206 karma · joined March 5, 2021
As can be seen from all the addresses contained in the blockchain. Some are typos/mistakes or burner addresses, sure. But a decent portion are actual addresses used by actual people or orgs.
As long as the masses have something to offer to the few, their labor, they can profit from the deflation to the exact same degree as the few do.
This is what sets it apart from other easily tradeable financial assets. With most (if not all) other easily tradeable financial assets, there's no way for the individual to prevent governments and finance companies from skimming off arbitrage and thus making the individual lose relative to them, yet again.
With Bitcoin, as long as the individual sticks to the plain asset (instead of some derivative), no intermediary can claim the greater share of gains through appreciation.
> That bitcoin has established itself as a serious asset seems to be the source of the latest surge.
If this doesn't sound like some naysayers finally turning around in order to not look too stupid later in retrospect, then what?
Agree.
Yet, currently of the daily 800,000 trucks (> 7.5 t) which are transporting goods in Germany, less than 500 are BEVs (including hybrids). BEV trucks cost ~ 3x as much as an ordinary diesel truck.
So right now, they're basically irrelevant.
> In Europe, a large potential market for Hydrogen trucks, the way the regulations are in terms of rest, that covers electric trucks weaknesses.
Agree, mandatory resting time for the drivers automatically gives much time for charging. But not all stops are hours long. According to my source, there's currently not one mega charger in Germany that allows trucks to charge enough during a 45 min break, so that they can actually drive on.
According to the same source, several companies that tried to build a charging infrastructure with such mega chargers were turned down by the power utilities because the distribution network apparently isn't capable of handling that much load. Upgrading the grid accordingly is said to take 5-10 years.
I think countries with relatively high BEV share of passenger vehicle fleet will already face a decent challenge with getting the grid to charge these cars. Charging hundreds of thousands of semis will be an even greater challenge.
This is where fuels like H2/methanol/ammonia will have their place I think, as refuelling with these scales much easier than recharging BEVs.
> Another issue with your theory is that the truck stop that trucks would use are not really the same in form and function as what normal traveling people use for the most part.
Many truck stops along highways offer both, areas for trucks as well as cars. I see no reason, why they wouldn't be combined in many cases.
A hydrogen refuelling station for trucks that just opened can also be used by cars: https://www.now-gmbh.de/en/news/pressreleases/opening-of-a-h...
> And its yet to be shown that anybody is actually willing to make the massive investments in hydrogen trucking station, and that there will be hydrogen distribution available. Local generation is very unlikely for a truck stop.
Local generation doesn't exist right now. But as renewable share of electricity grows larger and as more and more old power plants (coal/gas) go offline, they offer perfect sites to (relatively) locally produce hydrogen from excess renewable electricity.
> And even if, we somehow had hydrogen fuel stations. In practice they are simply worse cars then electric cars. They are far, far more complex to build, and thus cost more to build. They have far far more failure points. For the majority of people who can charge at home, or at work, its just a far worse experience. For long distance travel, supercharging is already really good and its getting better rapidly. Most people make longer breaks then necessary for charging already.
Again, I (partially) agree. Yes, hydrogen/derivatives add complexity compared to a BEV. Supercharging works, yes. But the question is, whether it will be practical to scale it to a vehicle fleet with a majority of BEV. I doubt it.
> I think seasonal storage makes little sense economically. If your hydrogen production relies on intermittent power availability its going to have really bad uptime and is gone be really bad economically.
Well, if there's sustained renewable electricty generation surpluses over say a week then that is already a magnitude that cannot be met with pumped hydro or batteries (EV/home). Take an average grid throughput of 70 GW in Germany. Over 7 days that's 11,760 GWh. Now let's say due to renewables generating massively, you have a surplus of just 20 %. That's 2,352 GWh. You'd need ~ 30,000,000 BEV cars with a 80 kWh battery each to store all this amount of electricity, and they'd all need to be charged 100 %. Storing all/most of that in batteries doesn't sound feasible in the near future to me.
