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Comment by agentultra | Hacker News Reader

> Additionally, Germany has 1,430 Bitcoin nodes, representing 9.08% of the total global nodes, putting it in second place in nodes held just behind the United States and ahead of France, with only 3.35%.

This doesn't sound like something Germany should be proud of. Haven't they been shutting down their nuclear plants and relying on/expanding coal usage to keep up with demands (while slowly trying to replace supply with alternatives)?

> One study found that the nuclear phase-out caused $12 billion in social costs per year, primarily due to increases in mortality due to exposure to pollution from fossil fuels. [0]

And it's reliance on Russia for gas and coal... it seems like Bitcoin mining is something they ought to be discouraging.

What's the reasoning behind a move like this?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany

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Bitcoin Nodes are often simple computers. You can run your own node on cheap commodity hardware and they are not particularly resource intensive. The main concern with these machines is drive space.

Bitcoin miners are the big energy consumers. Nodes help validate the network but they do not perform the intensive proof of work calculations.

You can run a node on your phone... Node is a different thing from a miner.

One day we'll have the conversation about how the anti-crypto conversation is mostly gross groupthink and at least two or three struggling devrel influencers are now anti-crypto media darlings. If you're going to push an agenda at least make it one that wasn't handed to you shrink wrapped.

?? If one isn't all-in on cryptocurrency, it only must be because they're influenced by anti-crypto shills?

I've been thinking about digital money for 25 years. I have an early proof-of-work patent. I very much think for myself.

I really don't like proof-of-work for ledgers: they're resource intensive and wasteful. I don't really like abrogating the power of states and central banks to mint unbacked currency to various coalitions. And this looks like a scary, poorly regulated asset bubble that may pop with rather extreme effects.

Defense overspending is wasteful. Plastic wrapping everything is wasteful. Not using public transport is wasteful. People streaming media is wasteful.

Proof of work? The entire worldwide bitcoin network uses less power that all the appliances in stand-by mode just in America, and I still have to see someone complaining about how wasteful stand-by mode is. Now, suddenly, the Bitcoin network is wasteful.

This is not ecological consciousness. This is Luddism all over again. A bunch of old people scared about the world changing.

Appliances serve clear purposes for the entire population. I am yet to here of a meaningful Bitcoin purpose, even for the small handful of “investors.”

Well, here's a meaningful purpose by yours truly. I live in Spain and in Argentina. I have to regularly send money to Argentina. International transfers to Argentina are really expensive. Also, in Argentina the currency exchange is being manipulated by the government, like what happens in Venezuela. And all transfers have to be at the exchange rate dictated by the government.

Except for crypto currencies. They operate in a grey market, not forbidden, not approved.

Without bitcoin, I'd have to transfer money at the oficial rate, and I'd have to have another person on the other side filling the endless paperwork they require. With bitcoin (litecoin nowadays, cheaper transactions) it's done in a few hours.

> Proof of work? The entire worldwide bitcoin network uses less power that all the appliances in stand-by mode just in America, and I still have to see someone complaining about how wasteful stand-by mode is.

We've spent tons of money and had massive amounts of regulation and standards over the past couple of decades to try and reduce standby power. It's presently estimated at 5-10% of US power, versus 10-20% a couple decades ago. A relatively big share of it is very old devices.

I'm not opposed to distributed ledgers. Proof of stake will be augmented to provide nearly the same level of guarantee as proof of work, without all the power draw.

that is not by any stretch of the imagination what I am saying. I also am very very far from all in on crypto ideologically and financially.

The poster above was parroting concerns du jour about bitcoin miners to shit on a policy regarding bitcoin nodes. I'm just saying lets be serious in our critiques.

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