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Crypto mining can scale up and down extremely easily. They are a good fit for hydro, wind, solar, and nuclear where not using the energy means it’s simply waste

Crypto mining can scale up and down extremely easily. They are a good fit for hydro, wind, solar, and nuclear where not using the energy means it’s simply wasted (at least until serious grid scale battery exists). If you want to judge payers of electricity you should also look at video games. It is pure entertainment with no societal value beyond that. If that doesn’t bother you, maybe don’t judge what people want to electricity for if they buy it on the open market.

paulgb 3y ago
> They are a good fit for hydro, wind, and solar, and nuclear where not using the energy means it’s simply wasted This is a persistent myth in crypto circles, but it doesn’t match up with the financials of any company I’ve seen. Instead what happens is that once you’ve paid to build up mining capacity, particularly for mining rigs, any downtime is extremely costly. Miners are always racing against the clock of increasing hashrate and the next halving.
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  What I mean is, if the price of electricity skyrockets temporarily, it’s very easy to stop mining. They are extraordinarily sensitive to prices given there is a direct relationship to electricity and mining pool payouts.
  - paulgb 3y ago
    That’s true, but being a damper when prices skyrocket is different from being a damper on the predictable 24-hour output fluctuations of wind or solar.
sneak 3y ago
I think people have underestimated the environmental impact of training AI models. While one can argue things like GPT3/4 are useful, the question becomes how useful are they if they burn up gigawatthours to do it? GPT3 alone took around 334MWh to train, and that's one model from one company, and that's just for training, not usage. We should be focusing on making power cheaper and more accessible to everyone, not policing what people do with the power they have purchased.
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  This is why judging the usage of electricity is a fool’s errand. The market has a price, and if I want to use it to heat my pool and power my air conditioners that’s my choice. The government should not prevent me from heating if a coat is sufficient, nor cooling if being naked is sufficient, if I’m willing to pay. If that argument makes sense, then using it to play video games, train LLMs, or mine crypto is simply a choice the market makes.
  - sneak 3y ago
    There are externalities of power consumption for which regulation (in the case of a single monopoly power grid, as is the case here) makes sense. Large scale usage affects grid stability at specific occasional times. If it were just individual homes doing small scale mining across the grid, it would be different, but one can make a good argument that large scale crypto miner operations should be prioritized for unilateral load shedding in times of grid instability. The power grid as currently designed and deployed in Texas is a shared resource and needs to be centrally managed to avoid tragedy of the commons situations. If crypto miners don't like the shared rules for the shared resources, there's nothing stopping them from deploying their own wind, solar, and optionally storage. Being connected to the public grid comes with benefits, and those benefits come with conditions of use, ideally set by consensus of everyone who benefits from and funds the grid.
    - monero-xmr 3y ago
      I’m in agreement for that. But a total ban on crypto mining is absurd to me. It’s such a singling out of an industry, when so much IMO has no societal utility, that the only reason it could be banned is elite obsession.
      - sneak 3y ago
        Personally, the externalities of fossil fuel use likely necessitate approaching any unnecessary use of grid power at present as an imminent physical attack on all humankind. Where the unnecessary line is drawn is up to individual opinion, but I think we should probably be banning nearly all large scale industrial consumption of power until the grid is net zero. It's not far off now, we just need to collectively decide that we are willing to spend for storage. I also think we should immediately ban all personal IC engines (and HEAVILY tax all use of diesel (with regular automatic scheduled tax increases without limit), without which our civilization at present cannot function), but that is separate (but parallel) to grid disincentives. Crypto mining 24/7 while the grid still uses petrochemicals for generation should probably be criminal today (as well as driving your F350 to Costco). I'm fine singling out any/all industry that is even remotely questionable so long as the grid is still dumping gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
mcbutterbunz 3y ago
> It is pure entertainment with no societal value beyond that. I think entertaining society should be very high up on the list of societal values. Crypto, on the other hand, I struggle to find any value worth the cost.
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  I can’t be entertained by crypto mining? One man’s entertainment is another man’s boredom. Maybe we ban professional sports as well?
palmfacehn 3y ago
The prohibitionist's entire premise boils down to a lack of understanding for markets and the subjective theory of value. Your comment illustrates this well. Some will value entertainment more than others. Teetotalers don't value alcohol and would ban it by citing social ills. Negative externalities are a magic hand-wave here, "The climate apocalypse is neigh! You must taboo the things I say!"

