# Bitcoin Unsustainable?



## Space_Dandy (Jan 31, 2022)

Crypto mining seems unsustainable to me. To start with, Bitcoin mining uses more electricity than some countries, about 1% of the world's electricity. This is a net loss game, as there are so many scrambling to win those free bitcoins that most lose out. It's like gambling, except the house is the electric company. That means most crypto miners will lose more money through investment in their rigs and in power bills than they will win in mined bitcoin, many of them stand to lose quite a bit. I just don't see this situation persisting. Crypto mining is still new to a lot of people, many are jumping on the bandwagon late, but after the novelty wears off in a few years I'm not optimistic about where Bitcoin will be. I think it's only downhill from here.

But I could be wrong, maybe there's something I'm missing, just looking for opinions and conversation about it.


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## Lord of the Large Pants (Jan 31, 2022)

Assuming crypto isn't legislated out of existence, Bitcoin will probably eventually be supplanted by a technically superior competitor like Ethereum or Monero, which are much less power hungry.


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## BONE_Buddy (Jan 31, 2022)

Everything is unsustainable. Eventually everything will fall to entropy in the end.


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## I am vomit (Jan 31, 2022)

How long until we see giant solar panel farms that are just for crypto miners?


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## shameful existence (Jan 31, 2022)

Educate yourself, thanks.


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## wtfNeedSignUp (Jan 31, 2022)

I actually wondered about it, what happens when the cost of producing a bitcoin is higher than its worth? Wouldn't that mean that there will never be another bitcoin printed?


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## Lord of the Large Pants (Jan 31, 2022)

wtfNeedSignUp said:


> I actually wondered about it, what happens when the cost of producing a bitcoin is higher than its worth? Wouldn't that mean that there will never be another bitcoin printed?


The number of Bitcoins mined is designed to cap out eventually, so yes. Bitcoin, specifically. Some other crypto works differently in this regard.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 31, 2022)

It's so stupid.  The second bitcoin is a serious threat to the dollar it'll be legislated into irrelevance.


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## CryoRevival #SJ-112 (Jan 31, 2022)

Lord of the Large Pants said:


> Assuming crypto isn't legislated out of existence, Bitcoin will probably eventually be supplanted by a technically superior competitor like Ethereum or Monero, which are much less power hungry.


Won't be Monero, it's already banned in like half the OECD.


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## TheBigZee (Jan 31, 2022)

Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> It's so stupid.  The second bitcoin is a serious threat to the dollar it'll be legislated into irrelevance.


It's never going to be a serious threat to the dollar. The US government has been so hands off because it's made the job of the alphabet agencies that much easier.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 31, 2022)

TheBigZee said:


> It's never going to be a serious threat to the dollar. The US government has been so hands off because it's made the job of the alphabet agencies that much easier.


I doubt it will because crypto is largely a speculation frenzy like beanie babies and tulips--it's just lasted longer than most-- but if it does, then it'll be regulated to hell.  The government does not want monetary policy interfered with and they definitely don't want tax evasion.  The government hasn't regulated bitcoin because it hasn't needed to.


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## IAmNotAlpharius (Jan 31, 2022)

wtfNeedSignUp said:


> I actually wondered about it, what happens when the cost of producing a bitcoin is higher than its worth? Wouldn't that mean that there will never be another bitcoin printed?


That’s one of my concerns as well. How will people be rewarded to keep track of Bitcoin transactions when the mining is complete?


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## Knight of the Rope (Jan 31, 2022)

IAmNotAlpharius said:


> That’s one of my concerns as well. How will people be rewarded to keep track of Bitcoin transactions when the mining is complete?


Transaction fees. At the moment miners get _two_ forms of compensation for validating a block and adding it to the blockchain:

The mining reward that is newly minted coins (i.e. a "fictitious" transaction that they can write to themselves to get the newly minted coins).
Transaction fees associated with each bitcoin transaction to incentivize the miners to add them to the latest block. (i.e. as the answer to "Which bitcoin transactions get processed first?" Since the miners want the largest compensation possible for processing transactions, of course they're going to prioritize the transactions that have the biggest fee associated with them because they get the total of all the fees if they validate the block.)
So once the mining reward (1.) stops, blocks will still be validated and added to the chain: the miners just won't be able to mint new coins by writing fictitious transactions to themselves. So naturally, to make the effort worth it, transaction fees (2.) will increase to balance it out.


