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Comment by wmf | Hacker News Reader

incredible amounts of energy compared to the value this gives us

Note that the value of ETH is higher than the value of the energy needed to mine it; that's why people mine. So is your complaint really about mispricing of energy (externalities) or about other people having different values than you?

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Well, the price of ETH is higher than the price of the energy needed to mine it. The energy consumed has demonstrable value, but that's yet not true for ETH. As many people have said here, it's experimental. And of course, there's a fair bit of financial speculation going on. But as far as I know, it's generating no significant value on its own.

What does it even mean "demonstrable value"?

If a person is willing to spend money (for energy, or for buying crypto on an exchange), we can say crypto has "demonstrable value" for that person, no matter what they want to do with that crypto.

By your theory, every Ponzi scheme and pigeon drop has demonstrable value.

I agree that spending money and receiving value are correlated. I just don't think they're identical.

Does it have value to society? That is the question. Of course it has value to people if they are willing to pay for it.

I think something only has value to people if they purchase it repeatedly and end up satisfied with the outcome over the relevant time scale. People pay for speeding tickets, but nobody's very excited about them. You can ask many ex-smokers (and any emphysema patient) about the value of cigarettes. And as a kid I had to learn a lesson about ordering stuff advertised in comic books; I was willing to pay, but often didn't receive value.

"other people having different values than you" makes it sound like the value of ETH is purely a matter of personal opinion. It is, however, possible to fundamentally misprice an asset. I think OP is arguing that the ultimate real-world utility of ETH is not accurately reflected by its price.

It's about the price of generating the electricity in terms of the damage it does to the environment (rather than dollar amount) compared to the value the cryptocurrencies generate. Most people look just at electricity costs and not electricity costs AND environmental costs.

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