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Comment by stretchwithme | Hacker News Reader

How wasteful crypto is depends on how its energy consumption compares to the energy consumption of the traditional banking system.

What is the energy consumption of armed trucks anyway? How much energy is required to build a bank branch?

Sure, the transaction charges are tiny with Bitcoin and storage is free. Is that an indicator of the differences in total energy consumption once the mining is over?

Also, what is the total energy consumed by coping with fiat currency's inflation? Probably should include that.

I think some hyperinflation events also contribute to wars happening. These use energy too.

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But BTC does not replace the banking system. The banking system does way way way more than simply hold money in accounts and send it places. I could sort of buy this argument for something like Ethereum that is truly programmable, but even if BTC completely takes over and no other currencies exist then there will still be banks and bank branches.

The discussion of inflation and wars is just fantasy. Everybody in the world using BTC isn't going to end standing armies.

It hasn't replaced it. But it does compete with it for some things.

Payments with BTC certainly isn't competitive. But that probably won't last.

Maybe we'll still need branches. Not everybody can deal with the security required for crypto and there will probably be companies that help people treat it like a regular bank.

Inflation is a real issue and Hitler came to power after the hyperinflation in the Weimar republic. Fiat made that possible.

But Germany still would have had to pay the WW1 reparations somehow. With very high taxation probably.

But the hyperinflation happens after multiple years of expanding the currency too much, often with little impact for several years. That can destroy confidence in government in a way that consistently high but stable taxation might not.

Heard it here first. Fiat money caused the holocaust.

Hyperinflation is not the result of monetary policy. Hyperinflation is the result of near total collapse of systems. BTC is absolutely not immune to hyperinflation. That's just what happens when the price of some currency tanks rapidly as people lose all trust in its stability. The mining cap does not prevent the collapse of BTC as a currency or the collapse of states that use it. Not even a little.

I don't how stable your systems are. If too much print currency is printed, prices will rise. And if the printing is great enough and sustained long enough, hyperinflation will result.

Does a stable supply of a currency, coupled with collapsed systems, create hyperinflation?

Does a currency's value only drop up where systems collapse and not suffer hyperinflation elsewhere where systems are working?

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