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Why invent a system that requires more and more power to create a bit coin. So much that power stations emitting large amount of noise disrupt people’s lives. Not to mention a contribution to climate change on the scale of Greece.
It’s pure madness and on top of it all who uses bitcoin anyway. It still has virtually no purpose other than a pyramid scheme to make people money. It’s immoral. I will admit I bought some in the past as an IT person who was interested in IT related things. But I think that was wrong now. And this article on the BBC is another enforcement of that view. Ban crypto.
It is indeed symbolic of the absolute stupidity of the moronic, suicidal greed-driven species which is now called the Human Consuming. It evolved from the Human Being, but is quite likely to go extinct before if evolves much more. No excuse for this sort of stupidity or for the stupid, selfish individuals who indulge themselves in it. Idiots.
Bitcoin mining - madness on 16:33 - May 23 by NthQldITFC
It is indeed symbolic of the absolute stupidity of the moronic, suicidal greed-driven species which is now called the Human Consuming. It evolved from the Human Being, but is quite likely to go extinct before if evolves much more. No excuse for this sort of stupidity or for the stupid, selfish individuals who indulge themselves in it. Idiots.
You need to get off the fence and tell us what you really think!
Bitcoin mining - madness on 16:33 - May 23 by NthQldITFC
It is indeed symbolic of the absolute stupidity of the moronic, suicidal greed-driven species which is now called the Human Consuming. It evolved from the Human Being, but is quite likely to go extinct before if evolves much more. No excuse for this sort of stupidity or for the stupid, selfish individuals who indulge themselves in it. Idiots.
So we'll put you down as a maybe, yeah?
Trust the process. Trust Phil.
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Bitcoin mining - madness on 16:39 - May 23 with 1057 views
I said "It's a fascinating story, and I agree it's madness" - as in what the people in the story are having to put up with.
I haven't questioned the validity of it being decentralised - I simply asked how it was controlled if decentralised. I've also not questioned the validity of it's finite nature, just asked how a non-physical thing can be finite (which others have since explained).
It seems you're so desperate to defend BitCoin that you're unable to see what's actually written, who's attacking it and who's simply asking questions about something they don't understand. The only thing I've poo-poed is the word 'mining' to describe the number crunching.
[Post edited 23 May 15:37]
It is mining in the way that processing blockchain yields more bitcoin so dont poo-poo that either.
"A+++++", "Great Comms, would recommend", "Thank you, the 12 inch black mamba is just perfect" - Ebay.
Bitcoin mining - madness on 09:53 - May 23 by StokieBlue
How does bitcoin solve government debt issues?
The two things are totally unrelated so I would be interesting to hear your reasoning behind this.
SB
It doesn't. They seem to think they will be the equivalent of preppers and survivers without acknowledging that a collapse in government debt and the banking system will burn the world around them.
Bitcoin mining - madness on 17:29 - May 23 by nodge_blue
It doesn't. They seem to think they will be the equivalent of preppers and survivers without acknowledging that a collapse in government debt and the banking system will burn the world around them.
In the 2008 financial crisis , the US banking system (and following on from that, probably the global banking system) was nearer to collapse than probably most of you think. This would have led to an unprecedented economic collapse.
I’ve no idea who this person is and don’t endorse anything they’re saying, but this is a marvellous potty-mouthed rant against Trump’s latest crypto grift.
Bitcoin mining - madness on 18:59 - May 23 by Radlett_blue
In the 2008 financial crisis , the US banking system (and following on from that, probably the global banking system) was nearer to collapse than probably most of you think. This would have led to an unprecedented economic collapse.
Yes, it was touch and go, and my understanding is that it was derivatives that were the main risk.
This from evidence given to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Hearing held in Washington DC.
"By removing the multi-trillion dollar swaps market from the traditional norms of market regulation, a highly speculative derivative bubble was created that was opaque to federal regulators and market observers alike. By removing all forms of ensuring the normal capital adequacy protections of market regulation, the swaps market permitted trillions of dollars of financial commitments to be made with no assurance that those commitments could be fulfilled beyond the highly illusory AAA ratings of the counterparties in question."
[Post edited 23 May 20:58]
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Bitcoin mining - madness on 09:14 - May 24 with 510 views
Yes, it was touch and go, and my understanding is that it was derivatives that were the main risk.