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## wtfNeedSignUp (Jan 31, 2022)

IAmNotAlpharius said:


> That’s one of my concerns as well. How will people be rewarded to keep track of Bitcoin transactions when the mining is complete?


In general I still have no idea how crypto is supposed to replace fed currency if there is constant deflation rather than the controlled inflation that drives the economy forward.


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## The Ugly One (Jan 31, 2022)

Actual monetary use of Bitcoin accounts for a hilariously small percentage of total use. The rest of it is just greater-fool "investing." The only way it becomes sustainable is for the online casinos to completely implode and for the handful of legitimate use cases to dominate.


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## Serin Spaghetti (Jan 31, 2022)

True, and the more mining that is done, the more power is needed to "Secure" the Network. That and Bitcoin is pretty old tech in comparison to the new coins or chains. When you zoom out on Bitcoin, sure it is the most valued thing in our history, but it lacks in some places. Satoshi was an old head when it came to coding, he was smart, but he probably wasn't very efficient though (Especially when he leaves some other things he forgot to add to the white paper, silly dude). I think somewhere in the code there was suppose to be some sort of gambling mechanism if I remember. Anyway, my opinion is yes, mining will become unsustainable to those with a hardcore PC in the future. If Bitcoin demands more power, you would need those factory looking GPU farms people placed in the middle of butt fuck nowhere. But, just like you said you're just spending your energy to mine Bitcoin, only to give it back to the Electric Companies, in a way Bitcoin is sort of hurting itself. And if you wanna be Eco-friendly about it,  then it's not good at that either, when we know POS works just as good, if not better than POW.
Edit: ETH is still POW but will become POS with ETH 2.0 coming out. Sure it'll be more Eco-friendly but, you're still gonna spend a shit ton on fees, till 2023.

Hasn't Bitcoin changed purposes since it's inception, wasn't it like P2P Cash, then Programmable Money, now it's Digital Gold?


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## Grog (Jan 31, 2022)

If the cost of mining Bitcoin becomes too much for some guy to maintain a mining farm and he stops, then the rest of the miners earn more, because the amount that is released as a reward for mining blocks is fixed. It simply gets distributed among the miners depending on how much computing power they're contributing.
Also, the miners kind of establish the price floor for Bitcoin because they're the ones who are pumping new coins into the market to begin with. If the cost of mining Bitcoin increases, then so does the price of Bitcoin over time. Actually isn't that what happened in Q4 of 2020, when inflation made the price skyrocket?


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## feedtheoctopus (Jan 31, 2022)

Lol remember when El Salvador started accepting bitcoin as legal tender and their economy immediately went into fucking freefall?


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## Stoneheart (Jan 31, 2022)

Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> It's so stupid. The second bitcoin is a serious threat to the dollar it'll be legislated into irrelevance.


that will never happen, they will go for other crypto, but not for bitcoin.  the Feds and the CCP control to much of it. the cia would go apeshit if a couple of billion of their stored dark money goes away...


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 31, 2022)

Is there anyone on the Farms that literally believes that bitcoin will never crash and it'll just keep going up?  I just want to see if anyone here is that stupid.


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## Zyklon Ben's Poison Pen (Jan 31, 2022)

Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> Is there anyone on the Farms that literally believes that bitcoin will never crash and it'll just keep going up?  I just want to see if anyone here is that stupid.


It nearly did last week then Tether..."acquired"....a billion USD and prevented the melt down. Ponzi schemes upon Ponzi schemes.


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## Not Really Here (Jan 31, 2022)

The fake computer money is like the US dollar, or any other currency, as long as a large group of people find it desirable, it will maintain some value.

In my limited research on the topic I can't find any utility for it other than to tip Null BAT, as soon as governments woke up to the existence of crypto and started hitting mixers its only draw for me, anonymity, vanished. Now it seems as if crypto is just the perfect tool to permanently track transactions.

But then, it's well known that I'm tarded.


