BITCOIN

Cus

Malthusian said:

IvanOpinion said:

I think the GDPR argument is a bit of a red herring.  Several companies that I am aware of (including one I work for) are looking to use blockchain technology for several different medical scenarios.  It boils down to the argument that when technology can bring benefits then legislation will be amended to incorporate it (has happened many times before and will happen many times in the future).  I (personally) do not see GDPR as anything other than a minor issue that will be resolved when required.

Governments aren't going to chuck out data protection regulations until blockchain comes up with a problem to solve. A big enough problem for which blockchain is a good enough solution that it merits reversing decades of progress in formalising individual ownership rights over personal data. So we go back to the same old problem. There isn't one. Or rather we haven't found one despite 12 years of desperate searching by bros who believe that when they find the problem, number go up and 40-foot gold catamaran.

Anyway, as I said in the original post, it is a red herring - because even if a use for blockchain is invented that overcomes these problems, the medical research firms will simply generate their own tokens to power it at near-zero cost, not pay some bros more than they paid for some existing tokens.

If there is a problem to solve, then it needs to be a problem that costs rich people/companies a lot of money. I think some payments, securities settlement, custody and transaction costs in the investment/financial markets world are dominated by a number of middlemen taking their cut. Those costs could be removed with market run regulated utilities using Blockchain tech.

Aegis

Cus said:

Malthusian said:

IvanOpinion said:

I think the GDPR argument is a bit of a red herring.  Several companies that I am aware of (including one I work for) are looking to use blockchain technology for several different medical scenarios.  It boils down to the argument that when technology can bring benefits then legislation will be amended to incorporate it (has happened many times before and will happen many times in the future).  I (personally) do not see GDPR as anything other than a minor issue that will be resolved when required.

Governments aren't going to chuck out data protection regulations until blockchain comes up with a problem to solve. A big enough problem for which blockchain is a good enough solution that it merits reversing decades of progress in formalising individual ownership rights over personal data. So we go back to the same old problem. There isn't one. Or rather we haven't found one despite 12 years of desperate searching by bros who believe that when they find the problem, number go up and 40-foot gold catamaran.

Anyway, as I said in the original post, it is a red herring - because even if a use for blockchain is invented that overcomes these problems, the medical research firms will simply generate their own tokens to power it at near-zero cost, not pay some bros more than they paid for some existing tokens.

If there is a problem to solve, then it needs to be a problem that costs rich people/companies a lot of money. I think some payments, securities settlement, custody and transaction costs in the investment/financial markets world are dominated by a number of middlemen taking their cut. Those costs could be removed with market run regulated utilities using Blockchain tech.

The problem you have is that this "problem" doesn't really affect the vast majority of people, whether you consider them rich or not.  Additionally, the power usage from multiple redundancies of blockchain solutions means that the cost isn't removed, it's just hidden somewhere else.  Centralised solutions have the advantage that they can be really efficient compared to distributed networks.

There certainly might be room for a hybrid, i.e. a partially distributed network with a few independent nodes, but you run into all the same issues you have with a single centralised network.

Really, I see blockchain as potentially very useful, but very much as a niche feature of something else, like international contracts.  Again, it feels like a great technological solution looking for a problem to solve.

User232002

Aegis said:

I see you don't understand subtlety, so let me be explicit: I am not interested in talking to you any more.  Thanks.

Cute. Lets avoid the unanswerable points by not answering. Do you work for the UK government by any chance?

Aegis said:

The problem you have is that this "problem" doesn't really affect the vast majority of people, whether you consider them rich or not.  

Yeah, nobody has a VISA / MC or AMEX card and pays 1-3% for every daily transaction they carry out. Countries don't spend tens of billions every year on actually printing physical cash. People pay vast sums of money for trusted middlemen to conduct transactions like solicitors, trustees and agents. 

Reducing the friction of the current payment system alone with cheaper tx fees and basic trustless systems is a few hundred billion in revenue. And that's the (very boring) tip of the iceberg in terms of use cases. EIB put 100M euro bonds on the blockchain - fully transparent and auditable by anyone with an internet browser. Bond market is a twenty trillion ish global market right there. Put the S&P500 on the blockchain whilst we are at it and stop all the RH/Citadel malarky (I have no interest in whether there were shenanigans or not, but an open blockchain makes it a lot more transparent).

Aegis said:

Additionally, the power usage from multiple redundancies of blockchain solutions means that the cost isn't removed, it's just hidden somewhere else.  

160 pages and nobody has mentioned environment nonsense before....

