Crypto and HR 3684 - urgent attention needed from all!

[Fenixgoon]

And that's because of all the "mining" going on with Nvidia? Or is it because Nvidia chips are being used to mine? For me, I feel like I'm asking ridiculous questions, but it is what it is (to quote the Trump family).

GPUs in general, whether AMD or NVIDIA, and ASICS. and then the chip shortage in general only makes things worse. so there's an absolutely massive demand across the board coupled with a supply shortage.

my AMD RX 480 8gb is 5 years old, and I've seen this card sell on ebay for $350. MSRP was $250 in 2016.

 

[woolfe9998]

And that's because of all the "mining" going on with Nvidia? Or is it because Nvidia chips are being used to mine? For me, I feel like I'm asking ridiculous questions, but it is what it is (to quote the Trump family).

I think it's just high end video cards in general, might be both Nvidia and AMD. Others around here I'm sure know more than I do about it. It's a frequent topic of discussion in the video card forum.

 

[NWRMidnight]

Yep, it's a terrible energy consumer, right when we need to reduce energy consumption as much as possible.

On a personal note, it's also resulted in not being able to get a half decent video card for gaming for under $500 going on many years now. I know, not the most important issue for humanity but it still irritates the crap out me.

I suspect if a person actually took other currencies such as the dollar, calculated all the segments that go into that currency, from production, managing, tracking, etc the energy consumption would be close to the same. The difference is most other currencies, those energy costs are broken up into hundreds if not thousands of segments.

 

[hal2kilo]

GPUs in general, whether AMD or NVIDIA, and ASICS. and then the chip shortage in general only makes things worse. so there's an absolutely massive demand across the board coupled with a supply shortage.

my AMD RX 480 8gb is 5 years old, and I've seen this card sell on ebay for $350. MSRP was $250 in 2016.

Hell, I'm still running my Vostro 1700. I can't stand the 1080p display that came with my Inspiron 17 5000 series laptop. Plus Dell is only using the 256 GB NVE SSD as a buffer. Looking over at end table with 500 GB HP NVE to update and completely reconfigure the beast. Been lazy and my confidence in doing this isn't what it used to be.

 

[woolfe9998]

I suspect if a person actually took other currencies such as the dollar, calculated all the segments that go into that currency, from production, managing, tracking, etc the energy consumption would be close to the same. The difference is most other currencies, those energy costs are broken up into hundreds if not thousands of segments.

That may or may not be true. But either way, we need fiat currency, meaning its energy cost isn't really avoidable. By contrast, we don't need cryptocurrency at all. It serves no real purpose. So why are we consuming so much energy on it?

 

[hal2kilo]

Is every widget on every assembly line being tracked? WTF The power thing is unreal to me. Hell, my brain is overheating. Yea, bitcoin bad. No a caveman can't do it.

 

[woolfe9998]

GPUs in general, whether AMD or NVIDIA, and ASICS. and then the chip shortage in general only makes things worse. so there's an absolutely massive demand across the board coupled with a supply shortage.

my AMD RX 480 8gb is 5 years old, and I've seen this card sell on ebay for $350. MSRP was $250 in 2016.

I have an RTX 2070, which I paid I think $450 for on black Friday 2019. A few months back a friend called me about his failing rig that I built for him 10 years ago which has not been replaced or upgraded because he's on a fixed income. So I do some research to see if I can find him a decent card in his price range, which was max $250. LOL. The cheapest I could find for the RTX 2070 was $100 MORE than I paid for it almost 2 years ago. So he's still running that crappy old rig.

Those of us who already had decent systems before this chip shortage hit are the lucky ones.

 

[cytg111]

I really am trying to understand like 5% of what's going on. Is the tracking of all the block chains requiring that muck computer power? Someone please speak english.