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## Cool Dog (Jan 31, 2022)

Lord of the Large Pants said:


> Ethereum or Monero, which are much less power hungry.


Eth its more efficient? wasnt the whole scandal with NFTs because eth its very power hungry?


wtfNeedSignUp said:


> I actually wondered about it, what happens when the cost of producing a bitcoin is higher than its worth? Wouldn't that mean that there will never be another bitcoin printed?


Thats what happened after the crash from the $20k ath a few years ago, for a while it went below the cost of mining and suddenly GPUs were available at non-insane prices again




Serin Spaghetti said:


> ETH is still POW but will become POS with ETH 2.0 coming out. Sure it'll be more Eco-friendly but, you're still gonna spend a shit ton on fees, till 2023.


Now its 2023 already? they were saying it was gonna be last september, then early 2022, now this

Is it ever gonna happen?


Zyklon Ben's Poison Pen said:


> It nearly did last week then Tether..."acquired"....a billion USD and prevented the melt down. Ponzi schemes upon Ponzi schemes.


Anyone who still trusts bitfinex deserves to hold bags forever


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## The Ugly One (Jan 31, 2022)

Cool Dog said:


> Anyone who still trusts bitfinex deserves to hold bags forever


Binance is the biggest exchange in the world and USDT-driven


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## Lord of the Large Pants (Jan 31, 2022)

Cool Dog said:


> Eth its more efficient? wasnt the whole scandal with NFTs because eth its very power hungry?
> 
> Thats what happened after the crash from the $20k ath a few years ago, for a while it went below the cost of mining and suddenly GPUs were available at non-insane prices again
> 
> ...


Eth is switching from a proof-of-work to proof-of-stake model very soon, which is much more power efficient.

No, NFTs just make tards tard out for some reason.


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## Zyklon Ben's Poison Pen (Jan 31, 2022)

The Ugly One said:


> Binance is the biggest exchange in the world and USDT-driven


There is going to be a lot of bags (and there is already a mountain of them now)


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## Kosher Dill (Jan 31, 2022)

Lord of the Large Pants said:


> Eth is switching from a proof-of-work to proof-of-stake model very soon


And always will be.


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## The Ugly One (Jan 31, 2022)

Zyklon Ben's Poison Pen said:


> There is going to be a lot of bags (and there is already a mountain of them now)


I remember being really uneasy when USDT became 25% as big as BTC overall, like wtf. Anyway, USDT's volume is now more than double BTC's.


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## HumanHive (Feb 1, 2022)

None of this will matter when Biden executive orders Bitcoin out of existence.


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## Kujo Jotaro (Feb 1, 2022)

Grog said:


> If the cost of mining Bitcoin becomes too much for some guy to maintain a mining farm and he stops, then the rest of the miners earn more, because the amount that is released as a reward for mining blocks is fixed. It simply gets distributed among the miners depending on how much computing power they're contributing.
> Also, the miners kind of establish the price floor for Bitcoin because they're the ones who are pumping new coins into the market to begin with. If the cost of mining Bitcoin increases, then so does the price of Bitcoin over time. Actually isn't that what happened in Q4 of 2020, when inflation made the price skyrocket?


The price floor is established by how much of a loss speculators are willing to eat. 


Not Really Here said:


> The fake computer money is like the US dollar, or any other currency, as long as a large group of people find it desirable, it will maintain some value.
> 
> In my limited research on the topic I can't find any utility for it other than to tip Null BAT, as soon as governments woke up to the existence of crypto and started hitting mixers its only draw for me, anonymity, vanished. Now it seems as if crypto is just the perfect tool to permanently track transactions.
> 
> But then, it's well known that I'm tarded.


BAT is unironically one of the only crypto's I own at this point for the sole fact that I could see it existing as a singular business model outside of any other crypto having ever existed.


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## ditto (Feb 1, 2022)

CryoRevival #SJ-112 said:


> Won't be Monero, it's already banned in like half the OECD.


First they came for Monero, but I did not speak because I am not a shitcoiner..
Actually Monero is the most legit crypto long term.


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## CryoRevival #SJ-112 (Feb 1, 2022)

ditto said:


> First they came for Monero, but I did not speak because I am not a shitcoiner..
> Actually Monero is the most legit crypto long term.


