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Planet destroying is a bit extreme. The traditional finance system is no more energy efficient overall. It’s certainly not environmentally friendly, but that’s

by rzz3 4y ago

Planet destroying is a bit extreme. The traditional finance system is no more energy efficient overall. It’s certainly not environmentally friendly, but that’s more a function of the dirty power we use for anything and everything. We just need to fix our methods of generating energy, not criticize everything that uses a lot of it.

jimjimjim 4y ago
preposterous. financial transaction processing is and always has been vastly more efficient and quick.
adhesive_wombat 4y ago
> The traditional finance system is no more energy efficient overall. Using more power[1] to process vastly more transactions makes it more efficient. There are over a billion credit card transactions per day as it is, and that doesn't include debit cards, wire transfers, BACS, Swift, PayPal, WU, AliPay, WeChat and all the others. And cash while we're at it, that's part of the system too. [1]: Lets say it does, though transaction processing is only a small part of the financial industries. I don't even know how much the whole industry uses, let alone what fraction is transaction handling.
chriswarbo 4y ago
> We just need to fix our methods of generating energy, not criticize everything that uses a lot of it. The problem isn't that proof-of-work "uses a lot of [energy]"; the problem is that proof-of-work only exists to waste energy. "Fix[ing] our methods of generating energy" is a red herring, since proof-of-work will automatically scale to consume any difference. It's a Red Queen's Race, which cannot be won.
- Sammi 4y ago
  No PoW is done so that the blockchain can be trustless. That is a valuable property. No other system has that property.
  - chriswarbo 4y ago
    Bitcoin uses PoW to be "trustless", which is precisely why it's designed to waste energy. Bitcoin is a distributed consensus algorithm, and the way it establishes consensus is simple: pick the longest chain. Spamming dummy blocks on to an old chain will cause that consensus to switch, allowing double-spends, so Bitcoin requires PoW as an anti-spam mechanism to slow everything down by wasting energy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash ). I wouldn't go so far as calling blockchains "trustless", since PoW has its own vulnerabilities, e.g. - Lottery-like incentives for mining favours centralisation, to reduce volatility. That gives mining pools a lot of control, e.g. whether to back forks or not. - Centralised mining is vulnerable to existing power structures, e.g. those with deep pockets can purchase warehouse-sized mining rigs, can launch legal or physical attacks on the rigs of others, etc.
    - Sammi 4y ago
      Trustless means you don't have to trust anybody to know that a transaction you initiate will happen as you expect. No one can block or alter a transaction you make. This is achieved through multiple cryptographic mechanisms - one of them is PoW. PoW makes it expensive to attempt a double spend. You can't practically double spend because it is too expensive to do. The high cost of PoW is what gives the network security from double spend. Therefore it is not wasted energy. It is energy spent to secure against double spends. You could use PoS but that is centralized and vulnerable to manipulation just like fiat. Slow depends on what you are needing the system to do. If you need to pay for groceries, then Bitcoin is slow. If you need to do remittances or settlement then Bitcoin is extremely fast - much faster to reach finality than anything else. Therefore Bitcoin is only really useful as a base layer of the financial world. But that is also extremely useful. Faster layers like Lightning can be built on top.
netsharc 4y ago
What do you think needs more energy: several systems (2, with some intermediaries) that talk to each other, one decrementing a number in a bank account, and another incrementing a number in another bank account, vs. thousands of systems that compete with each other trying to find some hash the fastest by guessing? Both need to talk to each other over the network, but in the second, it's thousands of systems needing to synchronize the information. What a stupid lie you're telling yourself to justify that "this is fine!".
TomSwirly 4y ago
> The traditional finance system is no more energy efficient overall. The traditional finance system easily does tens of thousands of times more transactions than cryptocurrencies. Visa alone does a thousand times more transactions than Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency uses over 0.5% of the world's electricity to do less than 0.01% of the world's transactions. So, no, your statement is wildly wrong. I have zero problem calling it a lie, because you made it up out of your head and made no attempt to justify it with facts.
- Sammi 4y ago
  There are many "cryptocurrencies" that have vastly more number of transactions than visa. They aren't being bought at the same rate and therefore don't have the same market cap as Bitcoin. The market has chosen Bitcoin as their favorite, because it aligns with the wants of the free market. The free market wants secure distributed and _trustless_ store of value. That's the thing that Bitcoin does better than anything. Also you can transfer any amount in a single transaction, so the transaction value throughput in Bitcoin is still infinite. This makes Bitcoin useful as a secure settlement layer for other systems.

