Remains the question: Why was it allowed to even live a little, when for the first dimes, it was clear it was a scheme that necessitated illegal actions at every step?
Of course, just as most of yesterday's crypto experts are today's AI experts, the main wastage seems to be moving towards LLMs these days.
In contrast, switching off all crypto farms would be a free reduction in emissions, and indirectly save lives.
The "maker" sphere in China is analagous to that in EU/US, the people are waiting for societal change.
The consumer electronics people use to post environmentalist takes with. That'd be a good start.
My only objection to it is the fact all that energy is being poured into obsolete technology like bitcoin. I wouldn't even mind if Monero used even more energy. That energy is buying us something: a true cryptocurrency.
If we accept the analogy, 0.5% of the oceans is 5 100 000 km³, which is quite a bit more than "a literal drop": https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=0.5%25+of+the+volume+of...
This is self-evidently insane.
I want to ask rhetorically if you are out of your mind but, like I said, it’s self evident.
We have to ban accounts that do it repeatedly, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules, we'd appreciate it.
Cryptocurrencies and the relative irrelevance of the energy consumption associated with them.
> just for currency?
Not just any currency, one that guarantees privacy and anonymity.
> You think using the worlds energy to generate random numbers is a form of freedom?
I don't see anyone complaining about the energy that gets poured into processors every single day to make them generate random numbers that are then used as secret keys in cryptography just so that users can securely shitpost on social media. All those advertisers are making a killing so all this activity must be moral, right?
There are various illegal parts: Creating a currency for example. But even if one can walk around the definition of a currency, exchanging it for dollars is most probably questionable: You give banknotes to someone in exchange for a token which you don’t know how it was obtained. In most cases, it is facilitating drug exchange and hitmen, so, unless one can prove where a Bitcoin comes from, I’m surprised it is even legal to exchange it for tender money.
The whole thing should have been sued from the start.
Shouldn't be illegal.
> exchanging it for dollars
Shouldn't be illegal.
> You give banknotes to someone in exchange for a token which you don’t know how it was obtained.
It doesn't matter how it was obtained.
> In most cases, it is facilitating drug exchange and hitmen
Oh... Just like USD then.
Why don't you go after them for those crimes? Without coopting us into your warrantless global surveillance network?
> unless one can prove where a Bitcoin comes from
That it is even possible to prove that is actually a failure of bitcoin's design. Thankfully Monero fixed it. Money should be fungible. There should be no dirty/clean bit attached to coins.
Here's a clue: one of those is hard to do and massively increases your risk of being caught, and the other actually enables further criminal activity which would not otherwise be easily possible.
So no, not just like USD.
> Shouldn't be illegal.
This is exactly where the bullshit should stop. Creating currencies should be the sole privilege of sovereign governments.
Except this isn’t even remotely true? Less than 1% or so of transactions are even remotely linked to crime?