Bitcoin discussion and news

[kabbes]

One thing I have noticed more is that even some of the traditional finance industry players who might openly compare the bitcoin situation of 2017 with tulip mania, are starting to make more positive sounds about some aspects of underlying technology, eg blockchain. It seems reasonable to think that a bunch of products and services might emerge from the traditional industry, but I don't know what they've got up their sleeves.

The technology of something that by definition destroys itself upon replication is useful for all kinds of things. It allows you to set up self-fulfilling contracts that don’t need courts to arbitrate on, for example.

The bitcoin argument, on the other hand, is about whether that technology is useful specifically as a currency. What advantages does it have as a payment method over Visa, and what advantages does it have as a store of value over the USD?

 

[newbie]

I don't mean everyone whose critical of bitcoin never bothered to look into it properly, I don't care for newbies tone for example

the tone of outrage that the knowledgeable in the Bitcoin ecosystem have been ignoring the glaring, unforgivable flaw?

The flaw that should have been a showstopper but instead has been swept beneath the carpet because libertarian futurology.

A flaw which means that every blockchain transaction is a huge breach of the polluter pays principle (which goes back to article 16 of the Rio declaration on the environment at least). The whole world knows this is wrong.

A hidden, shameful flaw which means that blockchain technology cannot possibly grow as other internet tech does to be used by any meaningful fraction of the world population.


Sorry about that. You're better read than me. I don't get why you're not equally outraged.

 

[newbie]

just for reference about that pretty picture, there are 3 billion Visa cards doing up to 65,000 transactions per second, while 18 million Bitcoin users are currently doing 300,000 transactions per day. Just look at the graph and tell me why you're not outraged.

E2A the number of Bitcoin wallets has grown by a million since the 9th October!

 

[Idaho]

just for reference about that pretty picture, there are 3 billion Visa cards doing up to 65,000 transactions per second, while 18 million Bitcoin users are currently doing 300,000 transactions per day. Just look at the graph and tell me why you're not outraged.

Yes. The scaling debate has been the central discussion of the bitcoin world for over 3 years now.

 

[newbie]

Yes. The scaling debate has been the central discussion of the bitcoin world for over 3 years now.

while the number of users has been allowed- by the community- to grow from 2 to 18 million, the number of transactions from 35,000 to 300,000. It's not a good look.

 

[Idaho]

while the number of users has been allowed- by the community- to grow from 2 to 18 million, the number of transactions from 35,000 to 300,000. It's not a good look.

Nothing has been allowed. That's the nature of a permissionless system. There is no central control.

 

[NoXion]

while the number of users has been allowed- by the community- to grow from 2 to 18 million, the number of transactions from 35,000 to 300,000. It's not a good look.

Is it me, or is there significant mismatch between the growth in number of users and the growth in number of transactions?

I.E. I would expect a lot more transactions given the growth in users.

 

[Idaho]

At the moment there are only a few useful ways to spend. Most of the buying is gambling/speculative. Either that, or you buy a big chunk to then deposit on a gambling site (US has a lot of restrictions on online gambling).

 

[newbie]

Nothing has been allowed. That's the nature of a permissionless system. There is no central control.

well that's the heart of libertarianism, surely. That there's no such thing as society, everyone can do whatever they like regardless of the consequences.

But there is society, and there is peer pressure.

This thread, and all it's U75 bedfellows including those about eg Silk Road, Alphabay and the rest of the darknet have shown no evidence of peer pressure against using Bitcoin. I can't be sure I've read every word of every thread but my strong impression is just the opposite: that all objections to crypto currencies are brushed aside in favour of some future greater good, of greed and of the convenience of buying drugs online. No-one has pressured their peers about the planet killing nature of Bitcoin, have they? The vast majority of objections have been somewhat nebulous, about politics, currency, sociology. Not about the real, tangible showstopper that affects everyone on earth in a direct, material way. In the last couple of pages, where we have focused on energy usage I've been told PoS and/or Lightning are the salvation, because continuing the project is more important, more relevant than any objection.

