• dgmib@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    The economic drivers of Bitcoin mining make it so that the cost of the electricity needed to mine a Bitcoin will always be just a bit less than the value of a Bitcoin.

    Every time speculators hype up the value of Bitcoin the amount of money wasted on electricity increases.

    Bitcoins are mined at a preset rate of 6.25 bitcoins every 10 minutes. Which does at least get cut in half every few years. But this waste of energy is going to continue so long as there’s a market for Bitcoin.

    • mellowheat@suppo.fi
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      7 months ago

      Somehow Ethereum 2 exists with Proof of Stake and everybody is still using Bitcoin. That tells me that nobody important (for this context) cares about wasted electricity.

      • DingoBilly@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        It’s more that noone cares about the actual use cases of crypto and are just using it as speculative gambling.

        Bitcoin is the literal equivalent of a horse and carriage while cars exist. If any crypto survives it should be the proof of stake crypto not the badly designed bitcoin (noting of course, for its time it was amazingly innovative, just that it’s no longer actually useful).

        Not to mention the whole design flaw that it’s meant to be completely private/anonymous but ironically is one of the most public and traceable things ever created.

  • BassTurd@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Cryptobros and crypto miners are some of the most worthless people in the world. Just a waste of oxygen and resources.

        • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Damn, if you’d actually watched the video you’d know he spends about 40 minutes covering the issues with crypto as it’s crucial to understanding NFTs.

          Nice try, though.

      • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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        7 months ago

        Lol. Fucking batcoinz? That’s the source? Also love that you have to pay to read this random guys musings about bitcoin. The way to make money in Bitcoin is still mostly selling others on Bitcoin.

        What a slow burn of a pyramid scheme.

        • glowie@h4x0r.host
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          7 months ago

          The link isn’t the sources but merely a conduit for the cited information. Also, you don’t have to pay to read it. Clearly you didn’t see the “continue reading” link to get passed the popup.

    • Gigan@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Bitcoin is currently at $57,000 and it’s up 144% in the last year. Haters gonna hate

      • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Wow, a volatile currency backed by nothing has large swings in value and if you pick the right date range you can tell any story you want? That’s pretty amazing.

          • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Militaries, usually.

            A nicer way to put that is that taxes are collected in national currencies. You can use any currency you want in private transactions but when the tax man comes calling, you better have the government’s preferred currency.

            Also, what are cryptocurrencies backed by? Why do y’all exclusively call government money “fiat” when that just means it isn’t backed by a precious metal? Is there a Bitcoin Ft. Knox out there making it not a fiat currency?

            • glowie@h4x0r.host
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              7 months ago

              It may require a bit of TradFi history to truly understand Bitcoin and why it was even created in the first place. Much too long to even attempt at concatenating in a lemmy comment. Bitcoin wasn’t a get-rich-quick scam like the majority of shitcoins today. CypherPunk movement had been working on a trustless system without a governing authority pre-Bitcoin (see e-cash).

              Government backed currencies require trust. In the US you are trading IOUs issued by the Federal Reserve, which isn’t even a Federal branch, but privatized business. There have been numerous times where the heads of the Fed have outright stated they simply enter numbers into a computer to issue money to Central banks, etc. Since Americans were robbed of a tangible currency, backed by Gold, the money printer has quite literally gone “brrrrr”.

              I don’t trust the government or the bankers who have repeatedly financially rape the citizens. Remember the 2008 collapse? No one was held accountable. So, they’ve found new loopholes to continue pillaging the fiscally uneducated. The trust has been long gone as we’re repeatedly lied to.

              This is what Bitcoin has sought to solve in that it’s not debased due to over issuance, unlike most fiat currencies. It doesn’t contribute to inflation, causing your purchasing power to be decreased. It quite literally removes the powers from corrupt bankers and gives it to the people.

              On the subject of energy consumption, yes it has historically taken quite a lot for Proof of Work miners. However, in year’s past the miners have done a significant job at only using either green power sources or buying overproduced energy from companies. This has seen it drop far below the energy consumption of legacy banking or the Military Industrial Complex.

