No one is ever concerned with how much energy is used to feed ads to the entire population of earth 24/7.
Same with porn. But I’m building a shake-power generator for fleshlites so it should balance out the power it pulls. Saving the earth one jack-off at a time.
Charging a hybrid car battery only takes 253.4 jerks. Pretty soon we will be expanding our charging service to parking lots across America and Canada! Most of them already have people willing to do it for you already …they were doing it there anyway… Win/win.
Powerjerk ™, we make perverts work for you!
Just roll up and say “Hey Jagoff, I need to get to x!” And you’ll promptly be taken care of.*
*Do not give them drugs to speed up the process. We are serious about our drug-free workplace.
Edit: steal my idea and I’ll find you
Energy isn’t free. More power captured from jerking will increase food consumed, meaning more energy used in farming. You’ll have to brand this as either a carbon
capturefapture system or as a weight loss programJoin our team of Jerks. We have a stiff sign on bonus.
By chance are you good at “shooting ropes”? Our clients love ropes.
The new Weight Loss Jerkoff System could solve part of that
The studs at the local Blue Oyster don’t call me Spider Man for no reason.
Porn is more beneficial for humanity than imaginary ownership.
Capitalism is based on imaginary ownership.
Nailed it.
Bur, what if they prematurely finish and my car isn’t charged yet?
Fired!
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I have an ancient hermetic method of getting off that requires neither computer or phone. Enquire within if you seek this ancient knowledge.
Please elaborate
For only $99 USD all will be explained via a one on one Webinar.
What a deal! I can’t lose!
Or how much is spent on the global banking industry…
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Lets do an advertising tax 10% of all add revenue.
Unironically this.
That’s such a great point wtf
How much does facebook, the banking system Google search need and does it even make sense to compare this against a small country?
That is why I only block ads when I’m on a plane 👍
Or that tumble dryers in the USA alone use more energy than Bitcoin.
Instead of actually talking about it you’re lazily using it to deflect criticism of unsustainable cryptocurrencies. Your input was worthless.
Yes, but it’s almost certainly a multitude less electricity than bitcoin.
it’s almost certainly not
Yea the rally against block chain tech is stupid as fuck. It consumes nothing in the grand scale…do people not realize a lot of large enterprises have ~200k nodes give or take? Bigger companies can have in the million range. 200k machines is a joke.
Edit: I can see a lot of people just hate block chain tech without understanding anything tech wise lol
The nodes aren’t the issue. It’s the fact that those nodes have to expend at least the same amount of energy every single time a record is added and the larger the ledger, the more energy is needed. Blockchain is somewhat unique in that regard.
You do understand what a DB is right? Like there’s millions of them…hell right now typing out this comment has one marking it. And then you’re downloading it to read it… that’s a transaction. Except there are millions of people reading comments constantly on all social media platforms.
My comment here has more bits in it than a single transaction.
DBs are not the same as a blockchain. A DB doesn’t have to hash all previous data before it every time the DB is written to. You can read and write to a specific spot in a DB without ever knowing anything else about the DB. With blockchain, inserts have to be successive and they have to reference every previous insert to validate that the entry series is unbroken. On top of that, for things like Bitcoin, every other client also has to validate it since the ledger is shared.
There’s a reason blockchain is significant. Otherwise, why didn’t stuff like Bitcoin exist prior to it? Databases, in some for or another, have existed for decades. Blockchains are immutable, that’s why. The order of entries matters and validation is a requirement.
DBs still update their tables every time someone writes to it. And there are millions of DBs being written to every second. It’s absolutely comparable.
We’re not comparing millions of DBs to a single blockchain. We’re comparing 1 DB to 1 blockchain instance. If you had millions of blockchains, you would use exponentially more energy for the same data vs. a normal database. Updating tables is not the same thing as hashing and validating every prior entry in the table.
There aren’t millions of block chains…lol your argument is bullshit.
With the electricity used to validate a single crypto transaction you could do thousands or even millions of DB queries.
