It's weird to celebrate the electricity savings of Ethereum like this. It's good that it's less energy-intensive now, but it was that energy-intensive before because of Ethereum in the first place.
This is how all tech works - trains, cars, power stations. We build things that are initially inefficient. We eventually transition to energy efficient tech. We celebrate. It’s rare the transition can reduce 99.95% of energy footprint the size of a country within a minute of activating the new tech.
The difference is that PoW is not "inefficient". Rather, it is intrinsically wasteful by its very nature.
Take an inefficient car for instance. There are diminishing returns in its utility after a certain point of energy use. On the other hand, there are no diminishing returns in PoW. The more energy you use, the more money you make.
Sure? It was both an inefficient and wasteful mechanism to secure consensus. This is why developers have been actively researching and developing how to switch Eth to PoS for years.
Electric heaters are the classic exception in energy efficiency calculations. The heat produced is only wasted in that it will eventually dissipate. But heat is exactly what you wanted when you turned the heater on, and so heaters are often described as 100% efficient. I guess with heat pumps this logic makes less sense. It is more efficient to move heat around than to generate it.
Not quite sure how this relates to Proof of Work. People don't generally run mining rigs because they want to generate heat. The heat is almost always waste.
I've always wondered if the economics of using CPUs in heaters to do something useful and generate heat would ever work out.
Trains, cars and power stations serve a purpose. The blockchain only creates waste with nothing in return. Yeah it does pollute less now, but it's still too much.
For something that millions of people across the world rely on, with million+ transactions daily, it's definitely worth celebrating. It's using a magnitude less energy now than YouTube or Netflix [1] If YouTube had a similar decrease in energy, Hacker News would be all over it.
> For something that millions of people across the world rely on
People keep claiming that millions of people rely on it is such a bullshit claim
> with million+ transactions daily
Which is a paltry 11 transactions per second. I think a Raspberry Pi is now capable of the same amazing feat.
> It's using a magnitude less energy now than YouTube or Netflix
And doing orders of magnitudes less while consuming insane amounts of energy.
Had Ethereum tried to move around as much video as Youtube and Netflix are doing, heat death of the universe would happen the next day after the attempt.
Can nodes in Etherium? Or is there a central governing body there which has the power to revert legitimate transactions, just like in traditional systems?
But hey, at least it's an unregulated, informal, ad-hoc process in Etherium with no justice system or oversight to enforce the rights of the little guy.
The DAO hard fork was an exceptional event that occurred in 2015, under very unique circumstances inherent to the world's first smart contract platform experiencing the world's first major smart contract hack, and has not been repeated since.
Ethereum at this point - with seven years of autonomous operation and no repeats of DAO-like hard forks - has proven to be an immutable and credibly neutral settlement layer.
You're pretending that tech is more important than the uses of that tech or the outcomes. Which is doubly ironic because the comment above compared Ethereum to Youtube and Netflix.
The 99.999999999% of use cases for Ethereum (or for Blockchains in general) can be easily handled if not by a single Raspberry Pi, but at least by a modern laptop. Because those use cases are currency speculation, buying useless shit, and asset hoarding.
The remaining arguably useful usecases are an exchange of IOUs.
You underestimate the utility of a global financial system which can be participated in by anyone.
This makes many tools and processes (leveraged financial instruments and automated market makers) available without an intermediate third party that most humans would never know existed, let alone how to use.
They are still in their infancy, the investment in knowledge that is required to use them well remains quite substantial. How many years before a regular person can ditch the bank for their own personal hedge DAO?
I'm afraid you are the one who must be kidding, if you think that internet TV is more important than leveling the financial playing field.
> You underestimate the utility of a global financial system which can be participated in by anyone.
Ah yes. By anyone. Especially those who got in early before the prices skyrocketed and can now enjoy the global financial system of... currency manipulation and hoarding.
> I'm afraid you are the one who must be kidding, if you think that internet TV is more important than leveling the financial playing field.
You must be kidding when you call scams, currency manipulation, hoarding and zero customer protections a "level playing field for a global financial system".
> They are still in their infancy, the investment in knowledge that is required to use them well remains quite substantial.
The only investment in knowledge there was (and there was very little of that) is discovering why existing systems are the way they are and keeping busy reinventing them.
> discovering why existing systems are the way they are and keeping busy reinventing them
You may have had access to those existing systems (the global financial market) before Ethereum, but many of us did not. Being able to take a risky asset, and hedge it against itself, is not a strategy that I was aware of two years ago.
I was a 12 year old investor and E-trade told Grandma and Auntie that they would have to sell their Red-Hat stock, back in 2003 or 4, because it had gone down so much in value that it was no longer worth the monthly trade commission to maintain the position open. We bought some stock after IPO, and had bad timing by a few months. If they had known then what we know now, well...