              So, what you’re saying is, if fiat is backed by militarism, it’s really backed by death.

              • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                Well, luckily, you don’t have to worry about explaining TradFi history to me since I studied a lot of it in college and after. To me, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency advocates haven’t read enough about the 1800’s, whether it’s the Free Banking Era or all the post-civil war panics (including the Panic of 1907 so don’t stop at 1899). A lot of hard lessons had to be learned before we created the modern system.

                • prole@sh.itjust.works
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                  7 months ago

                  Yeah and look at how much things have changed since then… Why throw the entire concept of creating a digital currency/ledger? Why be so against it at the core? It’s one thing to be against Bitcoin, or proof-of-work, or literally any other current method of digital currency, but why dismiss the concept outright as some kind of old-timey dog & pony show who will be another lesson we learn the hard way?

                  Sounds like Luddite thinking to me. Sounds like fear of new technology.

                  How many literally countless attempts at human flight were there, many that were awful, stupid ideas, before we finally figured out the best way to do it?

                  Or maybe we should have just given up on the idea of air travel altogether…

              • ammonium@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                Fiat currency is controlled by the government over which we have a bit of power (for those of us who live in a democracy).

                Bitcoin is by definition controlled by those who have the power and thus the money to mine. It’s a bit like democracy only that the more money you have the more votes you have.

                • SwingingKoala@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  7 months ago

                  Bitcoin is by definition controlled by those who have the power and thus the money to mine

                  This is actually 100% wrong, miners are not in control, they depend on the users of the network. This has been demonstrated during the block size conflict where miners tried to get their way and couldn’t.

                • glowie@h4x0r.host
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                  7 months ago

                  You have zero power as a citizen over the currency you use. You do not directly vote for the Central bankers, Federal Reserve board, etc. Even the politicians you might vote for who appoint them will almost always side in their own favor than their constituents. I’d hardly believe a word a politician ever utters. Just look at all the lies and false promising during the campaigns of the last 5 presidents and what they actually accomplished. Biden and college debt as a more recent example.

                  You are also confusing Bitcoin’s Proof of Work with a shitcoin’s Proof of Stake, which is where wealth gives you more votes. As for the hash rate you’re contributing as a miner, there’s no additional power you’re given. Even if you attempted to 51% attack the network, it’d be gaining nothing beyond a double-spend by rewriting the blockchain transaction. Likely causing the currency’s price to crash. Zero financial incentives for any rich people to do that, unless they’re part of a nation-state hoping to try and destroy the currency.

          • henrikx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            7 months ago

            Governments guarantee that their currency is worth something in various ways. Bitcoin is backed by the energy usage it costs to mine

      • TimeSquirrel@kbin.social
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        7 months ago

        Yeah it’s called a “dead cat bounce”. Zoom out by about 7 years.

        Take it from a veteran. They get longer and longer with each iteration of boom/bust cycle. I’ve been into this shit since 2012. Long before the cryptobros all piled in.

        • Gigan@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I don’t know how much you know about bitcoin, but 7 years ago it was worth $1,100.

          • TimeSquirrel@kbin.social
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            7 months ago

            That’s not my point. I was talking about the recent price rise.

            Every boom/bust cycle so far (and there have been about 4 or 5 of them), you get an initial spike, followed by a second one, and then a long, drawn out “despair” period after a crash.

            What you’re seeing is the second bounce of a spike that has been ongoing since about 2019/2020. The “despair” phase is probably not too far off now.

            I know the past is no indicator of future results, but when it happens over and over and over again, well…

            • blandfordforever@lemm.ee
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              7 months ago

              I hadn’t realized Lemmy was so anti-bitcoin.

              Anyway, bitcoin etf’s are a new thing and money is pouring in. Only time will tell, but with all the etf money and the impending halfing, the future looks bright.

              Is bitcoin volatile? Undoubtedly.

              Buy during the dispair period.

              • TimeSquirrel@kbin.social
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                7 months ago

                As a former Bitcoin user and fan, I am also anti-Bitcoin. Until they can figure out how to run the network without drawing the energy equivalent of an entire developing country just to check if some numbers are correct in a database, I can’t morally justify myself using it any more.

