US government tracking the energy implications of booming bitcoin mining in US.

Over 2 percent of the US’s electricity generation now goes to bitcoin::US government tracking the energy implications of booming bitcoin mining in US.

  • daniskarma@lemmy.worldEnglish
    458·
    8 months ago

    Is it not a way in which some governments could collaborate to end this Bitcoin madness?

    Genuinely question.

    Like maybe some big countries could agree to collaborate and join resources to make a 51% attack and bring Bitcoin price to 0 so people stop wasting resources on it.

    2% of enery usage for something that do not add any value to society is INSANE.

    • doylio@lemmy.caEnglish
      28·
      8 months ago

      I think the best solution would be to properly tax carbon. That way Bitcoin miners would either become unprofitable or move to greener energy.

      I don’t think it’s a good idea to establish the precedent that gov’t can decide what you can and cannot do with your energy. You may think it’s a waste of energy, but if the externality is properly taxed, I don’t see the problem with letting it continue

      • TypicalHog@lemm.eeEnglish
        5·
        8 months ago

        Then it’s just gonna suck up “green energy”. It’s still energy. We have already have provably secure PoS (not Ethereum btw, it’s PoS sucks ass).

        • doylio@lemmy.caEnglish
          2·
          8 months ago

          Yeah I’m pro PoS in general, but I don’t think we should forbid people from running PoW on their own computers. Seems like a step too far.

          Side note, what’s wrong with Ethereum’s PoS in your opinion?

          • TypicalHog@lemm.eeEnglish
            1·
            8 months ago

            Oh yeah, I was never for banning PoW. I just don’t like it since I know same or better can be achieved with a well designed PoS.

            Ethereum PoS has slashing so people are scared to stake thus causing low participation rate. Also, in Ethereum, you need a minimum amount of 32 ETH to solo stake. Ethereum also doesn’t have a native liquid staking and has locking, unlike Cardano. And you can’t delegate your coins without giving up custody of them. Cardano PoS is designed completely differently and is natively liquid with no locking, no min amount to stake, native delegation and both delegation and self-staking is risk free when it comes to your balance. Worst case - you miss out on those 3.5% rewards for the period your balance is delegated to a pool that’s not doing its job. All of this is the reason staking participation is like 65% in Cardano. Would probably be even higher if it wasn’t for lost coins and large whale wallets that are not staking/delegating for some reason.

            • doylio@lemmy.caEnglish
              2·
              8 months ago

              I think the 32 ETH lockup + slashing does make it riskier to stake, but it also makes the chain more secure. As a malicious Ethereum staker, every failed attack costs me a lot of money. As a Cardano staker, I can attempt an attack many times because there I don’t lost that much if it fails.

              The lack of liquid staking is the only real drawback I see here, as it has allowed some centralization in the Lido token. Ethereum has yet to address that issue

              • TypicalHog@lemm.eeEnglish
                1·
                8 months ago

                Yeah, but people are just gonna leave your pool if you try to attack the network or miss blocks. (And good luck attacking the network where even the largest 2 entities Binance and Coinbase together only have about12% of block production (stake)).
                Like… ye, it’s not happening.
                And why would you attack a network (if you could) where your value is stored. It’s a suicide.
                If you did have so much stake, it might be smarter to play by the rules.

      • BedSharkPal@lemmy.caEnglish
        303·
        8 months ago

        Good. Most don’t use proof of work anymore because they don’t feel the need to watch the world burn for no reason other than propping up techno bros.

          • ikapoz@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            9·
            8 months ago

            If governments started regulating bitcoin because it was proof of work based then people aren’t going to pump real money into another proof of work scheme to replace it - why would they take the risk of it happening again when there are alternatives? the mining profit margins would disappear and so would they.

            • WhiteHawk@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              8 months ago

              It woulf take years and years to pass such a ban in a significant number of countries - assuming they would ever want to cooperate on this, that is