[j-pb]

I can't wait for the Tulip... err Blockchain hype to die down. Using the energy of a mid size european country for what is now essentially a pyramid scheme is just shitty.

(And I make that statement after having made a few thousand bucks by mining BTC at 5$ per coin.)

[helpPeople]

Anyone who calls it a tulip isn't taken seriously.

I don't believe in the hype of altcoins, but I do see the problems Bitcoin solves.

[arcticbull]

I genuinely don't. It's not clear that Bitcoin does anything better than what's out there today. Not one thing. And it's less efficient.

[hc91]

Using the energy of a mid size european country for what is now essentially a pyramid scheme is just shitty.

It is all fun and games until you realise this is NOT a metaphor and that shitcoin does indeed consume as much energy as a country.

[undefined3840]

Living in a country where you have no choice but to earn in a local currency with runaway inflation is objectively shittier.

[arcticbull]

Bitcoin doesn't solve that problem. 600kWh of electricity are consumed for each transaction. Venezuelans would be mad to trade 2 weeks wages for a single BTC transaction. And that's when transaction fees are socialized by block rewards. If they actually had to pay the electricity consumed for their transactions it would be 10X higher.

Their problems are societal and need to be solved by societal means. Pretending magic beans in your computer will solve the Venezuelan objective nightmare is just ignoring objective reality. But don't just listen to me -- they all have access to Bitcoin. They know what it is. If it could solve their problems they would have started using it already. Bitcoin has no extrinsic barriers to adoption -- only intrinsic. People just don't want it, and why on earth would they?

The Bank of Canada study by real economists showed a BTC economy would have as much drain on the economy as a 48% inflation rate haha.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

> Bitcoin ... 600kWh of electricity are consumed for each transaction

That’s jaw dropping.

Where can I read more about this?

Found this:

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

Which appears to support your claim.

[arcticbull]

Yeah, that's where I realized the magnitude of the number. They've got a bunch of extra reading articles at the bottom. The CBECI data from Cambridge University lines up with it (and I think is referenced from the Digiconomist writeup). Its methodology section explains how they got where they did [1].

[1] https://www.cbeci.org/methodology/

[TheSpiceIsLife]

I think I need to have a lay down

[nicky0]

Bitcoin seems to be just quietly sticking around for now.

[andirk]

Quietly like the best investment of 2019? Quietly like a multi billion dollar industry/currency/space cash? Quietly like the owners of NYSE creating a new exchange for BTC trading? Or do you mean quietly compared to when everyone and their moms was saying the word bitcoin from Sep-Dec 2017?