I'd not be here wasting my time talking about re-inventing the global financial system on the internet, believe you me. That was a good investment, bad system and bad timing.
Do you have any idea how exploitative the global financial system is for people who are not "in the know"? It's well over time we reinvent it all. This is awful.
> You may have had access to those existing systems (the global financial market) before Ethereum, but many of us did not.
Many you... who?
> Being able to take a risky asset, and hedge it against itself, is not a strategy that I was aware of two years ago.
That's not "leveling the playing field". It's either "financial education" (because it's something you could always do in "traditional finance"), or "let the suckers come, the more the better" (most of crypto).
> I'd not be here wasting my time talking about re-inventing the global financial system on the internet, believe you me.
Oh, I do believe you. Crypto maximalists never talk about it. They only speak vague trivialities and then disappear.
> Do you have any idea how exploitative the global financial system is for people who are not "in the know"?
Ah yes. Unlike the cryptoscams.
> It's well over time we reinvent it all. This is awful.
> That's not "leveling the playing field". It's either "financial education" (because it's something you could always do in "traditional finance")
OK. Now we are really splitting hairs, because "education" actually doesn't count as "leveling the playing field." I'm totally done here, you just played yourself.
You go ahead and educate yourself in the traditional exploitative financial system, and I'll continue my education here in the exploitative crypto-financial system. And we shall never talk again. That would be a positive outcome, right?
We're not. I'v directly responding to what you write, and not to hat you think you write.
You started with "leveling the playing field" and continued with "Being able to take a risky asset, and hedge it against itself, is not a strategy that I was aware of two years ago".
> You go ahead and educate yourself in the traditional exploitative financial system
Ah yes, you continue to use the words you don't fully understand, but since they are emotionally charged, this makes them the right arguments in your mind.
> And we shall never talk again.
As I already said, "Crypto maximalists ... only speak vague trivialities and then disappear."
If you antagonize someone in a discussion, they're going to disappear. I don't need a degree in crypto-finance to tell you that. I'm not here for any of this.
If you want to engage me in a proper discussion, you can look me up. I've been on the internet using this name since I was 12 years old (and yes educating people, and also getting educated myself.) I'm not going anywhere.
Why don't you explain more about how easily accessible those traditional financial instruments are for normies? I'm interested in that information, can you provide links?
You haven't disappeared as you promised, you keep replying. Please keep your promises when you make good ones with positive outcomes like disappearing. It makes you seem insincere when you keep promising to disappear, but don't. There's a huge difference between disappearing because somebody actually antagonized you, and disappearing because you couldn't prove your point and decided to act antagonized because people wouldn't believe your wild claims without proof.
I haven't made any claims. I said I learned something, and your buddy disappeared without explaining how to do the same thing I said I learned how to do as he said was "something you could always do," while shouting insults at me on his way like I'm somehow the one responsible for the Crypto-calypse. I'm not, and you people need to get over yourselves.
I did try to engage in the discussion. "I'd not be here wasting my time talking", "You go ahead and educate yourself", "we shall never talk again." are hardly a proper response.
> Why don't you explain more about how easily accessible those traditional financial instruments are for normies?
Define "normies" first. Or better still, drop this condescending pejorative.
> I'm interested in that information, can you provide links?
I have no links, as it's a service often provided directly by your bank. Right now I have some money invested in risky assets that in the past two months sank 10% due to the way the world is right now.
There are multiple lists of "best books about investment", so you could start there. You know why? The absolute vast majority of "innovation" and "knowledge" in crypto space falls roughly into:
- scams
- currency speculation which is indistinguishable from Forex trading except that it's running on "smart contracts". Forex trading was huge in some countries (Moldova and Turkey among those I know about) in early-to-mid 2000s. I had friends at university heavily invested in it. It probably still is quite popular (and it's very popular in "defi" which is rarely anything but currency speculation and unsecured loans).
- asset hoarding + speculation. "Buy cheap, hype, hope for the price to go up, sell". Indistinguishable from anything traditional (from stocks to bonds to Ponzi schemes): you buy an asset, wait for the price to go up, sell.
What crypto is busy discovering is why "traditional finance" has all these things in place: KYOC, fraud protection and prevention, reversibility of transactions, deposit insurance, functional courts and laws etc. And is just as busy re-inventing all those, poorly.
Go back and read it. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt now, but you did not. You threw barbs and used the word "scam" as often as you could, and told me I'd be likely disappearing in a few minutes. Then someone showed up to comment on how disappointed they are I didn't really disappear like I promised. Can't win for losing. This is exactly like every crypto discussion on the internet today, it's very frustrating. I hope you know how difficult it is for me to be this patient. (It actually reminds me a whole lot of doing Ruby evangelism in almost the same circles...)