Yes, everything uses electricity. That’s like saying that it’s fine if you kill one cow per day to eat its ear and throw the rest because hundreds of them are killed every day in farms.
Wasting so much electricity in such a non efficient manner so a decentralization cult member can have his wet dream of using non-government money makes no sense.
You don’t even understand blockchain so I’m not sure what your edit is all about. You’re comparing blockchain to a database in your replies as if they’re comparable.
When it comes to power…it absolutely is comparable…but most of you have no clue how much compute we use daily in terms of power. Acting like the block chain sucks down anywhere near the amount of power we use on even in the corporate world is hilarious…you know a lot of colos have their own sub stations right?
The only person here who doesn’t know what they’re talking about is you. If you took a standard DB (MySQL or Postgres, for example) and took that same information and stored it on a blockchain instead, you’d use far more energy on the blockchain and the issue would only get exponentially worse as the chain got bigger. Normal DBs don’t need to hash new entries or validate them against previous entries that are also hashed.
Yes because there are millions and millions of block chains…lol don’t fool yourself into knowing what your talking about.
And yes DBs are only one DB no one ever has HA stacks or redundancy built in…lol
Are you dense, man? No one said that. They’re saying that one blockchain would take several hundred DBs to equal its energy use. You’re wrong and doubling down for some reason and it’s just making you look silly.
I said that genius…go check my posts…the fuck you arguing about? I literally said that the amount of DBs we have make the miniscule amount of large block chains out there look like nothing. Then you show up and say one DB isn’t comparable to one large fucking blockchain…no shit.
Yeah, people tend hate what they don’t understand. Especially when most people think think every blockchain performs exactly like bitcoin (which is proof of work). Bitcoin is slow and power hungry and would never actually be usable by the masses for everyday transactions. But it was the first and will likely be a “digital gold” for a long time
But it’s not the only one and in time everyone will be using blockchain technology. It’s so much more convenient and useful than most realize. The Solana blockchain has secured a big partnership with Visa that can be read up on if anyone is interested.
The real charlatans were the “the technology has promise” people. No, the technology was dumb.
He says on a decentralized platform that became popular because the centralized equivalent became hostile towards their users.
“Blockchain” and “decentralised” are not interchangeable words
Yes, in the same way that federated and decentralized aren’t interchangeable.
This is revolutionary
This is de-evolutionary!
…and, hear me out, that will be perfect for keeping messages untraceable by the government. Every single of those 200,000 computers will have full copies of all the messages ever transmitted, unencrypted, but they’ll never be able to tell who wrote them and who they were for.
privacy or secrecy from the government isn’t a goal of Bitcoin - the protocol doesn’t even use encryption.
the goal is protection from (government or other) control
I’m still 90% convinced it was either invented by the CIA or the NSA for “reasons”. The US military invented the dark web and they even claim to have invented it, so it’s not a far stretch that another US gov. agency invented Bitcoin.
Probably invented as a way to more discreetly fund black sites…
No one who understands bitcoin ever thought it was untraceable.
In the early days it was really common to place messages in the chain.
There are literal marriage proposals among these message.
Monero entered the chat.
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Crypto =/= blockchain.
If you can’t see the utility of blockchain with regards to things like actual, verifiable digital ownership, then I don’t know what to tell you.
I want to see what you mean in practical terms, because the only other example that I know besides questionable crypto currencies is NFTs and that was an epic lesson on what not to do. 😅
No, NFTs do have good uses, but things like image NFTs are just a misappropriation, like SPAM is to email.
One use case, is clear, independently verifiable ownership of non-tangible things, like Intellectual Property rights. Movie rights for a book adaptation for instance moving between companies in IP sales and mergers/acquisitions.
One use case, is clear, independently verifiable ownership of non-tangible things, like Intellectual Property rights.
Why is your system better than the existing one?
There is, for example, the first-owner problem in a public blockchain. What happens if I make an NFT saying I own you property? Without an external system, how can you prove your NFT is real and mine isn’t? And if there’s an external system, why not use that instead?