I think the way this may develop is: when the electricity cannot be consumed otherwise locally and the grid doesn't allow for all of it to be transmitted to neighbouring countries (power lines are regularly maxed out already and more capacity is being added rather slowly), then the price of a KWh will drop to zero or negative in the price zone where it's being generated. At some point, prices will be low enough to make even intermittent electrolysis economically feasible, I think. Just a matter of time. What else are you going to do with lots of PV in summer when all cars and home batteries are charged and the home aircon is drawing its 2 kW and there's 15 kW of PV on the roof of millions of homes? Just switch off the PV?
> Importing energy threw high voltage DC lines makes more sense then transporting hydrogen derivatives. Its far cheaper unless you are going across an ocean.
It may be cheaper to transport electricity via HVDC per km per kWh, but with an additional HVDC line connecting two distant points you get additional constraints (because demand + charging always has to equal supply + discharching) and increased strain on the grid portions surrounding these points. Transporting electricity/energy between the same points by generating H2/ammonia/methanol, then shipping it over the ocean and then using it at the destination on the other hand does _not_ lead to another coupling of demand and supply. Instead it creates a buffer. And I think this buffering feature which isn't taken into account in the simple $/km*kWh is a feature that is only going to get more valuable over time, at least over the coming decades.
> I absolutely do not believe in the vision that hydrogen (derivatives) will be like oil where a few regions have a shit-ton of production and then we ship it all over the world.
There are actually many such projects being built/devoloped right now. If you search for hydrogen/electrolysis projects on the web, you'll find that many projects have ammonia generation as a component.
https://www.world-energy.org/article/14732.html ("Gigawatt-Scale: the World's 13 Largest Green-Hydrogen Projects")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Renewable_Energy_Hub
https://www.rwe.com/en/press/rwe-ag/2022-03-18-import-of-gre...
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/abu-dhabis-kizad-a...
https://www.yara.com/corporate-releases/the-worlds-first-cle...
While obviously many companies that are tied to fossil fuel and the "legacy" non-renewable chemical industry are pushing such projects to keep their feet in the door that is in my opinion just one factor. The other being that chemical storage/transport of energy simply has its technical benefits compared to energy transport/storage via grid/batteries.
> Most nations have enough energy option to figure out their own grid and balance out with their immediate neighbour.
With lots of fossil generation that might be true now, but with increased renewable share there will be a growing need for storage/buffering, just a fact.
As countries/regions try to get to 100 % renewable electricity they'll likely have to massively over build, leaving them with huge seasonal surpluses.
If so, then wouldn't the conclusion be that there needs to be seasonal storage of energy to _some_ degree at least?
If so, then do you think such seasonal storage can be achieved with batteries?
I doubt that. I'd rather envision hydrogen as seasonal storage from fluctuating renewable generation.
When/if the hydrogen is available, uses will likely follow.
But there's one thing that makes me believe they will be in the future. Long-haul trucking with BEV seems rather unlikely to me and the one renewables powered alternative that looks scalable (across different aspects) to me is FCEV trucks fueled with H2 or methanol or some other hydrogen carrier.
(Amogy as a company develops such tech).
As soon as there's sufficient gas stations where trucks can refill H2/Methanol/.. hydrogen powered FCEV cars may stop appearing like a non-solution.
I think for all countries that have large seasonal fluctuations in wind/PV electricity generation, hydrogen will play an important role in both seasonal storage of domestic electricity generation as well as for importing energy (in the form of ammonia) from other regions. So the energy backbones of these countries will not solely rely upon the electric grid but also on a H2 distribution system. As soon as this is available, all sorts of uses of H2 will become viable.
See video here:
https://mastodon.green/@FabianLaasch/110083147601165341
Linked as well:
https://www.theautopian.com/china-is-already-doing-ev-batter...
Or maybe some of these men will adopt some kind of "pragmatic poly" polyandry relationship culture to be in a relationship with a woman, even if it's not an exclusive one.
Such values are AFAIK under ideal conditions, usually meaning on a wet surface or submerged in a watery/damp environment at a mild temperature, with sufficient nutrients .. not really how most people store things like chopping boards or other kitchen equipment.