This from evidence given to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Hearing held in Washington DC.
"By removing the multi-trillion dollar swaps market from the traditional norms of market regulation, a highly speculative derivative bubble was created that was opaque to federal regulators and market observers alike. By removing all forms of ensuring the normal capital adequacy protections of market regulation, the swaps market permitted trillions of dollars of financial commitments to be made with no assurance that those commitments could be fulfilled beyond the highly illusory AAA ratings of the counterparties in question."
[Post edited 23 May 20:58]
Yes, Warren Buffett rightly called derivatives "weapons of mass destruction" as they can provide so much leverage. The problem was that the bank CEOs were generally older people who understood the basis of derivatives & financial instruments, but couldn't have a really deep conversation with the whizz kids who dreamed them up.
Bitcoin mining - madness on 09:14 - May 24 by Radlett_blue
Yes, Warren Buffett rightly called derivatives "weapons of mass destruction" as they can provide so much leverage. The problem was that the bank CEOs were generally older people who understood the basis of derivatives & financial instruments, but couldn't have a really deep conversation with the whizz kids who dreamed them up.
I had an interest in this because I was at the Tax Law Rewrite at the time of the financial crisis and was involved in trying to simplify the tax legislation relating to derivatives, something which was an impossibility given the complexity of derivatives themselves.
One thing that particularly struck me at the time was that it was not just things like collateral debt obligations that were involved but also synthetic CDOs which made things even worse. Synthetic CDOs are defined thus in Wikipedia.
"A synthetic CDO is a variation of a CDO (collateralized debt obligation) that generally uses credit default swaps and other derivatives to obtain its investment goals. As such, it is a complex derivative financial security sometimes described as a bet on the performance of other mortgage (or other) products, rather than a real mortgage security.[2] The value and payment stream of a synthetic CDO is derived not from cash assets, like mortgages or credit card payments – as in the case of a regular or "cash" CDO—but from premiums paying for credit default swap "insurance" on the possibility of default of some defined set of "reference" securities—based on cash assets. The insurance-buying "counterparties" may own the "reference" securities and be managing the risk of their default, or may be speculators who've calculated that the securities will default."
[Post edited 24 May 10:15]
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Bitcoin mining - madness on 11:16 - May 24 with 415 views
Bitcoin mining - madness on 16:33 - May 23 by NthQldITFC
It is indeed symbolic of the absolute stupidity of the moronic, suicidal greed-driven species which is now called the Human Consuming. It evolved from the Human Being, but is quite likely to go extinct before if evolves much more. No excuse for this sort of stupidity or for the stupid, selfish individuals who indulge themselves in it. Idiots.
Let's talk about mining gold...
Gold mining uses approximately 250 terawatt-hours of energy (twice that of BTC), emits well over 100 million tonnes of CO₂ (2.5x all of UK aviation), and still claims dozens (officially – the toll is much higher for the unofficial artisanal miners) of industrial lives every year, while millions of artisanal miners, including children, face toxic mercury and unsafe pits. All to mine a 'store of value', of which 50% goes on producing vanity trinkets and only 5% does anything useful (and is easily replaced or recycled).
The environmental impact is astonishing; it's an environmental catastrophe. It releases 1,200 tonnes of mercury a year into rivers and oceans, causes toxic cyanide spills that wipe out aquatic life, has stripped over 100,000 hectares of Amazon rainforest in Peru alone and creates acid mine drainage that poisons waterways for centuries, and when tailings dams collapse, they bury towns and kill hundreds of people.
All this for a global cultural obsession for something that is considered a symbol of status and wealth.
But some people in the US don't like the hum, so we have to ban BitCoin. Try living next to a gold mine!
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Bitcoin mining - madness on 11:51 - May 24 with 374 views
Bitcoin mining - madness on 11:16 - May 24 by Yaffle
Let's talk about mining gold...
Gold mining uses approximately 250 terawatt-hours of energy (twice that of BTC), emits well over 100 million tonnes of CO₂ (2.5x all of UK aviation), and still claims dozens (officially – the toll is much higher for the unofficial artisanal miners) of industrial lives every year, while millions of artisanal miners, including children, face toxic mercury and unsafe pits. All to mine a 'store of value', of which 50% goes on producing vanity trinkets and only 5% does anything useful (and is easily replaced or recycled).
