this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2021
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Privacy
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Bitcoin alone draws more electricity than the whole of Netherlands now. It's network is basically a crime against humanity at this point. And I say this as someone with a (small, tiny even) stake in it.
It's negated all gains made by renewable energy, and for what. A "currency" that is even more centralized in the hands of few people than fiat money is.
I really like Nano for this exact reason (and quick/feeless payments ofc). Bitcoin is just too powerhungry... But who knows if any cryptocurrency could ever reliably replace fiat.
The answer is never. Pretty much no one is able to keep a private both secret AND not lose it for a long period of time. It's not a problem when people lose their PGP keys for example, as they can always create a new one and tell people to use the new one, but with crypto, losing your key means losing your money. Imagine if you lost your bank account because your computer burned in a house fire and you never backed-up your key. If cryptocurrencies became the norm, that would happen to way to many people.
Bitcoin is digital cash - this is a quite complete analogy.
Like cash, you can keep it in your possession, so you can lose it in a fire, or else you can put it in a bank.
So you rely on a bank for your transactions, completely negating the only benefits of cryptocurrencies.
Nah there are lots of benefits, both for the society and the individual. That's getting off topic though.
I'm just saying you have options. You can have the same anti fire security as with fiat. In fact you can do all the same things with crypto as you can do with fiat cash, if you want to.
Last time there were research it was driven by 70% of renewable energy. More than most industries.
It actually increases investment into renewable energy by making it more profitable to produce renewable energy.
Exactly my point. Wasting renewable resources on cryptomining is a crime against humanity.
You dont get it.
Much of the energy used would be thrown away wasted. The mining use that energy that otherwise would just be overproduced and thrown away and convert it into coins, thus making production of renewable energy much more profitable than it would otherwise be and thus accelerating the expansion of renewable energy.
Thus it is not a crime, it actually helps motivating building more renewable energy.
Neither you or I cant decide if it is wasting or not. Its simply our opinion.
the main issue I see with bitcoin is that so many people are investing in it and not using it for its real purpose (an alternative to actual money). The fact that the fed prints money while bitcoin is finite shows that there will be less inflation issues. Although I am not an economist
It's a "currency" where the majority of currency got handed out to very few people very early on. It's has a more concentrated level of wealth than the real economy has. And the energy use is a far bigger issue than all others.
It is way more distributed than wealth in the normal fiat system in which only a few owns 50% of all the wealth.
Unlike that system you are also free not to use it.
You also have the opportunity to get other coins or versions that are cheaper.
Although I know you are right, I kinda feel the whole energy consumption issue isn't a big thing, or rather it wouldn't be if miners would be able to use green energy for them, I don't care if it consumes a lot of energy if it could help to create a decentralised and fungible currency.
And while BTC certainly has it flaws at least it helped to the creation of better forms of the same concept which could help to achieve that, like Monero or Pirate Chain.
you do realize that producing green energy is quite energy intensive right and most of the materials are non recyclable?
Using the green energy we produce to keep a network of money for speculators running is just beyond silly.
The cryptocoin gang are so detached from reality its not even funny at this point.
Proof of stake is simply giving new money for free to those who are already rich. Proof of work means that there was a verifiable cost behind each coin produced, so was not just handed out for free to the rich.
I've always been curious about "proof of being a human" but in not sure if any system has seriously experimented with that.
When we have an decentralised global anonymous or private ID system, it would be the best and most fair way to distibute an decentralized currency.
Thus a decentralised global anonymous ID system would probably be the most important system in humanities evolution in order to create a fair world.
How would it work then, practically? How would you prove your ID corresponds to a real human? Even better, is it possible to prove every ID corresponds to a unique human?
Great questions. Not sure how it would work and if we could make it work. I think MS is working on a solution. But I'm not sure it's such a good idea if everyone on earth was dependent on the technology of one company for their identity.