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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 th

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.

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.