Naw, its just a public ledger, free for all to see and inspect at any time.. Its just that the only ones really using this "ledger technology" is cryptocurrencies and THOSE burn coal like nothing else.
So the argument that our guy here is putting forth is that the billions of tons of coal that is burned in the quest to produce fuck-coins is worth it cause it drives "public ledger technology forward" ... and from there the possibilities are just endless.

So. Yea. I mean.... Jesus weeps.

Disclaimer: actually own a bitcoin .. got it way back then, if it hits 100k ill cash out and weep at the same time.

 

[cytg111]

Yep, it's a terrible energy consumer, right when we need to reduce energy consumption as much as possible.

On a personal note, it's also resulted in not being able to get a half decent video card for gaming for under $500 going on many years now. I know, not the most important issue for humanity but it still irritates the crap out me.

I bit the bullet and went hunting for a 3080ti, won a lottery, was still a premium yea at around msrp, but not as bad as it could have been

 

[njdevilsfan87]

This is the doom of mainstream crypto:

Commentary: How much Bitcoin comes from dirty coal? A flooded mine in China just spotlighted the issue

The recent accident showed just how fragile, and how environmentally damaging, the Bitcoin supply chain can be.

fortune.com

Coal-powered bitcoin mining soars in Kazakhstan following Chinese ban

A Chinese bitcoin ban has seen power-hungry miners move to Kazakhstan, where fossil fuels including coal power make up more than 90 per cent of the nation's electricity supply

www.newscientist.com

Its a race to produce most power any means necessary, cause money, cause geopolitical power. The "nature" of our current "climate" makes this dead. Just dead.

Generation 3.0 cryptos like Cardano, Polkadot and Tezos use almost no power to operate. Ethereum will use very little once it transitions to proof-of-stake. Bitcoin is stuck on proof-of-work, but hopefully the trend there is to move its mining into renewable energy.

Right now Bitcoin consumes about as much power as Norway. Or less than 1% of the total electrical consumption of the world. We are heading towards climate catastrophe with or without Bitcoin.

By the way being so environmentally concerned I'm sure you drive a Tesla, have solar panels installed on your home, never run the AC, shut down the computer instead of leaving it idle, don't water your grass, etc.

 

[IronWing]

By the way being so environmentally concerned I'm sure you drive a Tesla, have solar panels installed on your home, never run the AC, shut down the computer instead of leaving it idle, don't water your grass, etc.

ICE vehicles, energy production, A/C, and computers are designed for usefulness and efficiency. Bitcoin offers neither. By design, it wastes resources for the sake of wasting resources. A nihilist cult couldn't have devised a worse system for creating a currency.

 

[LikeLinus]

Generation 3.0 cryptos like Cardano, Polkadot and Tezos use almost no power to operate. Ethereum will use very little once it transitions to proof-of-stake. Bitcoin is stuck on proof-of-work, but hopefully the trend there is to move its mining into renewable energy.

Right now Bitcoin consumes about as much power as Norway. Or less than 1% of the total electrical consumption of the world. We are heading towards climate catastrophe with or without Bitcoin.

By the way being so environmentally concerned I'm sure you drive a Tesla, have solar panels installed on your home, never run the AC, shut down the computer instead of leaving it idle, don't water your grass, etc.

You have a serious hard-on for this shit. It's funny you have never mention those alternatives that have 'almost no power', lol. Then claim a major one with use "very little power" in the future. I have a feeling in another life, you sold snake oil.

I love how you say that BitCoin consumes less that 1% of the total electric consumptions, but fail to mention that it probably is only used by 1% of the total population of the world. Where is that data? Please show us the comparison? I know you won't and will walk around the topic. You've done it several times in this thread.

Then trying to say the rest of the world is wrong because they are using technology that is over 100 years old, compared to some fake currency? But you want to compare it to all of the modern day amenities vs a fake currency most likely used by aholes and illegal activities? If you cannot see the issue here with your argument... never mind, I think everyone else has already pointed out the flaws in your argument because you want to create a business, oops, I mean support Crypto.