paulgb 3y ago

> They are a good fit for hydro, wind, and solar, and nuclear where not using the energy means it’s simply wasted This is a persistent myth in crypto circles, but it doesn’t match up with the financials of any company I’ve seen. Instead what happens is that once you’ve paid to build up mining capacity, particularly for mining rigs, any downtime is extremely costly. Miners are always racing against the clock of increasing hashrate and the next halving.

monero-xmr 3y ago
What I mean is, if the price of electricity skyrockets temporarily, it’s very easy to stop mining. They are extraordinarily sensitive to prices given there is a direct relationship to electricity and mining pool payouts.
- paulgb 3y ago
  That’s true, but being a damper when prices skyrocket is different from being a damper on the predictable 24-hour output fluctuations of wind or solar.

sneak 3y ago

I think people have underestimated the environmental impact of training AI models. While one can argue things like GPT3/4 are useful, the question becomes how useful are they if they burn up gigawatthours to do it? GPT3 alone took around 334MWh to train, and that's one model from one company, and that's just for training, not usage. We should be focusing on making power cheaper and more accessible to everyone, not policing what people do with the power they have purchased.

monero-xmr 3y ago
This is why judging the usage of electricity is a fool’s errand. The market has a price, and if I want to use it to heat my pool and power my air conditioners that’s my choice. The government should not prevent me from heating if a coat is sufficient, nor cooling if being naked is sufficient, if I’m willing to pay. If that argument makes sense, then using it to play video games, train LLMs, or mine crypto is simply a choice the market makes.
- sneak 3y ago
  There are externalities of power consumption for which regulation (in the case of a single monopoly power grid, as is the case here) makes sense. Large scale usage affects grid stability at specific occasional times. If it were just individual homes doing small scale mining across the grid, it would be different, but one can make a good argument that large scale crypto miner operations should be prioritized for unilateral load shedding in times of grid instability. The power grid as currently designed and deployed in Texas is a shared resource and needs to be centrally managed to avoid tragedy of the commons situations. If crypto miners don't like the shared rules for the shared resources, there's nothing stopping them from deploying their own wind, solar, and optionally storage. Being connected to the public grid comes with benefits, and those benefits come with conditions of use, ideally set by consensus of everyone who benefits from and funds the grid.
  - monero-xmr 3y ago
    I’m in agreement for that. But a total ban on crypto mining is absurd to me. It’s such a singling out of an industry, when so much IMO has no societal utility, that the only reason it could be banned is elite obsession.
    - sneak 3y ago
      Personally, the externalities of fossil fuel use likely necessitate approaching any unnecessary use of grid power at present as an imminent physical attack on all humankind. Where the unnecessary line is drawn is up to individual opinion, but I think we should probably be banning nearly all large scale industrial consumption of power until the grid is net zero. It's not far off now, we just need to collectively decide that we are willing to spend for storage. I also think we should immediately ban all personal IC engines (and HEAVILY tax all use of diesel (with regular automatic scheduled tax increases without limit), without which our civilization at present cannot function), but that is separate (but parallel) to grid disincentives. Crypto mining 24/7 while the grid still uses petrochemicals for generation should probably be criminal today (as well as driving your F350 to Costco). I'm fine singling out any/all industry that is even remotely questionable so long as the grid is still dumping gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

mcbutterbunz 3y ago

> It is pure entertainment with no societal value beyond that. I think entertaining society should be very high up on the list of societal values. Crypto, on the other hand, I struggle to find any value worth the cost.

monero-xmr 3y ago
I can’t be entertained by crypto mining? One man’s entertainment is another man’s boredom. Maybe we ban professional sports as well?

palmfacehn 3y ago

The prohibitionist's entire premise boils down to a lack of understanding for markets and the subjective theory of value. Your comment illustrates this well. Some will value entertainment more than others. Teetotalers don't value alcohol and would ban it by citing social ills. Negative externalities are a magic hand-wave here, "The climate apocalypse is neigh! You must taboo the things I say!"