3 ms·

Can someone convince me bitcoin mining isn't anything other than a huge waste of energy?

luke5441 6mo ago
Depends on if you see the use case of censorship resitant payment as something we should allow or not (such as paying the Ayatollah to go through the strait). I for one don't.
- ziml77 6mo ago
  But even of you do see the use, why not proof of stake rather than proof of work?
  - Groxx 6mo ago
    It's far less studied and didn't exist (to any usable degree) at the time it was made. And it's extremely different, organizationally, so it's a difficult migration to pull off. And it has different incentives. And most miners have a lot of costs (e.g. hardware) that won't be recoverable if it's changed, so there's a fairly strong incentive to not change it. Ethereum uses proof of stake now though (since 2022). Which happened in part because Ethereum is effectively centralized, or at least significantly more-so than Bitcoin.
  - z3c0 6mo ago
    I'll throw "proof-of-useful-work" into the ring. Reallocating at least a portion of BTCs verification onto existing energy costs could go a long way. Not suggesting it would be easy or that the entire network would be able to agree on what tasks to use, just that it's a theoretical option.
    - haakon 6mo ago
      It's also not simply a matter of agreeing on what tasks to use. The task has to be computationally difficult to perform, but computationally trivial to verify. It must also be verifiable with only the context of the blockchain (no "oracle" that can make claims about real-world events). Primecoin exist(ed?) and used the search for Mersenne prime numbers as its proof-of-work. That was 13 years ago and is still the only example I know of "proof-of-useful-work", and it would not be difficult to find sour voices challenging its usefulness.
      - z3c0 6mo ago
        Well, this list of known PoUW might be of interest: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2096720925001149 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209672092... While they don't have that many in the wild, the number of implementations it lists is still more than I expected. There's also the Monero 51% takeover, which was purportedly done using a PoUW technique to garner more hashing power. https://qubic.org/blog-detail/historic-takeover-complete-qubic-miners-now-secure-monero-network https://qubic.org/blog-detail/historic-takeover-complete-qub...
  - luke5441 6mo ago
    I'm not an expert on this, but maybe it is easier to pressure the verifiers to not verify sanctioned entities? Seems to be already happening with Ethereum US nodes maintaining OFAC lists. Maybe one can also pressure them to verify alternative blocks without the transactions, then they won't be possible. Other than that, it is probably tradition at this point, like with Gold.
Tepix 6mo ago
I can't because I think it is. It's also doing its part in destroying the planet as a consequence.
toenail 6mo ago
Sounds like you've already made up your mind?
sumedh 6mo ago
The US govt can tell banks to cut off your access to USD.
- spprashant 6mo ago
  And how does BTC play in this scenario?
  - sumedh 6mo ago
    You can send BTC to the affected person or org and then they are free to decide what to do with it. This happened to Wikileaks.

Depends on if you see the use case of censorship resitant payment as something we should allow or not (such as paying the Ayatollah to go through the strait). I for one don't.

ziml77 6mo ago
But even of you do see the use, why not proof of stake rather than proof of work?
- Groxx 6mo ago
  It's far less studied and didn't exist (to any usable degree) at the time it was made. And it's extremely different, organizationally, so it's a difficult migration to pull off. And it has different incentives. And most miners have a lot of costs (e.g. hardware) that won't be recoverable if it's changed, so there's a fairly strong incentive to not change it. Ethereum uses proof of stake now though (since 2022). Which happened in part because Ethereum is effectively centralized, or at least significantly more-so than Bitcoin.
- z3c0 6mo ago
  I'll throw "proof-of-useful-work" into the ring. Reallocating at least a portion of BTCs verification onto existing energy costs could go a long way. Not suggesting it would be easy or that the entire network would be able to agree on what tasks to use, just that it's a theoretical option.
  - haakon 6mo ago
    It's also not simply a matter of agreeing on what tasks to use. The task has to be computationally difficult to perform, but computationally trivial to verify. It must also be verifiable with only the context of the blockchain (no "oracle" that can make claims about real-world events). Primecoin exist(ed?) and used the search for Mersenne prime numbers as its proof-of-work. That was 13 years ago and is still the only example I know of "proof-of-useful-work", and it would not be difficult to find sour voices challenging its usefulness.
    - z3c0 6mo ago
      Well, this list of known PoUW might be of interest: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2096720925001149 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209672092... While they don't have that many in the wild, the number of implementations it lists is still more than I expected. There's also the Monero 51% takeover, which was purportedly done using a PoUW technique to garner more hashing power. https://qubic.org/blog-detail/historic-takeover-complete-qubic-miners-now-secure-monero-network https://qubic.org/blog-detail/historic-takeover-complete-qub...
- luke5441 6mo ago
  I'm not an expert on this, but maybe it is easier to pressure the verifiers to not verify sanctioned entities? Seems to be already happening with Ethereum US nodes maintaining OFAC lists. Maybe one can also pressure them to verify alternative blocks without the transactions, then they won't be possible. Other than that, it is probably tradition at this point, like with Gold.

Tepix 6mo ago

I can't because I think it is. It's also doing its part in destroying the planet as a consequence.

toenail 6mo ago

Sounds like you've already made up your mind?

sumedh 6mo ago

The US govt can tell banks to cut off your access to USD.

spprashant 6mo ago
And how does BTC play in this scenario?
- sumedh 6mo ago
  You can send BTC to the affected person or org and then they are free to decide what to do with it. This happened to Wikileaks.