 

[LikeLinus]

Wait, no shit, I had to look up Proof-of-stake/work because I've never heard the term. It's a bullshit term created by Crypto! lol. It just keeps getting better.

 

[cytg111]

Generation 3.0 cryptos like Cardano, Polkadot and Tezos use almost no power to operate. Ethereum will use very little once it transitions to proof-of-stake. Bitcoin is stuck on proof-of-work, but hopefully the trend there is to move its mining into renewable energy.

Right now Bitcoin consumes about as much power as Norway. Or less than 1% of the total electrical consumption of the world. We are heading towards climate catastrophe with or without Bitcoin.

By the way being so environmentally concerned I'm sure you drive a Tesla, have solar panels installed on your home, never run the AC, shut down the computer instead of leaving it idle, don't water your grass, etc.

And there it is. I dont really need to add anything to that.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

I love how you say that BitCoin consumes less that 1% of the total electric consumptions, but fail to mention that it probably is only used by 1% of the total population of the world. Where is that data? Please show us the comparison? I know you won't and will walk around the topic. You've done it several times in this thread.

I never claimed Bitcoin was efficient. Or that it wasn't a power hog. Just like I never claimed it doesn't help facilitate criminal activity. I simply counter sensationalist arguments with - as you just asked for: some baseline level of data that doesn't make it not so sensationalist anymore?

You ask me to provide data and yet all you did was look up for proof-of-stake. But if you did you might have seen data like this:

Rough numbers:
Bitcoin: ~120,000 Gigawatts
Cardano (largest Gen 3.0 crypto at the moment): ~10 Gigawatts

As far as Bitcoin goes, there's nothing stopping 100% of the world from downloading some wallets and using Bitcoin today with the same sub-1% energy consumption except maybe the very high transaction fees that would result of such use. But I'm not here to defend Bitcoin specifically.

The whole purpose of the thread is for the continued innovation of crypto because the innovation is why we options moving forward like Cardano - options that are significant upgrades over Bitcoin is just about every single way (except maybe security of which Bitcoin may always be king). Yet the ridiculousness of some of this your arguments against things like power consumption is that one of the amendments that could have passed would have kept Bitcoin (or any proof-of-work) operation fully legal within the US, but stopped something like Cardano - one of the innovations that fully answers any of your calls against coal, energy usage, etc.

And you say I walk around the topic when they only way you can try to make a point is to divert me away from the main purpose of thread, by instead trying to make it Bitcoin or proof-of-work-centric and focusing on its downsides. And again: I'll say it again because most of you can't read more than 100 words but maybe you'll just happen to glance over here: yet the ridiculousness of some of this your arguments against things like power consumption is that one of the amendments that could have passed would have kept Bitcoin (or any proof-of-work) operation fully legal within the US, but stopped something like Cardano - one of the innovations that fully answers any of your calls against coal, energy usage, etc.

But keep focusing on that and missing out on one of the greatest wealth transfers to occur in the history of humanity...

If Blockchain technology was so necessary for our future evolving, it would provide a lot of reward for those that help develop it, just like every other technology that has been developed with the promise of fiat currency and wealth as the reward.

... because this has been happening. Those involved in the early days of Bitcoin and Ethereum have been rewarded with insane amounts of wealth. Vitalik Buterin is worth well north of $1B. The Winklevoss twins, north of $5B. Charles Hoskinson - half a billion and probably even closer to $1B now. And all of us little guys that bought into the ideas years ago instead listening to same old short-sighted arguments presented in this thread year-after-year: millionaires that are now looking to continue improving the ecosystem with our own developments - thus positioned to grow even further in wealth but this time on real contributions versus pure speculation.

 

[Fenixgoon]

I never claimed Bitcoin was efficient. Or that it wasn't a power hog. Just like I never claimed it doesn't help facilitate criminal activity. I simply counter sensationalist arguments with - as you just asked for: some baseline level of data that doesn't make it not so sensationalist anymore?

