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I don't know what legal avenue will be taken should the federal government pursue a ban, but that's probably not it. As you point out, that would have unpleasan

I don't know what legal avenue will be taken should the federal government pursue a ban, but that's probably not it. As you point out, that would have unpleasant slippery slope consequences. At the same time, it's pretty obvious that something needs to change. As-is, currency mining is an effective means to leverage low electricity prices around the world and is very-often more lucrative than producing things we actually use to improve our standard of living. Suppose you impose carbon taxes, you'll (often) be preferentially biasing towards mining over e.g., aluminum or glass manufacturing, driving physical goods shortages. And even if the entire grid were renewables, you haven't really solved the "it's more profitable to make digital goods than physical ones" problem. So you search for regulation that is biased against the digital currency but not against uses of energy. Maybe a digital currency transaction fee, like a sales tax, that puts a ton of drag and downward pressure on the currency? It could be huge, and it could be modulated by the energy use that any given currency represents or the CPI. Of course you have the cooperation problem; taxing the life out of a currency in one country is only modestly useful. It's a thorny problem.

chii 4y ago
> you haven't really solved the "it's more profitable to make digital goods than physical ones" problem. why isn't digital goods just as useful? I dont think you can just assume that making physical goods is _always_ going to be better. Let bitcoin miners mine. tax carbon emissions from energy usage, and let the free market choose the right allocations based on prices, demand and supply. The free market works when externalities are accounted for using regulation.
- zbrozek 4y ago
  I don't think this is a seriously considered question. Digital goods are obviously less useful (or at least less important). Physical goods feed, clothe, and shelter populations. If digital goods crowd out physical ones, even to a small degree, you have a serious problem.
  - chii 4y ago
    > If digital goods crowd out physical ones why would digital goods crowd out physical ones? You're assuming some zero sum game - which isn't true in economics. Even if there's finite available energy, it won't crowd out physical goods - people would choose to spend their dollars to achieve maximum utility, so demand for physical goods would still be there, even if digital goods grow in value.
    - zbrozek 4y ago
      It's not zero sum, but it's not infinite either. It takes hardware - chips, boards, sheet metal, plastic, etc - to build mining rigs. It takes huge amounts of energy to power them. Those are finite resources and using them for digital goods precludes using them for physical goods. Low value-add physical goods production decline until their price rises to be worth producing vs mining. Why make concrete or aluminum if the energy can be more profitably spent on coins? The problem is that this drives commodity inflation in exchange for more digital goods that don't actually make us more comfortable as a species. Proof-of-work currencies feel like machinery of grey goo.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  We need to define such terms as "digital goods" and "useful". And then discuss whether bitcoin is either.
  - chii 4y ago
    i think it's clear that digital goods are things that don't have any physical manifestation. "Useful" means someone would pay money for it - aka, utility. The more money paid, the more utility that goods have. Bitcoin is a digital good that has some utility (as people pay money for it). Some people assign some sort of morality/ethical aspect to bitcoin, claiming that it isn't useful. The gist of my argument is that those claims are wrong, because utility can only be demonstrated by the person paying (aka, the act of paying for a goods is what demonstrates that goods' utility).
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      > i think it's clear that digital goods are things that don't have any physical manifestation That's debatable > The more money paid, the more utility that goods have. This is just false > The gist of my argument is that those claims are wrong, because utility can only be demonstrated by the person paying This is quite a stretch, as any Ponzi scheme will demonstrate.
      - chii 4y ago
        > This is quite a stretch, as any Ponzi scheme will demonstrate. well, i am under the impression that people aren't being lied to about their purchase. Bringing in fraud in a discussion about economic value and utility isn't really helpful. What makes something have utility? Why isn't the money paid representative of the utility (outside of fraud and crimes etc)?
        dmitriid 4y ago
        > i am under the impression that people aren't being lied to about their purchase what > Bringing in fraud in a discussion about economic value and utility isn't really helpful. But it is helpful. > What makes something have utility? Why isn't the money paid representative of the utility (outside of fraud and crimes etc)? Let's say you've been sold the Golden Gate Bridge. You paid a million dollars for it. Does it have any utility for you? There are purely speculative assets whose utility only lies in speculation (that is, how much you can con the next man to extract some profit from assets you bought from the previous con man). They have zero utility outside the speculation. There are assets that have no utility beyond short-lived novelty or bragging rights to the person who buys them such as "buy a sq. ft. of land in Scotland and get a meaningless title to go with it". And so on. The fact that you pay money for something says literally nothing about utility of that something.
- Drakim 4y ago
  Digital goods are exclusively luxury goods, while all the basic necessities that keeps our society running such as food, water, medicine and shelter are physical. From this, it's quite obvious to infer that physical goods are more useful than digital goods, it's not even a contest.
  - rysertio 4y ago
    > Digital goods are exclusively luxury goods It depends on the digital good. In order to make essential necessities to anywhere near scale of our needs requires automation. So these digital goods are an essential precursor to our physical necessities. Maybe they don't need to be produced on the scale of physical goods but every essential industry such as food, water, medicine, and shelter depends on so-called digital goods.
    - Drakim 4y ago
      That's a fair point. But if we are including second order chains in our evaluation then we pretty much need everything at all times everywhere, to operate society. Magnets are just as important as food for basic survival under this model.
  - anonporridge 4y ago
    "Bread and circuses" Entertainment is just as important to keeping society running as physical essentials.
    - Drakim 4y ago
      I disagree. First of all, there exists physical entertainment. For example, my family loves to play cards after a big family dinner. Second of all, it's just not as important. Lack of entertainment will cause a society to break down over time, while a lack of food will destroy society overnight.
  - chii 4y ago
    > it's quite obvious it's not. You are defining "more useful" using your own personal viewpoint. The truth about what is useful can only be determined by the buyer (paying money).
thrown_22 4y ago
Monero suggests that none of those thing will work. Ironically banning bitcoin would make mean a bunch of forks doing the same thing as monero making it useful again for more than gambling.

