And so it begins.<p>In the developed world in particular, we're seeing the move away from fossil-fuel power. This is good but currently relatively expensive.<p>Crypto mining is starting to have very real impact on the ability of other people to live. It is adversely and disproportionately affecting poor people (who pay a greater share of their income for power).<p>And at best crypto provides extremely limited utility for society.<p>Crypto-mining apologists will point to figures that say "crypto-mining uses mostly renewable energy". What this actually means is that crypto-mining is focused on areas that have hydroelectric power because it's the cheapest, generally.<p>While you might say that's still good, it's starting to raise prices for other people. this has been an issue in towns on the Hudson Valley in New York, for example.<p>Even if you believe the overall impact of crypto-mining is small I <i>guarantee</i> you it's only a matter of time before politicians start using crypto-mining as a convenient whipping boy.
Don't ever let any Bitcoin or NFT shills get away with lying to you that their cryptocurrencies and CryptoKitties and Digital Pet Rocks run on renewable energy.<p>And never let any of those get-rich-quick pyramid scheme shills get away without forcing them to openly admit that even though they're burning coal, wasting electricity, destroying the environment, causing climate change, cancer, and heart disease, they simply don't give a flying fuck about that.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Kazakhstan#Electricity" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Kazakhstan#Electrici...</a><p>>In 2013, the country produced 93.76 billion kWH - 70 billion kWh (81%) from coal, 8 from gas and 8 from hydro. The country has 71 power stations, including 5 hydro power plants located on the Irtysh river, which translates to total installed generating capacity of 19.6 GW. 75 percent of electricity generated is consumed by industry, 11 percent by households, 2 percent by transportation.[25]
I’ve brought this up before and I was downvoted for it[0], but I don’t think I made my point clear enough last time.<p>People seemed to think I was questioning the soundness of the algorithm, but that’s not what concerns me. I was talking about the concept of bitcoin itself.<p>What I’m concerned with is what if the true point of this thing we have been led to call “bitcoin” is to destabilize countries. What if it’s a new type of nation-state attack, or virus, that we haven’t seen before. Something we don’t yet have a word for. Something that takes advantage of a country’s citizens’ greed while doing things like disrupting power grids and causing countries to be worse off than they would be without bitcoin.<p>It’s like finding food someone left on your doorstep and eating it without being worried someone is trying to poison you.<p>Most people that are supporters of bitcoin are driven by pure greed. What if someone has found a way to weaponize greed?<p>[0]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28446571" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28446571</a>
I am not getting the sense that people, who talking about global warming, will really follow up with the actions, when it concerns their wallets or their quality of life. Look at the number of the private jets at the COP26. Look at number of Hummers that Arnold Schwarzenegger (whom I love btw!) owns. He talks climate change but drives a Hummer.<p>By the same token, people with money, progressive or otherwise, will continue to invest in crypto as it is the highest yielding asset on the market. Kazakhstan became the 2nd largest crypto miner, after the US. It looks like they are balancing the demand for the energy supply between crypto miners and the rest of their customers. This sounds like a very reasonable thing for them to do.<p>We will see more regulations concerning the crypto currency and I think it's a good thing for the market. The regulations will ensure continuous growth and mainstream acceptance of crypto.
Bitcoin mining incentivizes the plentiful production of cheap electricity. This will make it so that there are no such thing as power shortages in the future and push us towards a Type I civilization on the Kardashev scale.<p>Bitcoin mining reduces the risk for energy generation projects, because they no longer need to worry about who will purchase the extra capacity.<p>Bitcoin mining can act as a load-balancer for the grid – spin down some machines if there is high demand, spin up machines if there is low demand.<p>There are so many benefits. It is unfortunate that there is a serious lack of understanding on this website.
The general public doesn't have the best grasp on crypto to begin with. If it starts messing with their ability to go about their daily lives with consistently available electricity at inflated prices then mining in those impacted areas may die a quick political death. Or have their facilities burned down by mobs that need those fires to keep them warm.
The crypto hate here is ridiculous. Every thread about crypto is the dropbox thread x 10.<p>Unless you want to live in a dictatorship where the government dictates what is and isn’t a useful use of energy, the constant bitcoin electricity usage hysteria is a waste of everyone’s energy. :-)
Not only you can use the excess heat from the miners to heat your office you can also use adsorption chillers [0] to cool down your office using the heat.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2011/03/30/196054/using-heat-to-cool-buildings/" rel="nofollow">https://www.technologyreview.com/2011/03/30/196054/using-hea...</a>
Why not create incentives to mine crypto with solar?<p>Lower or eliminate any sort of capitol gains taxes on crypto mined with solar, make solar panels tax free for companies that mine crypto, and crypto would not only go up in value but the solar industry would also be supported.<p>Oh yeah. The Federal Reserve and the central banks need fiat.
Is Texas next? Given that several mining companies have set up or about to set up shop on Rockdale and Pyote. And this is a state that endured a major grid crisis early this year.
I wonder if cryptominers in poorer countries speed up the buildout of more stable and robust electricity networks in the long run? I understand they sometimes stress it too much in the short run such as here and then the regulators have to take action but the interplay on a longer timescale would be interesting to see.