For sure, i mine it to support the network, but converting it to $? The leash is gunna continue to tighten.


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## Cool Dog (Feb 1, 2022)

The Ugly One said:


> Binance is the biggest exchange in the world and USDT-driven


But its anyone auditing them? because the problem with bitfinex is that nobody was checking if they had the funds to mint all that tether


Lord of the Large Pants said:


> Eth is switching from a proof-of-work to proof-of-stake model very soon, which is much more power efficient.
> 
> No, NFTs just make tards tard out for some reason.


Is eth still THE blockchain for NFTs? you know just like youtube its still THE platform for web video despite all the shit happening there


CryoRevival #SJ-112 said:


> For sure, i mine it to support the network, but converting it to $? The leash is gunna continue to tighten.


How hard its to mine monero?


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## Precious Bodily Fluids (Feb 1, 2022)

Bitcoin started off as a currency in principle and there was even a concerted attempt to use it as such at one point. Various merchants got pestered into trying it out by libertarians across America, wearing their dad's ill-fitting suits and walking into random businesses to proselytize bitcoin. So there were some hip cafes and restaurants etc giving it a shot at one point and household name tech companies such as Microsoft were accepting it as a payment option too, which gave it a sense of legitimacy that advocates could point towards. Bitcoin could have taken off if it actually worked.

But there were several problems that sabotaged it's success. The most important I think was it's limited transaction rate, it could only handle a certain number of transactions per second which was well below what was required. It's something laughably tiny too, like 6 transactions per second. If you weren't blinded by greed or ideology then you could immediately see that it wasn't going to scale and was being launched prematurely, but the fanatics wouldn't hear a word of FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) against the holy creation of Saint Satoshi himself. This issue created a backlog of transactions that could last for over 24 hours at the height it's actual usage as a currency meaning that merchants weren't able to confirm payments in a timely fashion. This was the killer flaw that caused Bitcoin to wither on the vine but there were loads of other serious problems too.

From then on there was a lot of coping and seething, but not yet much dilating as this was back in 2014 iirc. The bitcoin advocates began to promise technological upgrades (always just on the horizon) to bitcoin which never actually materialized even after all these years. Then bag holders increasingly began to refer to Bitcoin as a "store of value", whereas I think it's more fair to describe it as a speculative asset. This was a massive pivot because at the time the libertarians were prophesizing that bitcoin would destroy the Federal Reserve, revolutionize the world economic system and grant Ron Paul his apotheosis to space emperor, but then they settled for "store of value" instead because they feared Bitcoin crashing to zero on the back of it's lack of actual utility.

I can't believe anybody besides the bag holders still has any faith in it after that.


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## byuu (Feb 1, 2022)

Not Really Here said:


> The fake computer money is like the US dollar, or any other currency, as long as a large group of people find it desirable, it will maintain some value.


Except the dollar is backed by a large powerful country. And vital for oil trades.

If bitcoin was absolutely worthless tomorrow would there be any impact on normal people's lives at all?


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## Not Really Here (Feb 1, 2022)

byuu said:


> Except the dollar is backed by a large powerful country. And vital for oil trades.
> 
> If bitcoin was absolutely worthless tomorrow would there be any impact on normal people's lives at all?


No "except".
The backing by a large, powerful and most importantly stable country, created the desire to use it for everything else.

I have no idea how "impact on normal people" has anything to do with OP's question or my post.


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## byuu (Feb 1, 2022)

Not Really Here said:


> I have no idea how "impact on normal people" has anything to do with OP's question or my post.


Because there is a huge incentive to keep the dollar from becoming worthless. Lots of powerful organisations will move heaven and earth to keep it from failing. So there is much more reason to trust the dollar than bitcoin.


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## Not Really Here (Feb 1, 2022)

byuu said:


> Because there is a huge incentive to keep the dollar from becoming worthless. Lots of powerful organisations will move heaven and earth to keep it from failing. So there is much more reason to trust the dollar than bitcoin.


Bro, people with power don't give the slightest shit what you call money, they would happily use queefs as currency
More to the point, you're just using more words to repeat what I already said: X has value because [numbers] desire it to be so.


