[HN Gopher] Bitcoin miners in Abkhazia are causing blackouts in ...
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Bitcoin miners in Abkhazia are causing blackouts in remote villages
[video]
Author : f311a
Score : 216 points
Date : 2021-03-12 09:43 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| wruza wrote:
| The speaker doesn't mention any blackouts, she only describes how
| they shut down few illegal crypto farms (only 230 units of
| unspecified model or power consumption).
|
| I believe there is more to the story and that doesn't mean that
| there is no blackouts, but for completeness sake this video is
| incoherent with this thread's headline. Blackouts may be caused
| by e.g. shitty, cheap, unmaintainable grid, or by local
| corruption that feeds from these farms and doesn't officially
| demand higher loads from energy providers to cover the
| difference. My (completely subjective) opinion is that not taking
| it at the face value is a pretty safe move. (Disclosure: russian,
| _non_ pro-crypto guy)
| f311a wrote:
| That's true, they didn't mention blackouts in this particular
| video, but that's one of the reasons they have been doing this
| for more than a year.
|
| There are a lot of articles in Russian on this subject.
|
| In English: https://www.rferl.org/a/bitcoin-blackouts-russian-
| cryptocurr...
| aeturnum wrote:
| I think some of the furor over bitcoin power usage is overblown.
| It's true, as crypto folks say, that the power is doing
| "something."
|
| It's more that...a system where you will pay anyone who finds any
| cheap power source anywhere in the internet-connected world no
| matter how they get it is _obviously_ going to have awful
| externalities. Even though most people will be reasonably ok
| about it, enough people we be shitty enough to turn any worldwide
| no-checks system into a hellscape.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| Its not just power usage - GPUs are essentially unavailable due
| to Ethereum mining right now, which has broader societal
| implications given the limited fab capacity. So we have a giant
| misallocation of energy, and a giant misallocation of computer
| hardware.
|
| Trolley-bus and tram companies in my Eastern European city are
| increasing fare pricing due to electricity price increases -
| how much of that is due to increased demand from mining?
|
| The very real, and very negative, implications of PoW mining
| are becoming apparent.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| Something = securing the network. Not with armies, but with
| math and computation.
| f311a wrote:
| Electricity there is very cheap (ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 US cents
| per kWh).
|
| The government has closed around 300 mining facilities in order
| to reduce energy shortages.
|
| There are tens of such videos on the Youtube channel.
| thresh wrote:
| The electricity there isnt just cheap, it's virtually free.
| They just dont shut you off it you don't pay.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| This seems like the wrong approach. I don't see how closing
| large-scale mining facilities will suddenly solve the problem.
|
| As long as the energy remains cheap, mining will just move
| underground. I could see miners offering ordinary villagers
| kickbacks to "host" a few miners on their premises as to
| conceal the energy consumption behind what appears to be
| legitimate usage.
| codecamper wrote:
| You cannot move "underground" when you are sucking that much
| power.
|
| The government did what they should have done, and what all
| governments should have done a long time ago and shut this
| nonsense down. It's sucking up resources and only adding to
| wealth inequality.
|
| Bitcoin rewarded a small group of very smart people very very
| very well. It then rewarded morons... hordes and hordes of
| morons very very well too. We will be living with the
| consequence of this for decades to come.
| sodality2 wrote:
| You can move underground. Put a PC in regular homes with a
| few GPU's, kick back some money for the people letting you
| do it, and the energy is dissipated across dozens of
| regular homes. Sure, it would be a lot of work. But it's
| certainly worth it given the very cheap energy.
| BelenusMordred wrote:
| > It then rewarded morons... hordes and hordes of morons
| very very well too.
|
| You can just say you are jealous rather than belittling
| people like this.
| georgyo wrote:
| What is the alternative? Raise energy costs for people who
| may not be able to afford it because of of a few abusers?
| chii wrote:
| raise the price by tiers. A person can only use so much,
| but mining btc has infinite appetite. The price of
| electricity should reflect the cost, and subsidies should
| only be targeted at limited cases.
| em500 wrote:
| I'm curious _why_ electricity is so cheap there. If it 's
| caused by subsidies, the alternative is obviously replacing
| the subsidies by income transfers. If it's not caused by
| subsidies, there must be a better way to profit from their
| competitive advantage of being able to produce electricity
| cheaper than anyone else in the world.
| pas wrote:
| Unenforced, uncollected bills. Also many mining ops just
| steal electricity. Why can folks get away with it?
| Because it's a failed state.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Laundering significant amounts of energy usage is nontrivial.
| Underground mining will be an order of magnitude smaller in
| scale.
| tomcooks wrote:
| In some parts of Italy it's 0.042 USD/kWh (so I assume it's
| much cheaper there)
| WanderPanda wrote:
| Instead of trying to remove the symptoms, the government should
| focus on increasing their peoples productivity to put them in a
| position to pay higher electricity prices
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| No, the Government should petition bigger Governments to
| regulate (/ban) what is clearly a waste of Earth's and
| Humanity's resources.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Are you talking about capitalism in general or just some
| specific activity?
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| I am talking about Proof-of-Work being attached to an
| 'asset' of astronomical value.
|
| Governments should ban the transaction of PoW
| cryptocurrencies on environmental grounds, in addition to
| the misallocation of computer chips.
| disruptalot wrote:
| Bitcoin without PoW has no value. It's the entire reason
| it works. Without expending a finite resource to produce
| another, you can't constrain a money supply nor prevent
| it from attacks.
|
| Governments would be unwise to ban a voluntary system for
| the same reason they don't ban any other uses of energy
| that people question the value of (there are plenty). In
| any case, it will not stop, only move. If not to another
| massive farm in a favorable jurisdiction (that could be
| captured) then to smaller sections where it is
| unidentifiable.
| zadler wrote:
| > Without expending a finite resource to produce another,
| you can't constrain a money supply nor prevent it from
| attacks.
|
| Correct, but it doesn't have to be energy intensive.
| Bitcoin /could/ move to proof of stake, technically.
| dgellow wrote:
| > Bitcoin without PoW has no value
|
| Exactly. It's broken by design. Let's get rid of it ASAP
| and instead focus on blockchains that may have value
| without the horrible incentives of PoW.
|
| We shouldn't keep Bitcoin alive just because it was the
| first successful attempt. That has been tried, it's now
| clear it's not sustainable over the long-term. We should
| learn the lesson and move on to a better approach.
| keymone wrote:
| > It's broken by design.
|
| it's genius by design. so far nothing other than PoW was
| shown to work.
