I mean, yeah, it’s bad. We shouldn’t be ignoring how bad bitcoin is for the environment.
But are you really gonna tell me that all the computers and CPU time that Wall Street uses for trading somehow takes less?
It doesn’t matter what financial system you use, you’re still burning energy to make it work.
The computer power behind the financial system is literally insane. But if everything changed to Bitcoin, we would use more energy.
What COULD be beneficial would be one of the other coins out there. Doesn’t have to be Bitcoin.
I guess my point had less to do with cryptocurrency and more to do with currency in general. It’s not a defense of bitcoin as much as it’s a critique of how much energy the system in general uses, either way.
However, it’s also one that’s not easily solved. Even with paper/coin money, you’re still using finite resources to produce the bank-notes.
It was a bad point then, because bitcoin uses more.
Crypto is entirely an extremely expensive gambling system. It serves no actual explainable purpose for the vast majority of people. It’s trivially provable to be worse than existing alternatives in every way that isn’t scams and or money laundering.
Will no one think of the scammers?
It frustrates me how it strayed from its original course. It was supposed to be a payment system independent of banks and thus not capable of screwing people over. Sanctions would have made it hard for me to pay for some things, but Monero offers a way. People who need to make sensitive payments can do so without their bank having a record of that. It is just cash for the digital world. A tool, not a stock.
That is - I wish the people that want to get rich from it just quit. Leave the system for people who really need it.
Sorry, I meant than using Zelle, a credit or debit card, Paypal, etc. Last time I looked, most crypto is completely traceable because of the public ledger (monero does built in illegal in the US money laundering style transaction mixing to try and make it less traceable, not sure how well that works, but the rest apply to it), and the distributed public ledgers are the only way it works. I’d argue the way most people can get crypto requires a bank account tied to something like Coinbase, so that’s a link from your bank, to your crypto wallet, then the rest is even more public.
However, for most people, crypto doesn’t work like cash, and does work like a stock. You need a special broker, you need to move money with fees into the crypto account, then pay fees to buy the crypto. This is way more analogous to stocks, so that’s how people think of it, than cash or bank transfers.
Assuming you can figure out the right crypto to buy, now every time you spend it or try and send it to a different wallet, there’s stupid high fees for the common Bitcoin and Etherium networks (I haven’t actually tried to use the other ones as they get very obscure). We tried to move $30 dollars in Etherium to a different wallet (granted this was 4 years ago) and it cost $15 in “gas fees”. This makes me long for the 3% credit card processing fee.
After the fee, it takes quite a while to transfer, I recall Bitcoin took over an hour, and it was like several minutes or more for Etherium. Paypal, Zelle, Card are all instant, or maybe seconds.
Basically if you’re not buying something highly illegal, there’s 0 benefit to a normal person and masses of costs, complexity, opportunities to get hacked and all your crypto stolen, and exchanges to either collapse or also steal whatever money you had in there. It doesn’t solve a problem, and so normal people are right to not use it. I’d suggest after 13 years it’s only been used by speculators and scammers “successfully”.
most crypto is completely traceable because of the public ledger
True, but it is possible to purchase anonymously. KYC exchanges are just the most convenient option. Or exchange with Monero, which is what a lot of people do as well. Although if there were actual stakes, I wouldn’t depend just on what Monero provides, just because you shouldn’t have just one layer of safety anyway.
However, for most people, crypto doesn’t work like cash, and does work like a stock.
Not exactly the tool’s fault that it was used not for its initial purpose. It is quite literally hammering in nails with a microscope, lol.
there’s stupid high fees for the common Bitcoin and Etherium networks
I myself have only used Monero, and the fees there are negligeable. But yea, transactions do still take a while. Never dealt with BTC yet, but it is a bit frustrating that it’s so much more widely accepted despite higher fees.
Basically if you’re not buying something highly illegal, there’s 0 benefit to a normal person
First - there might be things as simple as sanctions. My own purchases are completely innocent, but crypto turned out to be the simplest and safest way to pay in such a situation. Second - this argument kind of steps into the “I have nothing to hide” territory. Normal things might turn into “highly illegal” overnight - first thing that comes to mind is what happened with abortion laws. There are always vulnerable people who aren’t criminals, and saying they shouldn’t have such a payment option is kind of close to “only criminals would need end-to-end encryption”.
Normal things might turn into “highly illegal” overnight - first thing that comes to mind is what happened with abortion laws. There are always vulnerable people who aren’t criminals, and saying they shouldn’t have such a payment option is kind of close to “only criminals would need end-to-end encryption”.
I’m not saying people have nothing to hide, or making that case. I’m saying the ask is so high that people who don’t feel like they must use crypto don’t, and this is one of the hills it would have to conquer to be taken seriously. There are obvious negatives like the environmental impact, the PITA complicated tech that is hard to understand, the slow transactions, and the difficulty of getting usable money into and out of crypto. And the vast majority of purchases, the mass adoption, aren’t stuff that people care to hide or they would already be only using cash.
I’d love to pay for my VPN with crypto, but I’m not willing to spend the hours it would take to figure it out in the current form, not to mention actually make it at all actually anonymous, plus pay roughly 2x in payment fees.
Now think of people who don’t even care about privacy to use a VPN…
Yeah, I don’t deny there are significant negatives. But this is the closest we got to mass-adopted digital cash YET. Buying it can indeed be tricky, I did get lucky with that.
And the vast majority of purchases, the mass adoption, aren’t stuff that people care to hide or they would already be only using cash.
I don’t think crypto is even supposed to be for the “vast majority of purchases”. It does and always will exist alongside traditional payment options, which are, indeed, preferrable for many things.