You ask me to provide data and yet all you did was look up for proof-of-stake. But if you did you might have seen data like this:

Rough numbers:
Bitcoin: ~120,000 Gigawatts
Cardano (largest Gen 3.0 crypto at the moment): ~10 Gigawatts

As far as Bitcoin goes, there's nothing stopping 100% of the world from downloading some wallets and using Bitcoin today with the same sub-1% energy consumption except maybe the very high transaction fees that would result of such use. But I'm not here to defend Bitcoin specifically.

The whole purpose of the thread is for the continued innovation of crypto because the innovation is why we options moving forward like Cardano - options that are significant upgrades over Bitcoin is just about every single way (except maybe security of which Bitcoin may always be king). Yet the ridiculousness of some of this your arguments against things like power consumption is that one of the amendments that could have passed would have kept Bitcoin (or any proof-of-work) operation fully legal within the US, but stopped something like Cardano - one of the innovations that fully answers any of your calls against coal, energy usage, etc.

And you say I walk around the topic when they only way you can try to make a point is to divert me away from the main purpose of thread, by instead trying to make it Bitcoin or proof-of-work-centric and focusing on its downsides. And again: I'll say it again because most of you can't read more than 100 words but maybe you'll just happen to glance over here: yet the ridiculousness of some of this your arguments against things like power consumption is that one of the amendments that could have passed would have kept Bitcoin (or any proof-of-work) operation fully legal within the US, but stopped something like Cardano - one of the innovations that fully answers any of your calls against coal, energy usage, etc.

But keep focusing on that missing out on one of the greatest wealth transfers to occur in the history of humanity:



Because this has been happening. Those involved in the early days of Bitcoin and Ethereum have been rewarded with insane amounts of wealth. Vitalik Buterin is worth well north of $1B. The Winklevoss twins, north of $5B. Charles Hoskinson - half a billion and probably even closer to $1B now. And all of us little guys that bought the ideas instead listening to same old garbage arguments presented in this thread year after year: millionaires that are now looking to continue improving the ecosystem with our own developments.

isn't the entire premise of mining/blockchain built on inefficiency though?

solving each problem or getting each coin is more difficult than the previous one. coupled with the fact that there are a finite number of coins in a fork, that means the difficulty needs to ramp up in a highly non-linear fashion to allow the network to grow, and the value of each subsequent coin will also be driven up because of said difficulty curve, which is inherently deflationary.

so, why would anyone ever trade their coins away? the only way to have crypto be a "real" currency is to treat it like one,. which means releasing coins in a fashion that holds the value in a stable manner:

1) the number of coins has to be effectively infinite
2) the release rate of coins has to be variable based on the size/state of the network

please correct me where i'm wrong, because crypto isn't my thing by any means. but there is literally no reason to use bitcoin as a currency because its value is only going to increase by its very nature. there is a finite number of bitcoins.
OTOH, if the USD is fluctuating in value too much, the supply can be adjusted both up and down as needed.

 

[MrSquished]

I never claimed Bitcoin was efficient. Or that it wasn't a power hog. Just like I never claimed it doesn't help facilitate criminal activity. I simply counter sensationalist arguments with - as you just asked for: some baseline level of data that doesn't make it not so sensationalist anymore?

You ask me to provide data and yet all you did was look up for proof-of-stake. But if you did you might have seen data like this:

Rough numbers:
Bitcoin: ~120,000 Gigawatts
Cardano (largest Gen 3.0 crypto at the moment): ~10 Gigawatts

As far as Bitcoin goes, there's nothing stopping 100% of the world from downloading some wallets and using Bitcoin today with the same sub-1% energy consumption except maybe the very high transaction fees that would result of such use. But I'm not here to defend Bitcoin specifically.

The whole purpose of the thread is for the continued innovation of crypto because the innovation is why we options moving forward like Cardano - options that are significant upgrades over Bitcoin is just about every single way (except maybe security of which Bitcoin may always be king). Yet the ridiculousness of some of this your arguments against things like power consumption is that one of the amendments that could have passed would have kept Bitcoin (or any proof-of-work) operation fully legal within the US, but stopped something like Cardano - one of the innovations that fully answers any of your calls against coal, energy usage, etc.