            • Gigan@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Again, I’m not sure how much you know about bitcoin because the boom/bust cycles you’re talking about are reflections of the halving cycle, not dead cat bounces. The next halving is going to happen in April this year, and after that the price is going to go up even more. I’ve been through this before, I’m not worried about the despair phase but that’s not what’s coming next.

                • Gigan@lemmy.world
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                  7 months ago

                  That makes sense, since each halving reduces the supply by a smaller amount. But it will still have an upward pressure on the price.

            • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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              7 months ago

              He was in early on the pyramid so he’s just got to keep selling it as if all the next people are gonna be super rich so that the pyramid scheme keeps going.

              I mean I get it. It was super successful and made so much fucking money for whales and people who did Tupperware parties real early but they are so committed to the idea now.

              Who knew you could get a bunch of men to happily sell MLM products though as long as you used a bunch of tech jargon and made it seem like you are smart for getting it. I mean I guess anyone that knows men right?

              • SwingingKoala@discuss.tchncs.de
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                7 months ago

                I understood why bitcoin is valuable in 2013 and I know that it is still massively undervalued, people like you are the clear proof.

                Who knew you could get a bunch of men

                Lol, of course somebody like you is also a sexist.

                • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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                  7 months ago

                  Is it sexist because you aren’t a male shilling this and wrongly assumed your gender based on the stereotype or are you just pretending it’s sexist so you don’t get hurt by the realization that this really is just the MLM for the male gender who makes up a grand majority of the base?

                  And sure you consider it undervalued because people still aren’t in the pyramid scheme so it can go up if only wasn’t for all the pesky people agreeing this is a scheme that’s gonna burst and not wanting in.

      • Neato@ttrpg.network
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        7 months ago

        Make sure you keep your money in bitcoin so when it crashes we can all laugh at you. Again.

  • randint@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
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    7 months ago

    Genuine question: If I use a cryptocurrency such as Monero for its privacy benefits (only for spending, not as an investment), am I indirectly making crypto mining more profitable and hurting the environment?

    ps. I don’t use any crypto yet.

    Edit: actually I don’t care that much about private money. What if I were to just use some crypto because it’s convenient? Would that be bad?

    • dislocate_expansion@reddthat.comB
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      7 months ago

      Well, if you use credit cards that data gets tracked, stored, mined for years to come, not to mention the dozens of internet servers it took for you to buy that bread in the immediate. If you use cash, I’d assume some local authorities use extra AI to track your movements via cloud cameras (plus fiat isn’t fungible since it has serial numbers)

      It would be nice to hear the “pro-[insert your local fiat]” energy use when people argue environmentalism against cryptocurrencies

    • WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 months ago

      There are so many things we interact with that hurt the environment that I wouldn’t take too much personal blame if I were you. The big time miners are the ones using the electricity, and they could use their profits to invest in renewable sources for their mining. They just don’t do it, much like how every other company in the world doesn’t take environmentalism seriously and just says “you first”.

      The government needs to focus on making renewable energy investment a requirement for the biggest offenders. That is the only way we will force large scale change that actually matters.

  • Trev625@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    This is dumb but only because we don’t worry about energy use any other time. Tons of places in my city keep all their lights on 24/7 unnecessarily, we all are sitting on a “useless” social media, video games and movies and music are all energy uses. I don’t want the government to start limiting energy use on things it deems unimportant. Who gets to decide what counts? Just implement a carbon tax and energy use will go down if people don’t want to pay. We don’t need to police everyone’s usage, we just need the cost to actually reflect the externalities.

    • chakan2@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I want to agree with you, but crypto mining is orders of magnitude more energy than the worst lazy energy leaks.

      • Leeker@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Not that I don’t believe you, but do you have a source for that?

      • rusticus@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        No it’s really really easily to implement taxation that’s not regressive.

        • Jojo@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          A progressive tax that means the biggest users pay the most would probably be ideal (but then that’s mostly true in every situation)