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EU should ban proof-of-work crypto mining, regulator says
- usrbinbash 5y agoThe entire world should ban it. Burning the energy requirement of a nation to do less than 1M transactions per day, when credit cards alone handle 1 BILLION transactions per day, is absurd.
- YATA0 5y agoWhen someone told me all of that energy behind Bitcoin produces less than 20 transactions per second I thought they were joking.
- nicbou 5y ago4, actually. By design. This is fixed with off-chain transactions, which negate the benefits of using a blockchain in the first place.
- kevinak 5y agoIt’s also a system that is built on centralized systems. Is this really ideal? Do you really trust governments to handle the monetary system? No currency in the history of the world has survived in the long run. The number of transactions has nothing to do with the energy spent on mining. Besides, the LN can already handle millions, if not billions, of transactions per second. You’re parrot
- multjoy 5y ago>Do you really trust governments to handle the monetary system? Where do you think the monetary system actually came from?
- kevinak 5y agoDoes it matter? Not sure I follow, can you elaborate?
- emteycz 5y agoBanks.
- KptMarchewa 5y agoCurrencies have been existing literally thousands of years more than banks.
- emteycz 5y agoYes indeed - currencies (not monetary systems) based on precious metals, such as the Groschen or Thaler. That doesn't have much in common with the "gold standard" monetary system as it was in the USA. That emerged from a monetary system of private banks that issued their own banknotes. And it has practically nothing in common with the modern quantitative easing monetary system that is orchestrated by public and private banks.
- cedilla 5y agoSome currencies have survived for centuries. But that's hardly a concern. When currencies fail, it's usually just another symptom of a deeper problem. Imagine Germany in the late 1920s with Bitcoin. There would still be mass unemployment, there would still be riots on the street, the Rheinland was still occupied, the government would still have to pay reparations, US companies would still be unwilling to continue investments in Germany. Almost none of the problems were caused by monetary policies. And if a government destroys their monetary system with monetary policies alone, they can just introduce a new currency. That's not a apocalyptic measure.
- siraben 5y agoAlso, one bitcoin transaction takes as much energy as 1.5 million visa transactions[0]. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-consumption-transaction-comparison-visa/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-co...
- bob1029 5y agoI don't think that 1.5mm figure is accurate. Assuming the power consumption for 1 BTC transaction is 1173 kWh as stated in the article, then we are off by a few orders of magnitude. This is enough energy to run an IBM z15 mainframe at maximum configuration (~30kW consumption) for ~39 hours [0]. I am 100% certain that Visa can process more than 1.5 million transactions on such a platform in that amount of time. [0]: https://ibm-zcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/IBM-z15-Technical-Pitch-Handout.pdf https://ibm-zcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/IBM-z15-... (See page 88)
- eternityforest 5y agoI'm guessing there's probably several such maiframes spread out all over the place. One would presumably not want to store all the world's money on one server. At the very least banks all have their own, right? And would they not want redundancy? 1.5 million might stil be a bit low though.
- bob1029 5y ago> One would presumably not want to store all the world's money on one server. That's not how any of this works. Money is not stored anywhere in particular, unless we are talking about physical currency or commodities. The entire point of a mainframe is to be able to centralize critical things (like credit card processing) that simply cannot be allowed to fail. Most large banks and credit card processors operate their own pile of magic and then settle after the fact. It's not like VISA's IBM is the one big money bin that everything runs through. > 1.5 million might stil be a bit low though. In my scenario above, 1.5 million is a joke. That max spec machine could easily handle tens or hundreds of billions of credit card transactions in that timeframe.
- DickingAround 5y agoIt is if you think it's as simple as 'processing a transaction'. Anyone can design a system that records a transaction. It's very hard to make one that can't be deleted and can't be reversed. Doing this unlocks some amazing things, in particular hard, inflation resistant money. And if you don't think inflation resistance is important, consider how many poor people have been robbed by those who just print more money and give it to their friends. It's been happening for centuries. It has destroyed whole countries just just once or twice but many times. Coin clipping to fund wars is as old as coins. So is stealing people's money at the point of a sword. On the outside it might not appear 'efficient' when you don't have to implement all the same features bitcoin has. But if you actually try to build a system with these features, there is no better way so far.
- pipodeclown 5y agoLook the central point of fiat currencies is that it provides for monetary control to governments, which includes a measure of inflation. If you truly believe that replacing that with a non-state controlled currency that does not allow for monetary control is something government will allow or is even something that the general public would want, you're diluting yourself and are way to deep into the crypto bubble. The only reason you hear anything positive about cryptos from the general public is because they think they can make a quick buck.