I thought of that problem the moment when they started explaining their use case. I had no idea there is a name for it, kinda cool. If the blockchain people have a real solution for it, it would be a pretty big deal
It’s a term from copyright. The First Owner of a work is usually the person who makes a work, and they can then do all sorts of things with that.
IP rights is not a problem that needs solving. In fact, the existing legal system has ways of punishing copyright violations whereas the Blockchain does not.
Supply chain validation is also an example of the block chain “in action”. But the people that are entering the data on the Blockchain are the same people that were typing it in an email yesterday.
I used to be a fan of the technology as well but so far it hasn’t show itself to be useful. A solution in search of a problem.
And it’s ALWAYS the same problem. You can have all the lists you want. A central authority has to recognize and enforce that list. At which point, the structure of your list is completely irrelevant. It could be ANY list. What matters is that it’s chosen to be enforced. And currently, most power structures are happy with plain old databases. Or pen and paper.
No, NFTs do have good uses
I hear that now since 12 Years. Its not going to happen.
The perfect use case is tickets to live events. One entity creates one NFT for each seat or spot available and can initially sell them. The owner of that NFT (ticket) can then do whatever they want with it without the need for a third party (Ticketmaster) to scalp the shit out of any subsequent transactions.
Proof of ownership of a single ticket at the time of the event is the end goal, which is what NFTs do.
Why this hasn’t been done is pretty baffling to me.
What’s better, is if artists want to provide a subset of tickets that are not resellable they can. Those tickets will only be accepted if a single transaction has taken place.
Why this hasn’t been done is pretty baffling to me.
Because the blockchain needs an incentive. Who is going to be taking part in the blockchain if there is nothing in it for them? That’s why these tokens are often tied to crypto currencies, as mining is the incentive.
Yeah why would ticketmaster, who makes a killing having their ticket monopoly and control, develop a system where they lose control?
The sounds like scalpers paradise. They can buy multiple tickets and sell it without thinking about any authorization (id card or something) when using that tickets
That is an absolutely TERRIBLE use case because it is by definition centralized. The venue already has ample control over who tf gets in and there is little problem with counterfeit tickets.
Duranium-on-the-Mohs-scale hard pass. Tickets work fine.
What’s baffling to me is the ramping up of the 21st century penchant for mindless wheel-re-inventing.
That’s not a perfect use case for it. That’s a central authority (venue) selling tickets to anyone who wants to buy them. But instead of using a local database and approving transfers from person to person and losing the ability to reverse transactions due to fraud, it’s hosted in the wild west of crypto.
There’s nothing stopping a venue from offering your perfect use case in a centralized system, but they outsource it to Ticketmaster (namely because Ticketmaster owns like 80% of music venues or something) so they don’t have to deal with it.
Your scenario outsources it to the block chain, who will charge gas for the transactions instead of ticketmaster charging fees.
I don’t know the value in a decentralized IP rights system. If the key holder gets phished, you can lose your rights to a TV series you’ve been working on. (Like Seth Greene)
He wouldn’t have lost it and had to pay back the ransom in a traditional contract. Having a contract centralized and enforced by the legal system has many perks and I can’t ever see how a decentralized rights platform can enforce itself.
"Intellectual Property[sic]" is dishonest loaded language, but yes, I agree with you that blockchain could be a good way for a copyright holder to prove their monopoly. 'Course, that’s also what registering your copyright with the Library of Congress is for, so…
An NFT is a deed. Do you see any uses for a deed that is not in control of a central authority?
Not really, no. Who’s going to honor the deed? There’s your central authority that can control it.
There are other uses. Like making a system that is interconnected and resistant to hacking. For example an interconnected traffic light system that can prioritize transit/emergency vehicles could be managed by a block chain to ensure the system stays in sync with itself for traffic flow/prioirty while being resistant to hacking or malicious activity.
How does adding more computers, more points of failure, make infrastructure less prone to exploitation?
Because it’s a trustless system. In order to override the system you have to take over 50% of the nodes, and in large enough systems it’s infeasible to get that much compute power. This means that no one person or organization can actually control the destiny of the system, only the consensus can.