by rzz3 4y ago

jimjimjim 4y ago

preposterous. financial transaction processing is and always has been vastly more efficient and quick.

adhesive_wombat 4y ago

> The traditional finance system is no more energy efficient overall. Using more power[1] to process vastly more transactions makes it more efficient. There are over a billion credit card transactions per day as it is, and that doesn't include debit cards, wire transfers, BACS, Swift, PayPal, WU, AliPay, WeChat and all the others. And cash while we're at it, that's part of the system too. [1]: Lets say it does, though transaction processing is only a small part of the financial industries. I don't even know how much the whole industry uses, let alone what fraction is transaction handling.

chriswarbo 4y ago

> We just need to fix our methods of generating energy, not criticize everything that uses a lot of it. The problem isn't that proof-of-work "uses a lot of [energy]"; the problem is that proof-of-work only exists to waste energy. "Fix[ing] our methods of generating energy" is a red herring, since proof-of-work will automatically scale to consume any difference. It's a Red Queen's Race, which cannot be won.

Sammi 4y ago
No PoW is done so that the blockchain can be trustless. That is a valuable property. No other system has that property.
- chriswarbo 4y ago
  Bitcoin uses PoW to be "trustless", which is precisely why it's designed to waste energy. Bitcoin is a distributed consensus algorithm, and the way it establishes consensus is simple: pick the longest chain. Spamming dummy blocks on to an old chain will cause that consensus to switch, allowing double-spends, so Bitcoin requires PoW as an anti-spam mechanism to slow everything down by wasting energy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash ). I wouldn't go so far as calling blockchains "trustless", since PoW has its own vulnerabilities, e.g. - Lottery-like incentives for mining favours centralisation, to reduce volatility. That gives mining pools a lot of control, e.g. whether to back forks or not. - Centralised mining is vulnerable to existing power structures, e.g. those with deep pockets can purchase warehouse-sized mining rigs, can launch legal or physical attacks on the rigs of others, etc.
  - Sammi 4y ago
    Trustless means you don't have to trust anybody to know that a transaction you initiate will happen as you expect. No one can block or alter a transaction you make. This is achieved through multiple cryptographic mechanisms - one of them is PoW. PoW makes it expensive to attempt a double spend. You can't practically double spend because it is too expensive to do. The high cost of PoW is what gives the network security from double spend. Therefore it is not wasted energy. It is energy spent to secure against double spends. You could use PoS but that is centralized and vulnerable to manipulation just like fiat. Slow depends on what you are needing the system to do. If you need to pay for groceries, then Bitcoin is slow. If you need to do remittances or settlement then Bitcoin is extremely fast - much faster to reach finality than anything else. Therefore Bitcoin is only really useful as a base layer of the financial world. But that is also extremely useful. Faster layers like Lightning can be built on top.

netsharc 4y ago

What do you think needs more energy: several systems (2, with some intermediaries) that talk to each other, one decrementing a number in a bank account, and another incrementing a number in another bank account, vs. thousands of systems that compete with each other trying to find some hash the fastest by guessing? Both need to talk to each other over the network, but in the second, it's thousands of systems needing to synchronize the information. What a stupid lie you're telling yourself to justify that "this is fine!".

TomSwirly 4y ago

> The traditional finance system is no more energy efficient overall. The traditional finance system easily does tens of thousands of times more transactions than cryptocurrencies. Visa alone does a thousand times more transactions than Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency uses over 0.5% of the world's electricity to do less than 0.01% of the world's transactions. So, no, your statement is wildly wrong. I have zero problem calling it a lie, because you made it up out of your head and made no attempt to justify it with facts.

Sammi 4y ago
There are many "cryptocurrencies" that have vastly more number of transactions than visa. They aren't being bought at the same rate and therefore don't have the same market cap as Bitcoin. The market has chosen Bitcoin as their favorite, because it aligns with the wants of the free market. The free market wants secure distributed and _trustless_ store of value. That's the thing that Bitcoin does better than anything. Also you can transfer any amount in a single transaction, so the transaction value throughput in Bitcoin is still infinite. This makes Bitcoin useful as a secure settlement layer for other systems.