And you say I walk around the topic when they only way you can try to make a point is to divert me away from the main purpose of thread, by instead trying to make it Bitcoin or proof-of-work-centric and focusing on its downsides. And again: I'll say it again because most of you can't read more than 100 words but maybe you'll just happen to glance over here: yet the ridiculousness of some of this your arguments against things like power consumption is that one of the amendments that could have passed would have kept Bitcoin (or any proof-of-work) operation fully legal within the US, but stopped something like Cardano - one of the innovations that fully answers any of your calls against coal, energy usage, etc.

But keep focusing on that and missing out on one of the greatest wealth transfers to occur in the history of humanity...



... because this has been happening. Those involved in the early days of Bitcoin and Ethereum have been rewarded with insane amounts of wealth. Vitalik Buterin is worth well north of $1B. The Winklevoss twins, north of $5B. Charles Hoskinson - half a billion and probably even closer to $1B now. And all of us little guys that bought into the ideas years ago instead listening to same old short-sighted arguments presented in this thread year-after-year: millionaires that are now looking to continue improving the ecosystem with our own developments - thus positioned to grow even further in wealth but this time on real contributions versus pure speculation.

It's only worth something in Fiat currency which is telling as you measure their wealth in Fiat currency. Ultimately those guys have gotten wealthy off of a speculative investment that really does nothing for society except create ways for mostly the rich to get richer, with a few exceptions. It's just a speculative investment vehicle. That does not a good currency make. That's the opposite of a good currency.

If Blockchain technology was so necessary for the future tech revolution, it wouldn't need to be a currency to succeed.. did Google need to be a currency to succeed? Facebook? Tesla? Amazon? Windows? iPhone os? Android? Database software? I can go on.

 

[cytg111]

isn't the entire premise of mining/blockchain built on inefficiency though?

solving each problem or getting each coin is more difficult than the previous one. coupled with the fact that there are a finite number of coins in a fork, that means the difficulty needs to ramp up in a highly non-linear fashion to allow the network to grow, and the value of each subsequent coin will also be driven up because of said difficulty curve, which is inherently deflationary.

so, why would anyone ever trade their coins away? the only way to have crypto be a "real" currency is to treat it like one,. which means releasing coins in a fashion that holds the value in a stable manner:

1) the number of coins has to be effectively infinite
2) the release rate of coins has to be variable based on the size/state of the network

please correct me where i'm wrong, because crypto isn't my thing by any means. but there is literally no reason to use bitcoin as a currency because its value is only going to increase by its very nature. there is a finite number of bitcoins.
OTOH, if the USD is fluctuating in value too much, the supply can be adjusted both up and down as needed.

And the curve at least has to beat whatever is left of moores law or inflation would skyrocket.
I love the idea of taking power away from the established financial monster of modern western capitalistic democracies, not because I dont believe in the constructs as such but because the concentration of power in the financial sector is out of fucking hand.
If this tech moves power from that and back to the people I am all for that. But you cant fcking use the power of Norway to mine coins. There is also the whole geopolitical aspect, say NK, this tech is not just "for the people" its also for "the people who oppresses people" - to get around sanctions.. sanctions that only works if the world have a common financial power institution in place.
Its not black/white this shit.

 

[MrSquished]

And the curve at least has to beat whatever is left of moores law or inflation would skyrocket.
I love the idea of taking power away from the established financial monster of modern western capitalistic democracies, not because I dont believe in the constructs as such but because the concentration of power in the financial sector is out of fucking hand.
If this tech moves power from that and back to the people I am all for that. But you cant fcking use the power of Norway to mine coins. There is also the whole geopolitical aspect, say NK, this tech is not just "for the people" its also for "the people who oppresses people" - to get around sanctions.. sanctions that only works if the world have a common financial power institution in place.
Its not black/white this shit.