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## byuu (Feb 1, 2022)

Not Really Here said:


> Bro, people with power don't give the slightest shit what you call money, they would happily use queefs as currency
> More to the point, you're just using more words to repeat what I already said: X has value because [numbers] desire it to be so.


Yeah who cares if global oil trade collapses? There's no money in that.



Not Really Here said:


> More to the point, you're just using more words to repeat what I already said: X has value because [numbers] desire it to be so.


It's a completely useless statement.
My nephew desires his monopoly money to be worth a lot. Therefore dollar, monopoly money, and bitcoin is all the same!


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## Kujo Jotaro (Feb 1, 2022)

Precious Bodily Fluids said:


> Bitcoin started off as a currency in principle and there was even a concerted attempt to use it as such at one point. Various merchants got pestered into trying it out by libertarians across America, wearing their dad's ill-fitting suits and walking into random businesses to proselytize bitcoin. So there were some hip cafes and restaurants etc giving it a shot at one point and household name tech companies such as Microsoft were accepting it as a payment option too, which gave it a sense of legitimacy that advocates could point towards. Bitcoin could have taken off if it actually worked.
> 
> But there were several problems that sabotaged it's success. The most important I think was it's limited transaction rate, it could only handle a certain number of transactions per second which was well below what was required. It's something laughably tiny too, like 6 transactions per second. If you weren't blinded by greed or ideology then you could immediately see that it wasn't going to scale and was being launched prematurely, but the fanatics wouldn't hear a word of FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) against the holy creation of Saint Satoshi himself. This issue created a backlog of transactions that could last for over 24 hours at the height it's actual usage as a currency meaning that merchants weren't able to confirm payments in a timely fashion. This was the killer flaw that caused Bitcoin to wither on the vine but there were loads of other serious problems too.
> 
> ...


Its viability as a currency died the moment it became a speculative vehicle for gains in $USD. But don't you forget when #fiat dies you better have some BTC because its totally becoming the next world reserve currency!!!!


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## Not Really Here (Feb 1, 2022)

byuu said:


> Yeah who cares if global oil trade collapses? There's no money in that.


Yes, because people can't just use another currency.


byuu said:


> It's a completely useless statement.
> My nephew desires his monopoly money to be worth a lot. Therefore dollar, monopoly money, and bitcoin is all the same!


Good job ignoring that I wrote "groups of people" not "one tard"


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## byuu (Feb 1, 2022)

Not Really Here said:


> Good job ignoring that I wrote "groups of people" not "one tard"


My nephew and his friends then.
OMG SO DIFFERENT

I'm going to convert all my money in Zimbabwe dollar. It's all just fiat currency anyway - that means they're all completely equal!


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## Not Really Here (Feb 1, 2022)

byuu said:


> My nephew and his friends then.
> OMG SO DIFFERENT
> 
> I'm going to convert all my money in Zimbabwe dollar. It's all just fiat currency anyway - that means they're all completely equal!


Zimbabwe doesn't have a dollar, it became shit and the next day people started using Euros and US dollars.
Good job finding an example that perfectly proves my point.


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## byuu (Feb 1, 2022)

Not Really Here said:


> Zimbabwe doesn't have a dollar, it became shit and the next day people started using Euros and US dollars.


Who gives a shit.


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## CryoRevival #SJ-112 (Feb 1, 2022)

Cool Dog said:


> How hard its to mine monero?


Its super easy. Just install monero cart if you're using Windows. They have a pretty cozy chatroom too. 
Its worth saying that mining it is a money loser, you are essentially donating electricity to the community. 
If you want to accrue it by mining, mine ethereum on a pool that supports paying its miners in monero.


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## The Ugly One (Feb 2, 2022)

You need to have dollars because if you don't have as many dollars as the IRS says you owe the federal government, you go to jail. Doesn't matter what you believe about central banking, gold, free markets, socialism, or whatever. Do you like being not in jail? You'll keep using dollars.


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## secretchan (Feb 8, 2022)

Bitcoin is not unsustainable, it has grown nonstop to become the largest and most decentralized network on the entire planet in about 13 years with absolutely 0 downtime. It wont be replaced by a competitor, because no other project can do what bitcoin did.


