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Comment by qbxk | Hacker News Reader

I know you'll all call me crazy, but this is the system working at its finest

Riot, by simply existing and pursuing their mission to mine bitcoin, provides a valuable service by discovering the real price a kWh should cost. Since Riot will never overpay for electricity, (they'll simply scale back their use) and they'll happily gobble up as much as they can when electricity is "too cheap" they ensure that the amount of generation is constantly matched to the demand, adjusting for every conceivable variable in an economy in real-time. ERCOT and the consumers of the Texas grid also benefit from this hyper-efficient cost discovery system, every single second of every single day.

It's not just better than the stock market, it's capitalistic principles working exactly they way they've always dreamt of.

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" the consumers of the Texas grid also benefit from this hyper-efficient cost discovery system"

I can't understand how someone that only serves to drive up the price benefits anyone except the power companies

by setting a floor on the price, and minimum for demand, they guarantee predictable revenues to those seeking to invest in or expand their power generating capabilities

it seems to me that "those seeking to invest in or expand their power generating capabilities" falls into the category of "power companies".

Perhaps you mean to include also individuals with solar panels on their roof or whatever but thats a vanishingly small portion of both companies and individuals.

yes, that's right, i should have added the conclusion: by increasing supply, price goes down, that's how consumers benefit.

But they are increasing demand, not supply. You are theorizing that somewhere someone will build more supply because the increased demand is increasing the price to consumers, which is not what I would call a consumer benefit while they wait for that someone to get their giant power plant built to offset the completely useless bitcoin mining.

How is this a “hyper-efficient” system if the electricity is just wasted? Note that there is a massive negative externality (climate change!) to generating electricity, depending on the generation method of course.

You may as well just have the government set a price floor.

I feel like I could make a pretty good analogy about an arsonist burning down houses and how that would be a great way to create a hyper-efficient market that would tell us the true cost of housing, insurance, construction supplies and labor, etc. ie, your opinion sounds a lot like the the broken window fallacy.

But I don't worship the market above all, and I'm of the opinion that any type of system (capitalism, socialism, whatever) exists to serve the needs of a society, not to be a system in it's own right to serve it's own "needs" (whatever those may be.) But I also think there's a strong argument to be made that mining bitcoin is not a net benefit for society.

I have a different definition of healthy capitalism, a system that enables people to fulfill their needs/wants while maximizing collective happiness. Wantonly consuming electricity for the purpose of price discovery amidst the back drop of global warming may not be (completely) insane, but it does appear to be a textbook externality, and it’s hardly a slam dunk for capitalism.

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