I don't. And I don't think many people do (perhaps those buying put options might). That said, it's not hard to see the cost in power usage, and thus waste heat, that is/will be spent computing hashes that match ever-growing computational requirements.
You're right that I could spend a month of my time learning more about this tech that does obviously have solid implications in the form of distributed untrusted consensus.
That said, it took me maybe 30 minutes researching to understand the huge global power requirements, and in years of observing the tech, nobody has been able to quickly and easily dispel this concern. If it takes a month of in-depth research to make people feel better about bitcoin and dispel years of observing the currency and its ever-growing requirements, then maybe something is wrong. It could be that after a month of very hard work, you have an unconscious cognitive bias because nobody likes to waste a month of work learning something they decide to throw away.
I'd be glad to find an article that, in less than 30 minutes, can change my mind about the waste that bitcoin generates. It's happened plenty of times with other tech (not necessarily waste, but other misjudgments), and often in closer to 5-10 minutes. I don't expect Bitcoin would be any different, because I have no horse in this game. In fact, I'd be really excited to be proven wrong, because of the potential benefits that the tech has to offer.
I don't like this argument. It's garbage. Bitcoin does not replace the functions of the entire financial system. I can't take out a loan using the blockchain. Banks do far more then act as a ledger. Bitcoin's utility today is a little more than P2P value transfer. A centralized solution - something like Transferwise - does not use as much energy as Bitcoin.
Then your choice comes down to this: Use a centralized system for less energy consuming transaction but greater centralization of wealth -- or -- Use a distributed system that requires more energy but distributes wealth amongst network participants. Personally, I would choose the system that distributes wealth at the expense of additional energy cost. Ideally, I would choose the system that distribute wealth and has the least environmental impact.
I'm not in a position to estimate the waste energy of a financial institution either, but you're right that it probably is quite large, but it's hard to say which is more wasteful.
But let us assume that all those thousands of financial institutions and their associated infrastructure are just there to handle transactions.
Bitcoin is doing about 20 tx/s and Bitcoin mining uses as much energy as the nation of Denmark.
Visa is doing about 1700 tx/s.
> Renewables! Almost free, unlimited energy!
Oh man, I should have been reading your last sentence a bit better. With all those cryptomaniacs my sarcasm detector is a bit confused.
combine the tx/s of all the cryptocurrencies out there right now and I assure you it exceeds Visa's 1700 tx/s. NOT ALL TRANSACTIONS HAVE TO HAPPEN ON THE BITCOIN NETWORK! There are thousands of coins!
Also Visa is only just one company, there are also Master, American Express, Paypal, SEPA transactions and a lot more.
So I don't understand what you try to tell me and how screaming improves your argumentation.
The cognitive dissonance associated with having money at stake on Bitcoin.
Your comment sounds repeated from somewhere else. Do your own research, everyone is trying to manipulate everyone else in this space.
If you consider that and budget in the costs of looking for a new job, and account for the frankly non-trivial chance that the salary will end up being a lie, given the skeeviness of this space (I'd bet the first paycheck shows up, but my confidence in that goes down rapidly as the weeks wear on), it may not look like such a great offer.
Obviously, there are things that can be taken into account when you know more specifics (i.e., "it's VC backed by a reputable firm" would score some points on the "they at least have some money" front), but absent those I wouldn't start from a high degree of confidence.
Sure, if you're just looking at one job, then yeah someone else is going to come along and take it. But if enough people start feeling the same way as the author, there will be fewer qualified developers in the hiring pool for blockchain work. This will likely result in fewer companies and less work being done in the area, and more work being done on other technologies. (Other technologies that are more useful and beneficial to society, if you happen to agree with the author of this post.)
Or alternative to turn your proof of work into compute power for AI and other heavy computational yet beneficial tasks.
If that's what you want. But, the author didn't.
A little bit off-topic, I find very interesting how blockchain is regarded as a new technology. All the underlying technology has been available for ages: cryptographic hashes, Merkle trees (patented in 1979!!), peer to peer protocols. It's crazy how putting together some already established technologies/techniques/mathematical instruments can generate such a big movement. A lot of people refer to it as a cutting edge technology that will.. disrupt (I hate this buzzword) the current status quo. In my opinion it's just a very elegant solution to a problem (decentralised trust) that's been put together with already existing simple blocks.
It would be good if we could cut down on the uninformed hype and just appreciate the elegance in it.
With your logic, everything is an old technology.
And what is that? Most of what it’s credited with seems shakey at best. E.g. it’s not really decentralized is the vast majority of the mining is done by two or three large groups.
You have to trust the other peers aren’t secretly working together to use a 51% attack.
Bitcoin hasn’t been “deanonymized”. It’s never been anonymous. Some of its value actually comes from its extreme transparency.
That said, privacy is important when it comes to money and there are various ways people implement privacy. Both on top of bitcoin and outside of bitcoin.
I don’t know what 51% attack has to do with anonymity though.
- Someone else with similar capabilities as OP's probably took the job.
- This person will make significantly more money than what OP will be making (as OP points out)
- This person will have learned way more about the implication of the technology, whether it actually is as bad as what mainstream media says or if those are all coming from ignorance.
Even if this whole Bitcoin thing comes crashing, accepting a job that's much higher paying, and lets you explore a new edge technology, all while being able to work remotely, all sound like a game you can't lose.
p.s.
All this narrative about how proof of work == global warming, and how bitcoin won't work because of such and such are mostly based on lack of deep knowledge.
Sure, they say "yeah i've read the whitepaper and I totally understand how it works", but that's not enough. I've been there and now that I know more about it I feel ashamed of blabbering my mouth to people about these things because to people who actually know things, these words immediately turn on red flag and they mentally mark you as "don't know what you're saying".
It's funny how most people who criticize bitcoin and blockchain for all these things actually haven't gone deep enough to have the expertise to say these things. They are basing their "opinions" on what someone else--who is most likely also less than enough informed--said.
If you really want to talk shit about Bitcoin, at least spend about a month, learning everything possible. Otherwise you'll be ashamed of yourself ever saying those things (just like I did) when maybe later on in your life you learn more about the technology.
[Edit] To those who are saying: "if you know so much, why don't you just show us what you've got? Prove to us that proof of work can work" or things like that, if it was that simple to explain in a single comment, would I say learn for one month? (Actually one month is not even enough. It took me a full 3 months of doing nothing but teaching myself to get even closer to understanding the landscape) Even if I did my best to explain to you here, I would fail to convince you because it not only involves technology but everything around the ecosystem. I'm not trying to be condescending. I'm saying do yourself a favor and teach yourself wth is going on so that you can make informed decisions about whether you do want to jump in or not. Don't believe what uninformed people are saying.