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## LORD IMPERATOR (Feb 22, 2022)

At any time, the feds or the Russians and Chinese can pull the plug on bitcoin.

They oughtright seized bitcoins during their war against the Silk Road drug website. Also, Russia and China supply the cheap fuel to keep bitcoin going; what happens when they pull the plug? All your savings go down the drain.

Plus, the whole thing operates as a ponzi scheme. The older holders of bitcoin make money by waiting until the currency gains value before selling it to the newer wave of suckers, and those suckers will then make money by waiting until bitcoin gets a higher value before selling it or exchanging it for fiat money.

Think. Why would people sell bitcoin for fiat money that's going to be worthless, if bitcoin is supposed to be the currency of the future? Wouldn't they want to hoard it the way feudal lords hoarded gold underneath their beds in the old days?

All this nonsense, and people could have just bartered gold, jewelry, and precious stones. At the end of the day, bitcoin was good for nothing outside of speculation and drug money.


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## Tuturesque (Feb 25, 2022)

Going back to OP, I don't believe mining is unsustainable, at least in the face of innovation. What is interesting about mining to me is that it can generate a lot of heat without having to combust anything. Just heat radiating from off electronic components. To me, that's going to be the next phase in the bitcoin mining scene, generating heat from bitcoin mining, then converting that heat into something useful. There's this one company in Norway, for example, that uses the heat from bitcoin mining to dry wood and seaweed. There's also some heater companies that use bitcoin mining as a way to save people money heating up their homes: 









						Homepage
					

The world's first Crypto-Currency Heater  It's means of production instead of commercial goods  This heater is the result of 5 years of development by our team. Its patented technology has been designed to dissipate a soft and comfortable heat, and is fully integrated with the finest materials...




					bitcoinminingheater.com
				











						Heatbit - electric heater that earns you money
					

Heatbit - electric heater that earns you money Hashpower: 14 TH/s Power consumption: 1.3 kW (110-120v/220-240v) Weight: 31 lbs / 14 kg




					heatbit.com
				




This is all rather bleeding edge, so the technology is still maybe 5 years out from being anything useful or practical. That said, the potential remains, Similar to how a butcher makes sure to use every last cut from an animal as possible, I see people squeezing every last drop of utility out of bitcoin mining. I picture the first adopters will be HVAC companies, setting up commercial systems for large companies, where the size of the mining farm would make sense, relative to the cost to build it, and the money saved from the bitcoin mined.


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## The Ugly One (Feb 25, 2022)

secretchan said:


> Bitcoin is not unsustainable, it has grown nonstop to become the largest and most decentralized network on the entire planet in about 13 years with absolutely 0 downtime. It wont be replaced by a competitor, because no other project can do what bitcoin did.


Crack hasn't gone away, either, but the government's done a pretty good job of making sure most people don't touch the trade.


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## Kosher Dill (Feb 25, 2022)

Tuturesque said:


> What is interesting about mining to me is that it can generate a lot of heat without having to combust anything. Just heat radiating from off electronic components.


We've had that technology for over a century, it's called the "light bulb".
Electrically speaking, a CPU, GPU, or ASIC is just a fancier light bulb that diverts some energy into performing interesting calculations.


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## NewRetroVagina23 (Feb 25, 2022)

HumanHive said:


> None of this will matter when Biden executive orders Bitcoin out of existence.


If the FEDs were that concerned with Bitcoin it'd already be going the way of Monero.


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## Tuturesque (Feb 25, 2022)

Kosher Dill said:


> We've had that technology for over a century, it's called the "light bulb".
> Electrically speaking, a CPU, GPU, or ASIC is just a fancier light bulb that diverts some energy into performing interesting calculations.


Well yeah, we've had cars for over a century too, but most people aren't driving cars from 100 years ago because they're inefficient compared to newer tech. Besides, we're not exactly going to light up houses with asics, similar to how we're not going to heat up buildings with a light bulb.


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## Kosher Dill (Feb 25, 2022)

Tuturesque said:


> similar to how we're not going to heat up buildings with a light bulb


But we do.








