Cryptocurrency Mining

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by freebeard

That's a second order effect. Mining doesn't require massive inputs, but people who want to get rich quick running mining rigs instead of earning them. The competition heats things up. The real metric is compared to what. Citation needed of course, but IIRC mining gold requires more energy than Bitcoin. And then you get to banks and credit card system that could be rendered redundant.

Once the Bitmine runs dry, the system will continue to run on transaction fees.

There are a lot of metrics that I just don't know.

Gold mining is energy intensive. But not everyone mines for gold.

How much money and CO2 is generated from the total gold, iron, lithium, silver, petroleum, gas, diamond, etc. etc. etc. industries? How much is used for the entire Bitcoin industry?

One thing I do know, is Bitcoin doesn't offset some other mineral that's being mined literally. It only adds more money and more CO2. This is different than a gold mine that opens up and causes more supply and therefore less demand which in turn can cause other gold mines to slow production or maybe even close and therefore doesn't necessarily increase CO2 production.

Another thing to think about, is Bitcoin isn't the only crypto currency. Once it's all mined out, the question is could another crypto currency emerge, followed by another, then another, then another, causing a perpetual use of energy that may even continue to increase?

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

I was listening to the radio to a channel called CPR. I don't know how biased the report was, but it made crypto seem pretty bleak. Apparently it's very energy demanding, and accelerating very quickly. Whole power plants are being used to supply giant crypto mines of shelves and shelves of computers all running at full blast.

That has been among the fatal flaws from the beginning.

These "revelations" aren't meant to inform, but to manipulate price. When Elon bought a bunch of Bitcoin and then "realized" it's a waste of electricity, he's simply profiting by driving the price high, and then causing it to tank.

[freebeard]

It's algorithmic purity vs human nature, is what it is.

[redpoint5]

The algorithm must factor in human nature or it isn't a very worthwhile algorithm.

I'm all for a currency that cannot be manipulated by the government by inflation, and distributed ledger, and blockchain... but current implementations don't lend themselves towards being a good currency. Specifically, crypto is not a good store of value (stable price) and it's not a good medium of exchange (10min to authenticate a transaction). It's also extremely energy costly, and those are real costs.

[freebeard]

This one is a bit of a slog [1:41:48]:

Web3.0: A Libertarian Dystopia

...but it has good production values (CryptoBro Glossary bugs) and you can scrub the timeline for chapters. I'm stuck in NFTland, but it looks promising down the line.

Maybe I'll take it in chunks, it's sunny outside.

[redpoint5]

Yeah, getting breaks of sunshine up here too, so I'll wander outdoors.

[freebeard]

I think münecat (Moon-cat) is my new favorite Youtuber. Next up Climate Change: Capitalism's Final Boss


Via Slashdot: news.slashdot.org/: Bitcoin Reaches Milestone: 19 Millionth Bitcoin Mined

The next network-level event likely to impact price is the next time the block reward drops in half, which will happen in a little over two years.... The 18 millionth bitcoin was mined in 2019, but the 21 millionth won't be mined until roughly 2140, provided the network sticks to the plan. That's because every four years the emission schedule drops in half.

[redpoint5]

That scheme alone suggests a plan to massively inflate the value of the so-called currency with no real thought to how to make it an enduring and actual currency. Satoshi is a wealthy person along with everyone else that gambled correctly, but there's zero chance Bitcoin is even uttered in conversation in the year 2140 unless referring to early development of digital blockchain or distributed ledger.

[freebeard]

Satoshi's White Paper was built on earlier efforts like Digicash. It's a tour de force demonstration of the power of big numbers. As an example, you can generate a random 50-digit string and the odds of it duplicating an existing one is 1/three multiverses.

Bitcoin is possibly one or two algorithmic breakthroughs from a viable crypto. münecat has convinced me, and not just of green-screening in front of a green backdrop.

I, for one, would like to be around in 2040 to see how it turns out.