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Comment by pastor_bob | Hacker News Reader

It's amazing what a positive impact bitcoin and crypto has had on the world. And it only has just begun. I feel like we're standing on the precipice of a truly new, better age. Once the dinosaurs like Bill Gates of Micro$oft move on who knows what we'll see.

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You could replace Bitcoin with lottery winnings and get the same takeaway. I'm glad that someone who decided to gamble on Internet Fun Bucks has decided to do something worthwhile with their windfall, but nothing here is inherently tied to crypto.

Bitcoin has done nothing but waste energy and computational resources in order to reallocate money between nerds and the unfortunate normies that've been duped into thinking it'll make them rich quickly. That's not something we should be celebrating.

>Bitcoin has done nothing but waste energy and computational resources in order to reallocate money between nerds and the unfortunate normies that've been duped into thinking it'll make them rich quickly. That's not something we should be celebrating.

This thread is about a fund that was created because of bitcoin earnings. So I'm sorry but your rude and tasteless comment does not hold water.

Where the money came from is irrelevant. And wasting energy and computer equipment to create play money for idiots who want to ignore why decades of banking regulation have been implemented is way more "rude and tasteless" than mean words on the Internet. The fact that a small amount of money being shuffled around went to a good cause is nice but doesn't offset the truly exquisite amount of waste the entire crypto ecosystem generates.

What about the waste generated by the banking system? Banks have to use electricity in order to operate, right? I haven't seen anybody complain about them as if they are eco-friendly or something. Or is it that since we are depending on our banks, they can do whatever they like but bitcoin being a ponzi scheme (or that's what I read on reddit) is an easy target to comment about on the Internets? As if Chinese miners have hooked their ASICs in your neighborhood's power supply. It is fascinating how people turn eco-friendly just to bash something but are part of a totally anti-ecological society.

The banking system's energy use is incidental and embracing greener practices is entirely within reach. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has energy waste as a feature that cannot be divorced from how it works. The entire thing works because computers are burning energy to find nonces, and the more people are using Bitcoin, the harder the hashing becomes, which uses even more power. The entire proof of work concept system is irredeemably linked to wasting energy and gets even worse with more adopters for a system that can barely handle 10 transactions a second. At least the banking system accomplishes something for its energy usage and that usage isn't intrinsically part of its functionality.

> energy waste as a feature that cannot be divorced from how it works

Er, this is entirely false. Proof of Authority, Proof of Stake, and a handful of other schemes which do not require large amounts of compute are possible. Bitcoin itself has not "switched" due to stagnated innovation and politicking, but it's entirely false to say that PoW "cannot be divorced from how [bitcoin] works"

I'm sure we're all victims of our own bias, but yours seems particularly vitriolic. There are nations out there bending over backwards to subsidize coal, build missiles, frack the earth, etc. Some compute being used on BTC instead of JavaScript or Videogames or whatever else would be consuming those CPUs is _hardly_ some vast evil.

He was specifically talking about proof of work though, which indeed is inherently wasteful. And seeing the whole block size issue, it seems impossible bitcoin would ever move away from proof of work.

I'm not sure you realize the scale: Bitcoin uses more electricity than entire countries. It uses as much electricity as 6 million US households. It's magnitudes more than VISA, despite the latter handling many more transactions.

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

This is a story about a generous person - crypto currencies themselves are little more than Ponzi schemes

I think Reddit is the community you're looking for if you're going to post these kinds of comments.

Typically comments on HN require more substance to be taken seriously.

Oh come on... using the term Micro$oft ?

It hasn't been 1997 for at least 10 years.

^ math checks out

Bill Gates may have done some questionable business practices but he has donated more than most of us could ever dream to earn.

Yes, when he passes it will be interesting. But not because your reasoning, because his foundation will have his wealth as a trust to continue doing good.

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