I can’t believe that here, in the fediverse of all places, we need to have a discussion about the benefits of having a system that corporations can’t control.
Who controls the streetlight blockchain in your idea? You think the government is going to responsibly manage a system that is large enough to be impractical to alter? My local government is barely responsibly enough to manage basic utility maintenance, we’ve had 3 water main bursts in a month and it hasn’t even been below freezing that whole time.
I can’t believe a human being living in the world doesn’t see that any implementation of a secure blockchain requires massive funding for infrastructure. That money comes from 1 of 2 places, illegal enterprises that maintain control for security and manipulation, and legal corporations that will maintain control for financial security and manipulation. Modern governments don’t run projects like this anymore, they contract them out to corporations.
Keep in mind that the only practical use of blockchain that anyone has found so far, has been as a currency that requires no ID. The most famous use of these currencies was by John Mccaffee, who used crypto currencies to help him evade authorities for nearly a decade. So I don’t have much faith in a technology that has only shown a benefit to criminals with so much money that cash becomes impractical. Nor do I have to remind you that wealthy private individuals have been able to manipulate crypto markets with hilarious ease, like how Musk pumped and dumped Doge Coin years ago with a single tweet and most likely made millions in private, untraceable money.
Just because something sounds cool on paper, and makes it seem like it skirts governments and corporations, doesn’t mean it works in practice. Large entities inherently have more resources, and are primed to steal new technologies for their own use, especially when implementing that technology requires huge funding for infrastructure.
Yeah I realize now I responded to a thread about traffic lights instead of systems in general. Obviously centralized systems are far superior for that.
It’s almost like different types of systems have different requirements, and a communication platform benefits from decentralization, where traffic lights and vehicle routing does not.
This is a classic solution in search of a problem. The problem with stop lights isn’t that corporations control them, the problem with stop lights is that the general population thinks that cars are the only way to get around and demand that city officials optimize street and roads for cars. Adding a bunch of crazy verification steps will not solve this problem.
This is another social problem that technology just can’t solve.
Maybe it would be a good thing for the digital world to be free from the concept of ownership.
How about first we see a version that isn’t a scam? We’ve seen plenty of scam versions so far.
Imagine if you will… the dollar (cash) was invented today, up until now all there was was long-established crypto currency.
Suddenly there’s all sorts of scams where crooks trick people out of their dollars. Others are getting straight robbed and have no recourse to get their cash back. Cops often don’t believe you as you have little evidence of the $1000 you just had. Yet others are getting scammed by “banks” that disappear soon after accepting deposits as there is no state regulation.
What you’re seeing is not a problem inherent in crypto-currency or blockchains, it’s a new tool. Many new tools are used most effectively by “the bad guys” first. Even look at Mp3s, the first 5 years of their existence their purpose was basically to rob record companies. Are mp3s a scam?
Don’t let banks and authorities convince you that one of the most effective weapons against them is a scam against you. You don’t think the banks are telling you the truth… this time… right?
I’m looking at the current evidence, not “what banks are telling me”.
Of course! You have access to actual evidence and not articles directly or indirectly funded by those who would be harmed by moving away from the current system. And of course you’ve considered it without bias or influence from that group. You are not being propagandized to, no way.
IMO, blockchain technology is good for one use case: illegal transactions.
I think all else can be achieved more efficiently by using a trusted third party write-only database, such as the ones available on AWS, and you’d also have the benefit of being able to go to court to seek relief. Some blockchain markets are basically reinventing banking systems and preexisting financial law - systems that have been built over centuries and have quite a bit of knowledge baked in.
I do like the shift to proof of stake from proof of work, but this tech is silly to me.
IMO, blockchain technology is good for one use case: illegal transactions.
YES!!!
The only thing you’re not getting quite right is what it means to be “illegal” and whether the groups making this decision have anyone’s interest in mind except their own.
When doing right is or becomes illegal because our country is run by a fascist, that “illegal” money will save lives.