						Electric Resistance Heating
					

Electric resistance heating can be expensive to operate, but may be appropriate if you heat a room infrequently or if it would be expensive to exte...




					www.energy.gov
				



Same with electric ovens, the "heating element" works the same way as a light bulb filament, just tuned not to dump so much energy out as visible light.

Point being, converting electricity to heat is already something we do at extremely high efficiency for low cost, so it's not really a selling point for any new technology.
_If_ we have a new technology that's worth using on its own merits, putting the heat to use can be an added bonus. Some datacenters find uses for the heat all their servers generate.


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## Tuturesque (Feb 25, 2022)

Kosher Dill said:


> But we do.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This is fair enough, I think where I get caught up is lightbulbs being used for heat. In the link, the device is used for heating, not lighting. Lightbulbs have generally gotten cooler as time goes on. The main selling point for the bitcoin miners as heating devices is that they generate revenue in the form of bitcoin. While a data center can be profitable, an asic is a lot simpler a device, and the cost to set-up and maintain a mining farm would be much lower.


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## Secret Messages (Feb 25, 2022)

LORD IMPERATOR said:


> At any time, the feds or the Russians and Chinese can pull the plug on bitcoin.
> 
> They oughtright seized bitcoins during their war against the Silk Road drug website. Also, Russia and China supply the cheap fuel to keep bitcoin going; what happens when they pull the plug? All your savings go down the drain.
> 
> ...


Nobody can seize bitcoin from the network, the feds tracked him down and he agreed to forfeit the funds. Also , really, when there is demand for an asset, the value of it goes up and people that hold it benefit? Great analysis. Your point about China and Russia keeping bitcoin mining running with cheap fuel is ignorant as well. Bitcoin difficulty adjusts with the hashrate of the network, if they stopped mining it would just become easier for everyone else. this reply is dumb and if you knew anything about the thing you’re lambasting I wouldn’t have to tell you why.


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## byuu (Feb 25, 2022)

Tuturesque said:


> Well yeah, we've had cars for over a century too, but most people aren't driving cars from 100 years ago because they're inefficient compared to newer tech. Besides, we're not exactly going to light up houses with asics, similar to how we're not going to heat up buildings with a light bulb.


Electrical heating is 100% efficient by definition, since any "losses" end up being heat anyway.
There's nothing modern technology can solve there.

It's still a wasteful costly method to generate heat in most places. You take the electrical energy that a plant had to generate from heat just to turn it into heat again. The few cents you make mining won't even offset the high costs for the miners.


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## SnekTheRat (Feb 25, 2022)

I invested in bitcoin briefly a few years ago for a lack. I doubled my money and cashed out luckily before a dip, and never bought back in. It's an interesting concept, and I do agree with some of the intentions behind it. Even so, it led me to consider some of the philosophical problems behind currency systems in general, and when investigating further, I just got confused. Oh well, an economist I'll never be. 

As for advice: invest in a trade. Everyone needs goods and services, and I doubt that will change anytime soon. Investment advice? Get insider info. It works for politicians...


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## The Ugly One (Feb 25, 2022)

byuu said:


> Electrical heating is 100% efficient by definition, since any "losses" end up being heat anyway.



I worked for a place that used heat from the server racks to reduce their heating bill during the year. It wasn't a net gain, because the summer got pretty hot, and all that heat had to be blown off. Thermodynamics has a way of making you pay, no matter how smart you think you are.


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## Lone MacReady (Feb 26, 2022)

Stayed away from bitcoin and coinbase because they didn't seem anonymous. Then the Canadian government proved it for me, and coinbase worked with them. I'll be staying away from valueless digits that can be tracked, not much different from FEDcoin. Back those digits with physical Gold and maybe I'll look its way.


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## Just wandering (Feb 26, 2022)

feedtheoctopus said:


> Lol remember when El Salvador started accepting bitcoin as legal tender and their economy immediately went into fucking freefall?


what happened? I'm curious


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## serious n00b (Feb 26, 2022)

byuu said:


> Who gives a shit.


You, clearly.


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## byuu (Feb 27, 2022)

serious n00b said:


> You, clearly.


No, I can honestly say that I don't care at all about the currency Zimbabwe currently uses since it was just a random example of a crappy currency.