Yes, having a dishwasher program that thoroughly rinses at 90 °C for 10 minutes will kill most germs in there.
I think this leaves out a very important aspect: how you use your dishwasher has a big impact.
I claim that programs at significantly lower maximum temperatures (say 50 °C) can be safely used as long as people are careful about (a) the state of the items they put in their dishwasher and (b) how they position the items.
If you put in items with lots of and/or big food scraps on them you increase the risk of some of the material being left in some sieve or getting caught in the tray. All material that's left for the final rinse will populate the water with some particles which then cover all items.
Same with dried crusts that only get soaked but not removed by the program.
And also the same with items that are inapropriately positioned, so that food residues aren't reached by the water jets, or so they topple over and fill with water which then also spoils the final rinse.
I'd bet if you reliably prevent the above mentioned things from happening by being careful about which items you put in and how you position them, you can use a low temperature program without any risk at all.
Remark: is it just me, or do other people too hesitate to click a youtube link with no title given?
I feel like I at least want to know the title of the linked video, even if it doesn't reveal much about the video.
IMO it'd be very nice if people made a habit of Ctrl+c/v'ing the title along with a yt link.
Yep, sounds plausible.
> Most people trading bitcoin don't buy it with a money transfer. They go to an exchange.
True as well I guess, p2p exchanges exist but aren't as widely used as exchanges.
> As the fraud is unwound, we'll wind up with people trying to convert bitcoin to money to pay off as much of the Ponzi schemes as possible. When that happens, the bitcoin ecosystem will wind up in a world of pain.
Yes, this may well happen to a certain degree.
But the thing you're maybe underestimating might be: there are (at least it seems to me with my biased world view) quite a few, let's call them "believers/hodlers", who won't try to get rid of their coins but who'll rather try to buy more, when the price drops due to such an "unwinding" event. It depends upon how many Bitcoin suddenly get offered on the market for whether potential buyers will be able to soak it up and thus keep the BTC price from crashing all that radically (say below 10k USD).
I'd guess such a group of stubborn "believers" exist in some way in many other speculative assets/bubbles, so they're of course not exclusive to Bitcoin. Yet something makes me think that many of the Bitcoin "believers/hodlers" might be significantly more stubborn in their belief that just continuing to DCA all the way through such an "unwinding" event is the best option, compared to, say, the tulip bubble believers (whom I know nothing about, except they existed .. I'm just a fool who has thoughts about things).
> Anyone who has studied bubbles and market crashes will recognize that this won't be a slow process. Nobody wants to be the last to hit the exits. So once it is clear that people are hitting the exits, everyone tries to at once.
This may be the case for the bigger part of people who own Bitcoin. But as I wrote, I think there's a significant share of people who just won't hit the exits, even at 5k or less.
> It is a painfully slow, expensive, and inefficient way to transfer money. But, structurally, it is an artificially limited resource whose value comes from what people think it will be in the future. This provides inherent incentives to try to make the price go up if you have some. (Which is what drew the fraudsters in.)
Again, I don't disagree.
But I think people who're interested in Bitcoin due to its key properties ("artificially limited resource" ..), will collectively learn through the repeated unwinding of fraudulent businesses _on top_ of Bitcoin, that the long-term way to go and not get burned is without these _on top_ services and just stick to plain Bitcoin.
I think one USP property of Bitcoin in the financial world is: the possibility to stick to the plain asset, without any intermediaries who basically make the rules for you accessing your assets (arbitrage, changing conditions, embezzlement, ..). Many people in the space already made the decision to not trust any intermediaries but do self custody instead. With the next unwinding, more will likely follow.
And you're apparently reading quite specific info about details of currently happening events, not just headlines.
Your post contains a theory about what's going on behind the scenes and what the acting parties' motives are.
Your theory that fraudsters want their victims to think that the government is to blame instead of the Ponzi scheme so they can continue sounds conclusive.
There's one thing about your post that intrigues me. I did not look at your post history (maybe you wrote about this), you don't seem to make a distinction between "crypto" and "Bitcoin".
Are there countless bad actors and scammers in the "crypto" space? 100 % yes, don't even have to look for evidence, it's just there.