The environmental impact is astonishing; it's an environmental catastrophe. It releases 1,200 tonnes of mercury a year into rivers and oceans, causes toxic cyanide spills that wipe out aquatic life, has stripped over 100,000 hectares of Amazon rainforest in Peru alone and creates acid mine drainage that poisons waterways for centuries, and when tailings dams collapse, they bury towns and kill hundreds of people.
All this for a global cultural obsession for something that is considered a symbol of status and wealth.
But some people in the US don't like the hum, so we have to ban BitCoin. Try living next to a gold mine!
Both means of storing wealth, how about we just stop it all and adopt some new values to live by.
"They break our legs and tell us to be grateful when they offer us crutches."
Bitcoin mining - madness on 11:16 - May 24 by Yaffle
Let's talk about mining gold...
Gold mining uses approximately 250 terawatt-hours of energy (twice that of BTC), emits well over 100 million tonnes of CO₂ (2.5x all of UK aviation), and still claims dozens (officially – the toll is much higher for the unofficial artisanal miners) of industrial lives every year, while millions of artisanal miners, including children, face toxic mercury and unsafe pits. All to mine a 'store of value', of which 50% goes on producing vanity trinkets and only 5% does anything useful (and is easily replaced or recycled).
The environmental impact is astonishing; it's an environmental catastrophe. It releases 1,200 tonnes of mercury a year into rivers and oceans, causes toxic cyanide spills that wipe out aquatic life, has stripped over 100,000 hectares of Amazon rainforest in Peru alone and creates acid mine drainage that poisons waterways for centuries, and when tailings dams collapse, they bury towns and kill hundreds of people.
All this for a global cultural obsession for something that is considered a symbol of status and wealth.
But some people in the US don't like the hum, so we have to ban BitCoin. Try living next to a gold mine!
Let's boil this down to......whatever else you may choose that contributes to climate change, like flying or concrete production or gold mining, is at least done mainly, in the most efficient way and nearly always has some tangible use.
Bitcoin is
1. Not produced in the most efficient way. rather than creating all the coins in a day, we choose to take over a century and even after just a decade its using the power consumption of Greece.
2. All it's doing is creating ones and zeros in a database ledger distributed over a blockchain architecture. Imagine an alien race studying the fall of man and seeing a contributory factor to climate change was the desire to make digital coins as complex and power draining as possible.
No one has yet justified why bitcoins should be designed like this. Other than the obvious (non justifiable reason) that its creates an illusion of worth and therefore feeds the whole YouTube frenzy of bitcoin zealots and their belief in all this.
Bitcoin mining - madness on 11:16 - May 24 by Yaffle
Let's talk about mining gold...
Gold mining uses approximately 250 terawatt-hours of energy (twice that of BTC), emits well over 100 million tonnes of CO₂ (2.5x all of UK aviation), and still claims dozens (officially – the toll is much higher for the unofficial artisanal miners) of industrial lives every year, while millions of artisanal miners, including children, face toxic mercury and unsafe pits. All to mine a 'store of value', of which 50% goes on producing vanity trinkets and only 5% does anything useful (and is easily replaced or recycled).
The environmental impact is astonishing; it's an environmental catastrophe. It releases 1,200 tonnes of mercury a year into rivers and oceans, causes toxic cyanide spills that wipe out aquatic life, has stripped over 100,000 hectares of Amazon rainforest in Peru alone and creates acid mine drainage that poisons waterways for centuries, and when tailings dams collapse, they bury towns and kill hundreds of people.
All this for a global cultural obsession for something that is considered a symbol of status and wealth.
But some people in the US don't like the hum, so we have to ban BitCoin. Try living next to a gold mine!
Have you read the story? I bet you wouldn't want to live there.
Trust the process. Trust Phil.
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Bitcoin mining - madness on 12:30 - May 24 with 335 views
Have you read the story? I bet you wouldn't want to live there.
Yes I have thank you and I'm not really clear on the point you are making. That said, I'd rather live there than next to a goldmine.
The OP made the point the BTC should be banned on the basis of its environmental impact and the effect on some of the residents of Dresden. I'm merely making the point that there are other stores of value being mined at far greater human and environmental costs that don't appear to face such a backlash from the masses.
Its almost like there's an agenda somewhere!