|
| > We shouldn't keep Bitcoin alive just because it was the
| first successful attempt.
|
| you're not keeping it alive, it exists in a free market
| and there is demand for it.
|
| > That has been tried, it's now clear it's not
| sustainable over the long-term.
|
| not clear at all. so far looks like it's the most
| sustainable system of decentralized value storage and
| transfer compared to all others.
| chromanoid wrote:
| >> That has been tried, it's now clear it's not
| sustainable over the long-term.
|
| > not clear at all.
|
| https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/
|
| So sustainable...
| codecamper wrote:
| Well then if we must choose between planet, and
| greaseballs, we'll choose the planet any day.
| findff wrote:
| Communists hate proof of work.
| chromanoid wrote:
| There are many things governments rightfully ban for
| ecological reasons (e.g. energy inefficient house
| building, inefficient light bulbs, single-use plastic,
| blast fishing, many forms of waste disposal). Just
| because Bitcoin happens on the computer should not exempt
| it from that.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| If bitcoin is so bad why not let the free market tank it
| eventually?
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Because the free market isn't great at finding solutions
| that incorporate externalities, especially not quickly.
| keymone wrote:
| externalities in this case are caused by energy
| producers, not consumers.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| Hacker news both advocates for nuclear while targeting
| bitcoin because of energy consumption, that's quite a
| dichotomy right there.
| f311a wrote:
| You can't do that in a country where $200 is considered a
| very good monthly salary.
| tho234234987 wrote:
| I'm surprised the rich farmers of India (yes, the kind
| "protesting" recently) haven't started Bitcoin mining -
| electricity for agriculture is free in much of India (along with
| a lot more freebies, and no taxes). I guess it's mostly the
| intermittent state of the supply that's the problem.
| abledon wrote:
| Aren't those people struggling to buy food? How are they gonna
| afford an antminer?
| kvakva wrote:
| To what degree is the Bitcoin problem here and to what degree the
| electrical grid?
| joshsyn wrote:
| Crypto is the best financial system designed. Period.
| lanevorockz wrote:
| Bitcoin is so inefficient that it is hilarious that people
| complaining about the environment also buy bitcoin. If you want
| to buy into crypto at least go for ethereal
| poontang1 wrote:
| Ethereum also uses Proof Of Work mining....
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| it's at least planning to switch over to proof of stake
| though
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| How's that going? Been hearing that it's happening "really
| soon now" for at least 3 years.
| SXX wrote:
| They actually started their path of getting required
| amount of ETH stacked. But it's can still take several
| years.
| shawnz wrote:
| The wheels are in motion now. The first block was
| proposed on the proof-of-stake system on December 1st.
| dannyw wrote:
| I'm running a PoS validator right now. It's been live for
| months.
|
| Actual transactions will go through this very network in
| probably a year.
| capableweb wrote:
| Moving forward, slowly but steadily. Vitalik been hinting
| that the work to get of PoW might speed up now, as PoW
| miners are not too happy about some proposed changes
| (they'll earn less fees soon, and in the future they will
| be unnecessary at all).
|
| So, things take time. Who knew building a global
| decentralized computer for everyone was hard work, gonna
| be difficult and take long time?
|
| (Side-note: no one has said that ETH 2.0 is "really soon
| now", at least not anyone who either works on it or
| watches the development closely. ETH 2.0 has been far
| away for a long time, and it's still not close to being
| deployed, so you might want to look for better sources
| for your information)
| latchkey wrote:
| Large scale ETH miner here who uses excess hydro. ETH uses
| PoW, but the long term plan for ETH is to move to PoS.
|
| I'm going to address one large difference between ETH PoW and
| Bitcoin PoW that people rarely talk about, which is the
| hardware differences.
|
| ETH did something relatively smart and tried to peg the
| hardware to GPUs. This had the effect of ensuring that there
| would not be the same speed race wars that (imho) plague
| Bitcoin. Every new generation of hardware obsoletes the last.
| You don't need the fastest/latest GPUs to be ROI efficient.
|
| The system isn't perfect, people have made ASICs, but it
| turns out (for now) that they aren't much more cost/speed
| efficient than just using GPUs due to the memory hardness of
| the ethash PoW algo.
|
| As a result, the limited number of GPUs also limits the size
| of the growth of the network. They are also more difficult to
| setup and run at scale than Bitcoin ASICs. Finally, GPUs can
| go back to doing other things (gaming/ai/ml/rendering/...)
| and generally won't become e-waste.
| sharperguy wrote:
| PoS is never going to work. They have been delaying it for
| over 5 years now. There is no way to switch to a proof of
| stake system that has the same guarentees as proof of work.
|
| On the other hand, most applications of ethereum don't need
| a blockchain or proof of work at all, since they are
| inherently vulnerable to attacks by centralized parties.
| dgellow wrote:
| Instead consider PoS blockchains, such as Tezos, Cardano, etc.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Ethereum is as inefficient as Bitcoin, just at a slightly
| smaller scale.
| ddeyar wrote:
| It looks like the nft scene on ethereum is starting to
| migrate to tezos, because gas is cheap there and it is PoS
| since the beginning. I wonder how that would influece the
| ethereum commmunity.
| PretzelPirate wrote:
| Small migrations to other chains doesn't affect the
| Ethereum community. Multiple cheap NFT solutions exist on
| Ethereum (such as Immutable X) that keep NFTs in the larger
| Ethereum ecosystem instead of isolating them on a less used
| chain.
| meerita wrote:
| I've thought mining wasn't profitable anymore.
| cosarara wrote:
| If your electricity is free, it's all profit after you pay for
| the hardware.
| EGreg wrote:
| I warned about this a few weeks ago, and people were skeptical.
| But sadly "in retrospect it is inevitable". Where is the flaw?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26220992
|
| Let me refine my prediction to describe the transition period.
| Bitcoin will actually deepen inequality in the world, by robbing
| the third world countries of electricity first, and no one in
| first world countries will care. The politicians of the third
| world countries would be paid off similarly to how Nestle or
| CocaCola buys up lakes and pollutes them. And privately owned
| infrastructure and lakes will fall even faster.
| tgv wrote:
| The flaw is greed.
| EGreg wrote:
| Okay but the question is, about the flaw in the argument that
| Bitcoin will increasingly cause blackouts in third world
| countries and poor towns?
| speransky wrote:
| Typical case with russia occupied territories, no law, criminal
| business. They supply electricity to this region but locals just
| do not pay and do illegal connections. Mining business controlled
| by Russia-Abkhazian criminal clans and FSB-backed
| pseudogovernment structures, so this video is an episode of
| internal war between them.
