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> the PoW environmental show-stopper You make some great points, so I'm sorry to focus on this one minor aspect, but I don't think the carbon footprint of Bitc
by dane-pgp 5y ago
> the PoW environmental show-stopper
You make some great points, so I'm sorry to focus on this one minor aspect, but I don't think the carbon footprint of Bitcoin is a show-stopper.
We accept the CO2 emissions of other industries and inventions, from air travel to air conditioning, and perhaps if those were invented today some people would want to ban them, but "the show must go on", and it looks like Bitcoin will sooner be replaced by a cryptocurrency with better scalability (and possibly privacy) than being meaningfully banned because of environmental reasons.
For the record, it looks like Ethereum's switch to Proof of Stake has been successful on the testnet, and the live launch should occur in June or July this year.[0] If the "Freedom Convoy" had only waited a few months, they could have avoided the criticism of Bitcoin's environmental impact entirely.
[0] https://www.trustnodes.com/2022/03/15/ethereum-successfully-merges-to-proof-of-stake-on-testnet https://www.trustnodes.com/2022/03/15/ethereum-successfully-...
- nonrandomstring 5y ago> For the record, it looks like Ethereum's switch to Proof of Stake has been successful on the testnet, and the live launch should occur in June or July this year.[0] That's kinda the good news I have been waiting to hear. People much smarter than I have been saying PoS will never work, Politically I am for digital currencies so long as they - are in the control of the people not central banks or big corporations - offer small transaction anonymity - remain a complement to cash, not a replacement which would be dangerously irresilient. - Use a PoS scheme and don't require gigawatt datacentres to work I am always told these aims are mutually incompatible, but intuitively at least I reckon it's solvable.