Hacker News Reader

Comment by cyphertruck | Hacker News Reader

This is basically fake news. The plant serves regular customers, and since it costs a lot to fire it up or shut it down, during the period where there is excess supply of electricity it is used to mine bitcoin. Unless you have a huge expensive and unavailable (due to constrained supply of cells) mega battery pack you cannot store that energy.

Globally, bitcoins’ entire energy usage is equal to just 1/6th of the surplus energy that is THROWN AWAY.

All this Bitcoin energy usage nonsense is FUD to keep people oppressed and using a currency that the politicians can inflate at will.

Due to the cantillon effect it is very profitable for wall street and politicians like congress to steal from the masses this way. This is the primary cause of wealth inequality.

Bitcoin fixes this, it gives regular people an escape, so they publish FUD against it.

View on HN

"Bitcoin fixes this, it gives regular people an escape"

Really? It seems to have made a small group of early adopters very rich, a small group of insiders very rich, and a large group of people suckered into buying at 60k+ very poor.

I'm not really bullish or bearish on cryptocurrency, but it has a long way to go until it's something for "regular people".

I don't think you understand. The mere fact that it COULD potentially be used by anyone is a defense against all complaints. Because democracy. Like a magic charm you see. No I have never read any theory or heard the phrase "material conditions" why do you ask.

I'm exaggerating but I fucking swear this is the level of sophistication we get from actual crypto fiends in here.

It’s sad you refused to mount an actual argument and instead are engaging in ad hominem based on a strawman you erected.

But that’s fine, keep believing bitcoiners are dumb and keep bashing bitcoin.

That’s actually better for me. HFSP

There actually is an argument in there I just trusted people to be able to see it through the joke.

Should have known better.

It seems that way because you are not aware if how it is being used in practice. As a savings vehicle, holding for 4 years has never been a mistake. Globally, and for half a decade, it has been protecting poor people by giving them an exit. Millions of Venezuelans have avoided starvation by using it to avoid massive inflation destroying their savings. It is held in every country and every community.

I remember comments just like yours in the past 4 years who pretended like everyone got in at $20k (a price that existed for a day).

Average price over past 4 years is way below todays price. And todays price is only down due to this coordinated FUD attack.

PS— I am the only one who made a substantive comment on this thread and am being heavily down voted.

HN isn't a place of ideas, it is a place where where only a narrow, anti-human rights, ideology is tolerated.

This is total rubbish: "HN isn't a place of ideas, it is a place where where only a narrow, anti-human rights, ideology is tolerated."

If you really believe this then you seriously need to time off to reflect. It simply isn't true. Where is good, the bitcoin community on twitter?

Yes lots of people have made money off crypto. It's hard to say how many as I'm not aware of any research into this figure.

That doesn't negate the criticism thrown at cryptocurrencies. Criticism demonstrates playing with ideas.

Notice your entire response is a downvote and the assertion “that is total rubbish”. Not a rebuttal. Not even an attempt to address the point, followed with a personal attack.

Telling me I need a time out is exactly the kind of personal attack that is really just your confession that you are anti-intellectual and you are upset that I pointed out the hypocrisy.

And of course you want me to take a “time out” because the last thing you want is to be confronted with facts that undermine your bigotry.

So I've asked for an example of a community that is good. Can you give any?

Honestly I'd be really interested in knowing about it.

On Bitcoin, do you honestly not think there is no cult like behaviours with this movement? No shilling? No ignoring inconvenient facts?

I'm not an enermy. I'm happy to have an engaged discussion here.

The idea that hacker news is toxic does strike me as absurd. It's not perfect but it's well designed for polite engagement.

I'm more than happy to discuss bitcoin with you too. I feel like I've been straw manned.

How can inflation cause starvation, can you elaborate? This is novel idea in the field of economics.

I'm very aware of how it's used in practice.

I stand by my point that this has miles to go before it's for "regular people" and you kind of prove it in your response. Sure, if you had cash to put into bitcoin and hold for 4 years, you might have made more - but most "regular people" do not. The swings are far too wild to price anything in BTC (rather than peg it to another currency and convert it to BTC) so ultimately we're all still cashing out for dollars or pounds, and someone has to lose for that to happen. If you're an early adopter, or and insider, you know the perfect time to cash out and "buy the dip". 'Regular people' not so much.

My comment was not an attack on you, cryptocurrency, human-rights or anything else. I'm sure you've done very well from Bitcoin - but it's not ready for my mum.

> This is basically fake news. The plant serves regular customers, and since it costs a lot to fire it up or shut it down, during the period where there is excess supply of electricity it is used to mine bitcoin.

That’s not true.

The power plant in upstate New York has been offline for almost a decade. It was purchased and reactivated specifically to mine Bitcoin. https://www.nysfocus.com/2021/04/13/new-york-bitcoin-mining-...

The power plant in Montana was due to close in 2018, until they realized they could sell the power to Bitcoin miners. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/bitcoin-miner-mar...

Linking to fake news repeating the same spin is not supporting a fake news article. The plants serve retail customers. The “just to mine bitcoin” is a lie told to try and bash bitcoin.

Reality is bitcoin is being mined with stranded natural gas, waste energy etc. Not with expensive high demand electricity— because that electricity is way too expensive.

Here is a direct quote from the NY plant owner’s SEC filing [1]:

> No direct competitor currently owns and operates its own power plant for the purpose of Bitcoin mining.

[1] https://corporate.support.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Gre...

> All this Bitcoin energy usage nonsense is FUD to keep people oppressed and using a currency that the politicians can inflate at will.

There is some serious cognitive dissonance if losing 1-4% to inflation a year is unacceptable but a billionaire's tweet costing you 30-40% is completely fine.

I don’t think you understand how power plants work

This is exactly how old coal and biomass plants work. You can throttle them back when power prices are bad, but shutting down and restarting are expensive, multi-hour processes. Sometimes the spot price is negative, and dumping that electricity into anything is better than putting it on the grid. In some cases before bitcoin they've located aluminum smelters nearby to use excess generating capacity in the same way.

Inflation the primary cause of wealth inequality? What is this nonsense?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com