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A comment on The Kingdom of Bhutan Has Been Quietly Mining Bitcoin for Years. Parent comment

Re:The Kingdom of Bhutan Has Been Quietly Mining Bitcoin for... by biggoodwolf on Monday May 01, 2023 @08:32PM (#35781439)
You just said it, it is money.

It's not wasted any more than it is wasted when you play a game or watch a youtube video or TV. It's just a use of energy which you are trying to make as somehow bad. It's just a cultural preference.

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Re:The Kingdom of Bhutan Has Been Quietly Mining Bitcoin for... by SamBam on Monday May 01, 2023 @08:39PM (#35781508)
No, because if someone invents a way to power YouTube free of energy, that would be awesome, and it wouldn't detract in any way from the value of YouTube.

But if someone worked out a way to generate BitCoin for free without any energy input, that would destroy BitCoin, because it depends on proof of work, where work is defined as consuming energy.

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Re:The Kingdom of Bhutan Has Been Quietly Mining Bitcoin for... by biggoodwolf on Monday May 01, 2023 @08:44PM (#35781545)
So that makes it intrinsically bad? What is acceptable vs unacceptable uses of energy? Esp. when we're not talking about food production or medicine
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Re:The Kingdom of Bhutan Has Been Quietly Mining Bitcoin for... by eru on Monday May 01, 2023 @09:56PM (#35782276)
Well, it's wasted in the sense that bitcoin could switch to proof-of-stake and use much less energy.
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