I know of one use case that seems viable, there is a digital housing market service in my country (called Dias). It uses blockchain to verify transactions related to selling and buying houses. That includes proof of sales, ownership, bank transaction status etc. The blockchain is operated by all the major banks. Their incentive is that it increases the security of the transactions thanks to the immutable digital trail, and also the fact that no single entity owns the “database” so no entity can alter it, or skim service fees etc from the others.
But if you have any conflict with it, you have to get a lawyer involved right? It doesn’t seem like it provides value to a real estate transaction, just seems like a use case for block chain
A blockchain is only as secure as the amount of work (= processing power) that goes into it. Anyone with 51% of the processing power invested in a blockchain can attack it and essentially steal from other people. For cryptocurrencies it’s a problem that solves itself, because every person that possesses some of the cryptocurrency is incentivized to mine to keep it secure (and to earn some at the same time). The more your cryptocurrency is valuable, the more people will want to mine it and the more secure it will be.
For anything other than cryptocurrencies, you can’t incentivize a huge number of people to commit computing power to secure your blockchain. So you have to protect it some other way, for example only allowing you and some trusted people to write on it. But then it doesn’t really need to be a blockchain anymore, just a write-only database (which will perform better and occupy less space).
If it requires no work to generate a block at the end of your blockchain, any attacker can generate malicious ones.
Digital ownership on one (1) blockchain. Not really that great when you put it like that. What makes one Blockchain more authoritative than another? Even in a closed system, if you think the admins of these chains don’t keep a kill switch in their back pocket specifically for their advantage in ownership conflicts then you should probably read about Ethereum Classic. Even if they don’t want to hard fork, if a chain is controlled entirely by a company, then they can edit it however they want regardless since it’s not really decentralized. The idea that Blockchains will empower the customer with digital ownership is silly to me.
Who do you think controls ETC? IOHK? It’s an open-source project.
It had some 51% attacks a few years ago, is that what you are referring to?
I’m honestly just curious what you mean
No, I’m referring to how ETC came about as the result of a huge scam that caused the whole Ethereum project to be forked. The original Ethereum was supposed to be immutable, but this conflict clearly showed that wasn’t true, and there were still people pulling the strings who were too big to fail.
Not anything new to someone who’s very familiar with the project, but emblematic of the promise of crypto vs the actual product.
Then I guess you misunderstand that the hard fork resulting from the DAO hack was the result of consensus of the network participants, not a unilateral action taken by the Ethereum foundation. Indeed, the protocol facilitated that’s the only way it could happen.
The historic source code is still hosted, if you think ETH devs have the ability to ‘edit whatever they want’ then you should be able to point to the lines of code where that ability is afforded to them. Or someone should, 8 years should have been enough time to have a flick through.
Your anti-ETH comment came across as an anti-ETC comment to me, that’s why I responded. I stand with you in disagreement with the 2016 hard fork. Mostly because many people would lose money anyway, and did. ETH corrected 50+%.
ETC is literally the original chain, sans Ethereum foundation’s branding (which is why your reference to it confused me). Founding members left and continued to support ETC, and went on to found other foundations with a basis in academic rigor, which formed the fundamental basis of the ideological disagreement between participants.
You said this showed ETH/ETC devs have a ‘kill switch in their back pocket’, but the part of Ethereum that was ‘killed’ is alive and much larger than it was in 2016.
My point wasn’t for or against any particular chain. It was just pointing out that crypto isn’t really immutable when applied to real use cases, and is only as decentralized and democratic as power brokers in the space want it to be.
I’m pointing out that the DAO hack transactions are not muted on ETC, they still exist as transactions in a validated block on that chain. Whether its state of mutability exists in binary or on a spectrum, ETC is shown to be immutable using your criteria, further showing that it’s not as simple as “crypto isn’t really immutable”. Different chains, even directly originating from the same project, have different characteristics with respect to mutability. It’s not to say that ETH is worse and/or better than ETC, or that either of them are good, it’s just what’s been observed as a matter of record, contrary to your depiction
My point is that in a mass-adoption scenario where blockchains are controlled by large entities, they will absolutely use these characteristics to their advantage, and because of how crypto is structured it will be much more oppressive and favored towards existing powers than more traditional methods that allow for greater flexibility and a more diverse set of use cases. That’s why some of the biggest holders of crypto are the same corporations that caused the '08 subprime loan crash.
