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Der Gigi is very effluent and philosophical Bitcoin proponent, that has written lots of great articles about Bitcoin. I perceive Hacker News to be generally neg

Der Gigi is very effluent and philosophical Bitcoin proponent, that has written lots of great articles about Bitcoin. I perceive Hacker News to be generally negative towards Bitcoin, and feel that his articles should help bridge a gap between both groups. This article is very good in denoting what I feel is Bitcoin's main value proposition (and as a bonus it references Diablo 2, which is one of my great childhood preoccupations).

cunidev 4y ago
As usual, without mentioning the insane ecological impact of the "creation" of such "natural" tokens. Bitcoin is no more natural than, say, an extremely power-intensive industrial process used to create a particular crystal.
- once_inc 4y ago
  Bitcoin is rapidly turning into a net carbon negative industry because of using bitcoin miners to prevent methane release into the atmosphere. It is literally the single best solution to make prevention of methane emissions in landfills and trapped oil wells profitable.
  - Nursie 4y ago
    No it isn't. It's using hard coal in Kazakhstan, amongst other power sources. This is wishful thinking.
    - ianai 4y ago
      It’s such horrible logic. So the way to make fossil fuels green is to make them even more valuable? Ok, sure, let’s place the value so high that burning or using them in any non-sustainable/recyclable/fully contained way is infinitely costly.
  - paulgb 4y ago
    There are a number of retorts to this comment where you posted it elsewhere in the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33066160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33066160
    - once_inc 4y ago
      Note that most of those retorts aren't backed by any sort of sources, and that the one comment that does refers to Alex de Vries, who is basically the single source of energy FUD for the past 7 or so years. Alex de Vries also works for the Dutch central bank, and has built his entire career identity around headlines such as: "Bitcoin transactions use more than [INSERT COUNTRY NAME HERE] yearly energy", which is a much a bogus comparison if I ever saw one. If the Bitcoin camp is to be suspect of bias, so is the other side.
      - paulgb 4y ago
        We can put aside bias, the reality is that the mining industry is greenwashing mining based on hypothetical scenarios and a few renewable mining sites that are overshadowed by the massive miners. E.g. the Riot Blockchain ~300MW site in Texas IIRC is natural gas (I can't find the source, but they would certainly proudly tell investors if it were renewable). The 105MW Marathon site in Montana is coal. I think the Greenridge natural gas plant in NY has (had?) a 107MW capacity. This is mining sites that we know about, because they are public companies in the US. I doubt that the stealthy, privately-owned miners in Kazakhstan are using cleaner sources.
diablo2btc 4y ago
I credit Diablo 2 for helping me understand crypto very early on, and now I'm basically retired. Guess all that time spent playing wasn't wasted.
etherael 4y ago
> effluent I dont think that is what you meant to say. You were right, though.
shkkmo 4y ago
This article seems less like an exercise in education and much more like pure propaganda. The article repeatedly says things that are flat out false without any attempt at qualification or justification. The first is assertion that scarcity by authority is only virtual scarcity, not real scarcity while somehow glossing over the fact that this type of scarcity is incredibly common in the real world. Simultaneously, the scarcity of cryptocurrency is somehow not due to authority because that authority is decentralized... > As history shows and this example illustrates, planning an economy—virtual or not—is an impossible task. Every interference, no matter how benign the central planners believe it to be, will have unintended consequences and side effects that will beget more interference This comment seems to categorically rules out all attempts to manage and regulate markets by throwing around the loaded term "planned economy“ and vaguely referencing "history" as a source. History actually shows us that economic planning and market regulation can have mixed results, but some of those results are clearly successes. > Linden Lab has the power to break the rules and interfere as they see fit. The "interference" that is then described is Linden Lab trying to follow the law by collecting taxes, eliminating gambling, and following banking regulations. > One of the best examples for a flourishing economy (thanks to little intervention) is Eve Online, an MMORPG space simulation. CCP (the makers of Eve Online) did have a carefully considered approach to economic interventions, but their interventions were not small. The biggest is CCP's ban on RMT (real money transactions) in an attempt limit free and bidirectional exchangeable with external economies. Any games that attempts to control RMT in such a fashion is engaged in a pretty extreme level of "economic intervention". Of course this is done to avoid going the type of legal liabilities that faced second life due to Linden Dollars becoming more like a real currency. CCP also has a high level of control over the inputs and outputs to the Eve economy and manage them to keep that economy stable(ish) and the game fun and balanced to play. For a while, CCP employed economists to help understand gow CCP's interventions would affect their economy. > It is simple, really: if a world is controlled and instantiated by a single entity, it is prone to manipulation. Sooner or later, it will cease to exist. And with it, everything that existed inside it. How many cryotocurrencies have died in the last several years? Decentralization doesn't guarantee longevity. Meanwhile, WOW and Eve have both extisted longer than bitcoin. This is yet more unsupported propagandistic drivel. I would argue the opposite. A stable economy, whether in-game or not, requires some level of central regulation and planning. > The difference between in-game money and fiat money is in scale, not in nature. Both are virtual: simulations that are untethered from reality. Wow, the tortuous argument that bitcoin is somehow "more tethered to reality" than the dollar isn't even worth recounting. This is less of a "bridge" between skeptics and hodlers and more of a piece of libertarian propaganda. If you want a bridge, find an author that acknowledges that some regulation is necessary for a functioning economy.