| f311a wrote:
| Related article: https://www.trtworld.com/asia/bitcoin-miners-
| blamed-for-ener...
| _Microft wrote:
| We should define something like a _" Nakamoto scale"_.
|
| A _Nakamoto Type I_ civilization would be one that converts all
| available power of a planet into waste heat and funny numbers, a
| _Nakamoto Type II_ civilization does that with all the power
| output of a star and so on... basically the Kardashev scale [0]
| but with the restriction that useful output SHOULD NOT be
| produced [1].
|
| Edit: lowered requirement level from MUST NOT to SHOULD NOT to
| allow for situations in which a limited amount of energy could be
| expended to either increase the hashrate further or to get closer
| to the limits of computation [2].
|
| Edit 2: the more I think about it, the more it reminds me of the
| Universal Paperclips game.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
|
| [1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2119
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limits_of_computation
| Shivetya wrote:
| I am curious how long after renewable energy displaces
| conventional methods combined with the predicted big reduction
| in pricing before heat becomes the next pollution bogey.
|
| the cheaper it gets will just increase its use which for much
| of the world is a great improvement in quality of life but
| there is always some costs involved
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Renewable energy is heat-neutral, at least the solar/wind
| types. The electricity is created from heat. Energy in
| photons that would otherwise strike the planet and become
| heat is turned into electrical power. In converting fast
| moving air to slower moving air a wind turbine extracts heat
| from the atmosphere and turns it into electricity. So now
| matter how many turbines and solar panels we build, they
| aren't pumping out any net heat.
|
| I believe this holds true for hydro, but not so for
| geothermal as it moves net heat into the biosphere.
| karmakaze wrote:
| Love "Universal Paperclips"--'completed' it multiple times in
| one session. It's the core game without the fluff, uselessness
| at its best. You've been warned:
|
| [0] https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Arthur C. Clarke
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God
|
| "overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."
|
| Eventually we will have calculated all the necessary
| derivations and the universe will come to an end.
| behnamoh wrote:
| > Eventually we will have calculated all the necessary
| derivations and the universe will come to an end.
|
| I'm sorry I didn't understand this. Could you explain?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| The parent postulates that a "Nakamoto" type 2 civilization
| will convert all the energy of its star into heat doing
| bitcoin calculations. Such a star would disappear from
| visual light (Dyson sphere stuff). The Clarke story is
| about a religion that uses a computer to calculate all the
| names of god, bringing about the end of the universe. The
| story ends with stars disappearing. Both have big computers
| doing math that results in stars disappearing from the sky.
|
| The joke is that rather than calculating the names of god,
| maybe we will end the universe by finally getting to the
| end of bitcoin calculations.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| You need to read the short story referenced above to
| understand the context.
| [deleted]
| wyldfire wrote:
| There is a unit named after Nakamoto [1] referring to
| decentralization, adding another might get confusing.
|
| [1] https://news.earn.com/quantifying-
| decentralization-e39db233c...
| [deleted]
| abriosi wrote:
| Ahah. Someone should write "BTC respects the second law of
| thermodynamics"
| blondie9x wrote:
| Can we please start regulating crypto currency mining? This is
| insane. I think it needs to be global mining regulation. Can
| the UN do anything else? If we start taking all the energy used
| to mine a given cryptocurrency it aggregates to more than most
| countries per cryptocurrency. Not ok. I know this is
| controversial but we have to at least debate this subject as we
| face an existential threat from climate change and yes
| cryptocurrencies are contributing to the climate crisis.
| krapp wrote:
| The entire purpose of cryptocurrencies that they and their
| economies cannot be regulated by any government. A regulated
| cryptocurrency is just fiat with more steps and a
| contradiction in terms.
| blondie9x wrote:
| What about mining? We regulate gold / silver mining. Why
| not crypto mining? It consumes more energy than the gold or
| silver mining industries. https://coincentral.com/bitcoin-
| mining-trumps-gold-mining-en...
| krapp wrote:
| That's not going to stop organized crime or states that
| want to leverage influence over Bitcoin. Regulating the
| mining of physical materials is easier because
| governments can directly control the mines and regulate
| shipping and industries, etc. But even then, mining is
| full of cartels, slavery and blood money.
|
| Unfortunately, I think the only thing that's going to
| stop Bitcoin mining is the laws of physics.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| Do you have any reason to feel so despondent without any real
| evidence? There's already plenty of people mining with
| renewable/stranded energy sources, all mining will head this
| way. My prediction is that the "energy consumption" arguments
| against bitcoin will disappear in 5 years.
|
| People are gonna tell us (bitcoiners) that the USD is secured
| by the powerful military of US behind it and we're supposed
| to accept it as a positive, but if we say that we're going to
| use electricity to secure the network with nothing but math
| and computation, we're instantly hated by the same people.
| What gives?
|
| How can you be ok with wars and threats of violence to
| enforce the value of a currency, but not computation and
| electricity? I just don't understand it.
| blondie9x wrote:
| You are trying to brush off criticism with a red herring.
| The US military doesn't secure USD... and we need to have a
| conversation about energy consumption and Bitcoin. We need
| to regulate mining for it the same way we regulate other
| mining on the planet. Physical or digital or still uses
| energy and we need to have a conversation and look at
| options. Not just dismiss critics for pointing out the
| obvious.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| > The US military doesn't secure USD
|
| The dollar is literally backed by the extraction and sale
| of oil (for dollars), which itself is enforced by the
| largest consumer of oil in the world, the U.S. military,
| and they secure the trade routes with their aircraft
| carriers and subs. It's called the petrodollar for a
| reason.
|
| I'm not dismissing criticism, I'm just questioning your
| line of criticism. Everyone will accept a fair regulatory
| regime, many of you are calling for an outright
| banishment, that's unacceptable.
| blondie9x wrote:
| People think if you are for controlling energy consumption
| and regulation of cryptocurrency mining you are against
| cryptocurrencies themselves. That is false.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| To argue with statements like this: "If we start taking
| all the energy used to mine a given cryptocurrency it
| aggregates to more than most countries per
| cryptocurrency." just sounds disingenuous, it seems like
| they haven't done any research whatsoever, they just woke
| up to this news and got outraged.
|
| The energy consumption in clothes dryers, transportation,
| christmas lights etc. all will fall under "more than most
| countries" category. You are just constructing a
| narrative based attack.
