nursie 5y ago
Just like that, “fix” production? Wow, glad to know you have the global carbon emissions problem in hand! Back in the real world, until we have actually got that problem in hand, PoW cryptocurrencies are a huge extra amount of consumption, where we already have more consumption than green energy producers can keep up with. And now crypto miners are bringing decommissioned fossil fuel plants back on line in some places, purely to service PoW. The planet burners are the buyers. Sorry.
- randomhodler84 5y ago
  I’m not a fan of the fossil power plants coming online, but this is one small example. Many fossil fuel plants actually increased production during the pandemic too. Nuclear plants were taken offline too. But this is not cryptocurrency to blame. The fundamental disconnect here is that you want to tell people how they can and can’t use energy. That’s authoritarian nonsense and I reject your wishes. I am saying use it how you wish, but optimize it to be green. Ideally, the use will drive it to be more green as that is the cheapest and more sustainable way to generate power in the long run. Do you see the difference in position?
  - 8note 5y ago
    Green and crypto are incompatible ideas. You don't waste for the sake of wasting when you're looking to be green.
    - 0x0nyandesu 5y ago
      Banks use way more electricity just cooling and heating their offices for the meat sacks that run their business than crypto ever will.

oarabbus_ 5y ago

Why do you consider the energy usage from GPUs mining cryptocurrency worse than energy usage from GPUs used for playing video games or rendering CGI graphics? Or porn? TV commercials? Why is it considered OK to generate massive amounts of pollution and expend tremendous energy flying beef from Japan to New York for people's consumption, when there are perfectly edible cuts of beef which require at most a short train ride? What if the crypto is mined in part or full by renewable energy, which many crypto miners do (it's economically to their advantage in certain areas/climates)? If the goal is saving the planet, there are plenty of activities like flying internationally for pleasure, or eating meat that do far more environmental damage than cryptocurrency mining.

bigdubs 5y ago
This is not a good comparison because big mining farms are not equivalent to people playing video games at home.
- oarabbus_ 5y ago
  So then is the problem "crypto currency mining" or "large bitcoin mining farms"? If that's the case it shouldn't be a problem if an individual wants to mine ethereum in their home. Regardless there are 1.5+ billion gamers which does make it comparable. Video streaming in aggregate consumes an incredible amount of energy, as does non-essential plane travel. But people seem to not mind that. It's fine if people want to enjoy their movies or fly around the world for pleasure but it's a bit of cognitive dissonance.
  - ryan93 5y ago
    most of those 1.5 billion graphics cards are off at any given time and not running full bore even when they are on.
Nursie 5y ago
We’ll, firstly the largest contributor, BTC, doesn’t use GPUs. Secondly, many of us don’t think that beef example is really “OK” either. Third, the idea that Bitcoin or crypto in general runs predominantly on green power is bullshit. Fourth, BTC now consumes more power and has more associated carbon output than many mid sized countries, it is not some piddling little thing that we can safely ignore. Fifth, and last - My point that you replied to was about the article writing the problem off as personal choice. While we only have one planet it is not just personal choice.