- eternityforest 5y agoBitcoin can absolutely be stolen at the point of a sword, and unlike with a bank, they can't just reverse it. In some countries, bitcoin might be better... but there's got to be ways to help them that don't involve the whole world mining. It might not have inflation, but I suspect that if the whole world switched to CC we would still have poverty, still have slave labor type wages for some, and all the usual stuff. Bitcoin specifically seems to have a built in regressive tax in the form of transaction fees. Even sales tax is a bit better because that has exceptions for most essentials. This punishes those who rarely ever make transactions above 100$ and rewards those who make large ones regularly.
- drekk 5y agoYou can reverse it, it's called a 51% attack. It's also too volatile to transact with. If I have $100 today I know it's not going to be $90 next week, then $65 the following, then $250 after that. This also makes it a shitty store of value. Just be honest with what it is — a speculative asset everyone is hoping to get in "on the ground floor of". It only has value today because you can convert it to fiat, do you really think people would still use it if that were to change?
- Feeble 5y agoI guess we should ban christmas lights in the US too then. They also use more energy than whole countries - https://phys.org/news/2015-12-christmas-energy-entire-countries.html https://phys.org/news/2015-12-christmas-energy-entire-countr...
- floatingatoll 5y agoThat’s a good idea; if you write that up as a blog post and submit it to HN, I’d read it!
- BoiledCabbage 5y agoDo they also suffer from high exponential growth in energy usage?
- floatingatoll 5y agoNo, but they are definitely an excessive use of incandescent bulbs in the United States. It’s too bad they haven’t figured out how to make cheap LED strands that are more diffuse and in warm colors, as this is a significant energy burden for both homeowners and the country’s electrical grid. Your point that their usage doesn’t accelerate over time is valid, but as the link notes, this is still a significant energy burden on the country and should be addressed over time. It can be worked on in parallel to efforts to curb the growth of crypto coin energy waste, so there’s no harm in encouraging reductions to both.
- YATA0 5y ago>It’s too bad they haven’t figured out how to make cheap LED strands that are more diffuse and in warm colors, as this is a significant energy burden for both homeowners and the country’s electrical grid. They have figured it out. It's becoming exceedingly difficult to find incandescent Christmas lights these days. A quick check on two of my local big box store websites shows that non-LED Christmas lights are not even available for sale. LED lights use an order of magnitude less energy, so the current energy consumption is going to be quite different.
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- jrsj 5y agoYou’re looking at it the wrong way. It’s not primarily a technology for transactions. Number of transactions doesn’t scale with the number of miners, the amount of value that can be securely stored in the network does. Environmental concerns are a temporary issue & Bitcoin is moving to renewables faster than most anything else for a variety of reasons. An outright ban is an absurd policy aimed at being punitive towards something people have an irrational hatred for. If you care so much about the environment just have reasonable energy policies such as a carbon tax and nobody would mine BTC with fossil fuels because it would be too expensive. Plus then you’re improving every other industry too instead of attacking cryptocurrency and making an insufficient impact on CO2 emissions in the process
- nicbou 5y agoSo what is it for? I keep seeing this argument, but it the end it seems like it's wasting a ridiculous amount of energy while not being particularly good at anything. The energy being renewable doesn't mean much if it still wastes it. It could be used for something actually useful.
- usrbinbash 5y ago> It’s not primarily a technology for transactions. Well, what else is it for? All the things to be "put on the chain" (including transactions btw.) already existed in a more efficient form. > Environmental concerns are a temporary issue The environment is a concern for as long as humanity exists in it. And Carbon emissions are far from the only problem Mining causes: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58572385 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58572385 37,000 tonnes of waste per year. That's 37,000 tonnes of electronics for which raw materials must be gathered and processed, which must be assembled, transported. > Bitcoin is moving to renewables faster than most anything else for a variety of reasons https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Bitcoin-mining-is-dirtier-than-coal-Here-16663155.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Bitcoi... https://ohiorivervalleyinstitute.org/bitcoin-mining-breathes-life-into-zombie-coal-plants/ https://ohiorivervalleyinstitute.org/bitcoin-mining-breathes... https://fortune.com/2022/01/05/kazakhstan-internet-bitcoin-mining-mystery-crypto/ https://fortune.com/2022/01/05/kazakhstan-internet-bitcoin-m... https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-tech/some-states-lure-crypto-miners-to-keep-their-coal-plants-alive/ https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-tech/some-stat... And even without that: It's just a giant waste of energy. Using the Energy requirements of a nation to process less than 0.5M transactions a day, when credit cards alone process 1B in the same time? If we have surplus electricity, we can use it to power desalination plants, lower energy prices in underserved communities or literally just pump water uphill to store it. Almost everything is a better use than burning through tons of hardware, just so computers can scream SHA256 hashes at each other.
- kevinak 5y agoThis really is getting quite tiring. It’s such a red herring. I’d suggest reading this article by Nic Carter to get the other sides POV: https://www.newsweek.com/bitcoin-mining-americas-most-misunderstood-industry-opinion-1669892 https://www.newsweek.com/bitcoin-mining-americas-most-misund...
