Do crypto coins make patterns of Jesus's face? Man there is something I would never have guessed. Also is counterfeit money really that big of a problem that its debasing the value of the dollar enough that we have to abandon all notions of fiat currency and replace it with an entropic commodity that burns energy to no other end? I mean I get, that the "valuable matches" are the ones that "make a coin" of whatever the jargon is but the problem is to make a "coin" takes 215 kWh to create, lets put that back into match terms, assuming one matchstick has one BTU and we convert BTU to kWh that comes to about 733610 matches at a conversion rate of 0.000293071 kWh per BTU that comes to about 2445 boxes of 300 count matches. Amazon sells a 3 pack of 300 count matches for 6.75 which comes out to about $5501.25 for 733610 count of matches. Now be aware that I'm pulling these number out of my ass, butt every match I burn has a 1 in 733610 chance of being a "Jesus Match" that means that I can burn more than that and still not end up with a match that is a Jesus Match because its a statistical argument much like the lottery. In the end what do I have to show for all of this? A huge fucking pile of used matches, and a real sense that maybe just maybe the Emperor's New Currency has value.

I'm not sure what your argument was? But I'll reply with a few points.

Bitcoin mining depends on finding a hash that starts with a whole bunch of zeros, which is more or less equivalent to being just close enough to a jesus that you can sell it for money.

Joining a mining pool gets you a relatively fixed payout, counteracting the lottery nature. You'd only have to burn one box of matches to get a guaranteed payout of 300/730000 of a jesus match.

Yes it's still a waste of power.

What you have to show at the end of the day is a digital currency that has no central authority and yet still prevents double spending.

The cycles are not wasted - they secure a digital currency.

Banks and governments use immense resources to secure fiat currency.

> The cycles are not wasted - they secure a digital currency.

If I use a car that gets 1 mile per gallon to visit my grandma, I'm wasting basically all the gas I buy, despite it getting me to my destination.

Proof of work is waste.

>The cycles are not wasted - they secure a digital currency.

But why though? Is the USD that insecure? Is fraud so prevalent that its debasing the value of currency? Do we literally need to spend 70TWh per year, and that's just in its current state as a semi novelty currency/commodity, to secure the concept of money? Can you imagine how much it would cost to run bitcoin if it was the primary reserve currency of the world?

It's ok, if you believe hard enough and know that your heart is pure then the Emperor's New Currency will have value. I'm just the guy asking why.

Your comments violate rule #1 of Hacker News comments.

> Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say face-to-face. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We're discussing ideas here, there is no reason presuppose others ideas or behave snarkily.

I think you replied to the wrong person.

To both of them, but in the case of stillbourne particularly, because he is responding to every post in this thread with that tone.

I don't think he's being entirely partial in targeting me. One of my replies was to him, in that reply I was mostly civil with the exception that I accused him of being a libertarian. My comment got downvoted to oblivion anyway.

I was not trying to come off as snarky. I was being civil, My first and my second comment were actually civil but as others attempted to offer retorts to my metaphor it sort of degraded. I didn't get real snarky until vitaliksghost called me an asshat. I'll exit the conversation now.

Every match head burnt is required to be slightly larger in diameter than the first, so eventually you're burning massive purpose-built “matches”.