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## ToroidalBoat (Feb 27, 2022)

I don't know how cryptocurrency or "NFT" works, but to me it seems that money that's inherently digital - of a realm with no inherent scarcity - doesn't sound reliable.

Especially since digital can be vulnerable to crap like cyber attacks and malfunctions, and depends on complex centralized industry.


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## Kosher Dill (Feb 27, 2022)

ToroidalBoat said:


> but to me it seems that money that's inherently digital - of a realm with no inherent scarcity - doesn't sound reliable.


We're already using digital money with no inherent scarcity, it's called the "dollar". Or the "euro", or dozens of others. The majority of fiat currency currently in existence is just ones and zeroes, not coins and bills.
The real question is whether a public blockchain is a better way of managing digital money than the way we currently do it.


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## ToroidalBoat (Feb 27, 2022)

Kosher Dill said:


> We're already using digital money with no inherent scarcity, it's called the "dollar". Or the "euro", or dozens of others.


That's why I said "inherently digital", but it looks like there's fiat money that never was cash, and likely never will be.


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## Hollywood Hulk Hogan (Mar 15, 2022)

Just wandering said:


> what happened? I'm curious


Using a currency that can drop 50% of its value in a week is generally not a good idea


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## hooboy (Mar 15, 2022)

Hollywood Hulk Hogan said:


> Using a currency that can drop 50% of its value in a week is generally not a good idea


Next you’re going to tell me not to use the Ruble


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## Tuturesque (Mar 17, 2022)

Hollywood Hulk Hogan said:


> Using a currency that can drop 50% of its value in a week is generally not a good idea


Calling it a currency is a misnomer, at least in the US. It's treated as property instead, which is why capital gains tax applies to it. Should really be called digital asset, as that's more honest about what it is. You are right though, a 50% drop makes it very difficult to use. That's what makes stable coins so necessary.


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## Gimmick Account (Mar 17, 2022)

Grog said:


> If the cost of mining Bitcoin becomes too much for some guy to maintain a mining farm and he stops, then the rest of the miners earn more, because the amount that is released as a reward for mining blocks is fixed. It simply gets distributed among the miners depending on how much computing power they're contributing.


No, except in the monte carlo random sense of it over time, nothing is distributed like that. Winner gets the prize. There are miner pools that do that kind of thing but it's outside bitcoin itself.

But what does happen is puzzle difficulty is recalculated periodically (I forget how many blocks but it works out to about every 2 weeks iirc) to try to keep the average time between new blocks to 10 minutes.
So by design the more mining power there is the more expensive it gets to produce a block. But that also means as block rewards eventually hit zero new coins and only transaction fees can be taken, mining difficulty will also balance out if it's not economical at higher puzzle strengths.

There's other potential issues in the protocol that can't be fixed currently but the longest-chain rule is basically a voting mechanism that means they eventually will be if not doing so isn't economical. Nerds have been arguing about solutions for years so they'll exist before it gets to that point.
So not optimal but it won't reach unsustainability barring someone fucking things up with their secret ayy quantum orbs


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## SphinxItOver (Mar 17, 2022)

CryptoCoins as a monetary system is ephemeral due to technological growth, it's necessary abstraction atop infrastructure, resource consumption, cost of intelligence to participate, and it's speculative nature. It is in essence the concepts+risks of stocks and modern monetary theory merged into a digital entity but with the problems of 'centralization' and resource consumption in order for it to be retained/used. Any system that excludes individuals from participation can not be universal without worsening the class divides; cost of intelligence and resource consumption creates this filter/barrier of exclusion and allows scams to take place. Cryptocurrency will eventually be forced by world governments as a new Reserve Currency. Burdening their populations with more debt, transferring more wealth to the 'elites' along with control. Tracking/tracing as they de-legitimize unapproved crypto exchanges and seize/tax current existing coins into non existence. RIP Mt. Gox. The digital Yuan already exists, the digital Dollar will follow. All hail the future of digital slavery; wage slave 2.0! Can't wait to laugh during future cyberwar skirmishes doing JS/web browser supply chain attacks eventually destroying entire chains/wallets/cert authorities.

tl;dr: speed run currency. buy & sell now. hope you do it quick enough to not be left holding an empty bag or jail time.


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