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Crypto miners aren't honest about power use – time for a crackdown

9 points by samizdis 4y ago

scohesc 4y ago
I find it hard to believe that in America you have lawmakers telling individuals that they shouldn't be able to run their business because it "uses too much power". Why lawmakers aren't seeing that they should be creating more power to accommodate the future is beyond me. Do they want to limit competing fiat currencies to have more control over their own USD? Are they simply lazy, uninformed, and don't want to put in the effort when they still have their 6-figure salaries and cozy handshake deals? Maybe the lawmakers should look at how much power the current financial system uses - from cellphones with NFC capabilities, POS terminals on one end and massive datacenters processing AI algorithms, private wireless communication networks laid out nationally for stock broker/trader access on the other end. I'm sure the current global payment system uses the same, if not far more energy than bitcoin mining does.
- headsupernova 4y ago
  This bs is debunked in every crypto thread... We're facing climate collapse and need to immediately ramp down nonessential energy use. Crypto mining facilities simply do not make the cut. That said, the mainstream financial system requires a haircut too, no doubt, but at least it provides some basic use to normal people.
  - jinpa_zangpo 4y ago
    We have a free market to make decisions about what uses of energy are worthwhile and government decisions about how to allocate energy are likely to lead to cronyism if not outright disaster. If you want to reduce the use of energy in order to reduce carbon emissions, the market oriented solution is a carbon tax or a cap and trade system.
SilverBirch 4y ago
The thing that strikes me about the US government at the moment, is that it's sclerotic. In some ways, decisions have been made that allows this - a hands-off regulatory environment means that if nothing happens, the market runs pretty free and everyone assumes that government will happen so we more or less pretend like there are rules (with some notable, un-enforced exceptions: Uber, Facebook, Theranos etc). But it seems beyond parody that now, in the midst of a massive crash in crypto, now we're going to start looking at energy usage? How many decades will it be before they do something, and what message are they really sending? It's like looking back at Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp and saying "Whoops". The problem comes with what happens next. What happens if some Billionaire decides he can just completely ignore the rules and fuck around with other companies and drive them into the ground? What happens if the next Uber doesn't feel encumbered by the same restrictions on their behavior that Uber did, and start actively blackmailing members of congress. Grey ball was cute, but how many congressmen would stand up to Uber threatening to leak their questionable trips to a certain friend? People in Silicon Valley talk about innovation, but what if a lot of that innovation is finding ways to steal from the common good to enrich a handful of people, and what if the innovation in SV is totally lacking in Washington DC - bogged down by the cash in SV that has an interest in making sure that continues?

9 points by samizdis 4y ago

I find it hard to believe that in America you have lawmakers telling individuals that they shouldn't be able to run their business because it "uses too much power". Why lawmakers aren't seeing that they should be creating more power to accommodate the future is beyond me. Do they want to limit competing fiat currencies to have more control over their own USD? Are they simply lazy, uninformed, and don't want to put in the effort when they still have their 6-figure salaries and cozy handshake deals? Maybe the lawmakers should look at how much power the current financial system uses - from cellphones with NFC capabilities, POS terminals on one end and massive datacenters processing AI algorithms, private wireless communication networks laid out nationally for stock broker/trader access on the other end. I'm sure the current global payment system uses the same, if not far more energy than bitcoin mining does.

headsupernova 4y ago
This bs is debunked in every crypto thread... We're facing climate collapse and need to immediately ramp down nonessential energy use. Crypto mining facilities simply do not make the cut. That said, the mainstream financial system requires a haircut too, no doubt, but at least it provides some basic use to normal people.
- jinpa_zangpo 4y ago
  We have a free market to make decisions about what uses of energy are worthwhile and government decisions about how to allocate energy are likely to lead to cronyism if not outright disaster. If you want to reduce the use of energy in order to reduce carbon emissions, the market oriented solution is a carbon tax or a cap and trade system.

SilverBirch 4y ago

The thing that strikes me about the US government at the moment, is that it's sclerotic. In some ways, decisions have been made that allows this - a hands-off regulatory environment means that if nothing happens, the market runs pretty free and everyone assumes that government will happen so we more or less pretend like there are rules (with some notable, un-enforced exceptions: Uber, Facebook, Theranos etc). But it seems beyond parody that now, in the midst of a massive crash in crypto, now we're going to start looking at energy usage? How many decades will it be before they do something, and what message are they really sending? It's like looking back at Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp and saying "Whoops". The problem comes with what happens next. What happens if some Billionaire decides he can just completely ignore the rules and fuck around with other companies and drive them into the ground? What happens if the next Uber doesn't feel encumbered by the same restrictions on their behavior that Uber did, and start actively blackmailing members of congress. Grey ball was cute, but how many congressmen would stand up to Uber threatening to leak their questionable trips to a certain friend? People in Silicon Valley talk about innovation, but what if a lot of that innovation is finding ways to steal from the common good to enrich a handful of people, and what if the innovation in SV is totally lacking in Washington DC - bogged down by the cash in SV that has an interest in making sure that continues?