[Cryptography] Standards Trolls: Re: Bitcoin is a disaster.

[Chad Perrin]

On Tue, Jan 05, 2021 at 10:52:49AM -0500, Matt Corallo wrote:
> 
> > On Jan 4, 2021, at 18:35, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> > 
> > On Sat, Jan 02, 2021 at 08:04:43AM +0300, Ismail Kizir wrote:
> >> 
> >> I don't want to enter into "horrible" details of energy consumption!
> >> Bitcoin is "flawed by design"!
> > 
> > the result will not be a reduction in energy consumption, but an
> > increase in Bitcoin mined.  This could be great for transaction speeds,
> > if such efficiency propagates quickly across the network, but
> > effectively have zero direct effect in reducing energy consumption
> > overall.
> 
> This is fundamentally not how bitcoin works. If more hashes happen, no
> more bitcoin is mined than if less hashes happen - bitcoin just gets
> harder to mine instead. Thus, miners which cannot reach the efficiency
> levels of their competition go out of business. This is why you see
> significant investment in using otherwise-unused interruptible power
> and green energy for bitcoin mining - it’s cheaper than the
> competition.

The fact my description stopped before it got to the step of hash rates
adjusting efficiency doesn't seem to meaningfully dispute what I said.
In fact, in some respects, it seems to reinforce my point.  Doesn't it?

What am I missing?


> >
> > Unfortunately, effectively restricting Bitcoin energy consumption
> > worldwide without some (currently thought impossible, probably) paradigm
> > changing advances, seems to give rise to scenarios much worse for
> > humanity than the energy consumption problem, in the form of turning the
> > real world into improbable realizations of dystopian novel plotlines
> > where some central tyrannical entity controls the state of energy policy
> > with an all-seeing eye and an iron fist, or where Bitcoin itself is
> > *effectively* suppressed worldwide -- which, again, requires some
> > central tyrannical entity.
> 
> Or you could just limit the bitcoin supply and then trying to mine
> with more expensive energy is a net loss, so you’d be forced to stop.

That only works once you hit the limit, of course.

-- 
Chad Perrin