chii 4y ago

> you haven't really solved the "it's more profitable to make digital goods than physical ones" problem. why isn't digital goods just as useful? I dont think you can just assume that making physical goods is _always_ going to be better. Let bitcoin miners mine. tax carbon emissions from energy usage, and let the free market choose the right allocations based on prices, demand and supply. The free market works when externalities are accounted for using regulation.

zbrozek 4y ago
I don't think this is a seriously considered question. Digital goods are obviously less useful (or at least less important). Physical goods feed, clothe, and shelter populations. If digital goods crowd out physical ones, even to a small degree, you have a serious problem.
- chii 4y ago
  > If digital goods crowd out physical ones why would digital goods crowd out physical ones? You're assuming some zero sum game - which isn't true in economics. Even if there's finite available energy, it won't crowd out physical goods - people would choose to spend their dollars to achieve maximum utility, so demand for physical goods would still be there, even if digital goods grow in value.
  - zbrozek 4y ago
    It's not zero sum, but it's not infinite either. It takes hardware - chips, boards, sheet metal, plastic, etc - to build mining rigs. It takes huge amounts of energy to power them. Those are finite resources and using them for digital goods precludes using them for physical goods. Low value-add physical goods production decline until their price rises to be worth producing vs mining. Why make concrete or aluminum if the energy can be more profitably spent on coins? The problem is that this drives commodity inflation in exchange for more digital goods that don't actually make us more comfortable as a species. Proof-of-work currencies feel like machinery of grey goo.
dmitriid 4y ago
We need to define such terms as "digital goods" and "useful". And then discuss whether bitcoin is either.
- chii 4y ago
  i think it's clear that digital goods are things that don't have any physical manifestation. "Useful" means someone would pay money for it - aka, utility. The more money paid, the more utility that goods have. Bitcoin is a digital good that has some utility (as people pay money for it). Some people assign some sort of morality/ethical aspect to bitcoin, claiming that it isn't useful. The gist of my argument is that those claims are wrong, because utility can only be demonstrated by the person paying (aka, the act of paying for a goods is what demonstrates that goods' utility).
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > i think it's clear that digital goods are things that don't have any physical manifestation That's debatable > The more money paid, the more utility that goods have. This is just false > The gist of my argument is that those claims are wrong, because utility can only be demonstrated by the person paying This is quite a stretch, as any Ponzi scheme will demonstrate.
    - chii 4y ago
      > This is quite a stretch, as any Ponzi scheme will demonstrate. well, i am under the impression that people aren't being lied to about their purchase. Bringing in fraud in a discussion about economic value and utility isn't really helpful. What makes something have utility? Why isn't the money paid representative of the utility (outside of fraud and crimes etc)?
      - dmitriid 4y ago
        > i am under the impression that people aren't being lied to about their purchase what > Bringing in fraud in a discussion about economic value and utility isn't really helpful. But it is helpful. > What makes something have utility? Why isn't the money paid representative of the utility (outside of fraud and crimes etc)? Let's say you've been sold the Golden Gate Bridge. You paid a million dollars for it. Does it have any utility for you? There are purely speculative assets whose utility only lies in speculation (that is, how much you can con the next man to extract some profit from assets you bought from the previous con man). They have zero utility outside the speculation. There are assets that have no utility beyond short-lived novelty or bragging rights to the person who buys them such as "buy a sq. ft. of land in Scotland and get a meaningless title to go with it". And so on. The fact that you pay money for something says literally nothing about utility of that something.
Drakim 4y ago
Digital goods are exclusively luxury goods, while all the basic necessities that keeps our society running such as food, water, medicine and shelter are physical. From this, it's quite obvious to infer that physical goods are more useful than digital goods, it's not even a contest.
- rysertio 4y ago
  > Digital goods are exclusively luxury goods It depends on the digital good. In order to make essential necessities to anywhere near scale of our needs requires automation. So these digital goods are an essential precursor to our physical necessities. Maybe they don't need to be produced on the scale of physical goods but every essential industry such as food, water, medicine, and shelter depends on so-called digital goods.
  - Drakim 4y ago
    That's a fair point. But if we are including second order chains in our evaluation then we pretty much need everything at all times everywhere, to operate society. Magnets are just as important as food for basic survival under this model.
- anonporridge 4y ago
  "Bread and circuses" Entertainment is just as important to keeping society running as physical essentials.
  - Drakim 4y ago
    I disagree. First of all, there exists physical entertainment. For example, my family loves to play cards after a big family dinner. Second of all, it's just not as important. Lack of entertainment will cause a society to break down over time, while a lack of food will destroy society overnight.
- chii 4y ago
  > it's quite obvious it's not. You are defining "more useful" using your own personal viewpoint. The truth about what is useful can only be determined by the buyer (paying money).

thrown_22 4y ago

Monero suggests that none of those thing will work. Ironically banning bitcoin would make mean a bunch of forks doing the same thing as monero making it useful again for more than gambling.