| blondie9x wrote:
| Think about it like this new energy capacity is added that
| is sustainable but the cryptocurrency mining part of grid
| keeps consuming and eating more of the grid then newly
| added renewable capacity it would be a wash and we wouldn't
| achieve sustainability commitments and be able to mitigate
| climate change. You can't just say well if Bitcoin mining
| is renewable then we are ok. What about the rest of the
| grid? They need some of the newly added renewable capacity
| as well as growth continues. TLDR if new renewable capacity
| added is less than growth of mining and current use of
| mining we get no where.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| * You are talking as if there is a linear scaling of how
| much energy is consumed by a "miner" on the fly. This is
| false.
|
| * Most renewable/stranded energy mining operations have
| their own energy source that is not going to be shared by
| someone else.
|
| * Bitcoin's energy consumption doesn't scale with the
| number of transactions on each block.
|
| * Most of the bitcoin has already been mined, the
| incentive to "mine aggressively" is decreasing over time.
|
| * "What if bitcoin uses all the energy", like the top
| poster on this thread was talking about, they were
| mocking it to say that all of the energy generated by the
| sun will be used for mining eventually, is this a fair
| argument? If such extremist thinking took hold, we could
| use it to subdue pretty much all progress. Did we think
| that there will be gold miners digging up land everywhere
| and we won't have a place to live?
| fredfoobar wrote:
| Most of the arguments against, sound like the same
| arguments against things like cars (vs horses). "Do you
| think we'll make all those roads just for cars to go
| on?", "Cars don't work on dirt roads, they get stuck all
| the time", "What if you run out of gas in the middle of
| nowhere?" "You will run over people and kill them in an
| accident" "Cars cause pollution"
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Making ones own arguments is a great idea. Mocking others
| is not. Re-read the site rules.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| "Rules for thee, but not for me"
|
| 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26435464
|
| 2. "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation;
| don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't
| sneer, including at the rest of the community."
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
| blondie9x wrote:
| Bitcoin energy consumption is rising as mining is more
| competitive and more rewards with rising price. The
| consumption of bitcoin mining is increasing. Can you stay
| calm? I am not trying to say lets give up on
| cryptocurrencies I am saying we need to have serious
| conversations about energy consumption and controlling
| mining energy consumption. When people get really
| defensive and angry it doesn't help.
|
| https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
| fredfoobar wrote:
| I am calm, don't patronize me.
|
| look at this comment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26440168
|
| They straight up want destruction, without even
| considering merits of the new technology.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| You regulate the fiat onroads.
|
| If miners cannot sell their coins, they can't pay the
| electricity bills.
|
| Bitcoin will always be around, but with sufficient fiat
| blockages the value plummets.
|
| Governments should announce that people will have a year to
| sell all their coins (the price will tank immediately
| anyway), and then buying and selling of PoW coins will be
| banned.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| If you think "lack of electricity" is going to stop bitcoin
| mining, you are mistaken. You are just hoping for doom on
| an asset you don't understand or don't like, it's just not
| a good way to argue against something.
| Isinlor wrote:
| This is basically what all life does.
|
| Thermodynamically, life can be described as an open system
| which makes use of gradients in its surroundings to create
| imperfect copies of itself.
|
| Crypto currencies still have a problem with creating copies of
| itself, but humans are happy to oblige.
| jf22 wrote:
| Comparing life itself to crypto is ridiculous.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| Isn't crypto ridiculous too? Rai stones look objectively
| more sensible and they are ridiculous.
|
| I'm not saying the technology is ridiculous, I'm just
| saying the overall implementation and outcomes would look
| like a madness to someone from the past or indeed the
| future.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Rai stones are less weird than they look once you learn
| that some super expensive art is held in freeport
| warehouses and stays there even when bought and sold to
| different owners. Valuing a painting you own but never
| see at millions of dollars that gets bought and sold to
| others who never see it isn't that much different than
| saying a certain immobile Rai stone is worth X of Y.
|
| Cryptocurrency is more ridiculous than both of the above,
| imo. Rai stones can be used as material, art can be
| looked at and enjoyed, cryptocurrency is random numbers
| controlling access to a ledger.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| Not entirely. Energy utilization is a common proxy for
| technological development. If a society is plowing tons of
| energy into crypto mining, then by definition _somebody_ is
| getting utility out of it. (Which doesn 't preclude it all
| being a Ponzi scheme, but that's another story.)
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Life, the original RNA Ponzi scheme.
| almost_usual wrote:
| Makes you wonder if there are any other RNA Ponzi schemes
| in the universe.
| pibechorro wrote:
| Ok Dad.
| Isinlor wrote:
| It's not, unless you think that e.g. cyanobacteria causing
| the Great Oxidation Event were somehow objectively more
| useful than cryptocurrencies.
|
| Mind you the Great Oxidation Event wiped good chunk of life
| back then.
|
| Mainly because oxygen was toxic to anaerobic life and it
| also oxidized methane making Earth into a snowball.
| maxerickson wrote:
| For all us, uh, air breathing mammals, yes, the great
| oxidation event was a great deal more useful,
| objectively, than cryptocurrencies.
| Isinlor wrote:
| The main point is that this hunger for resources without
| regard for consequences is the very core of life.
|
| We did not exist back then. And cyanobacteria did not
| have a great plan of creating mammals.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Note that I qualified my statement. I didn't say that the
| great oxygenation event was objectively useful to the
| moon, I said it was objectively more useful to air
| breathing mammals than running difficult computations to
| control write access to a ledger.
|
| The random waste from cryptocurrencies just turns into
| heat, so I expect it opens up ~zero new possibilities.
| Have fun though!
| Out_of_Characte wrote:
| How would you even define 'more usefull' in this context?
|
| How is cryptocurrency waste heat different from bank
| server waste heat? Only because crypto has a dramatically
| worse efficiency? I guess both my crypto wallet and my
| bank account are products of waste heat that produce zero
| new possibilities.
| maxerickson wrote:
| The comparison was to _oxygen_.
|
| And then I'm separately making the claim that using proof
| of work won't set the stage for anything interesting in
| the future, no matter how much heat it generates.
| bobthechef wrote:
| "Use" is always in relation to an someone's or
| something's end. Without knowing what the relevant ones
| are, the comparison fails.
| est31 wrote:
| From the outside view of an alien observer, is there any
| difference to us plastering mars with solar panels for
| crypto mining vs plastering mars with suburban
| developments? Would we, had we a powerful telescope pointed
| at a neighbouring solar system, be able to tell the
| difference?
| jf22 wrote:
| Can I be clear you cannot find a clear distinction
| between a made up currency and places where humans live?
| est31 wrote:
| I can, but I'm a human. My point was: Can an _outsider_
| discern it? If they can, would they put much meaning to
| it?
