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Decentralization Is Killing Our Environment

• josephcsible 5y ago
  > The software uses two methods of PKI (public key infrastructure) to sign and authenticate every message, similar to signing a cryptocurrency transaction on a blockchain, such as Bitcoin. > Signing and verifying messages is computationally expensive, requiring increased CPU utilization. This is really, really misleading. Bitcoin's environmental impact is because it uses proof of work, not because of how it encrypts and signs things.
  • salawat 5y ago
    To be clear I 100% agree with you, but in terms of being maximum pedant, they aren't wrong necessarily. I think we may finally be seeing computational cost consciousness warped imto another horseman of the infocalypse.
    • wagoYYP 5y ago
      It's a tough one. It seems the users don't have an idea of the inner workings of what they are using, but it's open source so they can take a peek if they want. Generally they feel like they are using something 'better' than corporate whatever it is. Which we can't compare if we don't know what's inside the black box.
  • wagoYYP 5y ago
    Yes, you are correct. But Mastodon users complaining about Bitcoin energy is ironic to me.