Proof of waste cryto currencies are a malignancy on society. The people involved (even indirectly) are going to find themselves viewed and treated very similarly to other malign forces as time goes on regardless of how justified and practical they think they're being right now. In my mind they're right besides smallpox blanket givers. It's just business!
Those who live under corrupt regimes and/or hyperinflation have a different view. Furthermore, one could say the frames you're rendering for Netflix or Call of Duty is proof of waste.
How much crypto is traded to avoid corrupt regimes and hyperinflation? 1%? 0.1%? There's probably a few zeroes in there.
Regarding Netflix, it's better for the environment than buying a blu-ray and blu-ray player or driving to the cinema. Can the same be said about crypto?
> How much crypto is traded to avoid corrupt regimes and hyperinflation? 1%? 0.1%?
You can't know, and that's the point.
You can leave a country carrying nothing but a seed phrase in your brain and with it all your wealth, if you need to.
Just the fact that governments know that this can happen can change things.
I don't think governments care about this like they do about using foreign exchange to export wealth.
If you have a pile of Fakeistan dollarydoos you wish to convert into USD, spending those dollarydoos in Fakeistan on electricity to apparate some Bitcoin, then converting those Bitcoin into USD in the USA does not create a foreign claim on Fakeistani economic output. On the other hand, directly exchanging your dollarydoos with foreigners for USD does leave those foreigners holding a pile of dollarydoos, which does represent a claim on future Fakeistani economic output.
While I agree with the sentiment - as obviously crypto can sometimes be useful in that context - you're also talking about a tiny fraction of the human population where it's relevant in that way. It's a small fraction even within nations in those conditions.
How has Bitcoin saved Venezuela? Well it helped a small number of people in the country, sure. It obviously didn't fundamentally make any difference, and it's not going to anywhere else either. For the average person Bitcoin is not easier to acquire, use or manage than USD in locations such as Lebanon, Turkey or Venezuela.
Sure, but it's increasingly relevant the more we see governments and currencies fail. If the same thing happens in El Salvador, the people will be in a far better position than Venezuelans were. Or if it happens in the West. The USD is at risk of losing global reserve status, and it's inflating, and some (Jack at Square, for instance) are making the case that hyperinflation is coming for us too. With how unstable things are this point, I would at least entertain the possibility.
Are all these problems caused by the lack of a decentralized currency that requires burning crazy amounts of energy to maintain trustlessness? Even if everything burns away and anyone who is still worth a damn holds BTC, what has actually been solved?
> furthermore, one could say the frames you're rendering for Netflix or Call of Duty is proof of waste
It certainly is in terms of being only for entertainment and no deeper use. However the amount of energy wasted here (let’s say 300W on a fairly high end machine) falls into the average area of energy spending per person, and thinks like driving or keeping unnecessary light bulbs on is same or worse. Crypto things however seem a whole other level of energy waste.
Should this now be interpreted as „it’s a lot“ or „it isn’t a lot“, relative to the economical and social importance of bitcoin? How much does all watching of TV consume? Of all personal PC gaming? Of all cooking? Operating every theatre on the planet?
crypto evangelicals are either get rich quick folks or sound money advocates. The former sucks but they are in every investment cicle.
The latter's religion has been based in seeing governments bailout bad actors with 0 consequences & devalue a currency astronomically over a 100 year period. Salaries are not keeping with the rise in asset prices which means the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Buying a house in CA as a millennial is laughable.
Bitcoin or a gold standard is the only system that encourages a thriving middle class economy and keeps the government from poor policy decisions. Bitcoin seems to be better than gold since its mobile, transparent, finite. But i'd welcome a return to a gold standard with open arms.
I believe that 1) not all solutions can be 100% perfect for all problems an 2) a medium of exchange created by the people is our only hope to keep the gov/fed from enslaving with us debt forever 3) Judging what should/should not be able to use electricity is a slippery slope.
Why people mention Ethereum as a 'greener Bitcoin' baffles me. There are already some networks that are a thousand times greener than what Ethereum might be when it switches, and that is if the switch goes as planned and on schedule. There are a couple of networks that are already carbon neutral or even negative. If Ethereum takes over Bitcoin, it will still be a wasteful network, and still seen as (rightly so) a villain.
Ethereum has been "about to switch away from PoW" for years and years. They get zero points for this up until the day it actually happens. For now, they are massively harmful, and judging by their history, will continue to be so.
The smallpox blanket givers are maligned now but they and their people (~europeans) did grab and are still holding 97% of the territory they set out to conquer. History is written by the victors, and it's questionable whether this outcome is actually beneficial for mankind / the planet. On the surface it is - look at all the tech! On the other hand the tech actually results in an ever growing rate of destruction (of native nature and culture, aka. whatever was there before), and that trend was visible from day one.
In other words, bitcoin & co. aren't the first toxic, destructive get-rich-quick schemes, and we as a society have shown time and again we're unable to really resist most of them.
Because this common caricature of "smallpox blanket" is not based in verifiable historical fact. There's no clear evidence that Europeans were literally weaponizing smallpox to wipe out most of native American populations. The understanding of how infection spread happened a good 200 years later, than depopulation.
There is one documented case of someone suggesting distributing smallpox blankets. Exactly one; it's not entirely clear if it was carried out--furthermore, given that there was already a smallpox epidemic going around in the nearby Native American villages at the time, it likely would have done diddly squat.
Incidentally, if you want a good example of horrors meted out, try the residential school system, which does seem to be far less well-known among the lay public. Maybe "we're trying to civilize them!" turning out to involve horrific amounts of abuse (and, yes, death) is too much to countenance?
