Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Re:Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by ethbr0 on Thursday January 06, 2022 @07:24AM (#29822681)

Color me skeptical. The cost-security tradeoff of PoW fundamentally relies on using more energy until it becomes expensive (relative to crypto revenue). If energy is cheap ("), someone will consume additional capacity.

Solar, geothermal, wind, nuclear et al. are cleaner (from an energy production standpoint, and mostly from a generator production standpoint), but still have fundamental capacity limits.

"We're going to burn {currentWorldPower}+1, forever" isn't a viable end state.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by randomhodler84 on Thursday January 06, 2022 @07:34AM (#29822768)

We will use more and more energy every year as our species evolves. It is the trajectory of every civilization to generate and harness more energy. Cryptocurrency will use more and more energy, and we will seek out new ways to generate it. It is the drumbeat of human progress.

Building oligarchical proof of stake ponzi games is not progress. That is when we have given up and just want to stagnate.

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Re:Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by ethbr0 on Thursday January 06, 2022 @08:53AM (#29823516)

The fact that we will scale energy usage does not make the scaling factor irrelevant.

Increasing at 1.5x vs 2x has very different implications for the planet, economy, and international politics.

[ Parent | on HN ]