But no matter how many shady exchanges in the crypto space rip off their customers, that doesn't change the structural properties of Bitcoin one bit.
What is your view on "plain" Bitcoin, without the Binances and FTXs? Also fraud?
The first comparison that came to my mind is (yeah, I know Bitcoin critics will say I'm brain washed):
IMO scammers and shady exchanges in the "crypto" space are to Bitcoin what the large food companies (those that sell unhealthy, made from cheap raw materials, addictive "foods") and sectors like the sweets industry are to food.
There's a legit base (food/Bitcoin) and greedy businesses wringing money from building on top of it. Just because there are countless companies making money by selling doubtworthy sugary stuff (and there will always be, because sugar just works, letting people release neurotransmitters whenever they want), doesn't make food as a whole a scam.
> .. As time approaches infinity the value of the dollar approaches zero (bad), and the value of Bitcoin goes to infinity (also bad).
Why do you think the latter is bad?
Bitcoin going to infinity sounds more spectacular I think than it really is. Why? Because at any given point in time, it will have some fixed value that is not infinity. And some time before that, its value will likely have been a bit lower and some time later, its value will likely be a bit higher .. so the value will gradually change through time.
Such gradual changes should absolutely allow for society to move with them gracefully.
Unless there's some sudden singularity with the value of Bitcoin, which to me sounds rather unlikely, the value of Bitcoin should increase roughly at the pace at which humanity's productivity increases, right (technological deflation)?
Is it really that crazy?
The network effect for such a technology is quite important, don't you think?
Much more so than for social media, I'd guess. Because with the example of Bitcoin, most of its current speculators probably bet on it for two simple reasons:
(a) it has the one most important property: scarcity .. which enables it to be store of value
(b) it has been and still is the biggest .. which IMO gives it a self-reeinforcing head start
The importance of these two, for most people who at all care about cryptocurrencies, is so big I think, that they far outweigh any of the advantages, that other cryptocurrencies might admittedly have.
Isn't it a bit like with gravity? Unless someone coordinates many people with billions $ to spontaneously create a significantly larger competitor, Bitcoin will verly likely continue attracting most of the trickles of money that go into the cryptocurrency world.
Often claimed and yet not true.
> Hamas thought it could flout Western surveillance and international sanctions by embracing the world’s leading digital asset. It thought wrong, and the story is illuminating for those who mistakenly believe that bitcoin provides a safe space for criminals, money launderers and the financiers of terror.
from here: https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4273988-hamas-just-learn...
"Simply" implies "in an economically viable fashion" here. Which means that someone has to be willing to pay for (A) building these batteries or electrolyzers and (B) operating them.
Building such systems to an industrially relevant scale hasn't really happened yet. Because it hasn't been economically viable.
Just now they're building a 30 MW electrolyzer near Leuna and it'll be the largest in Europe. Compare that to a regular powerplant which has 1 GW and you'll get an idea that large scale hydrogen synthesis isn't all that near.
Either (A) governments subsidize such systems to a great degree or (B) electricity has to be dirt cheap for a decent fraction of the year (say 50 % or 4400 hours), because if you want to run an electrolyzer, ideally you want to run it 24/7, not every second day at noon because there's cheap PV electricity.
I think (A) is more likely to happen within the next decade than (B), but even when we eventually have these electrolyzers, Bitcoin mining might still be more lucrative.
> Hamas thought it could flout Western surveillance and international sanctions by embracing the world’s leading digital asset. It thought wrong, and the story is illuminating for those who mistakenly believe that bitcoin provides a safe space for criminals, money launderers and the financiers of terror.
[1] https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4273988-hamas-just-learn...
For one, energy efficiency. For hydrocarbons you need carbon. Either you take carbon from existing renewable hydrocarbon waste streams (biomass) or you pull CO2 from the air. The first doesn't make much sense because those hydrocarbons would better be used to produce chemicals. The second (direct air capture DAC of CO2) is - as everyone knows - hugely energy intensive, because CO2 comes in concentration of 420 ppm.