- nicbou 5y agoI appreciate that you shared this, but I remain entirely unconvinced. His argument is "pff it's not that bad".
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y agoNo it isn't. Among other things he claims that the energy grid needs energy taken off from it at times (yielding pockets of negative energy prices), and Miners could stand ready to do that. He writes more stuff, certainly more than "it's not that bad".
- viraptor 5y agoIf only we had something else to do with that energy... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_storage_power_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_storage_power_station and others https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage Or just distributing that energy long-distance to other places where it's needed. Taking that energy off the grid is literally an incentive to not add any of those solutions which we will need in the future unless we finally agree to go nuclear.
- vmception 5y agothe reason these things are not accomplished is because it costs more to do them than the energy is worth, which is the only reason it hasn't been done if bitcoin mining makes you suddenly notice that you want these logistical nuances subsidized, after a hundred years of never noticing, then fine, compete with the miners at energy producing sites and legislatively that way
- throwawayffffas 5y agoI am all for a ban too, if not because of the power waste then because of the semiconductor shortage. Every wafer that doesn't become bitcoin miners can become something else.
- Proven 5y agoThen pay for it to become something else, instead of trying to use the government to steal it for you.
- solarman5000 5y ago"Wahh free market sucks.. Let's bring government in so they can force the market to change for me"
- toraway1234 5y ago
- thehappypm 5y agoGovernment bans people from burning trash, this is pretty similar.
- qalmakka 5y agoWithout government intervention, a completely free market would quickly cause the world to revert to feudalism. There should be a balance between freedom of enterprise and common sense.
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoDoes anyone even large scale mine in the EU? I was under the impression most of these cryptocurrency assholes are in corrupt countries where energy prices are either low or its easy to steal electricity.
- DickingAround 5y agoIf you worry about the power waste, have a CO2 tax. You don't think some people's use of power is right, but perhaps they don't think your use of power is right. Is that really something you don't want to be a fundamental right, this concept of being able to use electricity as you see fit? The idea of banning something because of a chip shortage is an even more extreme attack on the rights of others. One person makes specialized bitcoin mining chips (they can't be used for anything else), another person buys them. And you want to bring people with guns into it because maybe the person making the chips could be making them for whatever you want? Please, think deeply before asking for force and violence to be involved in a bunch of people peacefully going about their own ways and interests.
- tomputer 5y agoI’m unable to read the full article, it looks like a repost from two months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29355447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29355447
- radu_floricica 5y agoIt's funny how every time free market tries to do something new which people consider useful enough to pay money for, somebody will scream for regulators to save us from it. Usually somebody that didn't build a scrap of honest value in their life. Sure, you're going to say it's a problem of coordination. How about I give you another problem of coordination instead. In this world there are a lot of pretty complicated things, built by smart and learned people. Problem is, there is a supermajority of less smart and/or less learned people that sometimes get to decide what other people can or cannot do. Usually, we can see that societies that let people mind their own business are a lot richer, happier, more civilized and more ethical than societies which tell people what they can do with their time, work and money. But there is still a problem of coordination that a majority of people still haven't internalized this meta-rule, so democracies tend to meddle a lot more than they should. But such is life.
- traveler01 5y agoAgree with that. Cryptocurrencies are showing first hand the stupidity of burocrats. I'm not against regulation, I am though, against the excess of it, which is what's happening right now. People can't even breed without a burocrat saying "tax that, regulate that, forbid that,...". But after Covid became crystal clear, freedom is just a buzz word.
- wittycardio 5y agoNo it's actually the opposite, modern societies are the product of an all pervasive state that has the power to curtail bad behaviour. In any modern Western country the most powerful institution is the state. Now of course you need a somewhat de centralized state i.e. not too much power in the hands of a single person but the overall institution has to be very powerful. That is the system that has lead to modern success , not your libertarian fantasy, which actually existed for most of history (extremely weak state penetration in most societies).
- kazen44 5y agoalso, a free market doesn't count in the externalities of crypto mining. Like the massive waste of electricity and the resulting carbon emissions. The free market doesn't care about the longlevity of the earth, because it is an externality that is hurting the collective instead of the individual participants specifically. The same goes for labour laws, the 8 hour workday, health and food regulation etc.
- jmakov 5y agoLets also ban computers for HFT usage. Also the electrocity used by investment banks!
- Avamander 5y agoWell, if we're going as far as banning POW, I see no reason why ads should get any better treatment. Especially video ones.
- tim333 5y agoA practical issue is how you stop it though. You may ban the "rising proportion of renewable energy devoted to crypto mining" in the EU only to have the same mining done with coal in Kazakhstan and such places. A better policy might be to have a tax on holding proof of work coins. I hold a little bitcoin and a little non proof of work coins. If there was such a tax I'd probably just switch over to the non proof of work ones. If most people did that the price of bitcoin would crash and there wouldn't be much money in mining it hence less mining would be done.