3 ms·

Yes, on the one hand, they enable a lot of shady illegal business, but in the other hand, they also destroy the environment while doing it, so it's really a tos

by amarant 6mo ago

Yes, on the one hand, they enable a lot of shady illegal business, but in the other hand, they also destroy the environment while doing it, so it's really a toss up whether cryptocurrency is good or bad overall!

winddude 6mo ago
bitcoin is forecast to uses about 150 TWh of electricity this year vs all other datacenter operations foretasted to use 1000 TWh. Bitcoin is esitimated to be about 52.4% sustainable energy (renewables plus nuclear) where datacenters are 42% sustainable energy.
- Dylan16807 6mo ago
  And those other datacenters are mostly doing useful things, while bitcoin is somewhere between pure waste and the least efficient way of doing security ever conceptualized. (A few dozen centralized nodes, set up right, would likely be more secure than the current mining pools.)
  - winddude 6mo ago
    are they? or are they running, spam, ecommerce throw away culture? overreaching government data collection? lots of porn as well.
soulofmischief 6mo ago
Equating the concept of cryptographic currency with specific implementations such as proof-of-work just shows that you have no idea what you are talking about. The importance of financial sovereignty can not be understated, whether you understand that or not.
- Eisenstein 6mo ago
  What problems are solved by financial sovereignty? How does crypto solve those problems?
  - soulofmischief 6mo ago
    > What problems are solved by financial sovereignty? It's right there in the name. Some people believe that their assets should not be freezable or restricted by the whim of their local government-of-the-week. Cryptocurrencies have obviously solved this problem quite well or people wouldn't be complaining about how it has enabled more cybercrime (specialists, include cyber criminals, are often quicker to adopt trends than society at large). Moving beyond that, the utility of a cryptographic smart contract system paves the way for the future of the internet. People forget computers are less than a hundred years old, and that there are thousands of years of computing ahead of us. The fundamentals will look very different one day.
    - Eisenstein 6mo ago
      Inability to evade the justice system is not something that most people would agree is a problem; quite the opposite. The rule of law is the thing that allows you and I to live in such relative splendor. If you remove the ability for courts to operate you will not be in a libertarian utopia, you will be a dystopian free for all where there is no one to uphold contracts or stop people from doing what they like when they have even a bit more power than you.
      - soulofmischief 6mo ago
        > The rule of law is the thing that allows you and I to live in such relative splendor Speak for yourself, I grew up in poverty. I also said nothing about Libertarianism and did not endorse it; Please do not inject your biases, patronize or turn this into a straw man. Do you want to actually address my argument?

by amarant 6mo ago

winddude 6mo ago

bitcoin is forecast to uses about 150 TWh of electricity this year vs all other datacenter operations foretasted to use 1000 TWh. Bitcoin is esitimated to be about 52.4% sustainable energy (renewables plus nuclear) where datacenters are 42% sustainable energy.

Dylan16807 6mo ago
And those other datacenters are mostly doing useful things, while bitcoin is somewhere between pure waste and the least efficient way of doing security ever conceptualized. (A few dozen centralized nodes, set up right, would likely be more secure than the current mining pools.)
- winddude 6mo ago
  are they? or are they running, spam, ecommerce throw away culture? overreaching government data collection? lots of porn as well.

soulofmischief 6mo ago

Equating the concept of cryptographic currency with specific implementations such as proof-of-work just shows that you have no idea what you are talking about. The importance of financial sovereignty can not be understated, whether you understand that or not.

Eisenstein 6mo ago
What problems are solved by financial sovereignty? How does crypto solve those problems?
- soulofmischief 6mo ago
  > What problems are solved by financial sovereignty? It's right there in the name. Some people believe that their assets should not be freezable or restricted by the whim of their local government-of-the-week. Cryptocurrencies have obviously solved this problem quite well or people wouldn't be complaining about how it has enabled more cybercrime (specialists, include cyber criminals, are often quicker to adopt trends than society at large). Moving beyond that, the utility of a cryptographic smart contract system paves the way for the future of the internet. People forget computers are less than a hundred years old, and that there are thousands of years of computing ahead of us. The fundamentals will look very different one day.
  - Eisenstein 6mo ago
    Inability to evade the justice system is not something that most people would agree is a problem; quite the opposite. The rule of law is the thing that allows you and I to live in such relative splendor. If you remove the ability for courts to operate you will not be in a libertarian utopia, you will be a dystopian free for all where there is no one to uphold contracts or stop people from doing what they like when they have even a bit more power than you.
    - soulofmischief 6mo ago
      > The rule of law is the thing that allows you and I to live in such relative splendor Speak for yourself, I grew up in poverty. I also said nothing about Libertarianism and did not endorse it; Please do not inject your biases, patronize or turn this into a straw man. Do you want to actually address my argument?