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Comment by a_shovel | Hacker News Reader

> One extremely common phenomenon when discussing issues surrounding blockchain-based technologies is that proponents will often switch between discussing the theoretical implementations of these ecosystems and discussing the ecosystems we have today as it suits their argument.

This is an endemic problem in crypto spaces. The biggest example I see regularly is deflecting concerns about environmental impact by stating they'll move away from proof of work any day now, so it's no big deal.

Maybe you will, maybe you won't, but until you have, you haven't.

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If only this style of argument worked with my wife

In the case of Ethereum, I see it more as acknowledging it is a problem under Proof of Work and they are moving off it this year _because_ it's a problem. They are making tangible progress with the Kintsugi test net coming out last month.

How else are they supposed to address it other than acknowledging the problem, laying out a roadmap, and taking steps towards the end goal?

Proof of stake has been ~18months away for ethereum since 2015.

Sure, they've built some stuff at this point, but have made no progress on the inner politics of the issue. So it remains in some untouchable future for the time being.

Remind me by year end if this is still the case and I'll eat humble pie. It's true it's been discussed about for ages, and even Vitalik was inviting laughs at his really low initial estimate, so it's fair to be skeptical

Lightning is PoS for Bitcoin. Ready today!

Doesn't solve PoW pollution issues.

Pollution is equal to resource use, which is equal to mining rewards.

Mining rewards are proportional to market price, not # of transactions.

So lightning could help with scale (I dont think it will) but wont help with resource waste

There’s no such thing as PoW pollution. Think of solar panels, wind power and fuel burn offs, all power at the edge, made efficient by PoW, not socialistic PoS nonsense.

The problem is not that they're not addressing it, or trying to, or at least thinking about how to. The problem is that criticism of crypto's electricity use is immediately dismissed with "but POS will solve that" as if it has already solved it. Which it hasn't.

In the interim we've had zero accountability for the huge Co2 emissions or GPU shortages because of ETH mining for the last 5 years.

Will the Ethereum community offset the carbon footprint of their pet project?

Huh, I get the impression people know it's bad _now_ and that's the _reason_ they're switching.

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