| zepto wrote:
| Not really.
|
| Life transforms matter and energy into increasing structure
| and complexity.
|
| A classic pathological life-like process is the paperclip
| maximizer.
|
| The paperclip maximizer transforms matter and energy into a
| regular structure of low complexity.
|
| Crypto is one step worse than the paperclip maximizer. It
| converts matter and energy into pseudo-random numbers.
|
| The only structure discernible within the randomness is the
| mechanism that induces organic lifeforms to work on behalf of
| crypto.
| marci wrote:
| Now let's clippyfy the universe:
|
| https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index.html
| bordercases wrote:
| Hear hear, can I get an amen for Komolgorov?
|
| https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeech/
| C... https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSp
| eech/C...
| Jonnax wrote:
| How does the network protocol of bitcoin work?
|
| Would governments be able to block it?
|
| Can it be DDoS-ed?
| silentsea90 wrote:
| The slowness of BTC adoption and growth are its strength.
| Within a decade, BTC investors will reach the highest offices
| of decision making bodies, and will be wealthy enough to shape
| the future of policy. States bodies will adapt not compete,
| similar to how they've adapted to the internet.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Without knowing for sure, I think you could just block port
| 8333. The individual miners could surely be DDoS, if you know
| their IP.
|
| I wonder if it's possible to just generate junk transactions
| and throw them at miners.
| rand49an wrote:
| That would close things off for most nodes but there are lots
| of nodes running on Tor or custom ports. Not to mention other
| channels like satellites that are used for transaction
| distribution.
|
| Junk transactions could stop a few nodes but all transactions
| are verified locally on nodes and won't be broadcast if they
| turn out to be junk.
| viraptor wrote:
| They can't realistically block it. Normally the miners are
| trivial "structure in, best hash out" functions. The logic of
| choosing the transactions and preparing new blocks can be
| completely independent and distribute the work over any number
| of remote miners. (That's pretty much how mining pools work)
|
| The network transport would be trivial to change, or tunnel
| over (for example) SSH.
|
| DoS also wouldn't be likely - if you have power to do that and
| can identify the connection, you're likely to have access to
| the physical address.
| postalrat wrote:
| Find where a lot of power is used. Go in with guns.
| DINKDINK wrote:
| What's your expectation for how effective that would be?
| Let's compare some existing bans, say prohibited cannabis
| farming:
|
| * Large energy use (lights, fans, pumps?)
|
| * Very characteristic energy use (high, relatively
| invariant)
|
| * Massive government budgets/surveillance to attack
| producers
|
| * The need to move non negligible amounts of physical goods
|
| * Moral campaigns by governments and social groups that
| it's bad for society
|
| And yet the banned-market drug trade revenue is something
| on the order of 80 billion dollars per year or 220 million
| a year.
|
| Bitcoin miners, currently:
|
| * Large energy use (fans, HVAC, ASICs)
|
| * Very characteristic energy use (high, relatively
| invariant)
|
| * Mix of jurisdictions banning or allowing it.
|
| * Only need about 2G / Shortwave radio worth of bandwidth
| to produce blocks
|
| * Moral campaigns by governments and social groups that
| it's bad for society
|
| Miner revenues need to be on the order of 10-50 million USD
| per year to sustain themselves. That's almost 10 times less
| than the failed (relatively global) "war on drugs"
|
| Add to it that by defecting from national socialist forms
| of storing one's wealth, rather than just momentarily
| indulging in vice, one improves their position, I'd suspect
| your hypothetical ban won't work that well.
| csomar wrote:
| They can't. You only need around 1mb/minute bandwidth to be
| able to operate. Changing ports can be easily circumvented by
| using a proxy. It's much easier to detect the guy who is
| drawing all this electricity.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| You can probably fingerprint the protocol and block it, but
| then it will just turn into a game of cat and mouse.
| kpommerenke wrote:
| Yes, governments can take Bitcoin down:
| https://joekelly100.medium.com/how-to-kill-bitcoin-part-1-is...
| dgellow wrote:
| Governments can regulate at the edge:
|
| - regulate electricity consumption
|
| - regulate bank accepting crypto-related money
|
| - regulate exchanges listing Bitcoin or other crypto-
| currencies, etc
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| This is why distributed exchanges and DeFi are important, as
| they eliminate the last two problems.
| dgellow wrote:
| I wasn't listing problems but ways governments can regulate
| crypto-currencies even if the network itself is out of
| reach.
|
| I'm myself in favor of cryptocurrencies (though, definitely
| not Bitcoin) AND for some level of regulation.
| mclightning wrote:
| something size of a government could do a %51 attack on the
| whole network.
| charcircuit wrote:
| It's a custom unencrypted P2P network protocol. A government
| could detect someone using this protocol and block it. It
| technically can not be DDoS'd. Though if you were you could
| DDoS the bootstrap nodes and that would make it harder to join
| the network. If governments block communication it can cause
| the network to split making it unclear which "half" of the
| network is the real one. It would create a fork.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| You're asking this, in 2021?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Would governments be able to block it?_
|
| Deep packet inspect the network, raid current users and miners,
| then degrade the network for a few months for everyone. After
| that, random enforcement. Incentivise by letting police
| privately seize Bitcoin from the populace.
|
| The idea that a protocol is immune to state violence because it
| can be sneaky is absurd.
| silentsea90 wrote:
| I think the slowness of BTC adoption and growth are its
| strength. Within a decade, BTC investors will reach the
| highest offices of decision making bodies, and will be
| wealthy enough to shape the future of policy
| bruiseralmighty wrote:
| Isn't the real issue here one of incentives? BTC is of obvious
| criminal use in regards to laundering money and trading in
| blackmarket goods and services, but clearly there is a much
| broader appeal to more mainstream use as well. Activists,
| journalists, dissidents all need to have lines of cash and stores
| of value that cannot be taken down with one phone call to Chase
| bank.
|
| For someone in a relatively free Western country, BTC looks like
| a ridiculous waste of energy. However, from the perspective of
| people hiding from political and state oppression BTC is a
| godsend. Refugees can safely and securely liquidate their assets
| before fleeing a country as one example. This gives them more
| freedom to choose where they want to re-locate to and allows them
| to use some saved wealth to get up and running faster once they
| find a new place to live.
|
| On HN I get that this view on the matter will not be popular, but
| I think BTC and Proof of Work generally have attached something
| very much like a market price to the cost of state overreach. If
| governments had acted better, BTC would never have reach the
| height it is at today. It would still be a hobbyist curiosity
| with a substantial but fringe criminal interest.