But when it comes to learning the tech… Isn’t it the same for proper privacy, anonymity and safety in general? Instead of proclaiming it as a “lost cause”, I think we should lend a hand to someone who needs protection but has trouble figuring it out.
Also paying with card might just become impossible even for people who don’t mind it (like me). Sure, I could go through a middleman, but their commission would far exceed Monero fees and there’s a bigger chance of being scammed.
opportunities to get hacked and all your crypto stolen
Oh, forgot to reply to that one. In some cases the individual responsibility is actually preferrable to the nonzero chance that a bank or government would freeze your bank account.
But when it comes to learning the tech… Isn’t it the same for proper privacy, anonymity and safety in general? Instead of proclaiming it as a “lost cause”, I think we should lend a hand to someone who needs protection but has trouble figuring it out.
I’ve gotten cynical over trying to lend a hand to people around using Linux. Masses don’t want to be taught things. Heck, look at the lemmy adoption issues. Yes, idealistically maybe “digital cash” has a use, but practically people don’t see it. At this point, it’s not a lack of knowledge - there were super bowl commercials. It’s a lack of interest. It’s like the laser keyboards “of the future” circa 2010. They didn’t solve an actual problem enough people had to be worth learning how to use them and deal with the clunky parts.
I dont think server rooms are often going to need humidifying, electronics like pretty low humidity. and water usage for cooling isnt generally consumed, the same water is used over and over again.
Yeah that part did seem disingenuous. Water cooling systems for data centers are almost always closed loop systems, at least all the ones I’ve seen and I’ve been in IT for over 30 years. It’s a very scaled up version of water cooled PCs. Basically a heat transfer medium not a consumable resource. So yeah a bit clickbaity in my opinion.
it makes sense that we’ll doom ourselves mining something absolutely worthless
You know what else uses as much water as a swimming pool? Swimming pools.
And don’t get me started on golf courses.
Cruptocurrency evangelists use this whataboutism the same way fossil fuel evangelists say “cars produce carbon monoxide, but so do cows!” as if they’ve proven or debunked anything
Yeah, whataboutism is essentially telling on one’s self; an implicit recognition that one has no better arguments than to try to distract.
Don’t get me started on humans either. Not only do those thirsty shits require shitloads of water to function, it also needs to be clean! Not relatively clean either, but clean clean!
Do you have any idea how many bitcoin farms I could run if there weren’t any humans? Me neither, but it’s probably zero.
Are swimming pools using one swimming pool or water per swim? Per year? 5 years? 10 years?
I think you missed the ‘per transaction’ part. Which is kind of important.
Just another reason to add to the already massive pile of hating crypto.
Bitcoin ≠ Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin is the ur-cryptocurrency, the Original Sin from which all of the other flaws from cryptocurrency arise.
Bitcoin is the first in a huge series of crap for speculation, but it’s not the whole thing. A good example is several central banks that are creating their own cryptocurrencies, centralized and generally fundamentally opposed to that.
Banks:
- See a buzzword everybody likes
- Strip out the only thing that makes it unique
- ???
- Profit!
Oh, you were watching? You were a troll after all. Blocked.
Right… Bitcoin is only #1 in market cap, triple of what #2 has.
Instead of handwaving the facts away with a poor man’s “no true Scotsman” fallacy, why not engage with them?
How did you manage to twist a truism into a fallacy? You shouldn’t make these claims, because if anything arguably you used a hasty generalization or fallacy of composition.
Not all cryptocurrencies are bitcoin nor do they work the same at all. For example, many don’t even use “mining”, which is the source of bitcoin’s outlandish energy waste. I really have no interest in discussing cryptocurrencies, but at least don’t do so in defiance of common sense.
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That’s not my point, I haven’t tried to convince anyone to trust anything nor have I minimized anything. I don’t know if you’re a troll or just want to argue in bad faith, but I’m out.
nor have I minimized anything
2 comments earlier
Bitcoin ≠ Cryptocurrencies
You minimized it, intentionally or not. If this was unintentional on your part, you can always edit your comment to point out:
- Bitcoin is the biggest cryptocurrency by far, and
- Energy-wasting (POW) cryptocurrency makes up the majority of all cryptocurrency
Wasteful but not as bad as golf.
https://www.deseret.com/2022/3/22/22988989/an-illogical-oasis-golf-course-water-usage-st-george-golf
The U.S. Geological Survey’s most recent water use data for Utah shows the state uses about 38 million gallons of water on golf courses per day.
Uh, it’s far worse. That’s a mere 9k transactions. According to https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_transactions_per_day 12/3/23 had about 71k transactions. So bitcoin is using 7x the water that all the golf courses in Utah use. So in one day Bitcoin used as much water as Utah golf courses use in a week. Low point for this year was around 19k transactions. So still 2 days worth of Utah golf courses.
Do you mean 3/12/2023?
This is simply untrue. I know a large BTC mining operation and they don’t use water. They use the gases coming off from oil mining that would otherwise go into the atmosphere. BTC mining takes advantage of surplus energy so it’s creation doesn’t go to waste. The mining is good for our environment. I’ve also read about solar panels sitting above crops to power BTC miners. These panels covering the crops help conserve water while helping the plants grow better.
Explain to me how crops of any appreciable size are being grown in the shade and harvested around solar panels? This sounds like feel good baloney to me, but what do I know. I only spent several years as a teen while growing up on a farm and currently homestead.
It’s called “agrivoltaic” farming. Be sure to checkout the hyperlinks in this article too: https://theconversation.com/how-shading-crops-with-solar-panels-can-improve-farming-lower-food-costs-and-reduce-emissions-202094
Fake news
This seems as unlikely to be true, as it does sensationalist. Hate on Bitcoin all ya like, but don’t make off the cuff “calculations” and report it as news.
