What’s a digital currency without mining, and how does it differ from regular fiat money today?
I take it GP meant mining without gigantic electricity consumption: so not proof-of-stake but proof-of-work
> ... and how does it differ from regular fiat money today?
There was a discussion here a few days ago where people were trying to determine how many swiss bills were circulating... Someone commented on the irony, in a thread hating on cryptocurrencies, that anyone at anytime can know exactly how many, say, Bitcoin or Ethereum do actually exists.
There are other difference between government issued money and cryptocurrencies: for example some cryptocurrencies have a fixed, carved in stone, supply curve and so you can know beforehand exactly how many are going to be mined each year.
This is quite different, for example, from Venezuela's bolivar: Maduro just announced that 1 000 0000 bolivian bills were going to be printed now.
Isn’t there a distinction between issued/minted currency and the amount in circulation? With Bitcoin and physical cash you know how many coins are minted and notes issued etc.
But how much of that is in circulation? Does lost physical currency still qualify as in circulation? What about Bitcoin wallets long lost by their owners (such as the British man who keeps wanting a rubbish dump to search for a HDD he threw out years ago, or the person who forgot his password and has 2 attempts left until the wallet self destructs). I don’t think either currency can accurately track the amount in circulation.
For paper money, the fraction that gets destroyed is probably small enough to not matter.
but with coins/cash the actual circulation can exceed what the government claims to have issued, through counterfeits or malfeasance (ie. the government under-reporting the issuance).
You could do this in any centrally digitally managed currency too. You could probably do it with a blockchain currency too if you get enough people to agree to the change.
Of course, if you don't like this, there's always the gold standard.....
> You could probably do it with a blockchain currency too if you get enough people to agree to the change.
That's a huge difference. The fed can print money whenever they want, whereas with bitcoin they need to convince a supermajority of the miners and users, otherwise they end up with a forked chain like bitcoin cash/gold/sv.
If governments can subsidize the mining process, can't they also subsidize the staking process?
I honestly wonder when and how changing your mind became a bad thing.
Show me someone whose thoughts or ideas don't evolve and I'll show you someone who's wasting their life.
New information should ideally get people to re-evaluate their initial opinions about something (ideally).
And another thing which changed is that, every time the price of Bitcoin increases, it can (and will) use more power (the amount of power a Bitcoin miner uses is limited by how much power it can buy with the mining rewards, because if it used more power than that, it would be mining at a loss). There's a lot of difference between when one Bitcoin was USD 1, when it was USD 4000, and now that it's over USD 50000. Someone who was OK with how much power the Bitcoin network used back when the per-block mining reward was around USD 50, might not be OK with how much power the Bitcoin network uses now that the per-block mining reward is over USD 325000.
[citation needed]
> "If Bitcoin is so bad for using as much energy as Argentina, then we should stop using energy to stream entertainment, which we are doing now more than ever."
Until we get off fossil-fuel based electricity, all environmental arguments are going to be based off marginal utility. There's a trade-off.
I personally think that Bitcoin at best is an unregulated financial market and at worst fake internet money. The fact mining contributes to more energy consumption than entire countries is worrying to me. It's a problem that's only going to get worse.
On the other hand, let's look at your argument about streaming entertainment. Currently plugged into my house, I have 2 TVs and 4 computer monitors. I use these to stream entertainment (among other things). Is it wasteful? Yeah, but entertainment is necessary for a balanced life and mental well-being.
Are my 6 screens wasteful? To some extent, although most of that waste is a byproduct of manufacturing where the 'off' button doesn't turn my screens off; it just puts then in a sleep mode which consumes power. So all 6 screens consume some amount of electricity 24 hours a day. This is a problem which should be fixed.
This is a problem with most modern appliances. It contributes to enough excess energy consumption that it even has its own name--vampire electricity.
You see? People can have critiques of both at the same time. But even if you take all the vampire electricity my appliances consume, it's still a drop in the bucket compared with what it takes to mine fake internet money.
I also put my money where my mouth is! I drive electric and charge only at my employer, which uses 100% solar. I don’t eat meat. I shop at package free groceries. I eat as much local food as possible. I don’t stream movies or music.
We exist, my friend, but that’s besides the point. There are no saints in systems as complex as energy. You can only take aim at the big stuff and hope you can make an impact.
Bitcoin is entirely unnecessary, unlike eating and driving. Participating is a choice. And it’s a bad choice.
Yes, that's a problem in my view. Observing that it is the status quo doesn't rationalize it or further prohibitions to defend price controls.
I'm not sure if you would regard it as naive, but price controls are widely regarded as inefficient distortions of a market.
So the idea that price controls and nationalization somehow causes inefficiency in this case is just a tale economists tell themselves. In the real world, all of the most successful energy grids use those tools.
In other words, you're arguing against reality.
The most I could say is that there may be unseen costs of nationalization. I.e. it could be cheaper still if privatized, but that is further afield from the discussion. In HN parlance I suppose I could demand that you provide evidence and sources proving the same power stations wouldn't operate more efficiently under private ownership, but I don't think that would be fair or friendly.
It's not a business, either.
But Hydro Quebec has a total monopoly and zero competition in Quebec, by law. It's not a market.
Even if hydro itself isn't making more revenue than its direct costs, if it increases the tax revenues for the government by better uses of the electricity, the government is still making a profit
There are unseen benefits to nationalization too, not just costs
If you think that I am overextending the term free market, then you must agree that there are no energy free markets? There are two options here. Either there are, and they are all suboptimal to at least some state run solutions, or they don't exist, in which case my argument still applies.
Yes, many places have hydropower. Some have more than others. There are also population, consumption concerns relative to the supply. The Wikipedia article notes that the Quebecois authorities subsidize aluminum smelters with a goal of job creation. Perhaps the market price could be even cheaper without this subsidy?
Electricity markets are generally highly regulated, public-private partnerships or outright nationalized. I don't see a dispute here or an argument.
Observing that something is commonplace isn't a rationalization of the efficiency or morality of the practice.
>you are arguing against reality.
This isn't helpful. Different individuals have different observations, experiences, perceptions and thus opinions. That's healthy. It is the source of discussion. Would it be helpful if I characterized this turn of phrase as you arguing for an exclusive license on "reality"?
No, I don't think that would advance the discussion at all, but it would be equivalent to what you've offered in my view.
The first is way more efficient and allows for much lower electricity rates, and the second is the only way to get the economics right to allow for growth.
That comes inevitably with regulatory restrictions on what you can do and how you can do it. Forbidding people using coal power to mine bitcoin is more than reasonable and indeed typical as far as energy use regulations go.