4 ms·

There are new blockchains based on technology a million times more efficient than Bitcoin. Ethereum is trying to upgrade. Bitcoin is terrible, but this is fixab

There are new blockchains based on technology a million times more efficient than Bitcoin. Ethereum is trying to upgrade. Bitcoin is terrible, but this is fixable by using things other than bitcoin.

bertil 4y ago
> a million times more efficient than Bitcoin That is still a million times less efficient than existing solution and still horrifyingly wasteful. Blockchain principle is that if you have as many people as possible waste an astounding amount of computation and energy, you make over-ruling most of them too wasteful to be possible. You are not solving anything that way, just showing off that you have never heard of Kwakiutl.
- arriu 4y ago
  You’re comparing database to a trust-less distributed fault tolerant system. Of course the db has a smaller energy footprint but it doesn’t provide the same features. It’s like saying a bicycle rolls down the road just as well as a car so we should not use the car. There are blockchains now that are designed to be optimal for what they provide. The bigger issue is that there are applications running on chains that clearly don’t need the features of the chain.
  - bertil 4y ago
    I’m saying that for 95% of journeys currently done with cars, bicycles would be perfectly fine. I mean that both litterally and figuratively. More importantly, both for transport and for digital services, if we don’t switch to bicyles, there won’t be a planet to run those services for. You are advocating for the end of the world as we know it within ten years.
- pshc 4y ago
  I wouldn’t say the energy use of non-proof of work chains is millions of times worse than existing traditional finance and web2 solutions. Probably comparable. There is much energy wasted in the products themselves and knock-on effects. Machine learning for ads and analytics, for example. Banks using thousands of warm bodies to push around excel spreadsheets. Google might build some of their data centers up in Iceland, but that’s not the full picture.
  - bertil 4y ago
    > I wouldn’t say the energy use of non-proof of work chains is millions of times worse than existing traditional finance and web2 solutions. Probably comparable. Then you would not know what you are talking about. > Google might build some of their data centers up in Iceland, but that’s not the full picture. No, they have dozens of data centers, on every continent, and all of them are in areas with cheap, carbon-neutral supply. You think that you are being smart by being dismissive about their effort, and the effort of dozens of companies who host their own infrastructure, but that condescension and lack of expertise is just one more example of why Crypto advocates are so unconvincing.
    - pshc 4y ago
      Okay I have to concede the second point. Clearly I was feeling pretty flippant at the time. Unsure about the former point.
krzyk 4y ago
How Etherum thing is an upgrade? More centralization (AFAIR you need 32 ETH to get started, so ~$100000, not to mention possible issues where you loose full 32 ETH) vs a single GPU with only lose is your electricity cost.

There are new blockchains based on technology a million times more efficient than Bitcoin. Ethereum is trying to upgrade. Bitcoin is terrible, but this is fixable by using things other than bitcoin.

bertil 4y ago

> a million times more efficient than Bitcoin That is still a million times less efficient than existing solution and still horrifyingly wasteful. Blockchain principle is that if you have as many people as possible waste an astounding amount of computation and energy, you make over-ruling most of them too wasteful to be possible. You are not solving anything that way, just showing off that you have never heard of Kwakiutl.

arriu 4y ago
You’re comparing database to a trust-less distributed fault tolerant system. Of course the db has a smaller energy footprint but it doesn’t provide the same features. It’s like saying a bicycle rolls down the road just as well as a car so we should not use the car. There are blockchains now that are designed to be optimal for what they provide. The bigger issue is that there are applications running on chains that clearly don’t need the features of the chain.
- bertil 4y ago
  I’m saying that for 95% of journeys currently done with cars, bicycles would be perfectly fine. I mean that both litterally and figuratively. More importantly, both for transport and for digital services, if we don’t switch to bicyles, there won’t be a planet to run those services for. You are advocating for the end of the world as we know it within ten years.
pshc 4y ago
I wouldn’t say the energy use of non-proof of work chains is millions of times worse than existing traditional finance and web2 solutions. Probably comparable. There is much energy wasted in the products themselves and knock-on effects. Machine learning for ads and analytics, for example. Banks using thousands of warm bodies to push around excel spreadsheets. Google might build some of their data centers up in Iceland, but that’s not the full picture.
- bertil 4y ago
  > I wouldn’t say the energy use of non-proof of work chains is millions of times worse than existing traditional finance and web2 solutions. Probably comparable. Then you would not know what you are talking about. > Google might build some of their data centers up in Iceland, but that’s not the full picture. No, they have dozens of data centers, on every continent, and all of them are in areas with cheap, carbon-neutral supply. You think that you are being smart by being dismissive about their effort, and the effort of dozens of companies who host their own infrastructure, but that condescension and lack of expertise is just one more example of why Crypto advocates are so unconvincing.
  - pshc 4y ago
    Okay I have to concede the second point. Clearly I was feeling pretty flippant at the time. Unsure about the former point.

krzyk 4y ago

How Etherum thing is an upgrade? More centralization (AFAIR you need 32 ETH to get started, so ~$100000, not to mention possible issues where you loose full 32 ETH) vs a single GPU with only lose is your electricity cost.