1
Bitcoin mining - madness on 12:42 - May 24 with 325 views
Have you read the story? I bet you wouldn't want to live there.
A couple of other points. A full acoustic survey on the data centres found any sound impacts to be imperceptible (50 dB night and 72 dB day limits not found to be exceeded) – hardly a 'loud hum' as quoted in the article.
Also, it would appear that a number of locals lost significant money with a share issue related to the company (Greenridge Generation Holdings) that owns the plant. Perhaps that's where their grievance lies.
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Bitcoin mining - madness on 12:57 - May 24 with 301 views
Bitcoin mining - madness on 11:55 - May 24 by nodge_blue
Let's boil this down to......whatever else you may choose that contributes to climate change, like flying or concrete production or gold mining, is at least done mainly, in the most efficient way and nearly always has some tangible use.
Bitcoin is
1. Not produced in the most efficient way. rather than creating all the coins in a day, we choose to take over a century and even after just a decade its using the power consumption of Greece.
2. All it's doing is creating ones and zeros in a database ledger distributed over a blockchain architecture. Imagine an alien race studying the fall of man and seeing a contributory factor to climate change was the desire to make digital coins as complex and power draining as possible.
No one has yet justified why bitcoins should be designed like this. Other than the obvious (non justifiable reason) that its creates an illusion of worth and therefore feeds the whole YouTube frenzy of bitcoin zealots and their belief in all this.
Design in Bitcoin is not efficient. Proof-of-work exists to maintain it decentralised and censorship-free. Waving a magic wand does not give you the robustness of a neutral, unhackable monetary network. The energy cost is not meaningless; it is the cost of freedom from institutional capture, state control, and centralised systems. FIAT, gold or BTC, their collective belief gives them worth rather than 1s and 0s. Furthermore, technically it's not binary; it's not only "1s and 0s" any more than a website is "just electricity". That argument is not only reductive but also ignorant of the cryptographic, distributed, and consensus-critical structure providing Bitcoin's integrity and immutability.
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Bitcoin mining - madness on 13:29 - May 24 with 270 views
Bitcoin mining - madness on 12:57 - May 24 by Yaffle
Design in Bitcoin is not efficient. Proof-of-work exists to maintain it decentralised and censorship-free. Waving a magic wand does not give you the robustness of a neutral, unhackable monetary network. The energy cost is not meaningless; it is the cost of freedom from institutional capture, state control, and centralised systems. FIAT, gold or BTC, their collective belief gives them worth rather than 1s and 0s. Furthermore, technically it's not binary; it's not only "1s and 0s" any more than a website is "just electricity". That argument is not only reductive but also ignorant of the cryptographic, distributed, and consensus-critical structure providing Bitcoin's integrity and immutability.
Oh my word. Give yourself a mic drop, son.
Couldn't have explained it better.
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Bitcoin mining - madness on 16:02 - May 24 with 186 views
Bitcoin mining - madness on 12:30 - May 24 by Yaffle
Yes I have thank you and I'm not really clear on the point you are making. That said, I'd rather live there than next to a goldmine.
The OP made the point the BTC should be banned on the basis of its environmental impact and the effect on some of the residents of Dresden. I'm merely making the point that there are other stores of value being mined at far greater human and environmental costs that don't appear to face such a backlash from the masses.
Its almost like there's an agenda somewhere!
The point I was making I thought was pretty obvious - you flippantly said "But some people in the US don't like the hum", but going by the story (which I have no reason to doubt) it sounds pretty horrendous. These people were presumably living there before the Bitcoin mine came along, so why should they have to put up with that?
And sorry, comparing it to a gold mine doesn't absolve blame. Most people don't live near either, and nor should they have to.
Trust the process. Trust Phil.
0
Bitcoin mining - madness on 16:11 - May 24 with 165 views
The point I was making I thought was pretty obvious - you flippantly said "But some people in the US don't like the hum", but going by the story (which I have no reason to doubt) it sounds pretty horrendous. These people were presumably living there before the Bitcoin mine came along, so why should they have to put up with that?
And sorry, comparing it to a gold mine doesn't absolve blame. Most people don't live near either, and nor should they have to.
You could say that about a lot of things though. Power plants, prisons, eye sore warehouse buildings, noise pollution etc etc.
Nothing would ever get built if existing residents were always listened to.
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