cunidev 4y ago

As usual, without mentioning the insane ecological impact of the "creation" of such "natural" tokens. Bitcoin is no more natural than, say, an extremely power-intensive industrial process used to create a particular crystal.

once_inc 4y ago
Bitcoin is rapidly turning into a net carbon negative industry because of using bitcoin miners to prevent methane release into the atmosphere. It is literally the single best solution to make prevention of methane emissions in landfills and trapped oil wells profitable.
- Nursie 4y ago
  No it isn't. It's using hard coal in Kazakhstan, amongst other power sources. This is wishful thinking.
  - ianai 4y ago
    It’s such horrible logic. So the way to make fossil fuels green is to make them even more valuable? Ok, sure, let’s place the value so high that burning or using them in any non-sustainable/recyclable/fully contained way is infinitely costly.
- paulgb 4y ago
  There are a number of retorts to this comment where you posted it elsewhere in the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33066160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33066160
  - once_inc 4y ago
    Note that most of those retorts aren't backed by any sort of sources, and that the one comment that does refers to Alex de Vries, who is basically the single source of energy FUD for the past 7 or so years. Alex de Vries also works for the Dutch central bank, and has built his entire career identity around headlines such as: "Bitcoin transactions use more than [INSERT COUNTRY NAME HERE] yearly energy", which is a much a bogus comparison if I ever saw one. If the Bitcoin camp is to be suspect of bias, so is the other side.
    - paulgb 4y ago
      We can put aside bias, the reality is that the mining industry is greenwashing mining based on hypothetical scenarios and a few renewable mining sites that are overshadowed by the massive miners. E.g. the Riot Blockchain ~300MW site in Texas IIRC is natural gas (I can't find the source, but they would certainly proudly tell investors if it were renewable). The 105MW Marathon site in Montana is coal. I think the Greenridge natural gas plant in NY has (had?) a 107MW capacity. This is mining sites that we know about, because they are public companies in the US. I doubt that the stealthy, privately-owned miners in Kazakhstan are using cleaner sources.

diablo2btc 4y ago

I credit Diablo 2 for helping me understand crypto very early on, and now I'm basically retired. Guess all that time spent playing wasn't wasted.

etherael 4y ago

> effluent I dont think that is what you meant to say. You were right, though.

shkkmo 4y ago

This article seems less like an exercise in education and much more like pure propaganda. The article repeatedly says things that are flat out false without any attempt at qualification or justification. The first is assertion that scarcity by authority is only virtual scarcity, not real scarcity while somehow glossing over the fact that this type of scarcity is incredibly common in the real world. Simultaneously, the scarcity of cryptocurrency is somehow not due to authority because that authority is decentralized... > As history shows and this example illustrates, planning an economy—virtual or not—is an impossible task. Every interference, no matter how benign the central planners believe it to be, will have unintended consequences and side effects that will beget more interference This comment seems to categorically rules out all attempts to manage and regulate markets by throwing around the loaded term "planned economy“ and vaguely referencing "history" as a source. History actually shows us that economic planning and market regulation can have mixed results, but some of those results are clearly successes. > Linden Lab has the power to break the rules and interfere as they see fit. The "interference" that is then described is Linden Lab trying to follow the law by collecting taxes, eliminating gambling, and following banking regulations. > One of the best examples for a flourishing economy (thanks to little intervention) is Eve Online, an MMORPG space simulation. CCP (the makers of Eve Online) did have a carefully considered approach to economic interventions, but their interventions were not small. The biggest is CCP's ban on RMT (real money transactions) in an attempt limit free and bidirectional exchangeable with external economies. Any games that attempts to control RMT in such a fashion is engaged in a pretty extreme level of "economic intervention". Of course this is done to avoid going the type of legal liabilities that faced second life due to Linden Dollars becoming more like a real currency. CCP also has a high level of control over the inputs and outputs to the Eve economy and manage them to keep that economy stable(ish) and the game fun and balanced to play. For a while, CCP employed economists to help understand gow CCP's interventions would affect their economy. > It is simple, really: if a world is controlled and instantiated by a single entity, it is prone to manipulation. Sooner or later, it will cease to exist. And with it, everything that existed inside it. How many cryotocurrencies have died in the last several years? Decentralization doesn't guarantee longevity. Meanwhile, WOW and Eve have both extisted longer than bitcoin. This is yet more unsupported propagandistic drivel. I would argue the opposite. A stable economy, whether in-game or not, requires some level of central regulation and planning. > The difference between in-game money and fiat money is in scale, not in nature. Both are virtual: simulations that are untethered from reality. Wow, the tortuous argument that bitcoin is somehow "more tethered to reality" than the dollar isn't even worth recounting. This is less of a "bridge" between skeptics and hodlers and more of a piece of libertarian propaganda. If you want a bridge, find an author that acknowledges that some regulation is necessary for a functioning economy.