I'm not the only one who didn't know, just as I'm not the only one who has read many of these threads, and looked, over and again, into suggested sources and into the bitcoin/crypto currency eco systems. Maybe the 'the central discussion of the bitcoin world' should have been conducted with a tone of greater outrage?

 

[Idaho]

We have established that bitcoin is estimated to currently use one thousandth of global energy - and that while this is not really the planet killer of your hyperbole, this is indeed far too profligate. We have also established that there is both significant work moving mining to renewable energy - in China, in America and recently Japan (latest news: Japanese City Attracts Cryptocurrency Miners with Abundant Renewable Energy - Bitcoin News (press release))
.. As well as significant work to scale and expand this energy use to a much wider user base.

You speak of what the discussion should be, or how it should be conducted. Good luck with that. I not really sure who you are aiming your righteous indignation at. I'm all in agreement with you. I'm just more optimistic that the energy input in the early years will be hugely offset by the efficiencies in future years.

 

[newbie]

I not really sure who you are aiming your righteous indignation at.

You, everyone else reading this thread.

I'm guessing most Bitcoin users are innocent, they don't know about this and meanwhile do their best to be caring, responsible citizens, like most of us. They fit low energy bulbs and turn them off when not in use, the don't overfill the kettle, they do low temperature washes, they recycle, they try not to waste pointlessly, maybe they choose a supplier of renewable energy. Tiny individual gestures that cumulate to something significant. All rendered utterly pointless by a single, unwitting, Bitcoin transaction.

Peer indignation can stop Bitcoin in its tracks.

 

[elbows]

Nothing has been allowed. That's the nature of a permissionless system. There is no central control.

More fucking bullshit from a ramping apologist supreme - what a piece of fucking useless shit you've proven to be, especially the way you repeatedly fail to come up with convincing points until we hand them to you on a plate, where you then crudely attempt to co-opt them into your 'reasonable' view as if you knew them all along.

You can talk shit all you like about no central control, but this is a year of forks that clearly demonstrate that the trajectory of bitcoin can be altered, and even if there is no single central control there are still concentrated points of control and influence.

Meanwhile my preparations to hold an ICO for nuggets of purest green is reaching an advanced stage, next stop the moon.

 

[Idaho]

I think of it more like a hybrid or electric car. Painfully expensive in terms of set up costs compared to a second hand car, but with the potential to be much more efficient in the future.

 

[Idaho]

More fucking bullshit from a ramping apologist supreme - what a piece of fucking useless shit you've proven to be, especially the way you repeatedly fail to come up with convincing points until we hand them to you on a plate, where you then crudely attempt to co-opt them into your 'reasonable' view as if you knew them all along.

You can talk shit all you like about no central control, but this is a year of forks that clearly demonstrate that the trajectory of bitcoin can be altered, and even if there is no single central control there are still concentrated points of control and influence.

Meanwhile my preparations to hold an ICO for nuggets of purest green is reaching an advanced stage, next stop the moon.

Shouty man is back!

A "ramping" apologist? What does that mean?

You're right. I have total control. I too can be an abusive twat on some message board somewhere and change the world. Congratulations keyboard warrior.

 

[elbows]

November 2013 on this thread:

Incidentally I just read that 1000 Megawatt hours a day of energy is used to mine bitcoins. Depends where you get your leccy from I suppose, but a back-of-a-fag-packet calculation works that out as about half a million kilos of CO2 per day.

I think most modern money uses a fair amount of electricity. ATMs, bank servers, online banking, credit card machines, etc.

lol.

 

[camouflage]

the tone of outrage that the knowledgeable in the Bitcoin ecosystem have been ignoring the glaring, unforgivable flaw?

No, the tone of snarky contempt where you project your dislike of bitcoin onto people that like to talk about crypto. Not sure why that's necessary, I actually agree with many of your observations as matters for concern. I don't understand why it's not possible to talk about ideas or technologies or a wide range of things on here actually without becoming someones Sworn Internet Enemy. Don't see what all the hostility and derision adds to the discussion. I mean if I was all about "hey everyone, buy bitcoin! It's the greatest!" then fine, that would be shilling and would deserve a defensive response. (I actually don't advise anyone about money, I'm not very good at it myself, buy/don't buy what you want).

