Cryptocurrency Blockchains Don’t Need to Be Energy Intensive

Re:Cryptocurrency Blockchains Don’t Need to Be Energy Intensive by atweiden on Monday July 05, 2021 @06:26AM (#27736361)

In a premine, developers hard code coin balances for themselves into their own ledger prior to public mining becoming available. Satoshi clearly didn’t do this. It’s that cut and dry.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Cryptocurrency Blockchains Don’t Need to Be Energy Intensive by bhaak on Monday July 05, 2021 @06:32AM (#27736398)

The definition of a premine isn't as clear as you put it. Or at least isn't always used in the same way.

With your definition, Ethereum only had a 16% premine.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Cryptocurrency Blockchains Don’t Need to Be Energy Intensive by atweiden on Monday July 05, 2021 @07:44AM (#27736926)

“Premine”: previous to public mining, coins were distributed.

Satoshi absolutely didn’t premine Bitcoin.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Cryptocurrency Blockchains Don’t Need to Be Energy Intensive by FabHK on Monday July 05, 2021 @09:08AM (#27737573)

And yet, Satoshi has huge holdings just as if premined.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Cryptocurrency Blockchains Don’t Need to Be Energy Intensive by atweiden on Monday July 05, 2021 @06:03PM (#27742228)

Premine means coins were distributed prior to a public mining phase. If public mining was available, and no coins were distributed prior to that, the coin wasn’t premined.

Despite the definition of “premine” being extremely clear cut and objective, apologists for premined coins often liberally redefine and butcher the definition for financially-motivated, self-serving reasons: “See, Bitcoin is premined too. XYZ did nothing wrong.”

Just to understand how ridiculous this is, if we’re going to redefine premine to mean “any coin perceived to be unfairly distributed”, then we might as well not even use the word at all, because biased investors will use the term to describe every cryptocurrency they’re not invested in.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Cryptocurrency Blockchains Don’t Need to Be Energy Intensive by sparkie on Monday July 05, 2021 @01:41PM (#27740164)

That's because the other 7+ billion were not smart enough to compete with him for nearly a year, despite it being made public at the time Satoshi began mining.

The "pre" in premine means "before," as in, they mine themselves the coins before they publicly release the knowledge required to begin mining. Satoshi didn't do this. There was no premining of bitcoin.

[ Parent | on HN ]