News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency by zigzag448 on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @10:56AM (#17021309)
The discussion about the energy consumption of bitcoin can only be discussed because we know how much energy it takes to produce one BTC. What we don’t know is how many banks there are in the world with all the computers and mainframes they use to keep track of all the fiat money. And then of course the energy to produce a hardcopy of that money like knocking down trees and mining metals. So in my opinion we only can have a useful discussion about energy consumption of BTC when we also know the current energy consumption of the banking system. Which I think is a lot more…….
Re:Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency by dmoy on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @11:11AM (#17021432)
I'm not sure I buy this. If we know definitively that btc uses more energy than all of Switzerland, and we know that Switzerland doesn't spend >100% (or likely even >30%) of its energy on banking, and we know that Swiss banks clear more money than Bitcoin, then we have a reasonable point of comparison.
Re:Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency by daneyh on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @12:13PM (#17022039)
I understand what you're trying to say but this logic would only work if we knew that swiss bank operations 'based in switzerland' clear more money than bitcoin.

Credit suisse/UBS main operations are in London.

Re:Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency by dmoy on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @01:56PM (#17023018)
The domestic banking of a single small country is enough. You're talking about like 4m people getting paychecks every couple weeks at minimum. Paycheck deposits alone is more transactions than all of bitcoin.

There is no way the numbers come out in bitcoins favor here, the scale just isn't there.

Re:Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency by hudon on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @11:26AM (#17021585)
As the article I linked to explains, 100,000 transactions on Visa uses considerably less electricity than 1 Bitcoin transaction.

If we can’t find any benefit that Bitcoin brings, then there should be a cost threshold where we start applying the brakes. In other words, how much energy are we willing to spend without a beneficial use case? With Visa and banks, we already know they serve hundreds of millions of people on earth—if not billions.

Re:Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency by throwawaylolx on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @12:09PM (#17022014)
>. In other words, how much energy are we willing to spend without a beneficial use case?

That's quite a statement. Did you mean without beneficial use cases that you personally know of? Example I posted somewhere in this thread: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ktorpey/2017/12/31/bitpesa-ceo-...

Re:Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency by hudon on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @01:46PM (#17022915)
The only indication that Bitcoin might be better than incumbents is this line: "According to Rossiello, it’s still the fastest and easiest way for her to pay her lawyer in San Francisco and developers in Europe."

The hint at her anecdote not holding true in the general case comes right after: "While BitPesa is still happy with Bitcoin for now, Rossiello did note that it’s annoying that on-chain transactions have become much more expensive.

Rossiello went as far as to say there will be a mass exodus away from Bitcoin if a countermeasure for high fees is not deployed within the next twelve months; however, she pointed to the Lightning Network as a possible solution to this issue."

OK so the CEO of a Bitcoin payment company is annoyed that Bitcoin is increasingly worse than alternatives and she is hoping the Lightning Network will redeem it, otherwise there will be a "mass exodus".

That's hardly a convincing case for Bitcoin being the better alternative for payments and reads more like all other blockchain things: an experiment. Experiments are good as long as we're keeping track of their costs and being honest about the results.

Re:Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency by throwawaylolx on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @02:34PM (#17023446)
>That's hardly a convincing case for Bitcoin being the better alternative for payment

It obviously is for the CEO who continues to use Bitcoin despite the annoyances, so I'm not really following your logical leaps, nor do I have the energy to chase you through your goalpost moving. You said there are no beneficial uses, and I provided you with one example.

Re:Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency by hudon on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @03:00PM (#17023709)
I'm looking for evidence that Bitcoin is better suited than alternatives. Your example is a CEO who is not sure herself but who is currently trying to make it work... but is ready to leave Bitcoin if it doesn't change soon. She said herself that if Bitcoin doesn't change, the alternatives are better and there will be a "mass exodus". That literally proves my point.

You can say that I said "beneficial use cases" and show me that you can actually send money using Bitcoin. But that's like me showing you a 5-wheeled car and saying "see, you can get from A to B in a 5-wheeled car therefore a fifth wheel is beneficial". That's not sufficient and the CEO of BitPesa seems painfully aware of this.

Re:Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency by throwawaylolx on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @03:14PM (#17023854)
If Bitcoin is not better suited than alternatives, why is the CEO still using it despite their complaints?
Re:Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency by hudon on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @03:24PM (#17023951)
Maybe she's hoping that Bitcoin improves before she needs to change the core of their system and value proposition, which would cost a lot of time and money? Who knows?
Re:Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency by throwawaylolx on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @05:55PM (#17025581)
Then it sounds like Bitcoin is the best suited solution for her situation.