Just to be clear everyone, I'm not here to shill, I consider crypto generally and bitcoin in particular as the first example of crypto I'd come across to be pretty fascinating as a world of problems, solutions, implications and disruptions, and all sorts of stuff I haven't thought about yet. I don't think crypto will make the world a better place (same shit different day is the usual human default). It's a powerful new thing and I'm interested in what can be done with that power, by whom, to what end, how, with what potential consequences.

But I find it impossible to explore any of that sort of stuff (the implications the concerns the problems the winners and losers) in this kind of atmosphere where it's found for example that Bitcoin is scary in the scale of its energy use and that's seen as "Aha! This Proves that you are a Cunt!" I mean... wat? Or "I don't understand the purpose of Bitcoin- therefore you are definitly a Cunt!" I mean, wtf??

I regret allowing myself to get drawn into this conversation, not because of any of the criticisms or other points of the technology that come about (that's the sort of thing we want surely) but because of the sense of people having some sort of grudge against the discussion of the tech, or against anyone who considers it worth talking about beyond "Libertarians are self-entitled fuck-wits and we hate them".

In ten years time a Bitcoin may well be worth over a million, the data-centres of its infrastructure could be sucking down the same scale of energy of New York City or something every day, wars could be fought as a result of its consequences (somehow), governments that subsidize energy consumption may find that policy challenged because of the crypto-industries massive demand- said subsidies might fail, what if that happened in China, could it be like the slashed bread-subsidies post 2008 that foreshadowed the ultimately disastrous so called Arab Spring? Narcos and criminal networks might start to become even more wealthy than ever before because of the likes of Monero or whatever and impact the politics of your Mexicos or your Colombias more than in even Escobars day, a wealth transfer of billions is under way and we don't know what the consequences of that might be.

What can I expect to find on this thread come all this? "Shut up cunt, fuck off with your Bitcoin, we don't discuss that shite around here, also everything bad about it that we only just read about the other day is your fault and proves you're a cunt".

Ok, thanks guys. Good talk.

 

[elbows]

Considering the grotesque waste on display and the inability to build a convincing argument about the plus sides beyond libertarian wank, I think you've actually got off lightly on this thread most of the time. I'm certainly not going to apologise for the brief intrusion of reality into the discussion.

 

[Idaho]

I think it's because leftists are most concerned with intellectual enemies at the expense of practical matters. Everything gets referenced back to who those enemies are* and how the issue at hand can be turned into a zero sum in light of this.

*when arguing with liberals the state and the economic elites are enemies... But when arguing with libertarians, all is forgiven on this front and a few nerdy software developers are the enemies. Even more hilarious is when discussing minutiae of left politics, all bets are off and weird byzantine fights between "tankies", "trots" are the order of the day.

In this thread, suddenly environmental politics is the issue de jour - something leftists would normally decry as liberal.

 

[elbows]

Bollocks, energy use is a practical matter and one I've always been interested in. For example, one of my favourite things to develop involves a 3d fluid simulation that runs on the GPU. But I've been massively put off from ever releasing it as a product because the amount of energy used when running it seems somewhat perverse given the entertainment use I'd like to put it to.

 

[camouflage]

Considering the grotesque waste on display and the inability to build a convincing argument about the plus sides beyond libertarian wank, I think you've actually got off lightly on this thread most of the time. I'm certainly not going to apologise for the brief intrusion of reality into the discussion.

I haven't set out to build a convincing argument about the plus sides. I'm as interested in the drawbacks as any plus sides. So far as far as I'm concerned the fact that people want to buy it and are building datacentres to support it and it has now become a sector worth billions represents the reality, rather than what I think the reality should be. The regurgitation of libertarian wank is simply not my bag, you have to at least be a libertarian and not annoyed by libertarianism to be about that.

