Re: [CFRG] Bitcoin delenda est. Was: Escalation: time commitment to fix *production* security bugs for BLS RFC v4?

Phillip Hallam-Baker <phill@hallambaker.com> Mon, 26 April 2021 20:55 UTC

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From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <phill@hallambaker.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2021 16:54:44 -0400
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To: Thomas Dineen <tdineen@ix.netcom.com>
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Subject: Re: [CFRG] Bitcoin delenda est. Was: Escalation: time commitment to fix *production* security bugs for BLS RFC v4?
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On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 4:38 PM Thomas Dineen <tdineen@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> Climate Change is a hoax, stop this nonsense, and get back to work.
>
> Thomas Dineen
>
1) Climate change is not a hoax.

2) I don't work for you, so what work I do or do not do is none of your
business.

3) A community that claims to be manufacturing vast sums of digital cash
from thin air comes here demanding free consulting. If this is indeed an
issue, why not sell the bug as an NFT and use the proceeds to pay a
consultant?



> On 4/26/2021 1:23 PM, Mike Hamburg wrote:
>
> Also, sorry for the double post, but according to
> https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption, Bitcoin energy
> consumption is up 37% year-on-year, and Ethereum is up by a factor of 5
> (!!!) year-on-year.  Something that's ~1% of human electricity consumption,
> and rising significantly year-on-year, is absolutely something to be
> concerned about.
>
> There are claims that this will somehow help us soak up surplus solar
> energy during the day, and be idle by night, but this is like
> Ethereum-proof-of-stake from my POV: until it actually happens at scale, I
> won’t trust it.
>
>
I had intended to direct the response to the IETF list where this appeared
to originate (gmail's approach to threads sometimes breaks expectations).

But since they are continuing, I will note that the 'flexible' approach to
facts is rather a problem when claiming to be creating the new form of
finance.

I have been hearing how proof of work will be superseded for over a decade
at this point. Using projections for electricity consumption in 2040 to
compare actual consumption by crypto in 2021 is not honest.

We have gone to great effort to reduce global demand for electricity by a
few percent with the shift to LED lightbulbs. And crypto currencies are
basically throwing 0.5% of electricity generated down the drain. And most
of that in countries like China where energy demand is booming because of
the needs of the human population and the state is building coal power
stations in a desperate attempt to meet demand.