| silentsea90 wrote:
| Trillions of dollars get printed diluting your wealth and you
| have a problem with the hardest form of wealth known to man. I
| boldly predict that you or your progeny (depending on your age)
| will realize in 10 years that you should have bought BTC. I
| encourage you to research why non money launderers like Jack
| Dorsey, Elon etc. are buying BTC.
| 7_my_mind wrote:
| So now the developing world will start using their energy to mine
| BTC instead of manufacturing goods for us to consume. Will this
| ultimately cause inflation then? Because demand for goods will
| not be met?
|
| This crypto experiment keeps yielding more interesting results.
| silentsea90 wrote:
| Yep, trillions of dollars got printed but BTC energy will cause
| inflation.
| eejjjj82 wrote:
| "This crypto experiment keeps yielding more interesting
| results."
|
| I completely agree. I don't pay attention to a lot (or any)
| online economic circles, but I'm astounded at the pushback of
| high profile economists (Krugman, et al) against the shear
| novelty of the moment for their discipline.
|
| Regardless of whether or not someone "believes" in bitcoin, the
| reality of the times is that cryptocurrencies are creating
| fantastically interesting economic experiemnts right under our
| noses. This seems like it would be the dream come true for an
| economist from an observational/curiosity perspective
| dgellow wrote:
| These "experiments" have real life consequences on "subjects"
| who never agreed to be part of it.
|
| We should maybe create a crypto-country where crypto-
| currencies fanatics are free to experiment all of this on
| themselves instead of all of us... (it's a joke, please don't
| create a crypto country!)
| javert wrote:
| So you don't want to live with us, and you don't want to
| let us live separately.
| k_sze wrote:
| You need to have bigger ambitions. Let's turn the whole
| planet into a crypto experiment. We can change the name of
| the planet Earth to ... Crypton.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Industry that needs lots of energy already locates in places
| with stable grids.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| I've never heard of Abkhazia before, so I had to look it up. It's
| a partially recognized state, part of Georgia [0].
|
| There's even been a war in 1992-1993, after the collapse of the
| USSR [1].
|
| Sometimes I'm still surprised of my ignorance about important
| facts that happened during my lifetime.
|
| Anyway, the next question for me was: why is electricity so cheap
| there, and should I assume it's cheap 24/7, and therefore
| generated with hydro?
|
| Electricity is largely supplied by the Inguri hydroelectric power
| station located on the Inguri River between Abkhazia and Georgia
|
| there's even a study on Electricty consumption, if you really
| want to dig deeper into it. [2].
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abkhazia
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Abkhazia_(1992%E2%80%93...
|
| [2]:
| http://iccn.ge/files/energy_study_results_abkhazia_2019_eng_...
| nickik wrote:
| I didn't know about it either until I read:
|
| - Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
|
| It has a lot of fun stuff about how the Abkhazia communist
| party and their interaction with the main party in Moscow. A
| lot of interesting history.
| theragra wrote:
| People are pretty poor there, and Russia supports them a lot
| (you can have russian passport if you live there). I assume
| most infrastructure is supported using russian help. It is
| logical Russia does not want her money spent by miners, who are
| probably not even from Abkhazia.
| onetimemanytime wrote:
| There is Russia and then Russians there running things. They
| have different goals. If Abkhazia is anything like I think it
| is...you just pay someone up and you can do whatever you
| want. That includes stealing electricity, or killing someone.
|
| "Now I'm in power so it's my chance to grab something" is the
| mentality in a lot of countries.
| oleganza wrote:
| *virtually all of countries.
| eingaeKaiy8ujie wrote:
| Abkhazia is a Georgian territory occupied by Russia. Russia
| is the #1 reason for poverty in the region.
| refraincomment wrote:
| Mind to explain? Russia uses electromagnetics do diminish
| the rate of ideas of the population?
| SXX wrote:
| I'm in no way supporter of Putins regime and I totally
| agree that he'll do everything to keep all countries around
| poor and unstable, but come on. Original war in Abkhazia
| happened when USSR crashed and it was your usual ethnic
| conflict. Not some orchestrated hybrid war like in Ukraine,
| but real civil war. I've been in both Abkhazia and Georgia
| and people of both countries relise that and count themself
| the righteous side.
|
| Yeah it's obvious that Russian establishment have all
| reason sto keep this conflict unresolved as it's prevent
| Gerogia from joining NATO or EU. But even if regime in
| Russia gonna change there is no easy solution because
| ethnic conflict didn't go anywhere.
| varjag wrote:
| Yeah no, that's not quite the full story. Abkhasian
| regime persists largely due to continued presence of
| Russian troops. Much of the residual economy in the
| break-off region revolves around the Russian bases as
| well. The rest of it is the lowest tier Russian "visa
| free" tourism, also guaranteed by Russian military
| presence.
|
| Same goes for South Ossetia and Transnistria: these
| conflicts would long be history without Russian military
| footholds.
| levosmetalo wrote:
| > Same goes for South Ossetia and Transnistria: these
| conflicts would long be history without Russian military
| footholds.
|
| You mean "history" in a sense that the local population
| would be ethnically cleansed from the Georgian majority
| and the ones that survive relocated to Russia? And then
| they would be marked as aggressors because they dared to
| try protecting themselves with arms, and refused to just
| disappear from the territory where they have been living
| for centuries.
|
| Yeah, we saw that many times, and the only criteria that
| leads to the "correct" conclusion who is right and who is
| wrong, who is aggressor and who defends himself, who is
| the victim and who is villain is whether US/NATO or
| Russian/Other troops are involved on one of the sides.
| varjag wrote:
| No, I mean they would continue to live on the territory
| they lived for centuries (somehow without apparently
| being ethnically cleansed by Georgians all that damn
| time). And without Russian involvement it would have long
| since went into participatory politics.
|
| And it's not just a speculation, there was a perfect A/B
| test. Ajaria, another autonomous region of Georgia, long
| since had independence ambitions too. However that
| conflict fizzed out without notable violence.
|
| The difference from Ossetia? It does not border Russia
| and there weren't substantial troops stationed at the
| time of USSR dissolution.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| Funny enough, the name immediately jumped out to me because of
| video games ;)
|
| The free map coming with the DCS World flight simulator is a
| large part of the eastern Black Sea and western Caucasus, and
| there's quite a few missions and campaigns in the Abkhazia and
| South Ossetia regions (some with a heavy Russian narrative,
| some from Georgian and NATO point of view, so all in all quite
| balanced I'd say). Having never heard of Abkhazia and Ossetia
| before either this lead me to read up on their (mostly
| troubled) history.
