mondoveneziano

5 ms·

1.
by mondoveneziano 4y ago
I was explaining in layman's terms.
2.
by mondoveneziano 4y ago
> required to use powerful and energy-hungry GPUs to solve a complex mathematical problem. No mathematical problem is getting "solved". It is much more akin to playing the lottery: Entirely random numbers are being tried out, b
3.
by mondoveneziano 4y ago
The statement you quoted is true, regardless of your assertion. As for addressing your assertion by itself: Energy storage and distribution networks constantly strive to minimize unstorable excess energy. Even under the assumption that that
4.
by mondoveneziano 4y ago
All energy and computing resources used on mining Bitcoin are spent and cannot be used for anything else. The concept of "backing" means that resources are available, and the entity backing them merely represents them. Stock is ba
5.
by mondoveneziano 4y ago
LUNA is trading at below $0.00001, that is below 1/1000th of a cent right now. For many, getting rid of it may be much harder than just ignoring it. A few weeks ago the price people were willing to pay for it hovered around $100. I s
6.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
Understanding cryptography and smart contracts, what if the increasingly complicated smart contracts you describe have bugs? > For example you could make a master key that overrides all others but requires an unlock Tx followed by an arb
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by mondoveneziano 5y ago
git does not have a distributed consensus algorithm, however, and does not rely on proof-of-work/space/stake. Whether a rewrite of history is accepted is up to every consumer of any repository individually.
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by mondoveneziano 5y ago
These are all plausible arguments for associating real estate ownership with a database. What are the arguments for this database being maintained by a blockchain? If you do not trust the authorities of the locality, e.g. the courts, to pro
9.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
If the company in your example can be contacted to overturn ownership, essentially degenerating the immutability and irreversibility of the ledger to levels comparable of existing solutions, then what is the actual advantage of this not onl
10.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
Let's ignore space, where currently the highly elevated risk is well known to the few participants. If we could undo car and plane crashes, we would do it. We cannot, and my question is whether we want to force the same property on acc
11.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
> The actual last thing in the world home users want is an authentication system where credential loss is literally irrevocable. This is generally a concern I have about blockchain technology. What if it succeeds in its goal to play a ma
12.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
I have looked into proof-of-work in meticulous detail, I have not looked into proof-of-stake. If proof-of-stake exists and eschews the problems I have stated, then what I said here about the problems it creates does not apply anymore. I hav
13.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
The Internet provided solutions to technical problems, regardless of any societal/political considerations. They may have resulted, but as a secondary effect. When theorizing about societal/political benefits, take into account th
14.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
In the case of the Internet, people were doing either new things, or existing things more efficiently (e.g. sending emails vs. postal mail and fax, or transferring files vs. swapping disk media or printouts). As the Internet progressed, eff
15.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
Understanding proof-of-work down to the very details, I can make some evaluations based on simple technical properties. For example, Bitcoin can never become "more efficient": If efficiency of computing hashes goes up, difficulty
16.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
I am essentially pasting an old comment of mine: The Internet was always something where demand--and desired applications--were vastly over capacity and capability. From the moment computers were networked, more people wanted to do more thi
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by mondoveneziano 5y ago
I am simply explaining how proof-of-work works. It is correct that the difficulty is adjusted based on the hash rate. If mining power was halved, it would become twice as easy to hit the target. If a new ASIC would make calculating hashes t
18.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
> The stake/spacetime/electricity isn't wasted; it is used to establish global consensus. I still would like everyone to understand how proof-of-work really works, I don't think many people do. The current Bitcoin has
19.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
It can spike up when new miners join the game, possibly in remote locations of the world with defunct governments that decide that mining Bitcoin for a select few is a more "important" use of their non-clean energy source. The net
20.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
How can efficiency increase in a way that decreases energy use? Let's say a new ASIC comes out that mines twice as efficiently, i.e. 2x less energy per calculation. Because miners can now afford to run twice the amount of ASICs on the
21.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
That's perfectly understandable, I think relatively few people looked at proof-of-work in detail. I can give you a quick overview of how proof-of-work works (I understand it well enough to actually be able to do it by hand on paper), b
22.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
You could regulate inefficient christmas lights, but consumers will likely choose more efficient options anyway when they become available to them. How do you enforce carbon taxes on miners under a defunct government in a remote location of
23.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
But almost any other activity only benefits from getting more efficient. Compare today's efficient LED lighting technology with what was available a few decades ago. With proof-of-work on the other hand, efficiency is actively counter
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by mondoveneziano 5y ago
> the smart contracts might make 99% of transactions much more efficient The entire point of proof-of-work is that it is inefficient, by design. Efficiency is counteracted: Advances in technology that lead to more efficient mining techn
25.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
That's not enough, all parties would have to have 100% awareness and understanding of the smart contract, detail by detail. Real life contracts sometimes turn out to have non-enforceable clauses within our legal framework, or may be en
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by mondoveneziano 5y ago
I think the question is: Why then deal with all those inefficiencies and cost of distributed computation, mining, and broadcast transactions, if you need courts to override decisions anyway, and insurance to cover yourself when something go
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by mondoveneziano 5y ago
> You can also take out insurance for the biggest protocols for additional protection. Then what's the point? I can already take out insurance in the "traditional" banking system (e.g. every checking account has FDIC).
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by mondoveneziano 5y ago
You cannot regulate what energy sources are being used for mining Bitcoin. If any particular energy source is available at the right cost somewhere, be it in a remote location with a defunct government, miners will use it.
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by mondoveneziano 5y ago
Electric cars and rockets only profit from becoming more efficient. Almost everything does, actually. Proof-of-work cryptocurrency does not. In fact, it counteracts efficiency, by design. If a new ASIC makes mining Bitcoins more efficient,
30.
by mondoveneziano 5y ago
> Makes no sense. Numerous articles document Bitcoin's energy sources, which are often hydroelectric due to its low cost. It's so easy to assert and so comforting to believe, but is it true? Just in this thread alone there are

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