This article is horrible. It fails to discuss the benefits of using proof of work as a consensus protocol. It uses chips, it doesn't waste chips.
At least that's what I think the parent is getting at. I would agree it's a bit of an obtuse analogy and doesn't necessarily apply to all of crypto as a whole.
In practical terms, the machine I'm writing this on is closer to cloud computing than the EVM is.
Ok, yes, that's fair. That doesn't totally negate the analogy, though. It just shows that it's a potentially inferior solution.
> In practical terms, the machine I'm writing this on is closer to cloud computing than the EVM is.
I think what the parent was getting at is the whole "cloud == someone else's computer" trope. Without knowing more details about the computer you're using to post on HN it's impossible to know but I think it's pretty likely you own the computer you're currently using. You wouldn't be using your employer's computer for non-work purposes, right? ;)
"The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son."
I mean seriously, is this a real argument. Bitcoin is good because one person who got rich from it happened to be philanthropic? Where do you think that money came from? The answer is other "investors" who were told Bitcoin would make them rich. If the best justification for Bitcoin's existence is the Pineapple fund, Bitcoin must be the stupidest charity fundraising effort of all time, which is saying something.
The intrinsic value which Bitcoin provides is that it is as a currency, i.e. a way to transfer and store value. But as the Bitcoin detractors in this thread point out, it's value in this role is far outweighed by its costs.
Yes, it's a real argument against "There isn't a single redeeming quality about Cryptocurrency". I agree that not everything with cryptocurrency is good. In fact, I'd argue most uses today are bad, and only a few are good.
But I haven't argued for that everything about cryptocurrencies are good.
Remember; "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
The first one is people who don't see any value whatsoever in cryptocurrencies. They typically say PoW is "waste" because they don't see value in the output, so there is no argument against them, as everything related to cryptocurrency is waste. It's largely a waste of time talking to these people, as they have made up their mind.
The second group are people who see maybe a bit of value or more in PoW. Since there is a hypothetical value, there is no "waste" as much as "use" of doing this hashing. They see value in having a cryptocurrency network, so even if it's wasteful, the greater good is more important for them. It's largely a waste of time talking to these people, as they also have made up their mind.
Seriously, even if you find value in Bitcoin, proof-of-work is unsustainable.
At current rates it's burning 0.5% of world energy. If price went to $300k it would end up burning 3% of world energy.
As the article notes, this is regardless of L2 solutions - energy use is purely a matter of market price.
This is actually a second problem of Bitcoin though - If in say 20 years it ends up being worth a lot, and gives very little mining revenue causing few people mine it, it becomes vulnerable to attack from nation states. Because the cost of a 51% attack is only a fraction of the possible rewards for a successful attack.
Unfortunately, there are second order effects. The miner reward is a constant selling pressure on Bitcoin, as miners must sell some of the rewards to pay for electricity and hardware. As Bitcoin gives off less and less rewards, this selling pressure reduces, which tends to increase the Bitcoin price (less supply for the same demand).
And securing the network costs money in a proportional amount to the market price of the coin.
The network is no more or less efficient burning through 20% of the human race's energy output as it is burning 0.2% or 0.000002%.
It produces no additional transactions, no more or fewer coins. Just more waste product.