|
| Who says video games aren't educational.
| Uberphallus wrote:
| I've been there during my urbex days.
|
| Frozen conflict zone, not unlike Transnistria, South Ossetia or
| Nagorno Karabakh. The border is militarized, except the
| Georgian side which doesn't seem to consider Abkhazia a threat.
| Lots of abandoned infrastructure because the native Georgian
| population was killed and/or fleed, and hasn't been harnessed
| for some reason. Abkhaz cross the border daily to buy basic
| stuff from Georgia. Only approved vehicles can cross, so most
| people do it walking with "taxi drivers" servicing both sides
| of the border. Most of the foreigners there are Russians
| looking for a cheap seaside vacation. There are streets named
| after Shamil Basayev (!).
|
| Actually I left Abkhazia illegally, since you have to collect
| the visa inside (as there aren't diplomatic missions anywhere)
| after crossing the border, and the offices were closed all 3
| days that my visa was going to be valid for. So yeah, arguing
| with soldiers for 4 hours in my rudimentary Russian wasn't
| great.
|
| Border crossing: https://i.imgur.com/dFMnwsJ.jpg
|
| They made me delete the picture but LPT: keep the SD card aside
| for the rest of the trip, then run an undelete tool on it.
|
| AMA.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| It's worth noting that the Georgian _majority_ population was
| ethnically cleansed (with >5000 civilians killed) from
| Abkhazia by separatists, with full support and encouragement
| of Russia[0]. The preeminent Chechen terrorist Shamil
| Basayev, later responsible for Beslan school siege and other
| attacks, took part in this war on the Abkhaz side, after
| being trained for the purpose by the GRU (Russian military
| intelligence of the Salisbury/Novichok fame)[1]. I guess they
| kind of lost control of him afterwards, oops.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_of_Georgia
| ns_...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamil_Basayev
| [deleted]
| Uberphallus wrote:
| Yeah, it was crazy. The fact that it was the majority meant
| loads of stuff would stay empty/unused, which remains true
| even today. I have footage from a massive seaside resort in
| the center of the capital [0] to give people an idea.
|
| Unfortunately, there are always two sides to every story,
| and both sides were pretty nasty to each other[1]. But
| agree, it's hard to side with Basayev on this war, or any
| other really.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSi88CLRuZE
|
| [1] http://www.unpo.org/downloads/AbkGeo1992Report.pdf
| lsllc wrote:
| Is this the Abhazian side? The bridge not far from Zugdidi?
| Uberphallus wrote:
| You see the Abkhazian side (pic taken from the Georgian
| side). Exactly that bridge! Have you been around there?
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| > They made me delete the picture but LPT: keep the SD card
| aside for the rest of the trip, then run an undelete tool on
| it.
|
| Undeleting photos from an SD card saved data for me once.
| Just shut it off once you've noticed you messed up, and don't
| touch it. Thank goodness for FAT32.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| SD cards should be pretty easy to hide as well, unless they
| do X-rays on your shoes and the like I guess?
|
| Could put a micro SD card in a SIM card slot in your phone
| maybe.
| Uberphallus wrote:
| True. But if you check the picture carefully, you will see
| a soldier spotting me with binoculars :)
| tomcooks wrote:
| Many Android phones have a slot for either SIM+SD or a
| double SIM, so yes
| saalweachter wrote:
| Eh, the problem with practicing amateur spycraft is that
| then you look like a spy if anyone notices.
|
| Sure, maybe they're extremely unlikely to find an SD card
| in your shoe -- extremely! -- but if someone does find an
| SD card in your shoe, they're going to want to know why.
|
| Just leave it in your pocket and dump it in the X-ray bin
| with the rest of your pocket trash. It's unlikely anyone
| will notice, and if they do, you're just a tourist with an
| SD card for your camera. Maybe they throw it away, maybe
| they copy it, but it's unlikely to end with you spending
| four hours being questioned about why it was in your shoe.
| forinti wrote:
| It's a beautiful place. Stalin used to have a house there.
|
| If it weren't for its current situation, it would be a great
| destination for tourists.
| Giorgi wrote:
| Electricity is free for them, because Georgia considers it's as
| part of Georgia. Abkhazia right now is local mafia-run region
| by Russian occupant forces (Russia actually has military bases
| there).
|
| Nothing is going on there economically, it is slow decaying
| society so their only income is mining operations like this.
| situationista wrote:
| From a quick glance at the video looks like they're illegally
| tapping power from the grid, and got shut down.
| firstSpeaker wrote:
| Plague of our time. Same thing has been happening in other
| countries, e.g. Iran [1]. Blackouts, climate impact, electronic
| waste, etc.
|
| 1- https://www.coindesk.com/inside-irans-onslaught-on-
| bitcoin-m...
| trixie_ wrote:
| Idea to solve the crypto energy problem - sell space heaters as
| dual purpose crypto miners. People need space heaters. They buy
| them, but they also mine crypto (as a free byproduct of the space
| heating). The number of crypto mining space heaters out there
| dilute the value of dedicated mining so much that people don't
| bother with it anymore. Even buying the space heater to make
| money from mining crypto doesn't make that much money - due to
| the fact that so many space heaters are crypto miners. Problem
| solved?
|
| Edit/Multi-Reply: Heat pumps are efficient, but they don't
| replace all practical use cases for a space heater.
| leshow wrote:
| What do you do with them in the summer? What about warmer
| climates where you don't need a heater?
| trixie_ wrote:
| The idea is there are enough people using space heaters on
| the planet at any given time to dilute any gain from
| dedicated crypto mining.
| arsome wrote:
| I live in an area of Canada where home heat is pretty much
| provided exclusively by natural gas but electricity comes
| mainly from nuclear and hydroelectric sources.
|
| Interesting to think about, but by firing up a miner on my
| graphics card at off hours I'd probably lower my overall fossil
| fuel consumption and make some money on the side.
|
| Anything I'm missing here?
| make3 wrote:
| plug a usb thermometer and write a script to throttle the
| hash rate when the temperature is high
| NDizzle wrote:
| With the current crypto prices I don't think you're missing
| anything. I think you're on to something.
| monkeycantype wrote:
| people do that, but it's not an efficient way to heat. The most
| efficient heaters pump heat from somewhere else, even when the
| source has a lower temperature, like the way a fridge pumps
| heat from inside the cold fridge to the air in your house. (my
| apologies for assuming you live in a house if you are actually
| a 12 dimensional entity that lives on a space whale)
| _Microft wrote:
| Heat pumps are approximately three times as efficient as
| electric heating.
