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It is using energy just to prove that you’ve used more energy than an attacker is presumed to be able to use. If our energy suddenly became 1000× cheaper and gr

It is using energy just to prove that you’ve used more energy than an attacker is presumed to be able to use. If our energy suddenly became 1000× cheaper and greener, then the mining difficulty would increase by 1000×, and the system would remain equally destructive. And there would be no benefit from this 1000× increase in energy usage—this would not enable more, faster, or cheaper transactions. Just hash values with more zero bits to certify that more energy was used. If that doesn’t qualify as “using energy just to use energy”, then nothing does.

randomhodler84 5y ago
You may be missing the point on security and energy. Think adversarially. If the energy was 1000x for me, it’s 1000x for my adversary too. It’s important that we outspend the adversary if we want secure money.
- anderskaseorg 5y ago
  Yes I know why PoW has to work that way. I explained that in my first sentence. The fact that a PoW system requires honest participants to waste more energy than attackers could in order to function doesn’t make it any less wasteful.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  > It’s important that we outspend the adversary if we want secure money. Money has been secure for literally thousands of years before PoW was invented. Sure, PoW works, but it's the most wasteful solution to the problem of securing transactions that has ever been invented in the history of the world.
  - kreetx 5y ago
    Well, money isn't secure in the sense that it doesn't protect you against inflation like bitcoin does; also, the money in the bank can be taken from you while you can really own cryptocurrencies.
    - tsimionescu 5y ago
      Nothing stops a democratic country from deiciding they don't want to accept inflation in their fiat currency, just like in Bitcoin. The reasons this isn't done are complex, having some amount of corruption but also knowing that printing money is the only known way of getting out of a deep economic crisis, like the great depression. And Bitcoin will not protect anyone from non-financial inflation, such as rising energy prices causing a rise in prices for most other goods. If anything, Bitcoin would make kt harder to actually transact in this type of market potentially leading to problems of simply there not being enough money for the economy to function. Finally, while Bitcoin may give some protection from a hostile government, it also leaves you with no protection for much more common cases of fraud, forgotten/destroyed passwords etc. Not to mention, most people transact Bitcoin through an exchange, the equivalent of a bank, which could probably be forced to cede control of "your" wallet to a government just as much as any other financial institution.

randomhodler84 5y ago

You may be missing the point on security and energy. Think adversarially. If the energy was 1000x for me, it’s 1000x for my adversary too. It’s important that we outspend the adversary if we want secure money.

anderskaseorg 5y ago
Yes I know why PoW has to work that way. I explained that in my first sentence. The fact that a PoW system requires honest participants to waste more energy than attackers could in order to function doesn’t make it any less wasteful.
tsimionescu 5y ago
> It’s important that we outspend the adversary if we want secure money. Money has been secure for literally thousands of years before PoW was invented. Sure, PoW works, but it's the most wasteful solution to the problem of securing transactions that has ever been invented in the history of the world.
- kreetx 5y ago
  Well, money isn't secure in the sense that it doesn't protect you against inflation like bitcoin does; also, the money in the bank can be taken from you while you can really own cryptocurrencies.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    Nothing stops a democratic country from deiciding they don't want to accept inflation in their fiat currency, just like in Bitcoin. The reasons this isn't done are complex, having some amount of corruption but also knowing that printing money is the only known way of getting out of a deep economic crisis, like the great depression. And Bitcoin will not protect anyone from non-financial inflation, such as rising energy prices causing a rise in prices for most other goods. If anything, Bitcoin would make kt harder to actually transact in this type of market potentially leading to problems of simply there not being enough money for the economy to function. Finally, while Bitcoin may give some protection from a hostile government, it also leaves you with no protection for much more common cases of fraud, forgotten/destroyed passwords etc. Not to mention, most people transact Bitcoin through an exchange, the equivalent of a bank, which could probably be forced to cede control of "your" wallet to a government just as much as any other financial institution.