1. Relative energy use, not absolute energy use. The current financial infrastructure uses far more energy gettign people in to an office than a few blockchains would.
2. Blockchain mining can be concentrated around key renewable energy resources as they are buyers of last resort, which are vital to build out the infrastructure for renewable energy. A wind farm in Antarctica isn't much use to anyone, but if you let that wind farm support a blockchain it incentivises renewable energy generation around the globe in places it would not normally be initiated. 
3. Civilizations are measured on the Kardashev scale - more energy use is not a bad thing.

Aegis said:

Centralised solutions have the advantage that they can be really efficient compared to distributed networks.

1. They can be. They usually start out more efficient, but its hard to maintain it as the network grows. Pretty hard to find a successful country nowadays that has a centralised structure rather than a devolved one. Are they all wrong? Plenty of people in crypto right now working on how to make DAOs efficient as they scale.

2. Centralised solutions are more susceptible to corruption. Pretty big drawback when you're maintaining a database of money for example.

lozzy1965

darren232002 said:

dunstonh said:

Someone has fallen for the emperor's new clothes.

If, when faced with some real counter points against your line of thinking, you lack the ability to produce a coherent counter argument then perhaps it is you, not I, that has fallen for the emperors new clothes good sir.

lozzy1965 said:

EDIT:  Apologies - we're in danger of making this about BITCOIN, and there's a thread for that.

Fair point and if you want to continue this I'll reply over there. Just quickly though;

On point 2, I've said multiple times here that Bitcoin is not a currency. Seems odd to judge a cow by its inability to swim like a fish.

On point 3, you're conflating price with resistance to state attack. They are not the same. Throughout all the things that you mention, I could/can/would still be able to transfer 1 Bitcoin across the network just as I could now.

***** COPIED ACROSS FROM THE NFT THREAD *****
Surely BITCOIN is and was intended to be a currency.  Can't say I've read the White Paper, but that's my impression!
(I've never rated cows for precisely their poor swimming ability )

User232002

Perhaps intended to be. Perhaps not. Depends how much you want to go back and rehash 2009 and Satoshi/Finney comments. Facebook was built as a competitor hotornot.com and ended up becoming an advertising behemoth so intention isnt always important.

Either way, no Bitcoiner in their right mind today sees it as a currency and very few envisage a day where BTC is used in everyday transactions.

bugbyte_2

darren232002 said:

160 pages and nobody has mentioned environment nonsense before....

1. Relative energy use, not absolute energy use. The current financial infrastructure uses far more energy gettign people in to an office than a few blockchains would.
2. Blockchain mining can be concentrated around key renewable energy resources as they are buyers of last resort, which are vital to build out the infrastructure for renewable energy. A wind farm in Antarctica isn't much use to anyone, but if you let that wind farm support a blockchain it incentivises renewable energy generation around the globe in places it would not normally be initiated. 
3. Civilizations are measured on the Kardashev scale - more energy use is not a bad thing.

to answer....

1. Only relative if you can define the energy use as a social requirement or if it actually does something. The current financial infrastructure provides jobs, allows the economy to run and underpins everyday 'life' so most people would consider the energy used getting people into office buildings and running computers so we can make transactions to be worthwhile. If you want to make the same argument for Bitcoin you would have to show that Bitcoin has a use worth its 13+ GW daily consumption. You go on to say in a subsequent post that bitcoin is not even a currency so what does it actually do to be worth 13GW? what problem does it solve? If the answer is 'none' then you cannot use the 'energy use is good for society' argument. The absolute energy use for running Bitcoin is huge and apart form making some people richer or poorer there is no social 'good'. If you want to change my mind you will have to give me a wide ranging, real and widely adopted use. There isn't one.

2. What % of bitcoin is mined by zero emission energy? And by zero I mean both in the production of the energy and construction of the plant and machinery to make the energy. None? If Bitcoin was mainly mined by people with their own wind farms then fair play, but I suspect that is not the case. I suspect most people that mine bitcoin are plugged into their national grids.

3. Are you really arguing that the more energy we use the more advanced we are, and excessive energy use is 'good'? Are you a climate denier? 

silvercue

Thrugelmir said:

silvercue said:

But then Gold has no real value other than the value we attribute to it.  There are similarities to be drawn there, yet gold has not collapsed (yet).  

Various industrial uses for gold include:

• Electronics and electronic components
• Computers, memory chips
• Dental fillings
• Medical treatments
• Space vehicles, space circuitry (conductor, connector, mechanical lubricant)
• Glass production

The price (therefore value) of gold is not driven by any of these applications.  Its value is based on the fact we have deemed it "precious".  The value comes from the the fact we make rings and ear rings out of it that could be made with vastly cheaper materials and as a store of value.  

If we only used gold for the items on that list it would be priced at a fraction of what it is now.   You know that as well as I do.  

User232002

bugbyte_2 said:

to answer....

