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Comment by hapticmonkey | Hacker News Reader

Does the army and law enforcement not use energy?

Do banks not have server farms?

Okay, back up a little. Crypto miners mine crypto in order to become rich. With national currencies, this is impossible. Citizens cannot create their own currency, and that's a good thing. If money could be easily forged, it would either be worthless, or a speculative instrument, like every crypto in existence. National governments are the source and the only legal creators of money.

Crypto mining also makes the blockchain secure. What this means is that a malicious individual cannot, say, transfer crypto from another person's wallet to his own, or alter the software algorithm that controls the creation of the cryptocurrency.

Proof of work cryptocurrencies require miners to expend an enormous quantity of energy in order to prevent problems that national currencies don't have in the first place. Cryptocurrencies have no advantage over national currencies except for anonymous online transactions.

> National governments are the source and the only legal creators of money.

And those closest to the money printer benefit. And hint, the average joe is furthest from the printer. The future of the average joe is stolen via currency debasement and inflation, but those closest to the printer get richer.

It's people who hold debt who are robbed by inflation, not people who are in debt. The entire political program of the people closest to the money printer is to reduce inflation (and to lower government debt without changing the balance of payments, which by necessity shifts that same debt to individuals.)

How would moving to cryptocurrency reduce the need of energy for military and law enforcement, or the need for server farms in banks?

I don't think that was the point. The point was that you can't have security without energy expenditure.

Securing private keys is much cheaper than securing physical property.

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