Is a chain is controlled by a single entity then it’s not a blockchain, it’s a linked list with extra steps.
The whole point of a blockchain is that it’s independently verifiable/validated by all its users. Anything else is a literal scam.
A Blockchain is already just a linked list with extra steps.
Or, you could just pick one computer, have it do the work and punish it by taking its money if it screws up (ETH).
But yeah you’re not wrong about minable coins.
Consensus algorithms lie at the foundation for a great many of the backend systems our internet depends on, massive scaling would be a near impossibility without them. – me, a 25 year backed engineer
It makes absolute sense that a massively scalable trustless system involving money would use a consensus algorithm with a large number of nodes.
It makes absolute sense that a massively scalable trustless system involving money would use a consensus algorithm with a large number of nodes.
Whoa whoa whoa. I suppose you didn’t get the memo:
,but the rule is to blindly hate any kind of technology that any one has used in insalubrious ways, in-spite of its potential for liberation and independence.
In-spite of its potential for liberation and independence.
When it shows that potential, maybe more people will get on board. Until then there are a host of problems that make a ton of people not want to touch it including but not limited to:
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Capitalists and scammers are already exploiting it the way they do with traditional currencies, except in sometimes new creative ways because of either the lack of regulations or because the technology inherently makes it impossible to trace.
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I don’t see the involvement of predatory capitalists or financial institutions changing in a fully crypto world either, because people are always going to need financial services like loans and insurance on their savings and the financial institutions will always have the imbalance of power.
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The currencies mostly benefit people with a ton of capital to handle consensus, which further entrenches the power imbalance found in (1) and (2).
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Insane amounts of resources are needed to reach consensus in a way that is not good at all for the environment, whether that be electricity, computer hardware, or whatever other resource. Sure we already use a lot of power to make our society run. But crypto is asking for more ON TOP of that, compounding the issues. Saying the financial industry already uses a lot of power is not a good argument when I don’t think anyone is reasonably convinced that they’re going away even after crypto were to take over, and now you’re adding an insane power or pollution requirement to run the world’s currency system.
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Relying solely on crypto leaves people destitute if their wallets got hacked, unless they decide to utilize traditional banking with insurance (hint: people like stability and a lot of people will choose to do this over having their life savings wiped out).
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Chucklefucks are using the technology to commodify and break the best part of the digital world which is the ability to have bit for bit reproducible copies of information.
I’m serious. Fix all of that and you absolutely would get people on board. Not even kidding. Crypto would be taken seriously. But I have yet to hear compelling solutions by cryptobros.
Fix all of that and you surely would get people on board but I have yet to hear compelling solutions by cryptobros.
I actually completely agree with all of your points. I also hold out hope for the decentralization of power, which is something I still think block chain and crypto have a role in. Its the same hope I have for the fediverse, that we can all ‘own’ or be a part of a broader solution through self hosting, development, and funding the projects we care about or think will make a difference.
I thought crypto had that potential, but because its looked at as ‘money’, the worst of the worst kinds of people steered its coarse. I still think the principals have this potential, and in more mature versions, I expect them to be realized. And arguably, they are being realized. In-spite of all of the shitcoins and scamcoins, bitcoin, the OG, is still extremely strong. I have no reason to believe that a bitcoin purchase made today wouldn’t still be considered as good of an investment as SPY was 8 years ago. I also think the generally dismissive tone of the case against digital currencies as scam is a little hilarious, considering that literately 90%+ of stocks admitted to the NYSE end up with a similar if not worse fate than the majority of (major) coins from the big boom we saw through 2020. A few stocks stay valuable throughout time, but that’s rare. Most end up valueless and eventually are delisted.
