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1. It’s one of the cheapest coins to spend. Usually <$0.15 Only litecoin and Dogecoin are cheaper in the top 25. Yeah ok polygon is the cheapest ($<0.01) if yo

1. It’s one of the cheapest coins to spend. Usually <$0.15 Only litecoin and Dogecoin are cheaper in the top 25. Yeah ok polygon is the cheapest ($<0.01) if you include EVM chains but the rest of them are much more expensive ($1tx+). 2. PoW is security. Rather than crusade against “work”, maybe we should be crusading against fossil fuels?

Helitio 4y ago
Are you advocating to use renewable for Bitcoin mining instead? Because that will only work as soon as we reached full saturation of renewable energy production and consumption. Otherwise it will always be more lucrative to consume the renewable through Bitcoin than using it for everything else. A EV car fuel consumption would need to cost more than what Bitcoin can make. A very unhealthy relationship Bitcoin has on consuming energy. The only real possibility is creating a Bitcoin heater system but most of the time I see Bitcoin mines I'm seeing also AC's which increases the energy consumption even further. And no, the demand for renewable from Bitcoin will not mean we will create and invest more money into renewable energy overall with a net positive it will only add to more Bitcoin mining.
- randomhodler84 4y ago
  Yes, I am advocating for this. My take on what you are saying is that you deem other uses of energy more appropriate — “you can’t use it that way! You must use it in this way”. Ultimately it is market forces that determine if using energy for a particular purpose. If there are no pollution externalities to add complexity, it is up to whomever is paying the bill on what they want to spend it on. I appreciate that some miners will find it rational to use their entire renewable power to mine Bitcoin; and that is ok. Not everyone wants to mine. For some, the utility of an EV is greater than that of mining, and so just looking at a energy/cost ratio ignores demand and utility. Additionally, the PoW paradigm was invented, and exists today, and there is not a lot one can do to stop it. From 2009 onwards, humanity has decided to dedicate some percentage of global energy output and to the purposes of maintaining ledger security. I have always said this is a good thing, and if you have a problem with this, complaining about it achieves nothing.
  - Helitio 4y ago
    We can do plenty against it. We can advocate for laws etc. And it's not just me who thinks 'other' uses are more critical: even you prefer light over bitcoins. You probably prefer goods and services also higher than Bitcoin hashes. And in a world hurt by co2, everyone who has to suffer the consequences from climate change would also tell you what they think if they knew and could tell you.
    - randomhodler84 4y ago
      Laws, ok good one. You better not own a clothes drier or a set of Christmas tree lights (2 things that use more energy globally than Bitcoin) because in a world hurt by co2, everyone has to suffer the consequence from climate change.
      - Helitio 4y ago
        What you are currently doing is called a strawman argument. I have not mentioned IF I think those use cases are less or more bad than Bitcoin. Your argument becomes irrelevant when I say 'yes! Good point let us also stop doing Christmas lights etc. Independent of this, I even have the feeling that I read the exact example before on hn. But just for the fun of it: yes we need to do much much more. It would be a good way to list the biggest energy consumers and rank them based on alhow helpful they are for the whole world and how critical. Bitcoin would be below plenty of things. Anyway I can and will continue to advocate against Bitcoin as it consumes terrawatts of energy, has very little benefit to the rest of the world and people try to play this issue down by putting weird renewable arguments out there which are just lie's. We need to push back. Most of us are getting hurt by Bitcoin. Either to additional climate change, speculation/gambling or by hardware supply issues. I bet 99% people here paid for Bitcoin more than they made through it. The higher GPU price, higher taxes through climate changehigher utility costs.
CyberDildonics 4y ago
Average transaction fee on bitcoin is about $1.50 USD which is low for bitcoin. If you use a second layer you can only transact on some tiny channel, you still have to sync with the main chain. A second layer is very good for sending one person 10,000 small payments, which is not a real use case. https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees.html#3m https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees... Don't forget that bitcoin still has the throughput of a dialup modem. https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/size-btc.html#1y https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/size-btc.html#1y
- randomhodler84 4y ago
  That site is overestimating the costs, people bring that report up frequently. https://mempool.space https://mempool.space is a better indication of cost. I only ever pay 1sat/vbyte (min cost) myself, and have for years. I am able to wait a few hours to get such low fees if required. Real time payments are to be done via Lightning network. The network is reasonable congested today so the high priority tx is 12sat/vbyte or 67 cents. That “dial up modem” seems fine. We can look at incremental changes if the need arises. It doesn’t today.
  - CyberDildonics 4y ago
    It isn't an estimate, it is taking data directly from the chain. Real time payments are to be done via Lightning network Real time between two people on the exact same tiny side chain with no one else on it. This is not the same as people sending a transaction to each other on the actual bitcoin chain. The network is reasonable congested today You can see in the chart I linked that it is not. That “dial up modem” seems fine. We can look at incremental changes if the need arises. It doesn’t today. It is not fine. That's why transaction fees have spiked in the past, that's cheap transactions no longer exist, that's why there is an awkward second layer that few use and no one wants. It has been 12 years and every other currency has proved that restricting a chain to a few kilobytes per second is ridiculous.
    - randomhodler84 4y ago

