So, the real argument is Bitcoin useful or not. Which, like most things, is something that probably be left to the free market.
The free market is often at odds with society at large, which is why we have regulations to protect society from the free market.
In addition, it tends to become more at odds with society as wealth inequality grows and that is at an all-time high and growing. Perhaps a signal that more people need to point out, as you did, every time the free market is tossed out as a universal solve-all.
Those same regulators also give tax breaks to large inefficient corporations and tell small businesses they must close down for arbitrary intangible public health reasons, while the large corporations can remain open.
In both examples, it's the regulators whom are detrimental to society, not the free market.
Virtually everyone that champions regulations are not for regulation, but for imposing political will in a way favorable to them. I know this because these people freak out and think it's the end of the world when there's a seat change in politics and the very same regulators they loved are now imposing political will in a way that's unfavorable to them. They also seem to believe in democracy, but only if when they win.
That's probably not what you were expecting, but if that's really the case, it probably doesn't help that society is hyper-polarized. It also doesn't help that the main political opponent in the next election is being railroaded by the court system.
If the idea is to unify and coordinate to solve problems, alienating and demonizing 70M voters and half of the country is not the way to do so. The message half the country hears and thinks is: when push comes to shove, the other half prefer crushing political competition by any means necessary rather than find common ground and work together. Those are the rules one side is playing by, and it shouldn't be a surprise when the other side does the same, or takes their ball and goes home.
It's only through the indoctrination of young impressionable minds by the state that people become persuaded by arguments the state should intrude into things.
The only reason every criminal stepping foot on my property doesn't have their head on a pike is because the state will involve itself in their failure to prevent criminals from committing crimes on my property.
My property would be drastically safer if the state was not involved. You might disagree with my methods of deterring crime, but
1. I don't believe in democracy. My rights are not subject to vote.
2. There is literally no rational explanation why anyone should relinquish their natural rights and delegate them to a state. This is what The Concept of the Political by Carl Schmitt discusses at length. Schmitt is often dismissed by Western academics because of his later association with the Nazi Party, but it's a cop-out for a serious introspection of what his works said about the underlying nature of society and human nature. It frightens them, to put it mildly. Hitler was only able to take power after grasping the implications of his work.
3. I would bet my life savings that if I could get away with leaving the heads of criminals on pikes, along with other unspeakably heinous things, there would be a large drop in crime. Most won't dispute this, which begs the question why does the state allow criminal behavior to prosper when it costs far less to not get involved.
Bitcoin however provides what? A tiny fraction of the transactions per second that visa does, without all the consumer protection that credit cards encompass, with orders of magnitude more power consumed. All the while providing 'freedom' to a handful of activists, but most of all money launderers, drug sellers and all sorts of shady businesses.
Except Bitcoin mining is a perfect example of why these things should NOT be left to the free market.
Why was the Bank of England created? To wage war.
Perhaps “wasting” 2% of the world’s electricity supply will look a lot better when civilization scale money laundering and currency collapse is a thing of history, not to mention the curb on national budgets being allocated to war machines!
Continuing this, “fiat currency” has a specific meaning in economics: it’s a currency not backed by a commodity. Bitcoin is a fiat currency because the only value it has is based on social consensus, making it exceptionally volatile, but at the time the Bank of England was founded the pound sterling was based on silver (hence the name) as it had been for a millennium and it transitioned to gold for a couple centuries. The reason the Bank of England was founded wasn’t due to the choice of currency but rather credit, and as with war I find it unpersuasive that humanity will discontinue either.
Bitcoin fiat? That’s way off base. No serious analyst would lump Bitcoin in with fiat currencies. Why? Because fiat currencies are backed by government decree, used for tax payments, and can be issued ad infinitum by central authorities. Bitcoin ticks none of those boxes. It’s decentralized, with no central authority to pump out new units or demand its use for official transactions. Bitcoin is as far from fiat as you can get.
Regarding the Bank of England’s founding in 1694—let’s get our facts straight. It wasn’t about credit; it was about waging a war without the cash to back it up. This move marked a turning point, expanding the empire and cementing the British Pound as a reserve currency. This kind of dynamic isn’t ancient history; it’s alive and well, fueling today’s massive military expenditures. These are bankrolled by the fiat system’s ability to inflate currency and issue debt. And when fiat currencies collapse? It’s usually the losers of these conflicts who feel the burn. So, yeah, Bitcoin offers a real alternative to this endless cycle of warfare and financial manipulation.
It also distorts other fundamental signals like GDP. Devaluing the unit of account by printing money makes the GDP figures go up because you're measuring it with something that's going down in value. Looking at the USA and accounting for money supply increase, it has had falling GDP for decades. You think your savings are going up, but they are going down etc. etc.
Money is proof of work, or it should be. To create it should take as much work as it's worth (this is true for both gold and bitcoin). In reality, the fiat we currently use is proof of work for the population, while the bankers have a free money spigot. They can pour trillions of money out of nowhere with a few keystrokes and then charge interest on it for decades to come, as if it was their own money.. It gives them undeserved, unlimited power. And what's the best way for them to get more free money? Generate more loans/credit. And what's the most effective way to do that? Trigger wars and, if possible, fund both sides.
If there isn't an impact on the real economy then the discussions here on how much energy is burned aren't meaningful.
I am ignoring a lot of things here: transactions per second can’t support it but let’s assume LN works well and also energy required to keep expanding may not be available (only one nearby star) which makes POW more Proof of Asic but potentially makes the network vulnerable.
Within Crypocurrency world there are Bitcoin maximalists who believe it is the only true coin and probably like PoW.
However other ones are moving to PoS which is better for the environment. Can’t comment on security but reckon they can make it secure.
No, but lots of people think the amount of energy they consume is bad, and lots of people and spent on trying to reduce the amount of energy.
In a world of dwindling EROI and exponential carbon emissions, all data centers are bad.
If we cared about the future at all, we'd be switching them off and triaging our energy use.
Where 75,502,165,623,893/75,502,165,623,894th of the work is literally thrown away.
Now, I'm myself torn on this, but I wonder.
Otherwise we would all be fucked.
Just in case you don't get it: have you ever seen a company making a high quality, sustainable and save product because of free market? Nope they do it because of laws we as a society make.
And in this particular case, i'm absolutly for banning it globally.
Ah yes, the mythical free market that no one ever questions, the unassailable arbiter of value in this world. This underpinning assumption needs to be pointed out. Clearly, the free market is not infallible. The question is how do mixed economies make best use of markets, regulation, taxation, and have a functioning justice system so that we don't shovel raw human souls into the profit machine.
Most people recognize a role for regulation in matters that concern everyone, particularly when there are large negative externalities that markets can't price in appropriately. I know HN conversations are necessarily curtailed for brevity, but generally, no, wasting vast amounts of energy for temporary profit doesn't seem like the kind of thing that should go unregulated when such waste produces large-scale environmental consequences for us all.
In this case, the free market can solve the problem: how high can the electricity price go, or how many power outages can there be, until people are sick and tired of this Bitcoin bullshit?