| shawnz wrote:
| They also don't provide very much heat output when it's cold
| outside
| foepys wrote:
| It needs to be really cold. Like -15degC and some go as low
| as -40degC. They degrade in efficiency but are still better
| than a space heater. In the worst case they are exactly as
| efficient as a space heater.
| carlob wrote:
| worst case being 0 K outdoor temperature?
| foepys wrote:
| Rather 1:1 electricity to heat conversion.
| shawnz wrote:
| Sure, but at the point where the efficiency is
| sufficiently poor, why not run a Bitcoin miner instead of
| the heat-pump-turned-space-heater?
|
| As I understand most heat pumps in cold climates are
| usually installed with "backup heat" sources for this
| reason.
| _Microft wrote:
| A mining rig that runs only a few days per year when the
| outside temperature is too low sounds very inefficient.
| This is the same problem that the plan to store excess
| renewable energy by producing hydrogen has. If you have
| the hardware, you would want to have it running as much
| as possible.
| [deleted]
| DINKDINK wrote:
| "Pumping water down hill is more efficient than pumping it
| sideways"
|
| The CoP of a heat pump is dependent on the temperature
| potential across the heat pump. Caution to the reader who
| thinks one could pump heat from frigid external temperatures
| into their very warm, high temperature house: the very
| scenario your post suggests they should be used.
|
| Heat pumps are great for increasing thermal potentials and
| moving heat across them (not for sourcing energy). They're
| also great for balancing an internal thermal state that is,
| on-net, in balance (think of a large office building in the
| morning, one side is being heated by the sun, the other side
| is frigid -- heat pumps can balance the internal energy
| demands instead of simultaneously cooling one part of the
| building and heating the other)
| NDizzle wrote:
| Heat pumps list that temperature in the documentation of
| the unit.
|
| I think most of the midwest figured this out during the
| recent cold snap. It turns out the cut off for my heat pump
| is 10F.
|
| I'm in the process of finalizing the installation of a wood
| stove insert to provide backup heating during the cold
| months. Switching to all electric feels a little like
| burning cash to me.
|
| If you're in the US, there is an incredible 26% tax credit
| available on stoves (wood and pellet) that are more than
| 75% efficient. This covers both the cost of the unit AND
| installation. It's good for about the next 2 years and went
| into effect in early Jan.
|
| https://www.hpba.org/Advocacy/Biomass-Stove-Tax-Credit
| monkeynotes wrote:
| > Caution to the reader who thinks one could pump heat from
| frigid external temperatures into their very warm, high
| temperature house
|
| I heat my house with a heat pump. I live in Eastern Canada
| and we regularly have -20c days and I still heat my house
| to a comfortable level. Our pump is >=100% efficient all
| the way down to around -25c at which point it's less and
| less effective.
|
| These pumps are extremely popular around here. We heat
| during the winter and cool during the summer with the same
| unit.
|
| I consider our heat pumps to be our primary source of heat
| in our house. We only run the gas furnace if we get into
| sub -25c days which is not often, we had none this year.
| pas wrote:
| That needs good insulation first, or am I missing something?
| Usually space heaters are warmer, but less efficient. Heat
| pumps are great if you have time to warm up the space but if
| it's insulated like an open field, you'll be always cold.
| _Microft wrote:
| Why wouldn't one insulate the space? Heating is no end in
| itself.
| zejn wrote:
| Heat pump is essentially a "reverse mount of a
| refrigerator", putting heat in and throwing cold out. In
| the worst case, the pump will degrade into a heating
| element, only outputting heat from electricity (which is
| what a regular electric heater does).
|
| Insulation is not a requirement, but will lower your energy
| needs to keep a steady temperature.
| lainsoykaf wrote:
| This can't work because it just raises the efficiency of
| mining. That means mining will become cheaper. That means your
| reward is higher. That means you can mine more for the same
| money. That means every miner does that, increasing the part of
| the heat that's wasted.
|
| In the end, the exact same amount will be 'wasted' as before.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Consumers that are already using (electric) space heaters are
| already paying $X/mo in electricity.
|
| If they are getting value out of a bitcoin-mining space
| heater, it is justified to run at any time you want heat,
| because by getting a BTC rebate of any amount would make it
| cheaper to run than a space heater.
|
| If enough miners are mining for the purpose of heat, it will
| push non-heat miners out of the market, because the heat-
| miners are rationally willing to mine at any price (any
| 'rebate' on expected electricity->heat costs is useful),
| whereas the non-heat miners can only rationally mine when btc
| reward exceeds electricity cost.
|
| (We are a LOOONG way from the majority of miners using the
| heat, but just wanted to point out there is a hypothetical
| future where the market could eliminate heat-wasted mining)
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| There's a few companies that already do that, they rent out
| servers / processing power (probably via a spot market) which
| are in people's homes chooching along. The spot market will
| always be loaded because at some point one of the many cryptos
| will find it worthwhile.
| codecamper wrote:
| This is awesome. I just wish more governments would wake up to
| the fact that crypto does nothing beyond suck resources and warm
| the planet. If you want to bet on things that go up & down, there
| is the stock market where things go up and down 20%+ every single
| day.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| Bitcoin has provided the non-boomer generations an investment
| vehicle and inflation harbor that has no competition. I know so
| many younger people who now have some semblance of retirement
| savings due to crypto. Fiscal policy and wealth inequality have
| made crypto the only option for savings in 2021.
| Proven wrote:
| Remote villages are also causing blackouts to bitcoin miners.
|
| The problem is (as almost always) incompetent and/or corrupt
| government officials. Why can't they manage?
|
| They either won't (getting paid in BTC to mismanage) or can't.
| Perhaps they should replace those bums or privatize power
| utilities. Or give up independence, if they can't manage
| themselves.
|
| Another way is simply increase the price to everyone to whatever
| is going rate in that wider area plus 10%, and the miners will
| likely move out in no time. Although it'd be better to privatize
| everything.
| hoppla wrote:
| EU regulates how much power my vacuum cleaner and my lightbulb
| can use. And to what end? So that some greedy miner can buy
| cheaper electricity to make numbers and heat! The only way I can
| see that the environmental problem called Bitcoin can end, is to
| make it a more expensive.
|
| Power prices could be increased by usage to motivate consuming
| less and punish those who use too much.
|
| There will still be countries that mine and burn coal so that
| others can mine Bitcoin. But I believe there are more sustainable
| industries that could benefit from these wasted resources
| ryanmarsh wrote:
| Look over here at the electricity use of Bitcoin peasant, not
| over there at what Wall St does to the world.
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