Helitio 4y ago

Are you advocating to use renewable for Bitcoin mining instead? Because that will only work as soon as we reached full saturation of renewable energy production and consumption. Otherwise it will always be more lucrative to consume the renewable through Bitcoin than using it for everything else. A EV car fuel consumption would need to cost more than what Bitcoin can make. A very unhealthy relationship Bitcoin has on consuming energy. The only real possibility is creating a Bitcoin heater system but most of the time I see Bitcoin mines I'm seeing also AC's which increases the energy consumption even further. And no, the demand for renewable from Bitcoin will not mean we will create and invest more money into renewable energy overall with a net positive it will only add to more Bitcoin mining.

randomhodler84 4y ago
Yes, I am advocating for this. My take on what you are saying is that you deem other uses of energy more appropriate — “you can’t use it that way! You must use it in this way”. Ultimately it is market forces that determine if using energy for a particular purpose. If there are no pollution externalities to add complexity, it is up to whomever is paying the bill on what they want to spend it on. I appreciate that some miners will find it rational to use their entire renewable power to mine Bitcoin; and that is ok. Not everyone wants to mine. For some, the utility of an EV is greater than that of mining, and so just looking at a energy/cost ratio ignores demand and utility. Additionally, the PoW paradigm was invented, and exists today, and there is not a lot one can do to stop it. From 2009 onwards, humanity has decided to dedicate some percentage of global energy output and to the purposes of maintaining ledger security. I have always said this is a good thing, and if you have a problem with this, complaining about it achieves nothing.
- Helitio 4y ago
  We can do plenty against it. We can advocate for laws etc. And it's not just me who thinks 'other' uses are more critical: even you prefer light over bitcoins. You probably prefer goods and services also higher than Bitcoin hashes. And in a world hurt by co2, everyone who has to suffer the consequences from climate change would also tell you what they think if they knew and could tell you.
  - randomhodler84 4y ago
    Laws, ok good one. You better not own a clothes drier or a set of Christmas tree lights (2 things that use more energy globally than Bitcoin) because in a world hurt by co2, everyone has to suffer the consequence from climate change.
    - Helitio 4y ago
      What you are currently doing is called a strawman argument. I have not mentioned IF I think those use cases are less or more bad than Bitcoin. Your argument becomes irrelevant when I say 'yes! Good point let us also stop doing Christmas lights etc. Independent of this, I even have the feeling that I read the exact example before on hn. But just for the fun of it: yes we need to do much much more. It would be a good way to list the biggest energy consumers and rank them based on alhow helpful they are for the whole world and how critical. Bitcoin would be below plenty of things. Anyway I can and will continue to advocate against Bitcoin as it consumes terrawatts of energy, has very little benefit to the rest of the world and people try to play this issue down by putting weird renewable arguments out there which are just lie's. We need to push back. Most of us are getting hurt by Bitcoin. Either to additional climate change, speculation/gambling or by hardware supply issues. I bet 99% people here paid for Bitcoin more than they made through it. The higher GPU price, higher taxes through climate changehigher utility costs.

CyberDildonics 4y ago

Average transaction fee on bitcoin is about $1.50 USD which is low for bitcoin. If you use a second layer you can only transact on some tiny channel, you still have to sync with the main chain. A second layer is very good for sending one person 10,000 small payments, which is not a real use case. https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees.html#3m https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees... Don't forget that bitcoin still has the throughput of a dialup modem. https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/size-btc.html#1y https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/size-btc.html#1y

randomhodler84 4y ago
That site is overestimating the costs, people bring that report up frequently. https://mempool.space https://mempool.space is a better indication of cost. I only ever pay 1sat/vbyte (min cost) myself, and have for years. I am able to wait a few hours to get such low fees if required. Real time payments are to be done via Lightning network. The network is reasonable congested today so the high priority tx is 12sat/vbyte or 67 cents. That “dial up modem” seems fine. We can look at incremental changes if the need arises. It doesn’t today.
- CyberDildonics 4y ago
  It isn't an estimate, it is taking data directly from the chain. Real time payments are to be done via Lightning network Real time between two people on the exact same tiny side chain with no one else on it. This is not the same as people sending a transaction to each other on the actual bitcoin chain. The network is reasonable congested today You can see in the chart I linked that it is not. That “dial up modem” seems fine. We can look at incremental changes if the need arises. It doesn’t today. It is not fine. That's why transaction fees have spiked in the past, that's cheap transactions no longer exist, that's why there is an awkward second layer that few use and no one wants. It has been 12 years and every other currency has proved that restricting a chain to a few kilobytes per second is ridiculous.
  - randomhodler84 4y ago