I think criticisms of digital currencies, especially decentralized ones, need to be put into the broader context of all financial vehicles that exist and are available. Likewise, crypto has potential outside of just digital currencies, and the insistence that its bad for the environment, well that’s largely solved outside of bitcoin, and likely will never be solved for bitcoin. I still think its a neat technology with some interesting use cases. I’ve enjoyed watching it evolve and grow so far and I’m excited to by the belief that there is some potential for interesting things to come from that space in the future, especially if they support a more decentralized, anonymous, and democratic internet in the future.
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Lot of comments don’t seem to understand that these words are not interchangeable
In a trustless environment…
You’re handing over your valuables at gunpoint, nerd.
I think you meant to reply to a comment and instead replied to the post.
No, I’m just mocking Blockchain idiots in general.
It doesn’t require that much computing power, that’s just a variable that gets set.
If the difficulty were set lower, one average computer could easily handle it.
Oh sweet. Let’s just set the difficulty lower, then.
But then every jabrony would be able to make money.
So, in other words, it does require that much computing power.
You too can learn this secret of the ages! You just need to be able pay for my one hour Webinar and Goon on camera for at least three!
Then some massive org like the NSA creates/captures 51% of the nodes and takes everyone’s money overnight.
that’s… not how that works. all you can do with 51% is possibly double-spend whatever coins you already have. or undo some transactions.
so you submit a transaction, then use your extra 1% of hash power to mine a new block that says you didn’t actually spend it. at the same time you need to trick somebody else into believing you actually did send the coins, and take their stuff you “paid for.” then after you have the stuff, you can submit the block that doesn’t have your transaction in it. Voila, free stuff and you didn’t spend your coins.
it does not enable you to mess with other’s balances. other than possibly reversing some transactions. you would need the private keys to their wallets to take their money. and if you have those, you don’t need 51% of the hash power, you can just take the coins with 0% hash power.
It’s obviously not a comprehensive guide on how to cheat the system. I’m making the point that computers will never be secure under the current paradigm when there are massive and powerful actors with vastly greater resources than the average person. I strongly suspect that an org like the DoD (which had exclusive access to integrated circuit technology for three years before anyone else) could probably capture/spoof virtually the entire network if they wanted too.
By spending billions of dollars in order for them to dupe a transaction worth a couple million at most. Once. Before the entire network realizes what happens and a fork is made. It’s just idiotic enough to work!
The coins can only be stolen for as long as the 51% attack stays live.
Ignoring the fact they definitely have the resources to sustain it, how many people will continue to run a node after losing everything to such an attack? How will anyone reclaim real world value if they exchange the coins for something else?
Coin holders would only lose everything for as long as the attack occurred. The validated chain would still correctly record their claims.
The people receiving the fake coins transfered during the attack are the ones that will be pissed. Any goods or services exchanged during that attack period may not be compensated.
Again, how many ordinary people will continue to run a node for a network where they have nothing for an extended period? Even if they do, will the value of the coins remain even after such an event proves the weakness of the system?
Empirically after a 51% attack, 75% of people stopped mining.
will the value of the coins remain
Eth classic is currently $25.
Wow, I thought I was back on reddit with the tech fear mongering.
A single Ethereum transaction now uses only 0.02 kWh of electrical energy and has a carbon footprint of 0.01 kgCO2, which is much lower than the average values for a debit transaction or PayPal.
Y’all prefer to have the government and banks in charge of money instead? seriously?
What I don’t want in charge, is a shadowy cabal of a few rich people only bound to the maximization of their own profit.
I’m not paying extra to remove what little democratic control there is in the existing system.
the shadowy cabal of a few rich people is called the Fed, it’s privately owned by all the banks. there is no democracy in the existing system
For me: probably. Either way, transactions cost money. Either pay the block chain fees or just use cash/credit card.
I’m ok with credit and cash.
yeah they’ve done great with inflation so far! lol
For anyone who’s interested, Holochain solves this problem while fulfilling the decentralization promises of Blockchain.
I love how one man created arguably the most complex puzzle in the history of mankind and people shit on it just because it’s literally hard to solve (aka “uses energy”) and the solutions have value.
What value is that?