How does a speculative 'currency' that has crazy highs and lows give shit back to the people? The only people that can afford to speculate and weather such ups and downs are the more well off. The rest either get lucky or lose their shirts.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

Well again, and I've probably said 5 different times by now in this thread: cryptocurrency is not here to replace fiat, and I will add this: nor is it even here to act like a traditional fiat currency. It's here just to act as the currency for whatever blockchain you need the services of. To maybe somewhat answer Fenixgoon as well: you need a supply ruleset in place that prevents the fiat value of the cryptocurrency going to zero or else the blockchain collapses.

Is Bitcoin's ruleset the best one? Probably not - as you see it encourages hoarding and that could create big problems for it down the line. Newer cryptocurrencies have different rulesets. We want one that doesn't encourage hoarding, but still encourages participation in growth of the network. Shitcoins come and go all the time trying all sorts of different rulesets.

Going back to MySquished: You don't invest in cryptocurrencies because they are fiat replacements. You invest in Bitcoin or Ethereum because they are services that are growing (maybe Bitcoin is a poor example, but for everything Ethereum and beyond this applies). Just like you invest in AMD's stock because you see it as a product that is growing. Even my boomer father, a traditional stock market guy, got it once I explained to him, "Ethereum is a service". And your investment vehicle in that service - the Ethereum token - actually has more fundamental value to you than your AMD stock. Because you can actually use that token pay for something like the launch and processing of a smart-contract on the super-secure Ethereum network, whereas you can't do anything with your AMD stock other than sell it to someone else.

 

[cytg111]

How does a speculative 'currency' that has crazy highs and lows give shit back to the people? The only people that can afford to speculate and weather such ups and downs are the more well off. The rest either get lucky or lose their shirts.

Of course it doesnt? (I didnt claim that, did I?).
I was talking about the concept of the technology, not bitcoin or any other coin per se.

 

[IronWing]

Going back to MySquished: You don't invest in cryptocurrencies because they are fiat replacements. You invest in Bitcoin or Ethereum because they are services that are growing (maybe Bitcoin is a poor example, but for everything Ethereum and beyond this applies). Just like you invest in AMD's stock because you see it as a product that is growing. Even my boomer father, a traditional stock market guy, got it once I explained to him, "Ethereum is a service". And your investment vehicle in that service - the Ethereum token - actually has more fundamental value to you than your AMD stock. Because you can actually use that token pay for something like the launch and processing of a smart-contract on the super-secure Ethereum network, whereas you can't do anything with your AMD stock other than sell it to someone else.

Would that smart contract result in a ham sandwich appearing at my door? What is the service provided that translates into tangible value outside of the Ethereum universe?

 

[snoopy7548]

I'm even more confused. So the point of crypto is to gain/maintain access to some crypto network? What can you use it for? If I have AMD stock, that stock can't buy me anything until I sell it, but once I do I can buy real things like food, cars, or pay for my mortgage.

If I have crypto, that buys me access to a network, but what do I get once I'm in that network? More crypto? And what do I do what that crypto? Can I cash out and buy food?

 

[soundforbjt]

Sounds like a cult to me. And a good avenue for crime.

 

[fskimospy]

I'm even more confused. So the point of crypto is to gain/maintain access to some crypto network? What can you use it for? If I have AMD stock, that stock can't buy me anything until I sell it, but once I do I can buy real things like food, cars, or pay for my mortgage.

If I have crypto, that buys me access to a network, but what do I get once I'm in that network? More crypto? And what do I do what that crypto? Can I cash out and buy food?

Yes, he is arguing out of both sides of his mouth - that crypto both exists to finance the network, which has to be done eventually by an exchange for goods and services like a normal currency, and that it’s not intended to be exchanged for goods and services.

As I and others have mentioned, if this network has value independent of its Ponzi scheme elements then there’s no need to finance it with fake money. You could just use real money.