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A comment on Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge. Parent comment

Re:Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge by mckeed on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @12:00PM (#27196497)
The idea was to ban trading, not mining. If Coinbase and all the other legitimate companies that facilitate crypto markets for U.S. citizens had to drop PoW coins it could tank the price significantly and set the coin mining industry back to when it wasn't such a huge problem for energy use and GPU supply. Speculation would move to PoS currencies and BTC would stay valuable, but would act more like an altcoin.
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Re:Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge by fredfoobar on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @02:12PM (#27198744)
https://bisq.network/ exists, you can trade bitcoin p2p already.
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Re:Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge by varispeed on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @12:10PM (#27196689)
Currently the trade of illegal drugs is banned. Have a look how that goes.
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Re:Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge by rfrey on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @12:43PM (#27197345)
Unlike drugs which have limited substitutes (alcohol and caffeine I guess), PoW currencies would have several functionally equivalent replacements. I doubt we'd end up ravaging underprivileged communities as they turned to black market Bitcoin.
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Re:Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge by 627467 on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @01:29PM (#27198103)
The USD and the Zimbabwe dollar are functionally equivalent, yet, I'm sure you're not saving in ZD.
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Re:Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge by hocuspocus on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @01:54PM (#27198452)
You're only proving our point. USD is a reasonable currency for savings and/or as world-wide currency as long as it's liquid, non-volatile, backed by a big, stable and powerful economy. This could change, but not overnight.

BTC's main uses (speculation and laundering) are possible only as long as it can be exchanged into fiat. This can change tomorrow if the right strings are pulled.

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Re:Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge by hocuspocus on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @12:19PM (#27196879)
If you can't speculate online and in a convenient, legal way, the value of BTC and friends will certainly tank.

Let people trade cryptocurrency to fiat in person all they want, it's completely insignificant.

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Re:Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge by hahahanonono on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @01:21PM (#27197943)
trading is only a small portion of bitcoin's market cap. most coins are outside of exchanges, in noncustodial cold storage. even without smooth trading platforms people will trade bitcoin peer-to-peer because bitcoin solves real world problems
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Re:Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge by Misdicorl on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @12:18PM (#27196853)
This is a terrible analogy. Drugs are inherently desirable. There is nothing inherently desirable about crypto coins
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Re:Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge by 6gvONxR4sf7o on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @03:02PM (#27199430)
You can't have proof of stake drugs. (or other better analogies for really really near substitutes)

It turns out laws do sometimes have effects.

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