 

[mauvais]

It's not necessarily about environmentalism per se, it's hardly alone in its crimes in that respect - although there is a sort of bleak, dystopian planetary black comedy to the transfer of tangible, useful natural resources into, well, quite probably nothing at all besides entropy.

The energy mess says far more about the foresight that did or didn't go into the thing, and strongly suggests a sort of technical tunnel vision that either didn't consider or didn't care for the economic and in fact physical fundamentals of the real world.

That discussion can exist largely outside of any political ones because you can view it simply as a great big design or strategic fuckup, a sort of monetary Spruce Goose.

 

[newbie]

No, the tone of snarky contempt where you project your dislike of bitcoin onto people that like to talk about crypto. Not sure why that's necessary, I actually agree with many of your observations as matters for concern.

well tbh I didn't know that's what I've been doing. I don't think I have tbh. I certainly haven't called anybody anything and I'm not about to start doing so.

Until I read a post alerting me to the energy issue I don't think I had an issue with bitcoin. Like a lot of technologies it's got pluses and minuses but I've been generally fairly positive, most of the objections I've seen have been countered by the futurology.

This is a gamechanger. I can't see how it's not. I can't see how anyone can consider making a bitcoin transaction while deliberately ignoring the global warming implications. I can't see how anyone can put the future of this project above or beyond the single issue recognised as being of primary importance for humanity by almost every society on earth. So I can't see how anyone can be involved with Bitcoin in any way, even if just peripherally on a non-specialist thread like this, without applying peer pressure to end it and end it now.

Sure, work on initiatives, possibly involving PoS, intended to achieve the same goals. But actually using PoW Bitcoin right now in 2017, no, imo everyone should jump up and down and clamour against that every single time the word Bitcoin is mentioned.

If you choose to take that view, or that tone personally, well I dunno what to say.

 

[BigTom]

It's not necessarily about environmentalism per se, it's hardly alone in its crimes in that respect - although there is a sort of bleak, dystopian planetary black comedy to the transfer of tangible, useful natural resources into, well, quite probably nothing at all besides entropy.

The energy mess says far more about the foresight that did or didn't go into the thing, and strongly suggests a sort of technical tunnel vision that either didn't consider or didn't care for the economic and in fact physical fundamentals of the real world.

That discussion can exist largely outside of any political ones because you can view it simply as a great big design or strategic fuckup, a sort of monetary Spruce Goose.

Except bitcoin was created fundamentally as a political project. Some/one programmer/cyrptographer found a technological way to create a currency outside of government control, whose value would be determined by pure free markets. Being a Randist libertarian, they will be obsessed with gold standard currencies, hence the use of the term "mining" for processing transactions, like bitcoins are the same as gold, being dug out of the ground. Same reason for limited quantity of bitcoins. The whole currency design is political, and other things are secondary to that. Ime terms a substantial crossover between libertarians and climate change deniers so it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't see energy usage add any kind of issue when designing this

 

[mauvais]

The whole currency design is political, and other things are secondary to that. Ime terms a substantial crossover between libertarians and climate change deniers so it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't see energy usage add any kind of issue when designing this

Oh, of course. But you can talk about its real-world scalability failures independently of that.

 

[Ranbay]

My miners pay for my electicity bills in the house, and they heat the house so i never have the heating on.


Will i go to hell?

 

[Idaho]

Oh, of course. But you can talk about its real-world scalability failures independently of that.

What is interesting to me, is that the whole thing, while undoubtedly political in intent, has taken on a life of its own. It will develop in directions and have outcomes that neither the originators, nor we, can predict.

The very fact that someone can start a new currency, and we have watched it happen, is a rare thing. Like watching the first time someone swapped a cow for a cowrie shell, or when paper money was first issued (and was deemed worthless).

 

[Idaho]

My miners pay for my electicity bills in the house, and they heat the house so i never have the heating on.


Will i go to hell?

Yes.

 

[Ranbay]

Yes.

Thank fuck for that

 

[DotCommunist]

tbf in hell the heating is free

 

[kabbes]

tbf in hell the heating is free

What about in the frozen ice pits?