1. Only relative if you can define the energy use as a social requirement or if it actually does something. The current financial infrastructure provides jobs, allows the economy to run and underpins everyday 'life' so most people would consider the energy used getting people into office buildings and running computers so we can make transactions to be worthwhile. 

Unfortunately, providing jobs is not a reason to keep things around. If it can do everything the alternative can and do it cheaper, it will just out compete. Most of us are now using self checkout and online banking because they are more efficient even though they have reduced the number of jobs available.

bugbyte_2 said:

 If you want to make the same argument for Bitcoin you would have to show that Bitcoin has a use worth its 13+ GW daily consumption. You go on to say in a subsequent post that bitcoin is not even a currency so what does it actually do to be worth 13GW? what problem does it solve? If the answer is 'none' then you cannot use the 'energy use is good for society' argument. The absolute energy use for running Bitcoin is huge and apart form making some people richer or poorer there is no social 'good'. If you want to change my mind you will have to give me a wide ranging, real and widely adopted use. There isn't one.

About 70% of the stuff that goes on in the normal financial system can be done faster, cheaper and in a more transparent way with Blockchains. But if you wish to focus on the elephant in the room - Bitcoin is a better gold than gold is on any objective evaluation of the metrics, and it can do all that whilst using 1/10th the energy used in gold extraction / storage / security. 

I'm really sick of this 'use case' rubbish too. Firstly, ask people in Turkey, Nigeria, Argentina or Venezuela what they think about having access to a store of value outside of your mismanaged currency. Secondly, in 2000 very few people foresaw what the internet would be used for in 2020. Imagine telling someone in 2000 that we need to build all these computers and use all this energy so that we can send messages, order food and watch videos - all stuff that already existed in 2000 in other formats.

bugbyte_2 said:

2. What % of bitcoin is mined by zero emission energy? And by zero I mean both in the production of the energy and construction of the plant and machinery to make the energy. None? If Bitcoin was mainly mined by people with their own wind farms then fair play, but I suspect that is not the case. I suspect most people that mine bitcoin are plugged into their national grids.

I mean, if you're going to define zero this way then literally nothing in the entire world is made with zero energy because, y'know, solar panels, wind farms and hydroelectric plants cost money/energy to build. 

Which, by the way, is kinda the point. Very few people invest in new energy production techniques because they are hilariously bad investments. Renewable energies need entities to invest in them and they need buyers of last resort; your solar panels produce energy at precisely the time when energy usage is the least - so a Bitcoin miner can buy the excess during the day and then switch off the farm at night when consumer demand is higher. These symbiotic relationships are vital to renewable energy providers.

55% of Bitcoin is mined with renewable sources by the way, which is far higher than many other normal usages of energy.

bugbyte_2 said:

3. Are you really arguing that the more energy we use the more advanced we are, and excessive energy use is 'good'? Are you a climate denier? 

"Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance." I am not a climate denier simply because I am not in favour of reducing energy usage.

We could scrap every car, plane, train, AC system, TV and computer in the world tomorrow but, whilst we would certainly be using far less energy, our lives would be considerably worse because of it. There is a reason I'd rather be on minimum wage in 2022 than be a king from 1522. If my children and their children are using less energy than we are using today then we have gone backwards as a civilization. 

Honestly, whilst climate change is obviously occurring and is clearly a problem, the attitude of most people in the west regarding climate change is overly simplistic, ignorant and bordering on virtue signalling. Buying a burger for $10 when its true environmental cost is multiples of that but justifying it because you recycle the packaging whilst blaming China & India for climate change isn't logical or fair. Again, incentives though - no politician wants to tell their electorate that the price of meat and yearly holidays is going to 5x because its bad for the environment.

silvercue

darren232002 said:
There is a reason I'd rather be on minimum wage in 2022 than be a king from 1522.

This is the part I can't agree with.  I would take King every day!  

Zola.

Blockchain Is NOT the Technology Behind Bitcoin

Out of the hype arose this fantastic saying, "Blockchain is the technology behind bitcoin," which is incorrect. Blockchain is one of the four foundational technologies (Blockchain, Proof-of-Work, P2P Network, and Cryptography) behind bitcoin, and it can’t stand alone. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying to sell it.

Today, “blockchain” is bitcoin with a haircut and suit that you parade in front of your board. It’s the ability to deliver a sanitised, clean, comfortable version of bitcoin, to people who are too terrified of truly disruptive technology. You enter this very strange world, where the words no longer mean anything.

Can you define "blockchain"? I think a few people in this room could probably define "blockchain." The real challenge would be: can you define "blockchain" in such a way that I can’t do search-and-replace with the word "database" and still make that sentence work? Because that’s the challenge: if what you’re doing is a database with signatures, it’s not interesting. It’s boring.”

Excerpt From: Andreas M. Antonopoulos. “The Internet of Money Volume Two”.