Yes, I know the Haber-Bosch process to produce ammonia is hugely energy intensive as well.
But if you regard ammonia synthesis as well as synfuel synthesis as fundamentally the same processes - both reduce elements in their oxidized forms (C as in CO2, H as in H20, N as in N2) to store energy in them - you need one extra heavily energy intensive step to get synthetic hydrocarbons compared to the sythesis of ammonia: pulling CO2 from the air where it's got a really low concentration (420 ppm).
Compare that to nitrogen which is the main component of our atmosphere (780,000 ppm) and thus much less energy intensive to isolate.
So neither source of carbon to produce CxHy makes sense in the long term IMO.
Also, as soon as you use/burn the synthesized hydrocarbons, the carbon ends up back in the atmosphere (at least in mobile applications where you can hardly capture it) which goes against the main goal of putting less CO2 in there.
Ammonia on the other hand requires nitrogen which is abundant in the atmosphere and thus relatively easy to get (compared to the carbon from DAC). The hydrogen that's needed is also readily available in many places, in the worst case from sea water.
As the goal is a reduction of the amount of CO2 emissions, in the really long-term, hydrocarbons will probably just be the less efficient option compared to ammonia. And since all existing infrastructure does get exchanged/altered in the long-term anyway, slowly switching to ammonia won't mean wasting this infrastructure.
Which is: there will likely be some hydrogen infrastructure for fuelling long-haul trucks, which will likely not be BEVs but rather FCEVs.
As soon as this infrastructure is there, there will be all sorts of secondary effects of this, reducing operating costs for FCEV cars.
Also there are already (with BEV cars only making up a small percentage of all cars) issues with grid stability popping up in many countries and they're going to get much more serious than now.
Yes, BEVs can help dampen short-term (up to maybe 48 hours) intermittency but beyond that, they won't help much.
And as soon as the price fluctuations of flexible electricity contracts to incentivize charging of BEVs off peak get painfully high so they effectively make the flexibility of driving exactly when you need/want (which is the whole point of owning a car) expensive .. people will probably become more interested in FCEVs which don't have this effect.
"Nightmare"? Really?
The author clearly isn't interested in giving a sobre explanation of the situation but rather in writing a passionate plea for their opinion.
Wow, what an absurd take. As if people who are doing technical research to find out, in which way hydrogen might be a viable energy carrier, would ever consider this a criterion.
One shouldn't take one isolated statement and judge the credibility of the rest of the text and of the author based on that, yes.
But this statement alone makes me instantly doubt the rest of the reasoning will be sound.
> Breakfast cereal is a breakfast food made from processed cereal grains.
If your cereal mix contains only the grains/seeds and not loads of sugar it's almost impossible for it to be nutrionally bad.
Consumer's choice which cereal mix they buy.
Of course the retailers will never do this.
As Mario writes, the essential thing with this whole topic is:
> If I were trying to describe it in more flowerly terms: It's asymmetric information war fare. [1]
The way for companies to increase their margins is: remove price transparency so people effectively cannot compare anymore.
It's the same concept everywhere: the higher the complexity of the system, the harder it will be for the individual to optimize for their own benefit. Big entities on the other hand, such as big companies CAN deal with complexity and still optimize for their benefit.
Take away message: people should always be cautious of additional complexity creeping into systems. It usually benefits the big actors, at the expense to the individual.
[1] https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@badlogic/111071588108514123
I know, BEV semis would be charged slower over night while the driver sleeps/rests. Still, seems to me this ammonia FCEV tech scales so much better that it will make it very hard for BEV semis to compete.
Even more so, because increasing the ammonia tank size is laughably trivial compared to trying to scale battery size for a BEV.
> ... Amogy’s proprietary technology enables the on-board cracking of ammonia into hydrogen, which is then sent directly into a fuel cell to power the vehicle. Liquid ammonia has an energy density that is approximately three times greater than compressed hydrogen and it requires significantly less energy, making it cost-effective to store and transport.
This is what will replace diesel semis, right? Not the BEV semi (e.g. Tesla Cybertruck).
Scaling issues that will be a lot less serious with hydrogen powered FCEVs.