The economics of BitCoin

Herzlos

It's actually a pretty good idea [one of the only good ideas behind Bitcoin] - it's more beneficial than adverts in a lot of cases and means users can passively (albeit unknown to them) pay for the content they are viewing. Spend longer watching videos = generate more coins.

Sure, it's hugely inefficient but most users won't notice, and most bigger sites will make some 'money' if they can cash it out.

GreatApe

Herzlos wrote: »

It's actually a pretty good idea [one of the only good ideas behind Bitcoin] - it's more beneficial than adverts in a lot of cases and means users can passively (albeit unknown to them) pay for the content they are viewing. Spend longer watching videos = generate more coins.

Sure, it's hugely inefficient but most users won't notice, and most bigger sites will make some 'money' if they can cash it out.

No it is horrific

A website makes $100 by having their users burn $1,000,000 in electricity

It's a very bad deal

It will mean more pollution and higher energy prices

I don't think you grasp how big a problem this could be. If most websites start doing this it could add 100TWh of demand to the worlds grids which would cost end users $15 billion more in electricity bills. That's equivalent to around 50 million tons of coal burnt. It is a disaster economically and environmentally to do this. Its literally screwing the public. Its pick pocketing the public only for every $1 they pick pocket they only get 0.1 cent the fossil fuel miners get the other 99.9 cents

economic

GreatApe wrote: »

No it is horrific

A website makes $100 by having their users burn $1,000,000 in electricity

It's a very bad deal

It will mean more pollution and higher energy prices

I don't think you grasp how big a problem this could be. If most websites start doing this it could add 100TWh of demand to the worlds grids which would cost end users $15 billion more in electricity bills. That's equivalent to around 50 million tons of coal burnt. It is a disaster economically and environmentally to do this. Its literally screwing the public. Its pick pocketing the public only for every $1 they pick pocket they only get 0.1 cent the fossil fuel miners get the other 99.9 cents

But are the public really that stupid? Worst case they will see their electricity bills and say oh that damn btc mining website, i better stop mining.

westernpromise

Absolutely they are that stupid. Absolutely.

They play the lottery, for example.

economic

My yahoo finance app on my phone now has GBP-BTC at the top along with the major currency pairs and major stock indices.

This has surely gotto be a sign of a bubble in btc?

GreatApe

economic wrote: »

But are the public really that stupid? Worst case they will see their electricity bills and say oh that damn btc mining website, i better stop mining.

Most the public will have no idea most the public already have no idea what in their home uses what percentage of their electricity bills.

Also it is a small cost spread over hundreds of millions of devises so each individual probably wont notice much. Think of 1 billion computers each using 5p a day more in electric. Does not sound a lot but in that example adds up to £3.25 billion additional cost

Herzlos

GreatApe wrote: »

No it is horrific

A website makes $100 by having their users burn $1,000,000 in electricity

It's a very bad deal

In terms of efficiency, sure, but power consumption of devices is going down all the time.

In terms of micro-payments, it's a good idea. Instead of paying $0.10 to view a video, you burn $0.01 in additional electricity. You'd be burning energy to view the horrific animated adds anyway.

I'd rather we did neither, and websites were streamline and efficient, but providers are going to want paid whilst users are reluctant to pay in currency. Mining currency provides the best of both worlds from the user and producers POV.

I doubt most users would even notice the increase in energy bills. Those that do can presumably just disable javascript.

GreatApe

Herzlos wrote: »

In terms of efficiency, sure, but power consumption of devices is going down all the time.

In terms of micro-payments, it's a good idea. Instead of paying $0.10 to view a video, you burn $0.01 in additional electricity. You'd be burning energy to view the horrific animated adds anyway.

I'd rather we did neither, and websites were streamline and efficient, but providers are going to want paid whilst users are reluctant to pay in currency. Mining currency provides the best of both worlds from the user and producers POV.

I doubt most users would even notice the increase in energy bills. Those that do can presumably just disable javascript.

None of the legitimate sites will do this its the pirate sites as well as the less useful legit sites like the ones that do games for young kids etc that will do it

Its a terrible deal because the users are not paying the website. The users are paying the fossil fuel companies.
Its literally $99.99 to the fossil fuel companies to transfer 1 cent to the website company.

Herzlos

GreatApe wrote: »

Its literally $99.99 to the fossil fuel companies to transfer 1 cent to the website company.

A distinction without a difference to the user. They just pay the $0.01 or $0.02 for the site, without having to enter their bank details. That $0.001 of it makes it to the website company is irrelevant.

GreatApe

Herzlos wrote: »

A distinction without a difference to the user. They just pay the $0.01 or $0.02 for the site, without having to enter their bank details. That $0.001 of it makes it to the website company is irrelevant.

it is not 1/10th that makes it to the website company which would be very bad in itself, it is more like 1/10,000th