[mondoveneziano]

In the case of the Internet, people were doing either new things, or existing things more efficiently (e.g. sending emails vs. postal mail and fax, or transferring files vs. swapping disk media or printouts). As the Internet progressed, efficiency increased.

In the case of cryptocurrencies, people are doing existing things that can already be done quickly and efficiently vastly less efficiently, in a system that is purposely designed to be less efficient, where efficiency is in fact actively counteracted. Databases and online money transactions were possible before, at a fraction of the total cost inherent to the system and at vastly higher performance.

[seibelj]

I can send unlimited amounts of money, anywhere on earth, for (at most) dollars in a few seconds. I don't need to rely on any government for any reason, and no government can stop me.

[mondoveneziano]

The Internet provided solutions to technical problems, regardless of any societal/political considerations. They may have resulted, but as a secondary effect.

When theorizing about societal/political benefits, take into account the societal/political problems cryptocurrencies created by inventing a machine that allows converting resources directly into money of miners' digital wallets without regulation.

Your sending any amount of money, actual practicality and realizability aside, comes at the cost of a lottery, where miners perform literally 100.000.000.000.000.000.000 computations per second whose outcome is completely thrown away, unless they are lucky enough to be one of the 6 computations per hour that win. This cannot be made more efficient: If computing one hash costs less energy, the difficulty will be adjusted to require more calculations to keep the target of 6 hashes per hour.

By the decentralized property of cryptocurrencies, it is by design not possible to regulate where the energy for this lottery is coming from.

[dopidopHN]

I agree that proof of work seems to have outlived it’s usefulness as a mean to prevent spam on the ledger.

That being said, I still see proof of stake and proof of coverage as interesting way to maintain said ledger integrity in the like… 3 actually existing use case where a blockchain is superior to a SQLite instance with good security.

[baby]

You’re talking about Bitcoin when there’s a multitude of other cryptocurrencies that are not trying to be the digital gold but rather a mean of payment.

[seibelj]

Proof of Stake coins eliminate the electrical cost of mining yet maintain decentralization. ETH2 is live now but not fully in control of the network https://beaconscan.com/

Many other Proof of Stake blockchains like Cosmos have been live and working fine for years.

[mondoveneziano]

I have looked into proof-of-work in meticulous detail, I have not looked into proof-of-stake. If proof-of-stake exists and eschews the problems I have stated, then what I said here about the problems it creates does not apply anymore.

I have many other doubts against the usefulness and sensibility of blockchains in general, e.g. I have doubts how smart contracts actually succeed to reach their goals in a reality where humans make mistakes and courts are used to settle disputes and ambiguities. But these concerns then only affect the viability of technologies that I and others are not forced to participate in.

Proof-of-work on the other hand, as long as it continues to exist, affects everyone in that in incentivizes burning resources directly for money without regulation, no matter how dirty or wasteful.

[seibelj]

I do not play videogames, I think all videogames are a waste of time. Not only do they waste enormous amounts of electricity, but they also waste untold hours in fantasy worlds of meaningless nonsense.

That said, I think everyone should be able to buy electricity and spend it on what they want, even dumbfuck videogames that waste their life away. If we play the "your electricity is bad, my electricity is good" game then it leads to the majority restricting the minority.

Instead, we should price electricity based on externalities and let purchasers use it as they want. If electricity is 100% clean and the buyer chooses to mine bitcoin, that's their value decision, just as you playing videogames is your (very stupid) decision, but I support your right to waste electricity on it.

[SubiculumCode]

This is very true, and the down voting you are receiving for saying this is shameful.

[baby]

Tbh most of HN has very little knowledge in cryptocurrencies as this thread shows…

[SubiculumCode]

It's a shame. Crypto programmers are in extremely short supply and are in a situation where they can demand quite the salary.

[simonsarris]

This is obviously not true. You cannot buy, say, 3 million USD of bitcoin to transfer to another person who then cashes it out for 220 million rubles. More than one government will be clued in, many will stop you until you identify yourself, and it certainly won't be at most a few dollars to exchange.

[seibelj]

You are 100% incorrect. I worked at Circle which had the second-largest OTC desk while I was there, and $3 million in BTC even back then was trivial. The markets now are ~25x more liquid than they were a few years ago. I don't think you know even the smallest thing about this industry because your comment is so entirely mistaken it reveals you are clueless. Converting from BTC to rubles is a different matter but BTC / fiat trades of major currencies is very easy for USD and I can't imagine rubles are difficult.

[simonsarris]

Either Circle decided to be legal with KYC after you left or you've forgotten about the part where they ID their customers, for the benefit of the government.

https://support.circle.com/hc/en-us/articles/213560643--Iden...

[briatx]

You're not sending money. You're sending tokens. People who say that they are sending money "on the blockchain" are being disingenuous.

You have to account for transaction fees into cryptocurrency, the blockchain transaction fee itself, and the conversion into the target local currency.

You left 2/3rds of that process out, conveniently.

[jodrellblank]

> "and no government can stop me"

"Myanmar’s government shuts down internet indefinitely" - https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/1/22362767/myanmar-military-...

"Bangladeshi government shuts down callphone/internet access in Rohingya camps" - https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/09/13/bangladesh-internet-blac...

"Democratic Republic of the Congo shuts down internet and SMS" - https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...

"Indian government shuts down internet in Kashmir" - https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/08/28/india-restore-kashmirs-i...

"Iranian authorities shut down internet" - https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/11/27/iran-deliberate-coverup-...

"Independent group observes 'near-total' shutdown of Iraqi internet access" - https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/11/08/iraq-teargas-cartridges-...

"Sudan's ongoing internet shutdown" - https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/06/12/sudan-end-network-shutdo...

"China bans ICOs, shuts down domestic exchanges, and uses great firewall to block foreign exchanges and crypto websites" - https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-enlists-apos-great-firewall...

[hirsin]

Currently it's 8 dollars to clear in 6 hours. The cost to turn that back into money isn't included here.