> how easily accessible those traditional financial instruments are
> I have some money invested in risky assets that in the past two months sank 10% due to the way the world is right now
I'm talking about deliverable perpetual futures. If you had seen this coming, you could have done some short-selling to hedge your risks. Price goes up, you deliver and sell for a profit. Price goes down, you still have your asset and can cash out for a profit. Is that a service offered by your bank? Not mine...
But maybe your bank offers it ...maybe only to qualified/accredited investors? How do I get that?
Now perhaps you see what I am getting at? It's not accessible, no matter how many books you read. Go out and get a million dollars today, through some act of God, and you still won't be a qualified investor next week or next year. Or you can wait for SEC approval, and then you can go get them through your broker I guess.
Some people read books, others are not well-served by book learning. I looked for a book that could explain it to me, but ultimately I only learned by getting hosed using these instruments flatly incorrectly until I figured out what I was doing wrong, by using them, and observing the outcomes, then also asking for help. Lovely people answering questions to help others learn. (It was the friends we made along the way!)
Is there some reason the system is the way it is? Yes, I'm sure there is. Does it protect people how it was really intended, or does it actually mean it just remains inaccessible to most people? This is how crypto levels the playing field.
Does that mean you cannot cut yourself when working with the sharp object? No, it definitely is not safe to go alone here. There are a million and one ways to lose all your money, plus a million new ones that weren't possible before. And soon a new technology will come, and everyone who understands the current landscape will know immediately what to do with it, (and everyone who has had their head in the sand will wait for the SEC for guidance, and eventually begrudgingly accept the improvement, maybe, once all the life has been sucked out of it by bureaucrats.)
> I'm talking about deliverable perpetual futures.
It's a nonsensical term (like many other nonsensical terms) that only exists in the crypto space. And only works in the highly volatile market like crypto. This is short-to-medium term currency speculation, and I'm sure there are plenty of services that allow you to do that in "traditional finance". As I'm not interested in currency speculation, I couldn't tell you what they are.
> Now perhaps you see what I am getting at? It's not accessible
You've selected a single service revolving around currency speculation and you call "traditional finance" inaccessible because of that. That... is not what accessibility to financial services means. Or what "levelling the playing field" is.
> Is there some reason the system is the way it is? Yes, I'm sure there is.
You're sure, but at the same time you are completely uninterested to learn why it is that way, and you dismiss anyone telling you why it is the way it is because, let me quote, "it's an awful exploitative global financial system".
> There are a million and one ways to lose all your money, plus a million new ones that weren't possible before.
Indeed. And that makes this "accessible and a level playing field" unlike traditional finance which offers fraud protection, deposit insurance, etc. etc.
> And soon a new technology will come, and everyone who understands the current landscape will know immediately what to do with it
So, the "accessible system" will be accessible to those who understand current landscape, who have already lost money a million ways and cut themselves on sharp corners.
That is neither accessible nor a level playing field.
If you claim that it is "global financial system which can be participated in by anyone", where are the protections for those who "did not have access to existing systems" (I keep quoting you).
I'm a programmer, I earn quite a lot. And I still cannot afford to just go ahead and "lose my money in a million ways" and "cut myself when working with a sharp object". Where's your accessibility, huh?
> and everyone who has had their head in the sand will wait for the SEC for guidance
Ah yes. Instead we can just not wait and lose the money a million and one ways for the sake of.... something.
There's a reason for SEC guidances, but, again, you're entirely unwilling to learn why they exist. Perhaps, you will learn it the hard way.
I literally just came here today to tell everyone that I learned something, and you ruined it. You raised the bar, it's no longer enough that I learned something, I have to make it accessible for everyone else too, or I am a bad person. Thanks.
I absolutely love overdraft fees. I've never used a bank that didn't have some ridiculous scheme of their own which you had to internalize or pay a monthly fee. Banks offer some guarantees, but they're not really helping most people.
Neither is Ethereum, maybe you'll say, but I didn't come here to argue about that. This is a day to celebrate because the #1 top complaint of all crypto detractors has been addressed by Crypto's second largest collective. Now that is finished we can move onto #2 top complaint, whatever that will be.
I certainly do not imagine, foresee, or desire to live in a world in which people must protect their private keys or forfeit their house to a hacker. But can you really say we aren't headed there now? Is the alternative better, (that you have to trust the bank's security? Are you in the US? Oh god, I have some bad news...)
Acting like scams began in 2008 when Bitcoin was first invented is the ultimate scam. I grew up in NY, we've all been getting scammed our entire lives, by the government too.
Yeah, this quote from the article made me groan out loud:
> I've had a role to play in removing a megaton of carbon from the atmosphere every week
You're not removing it, you helped create the thing that was putting it there in the first place, and fixed your mistake! It's still there, it's just not getting worse now.
