China orders crypto mining shut downs in more regions

[Blademaster91]

8 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

so non-vital stuff can just go?

Thats an interesting take if you're insisting data centers aren't important, and many data centers likely host data that is vital, and non-vital.

Someone already mentioned it though but modern day life depends on data centers storing data for the internet.

Oh yeah and you need data centers to process crypto into usable currency.

10 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

so are people using LTT forum, which is absolutely a minority and non-vital

you still havent produced a number, or even an educated guesstimate, btw

Any numbers on how many actually hold crypto? The number is probably a few percentage compared to those that don't or would rather use conventional currency.

12 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

it's kinda pointless to tell people what to do with electricity, people do what people want

like gaming, browsing, procrastinating, whatever

when you start riding on your moral high horse, you'd be better be sure that everything you do is accepted by everyone else or you're just another hypocrite

Thats fine and no one should care what you do with electricity, until you consume as much power as some countries then it definitely becomes a problem.

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, Blademaster91 said:

if you're insisting data centers aren't important, and many data centers likely host data that is vital, and non-vital.

im not insisting it's not vital, not all of them

but majority of data centers, i would assume, is non-vital to majority of the people, just office documents for corporations and what not, i would assume? not too familiar with DC space

 

2 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Any numbers on how many actually hold crypto? The number is probably a few percentage compared to those that don't or would rather use conventional currency.

yea, this is a given, but how small is "small" though?

and how many of you hold MYR or SGD, that doesnt invalidate them just because majority of the people dont hold them

i don't have any numbers, that's why im curious as to how the one who brought it up came to that conclusion

 

3 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Thats fine and no one should care what you do with electricity, until you consume as much power as some countries then it definitely becomes a problem.

interesting

 

blablabla (insert gaming is also consuming countries worth of electricity, which everyone loves to ignore, so gaming is bad)

[miagisan]

13 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

im not insisting it's not vital, not all of them

but majority of data centers, i would assume, is non-vital to majority of the people, just office documents for corporations and what not, i would assume? not too familiar with DC space

 

yea, this is a given, but how small is "small" though?

and how many of you hold MYR or SGD, that doesnt invalidate them just because majority of the people dont hold them

i don't have any numbers, that's why im curious as to how the one who brought it up came to that conclusion

 

interesting

 

blablabla (insert gaming is also consuming countries worth of electricity, which everyone loves to ignore, so gaming is bad)

As opposed to Bitcoin which consumes 110 TW per year? https://www.google.com/amp/s/hbr.org/amp/2021/05/how-much-energy-does-bitcoin-actually-consume

 

Yeah......great argument once again.  Bitcoin is less than vital.  

[Moonzy]

14 minutes ago, miagisan said:

As opposed to Bitcoin which consumes 110 TW per year?

 

Quote

Globally, PC gamers use about 75 billion kilowatt hours of electricity a year

75 billion kWh = 75e9+3 = 75e12 = 75TWh

so... gaming is about 70% as bad as mining in term of energy consumption, dont see ya'll crucifying gaming to similar extent yet, maybe because ya'll benefit from it and cant leave other people alone

 

edit: reading the source u cited, it's actually saying bitcoin mining is more green and using energy better than many other industries

15 minutes ago, miagisan said:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/hbr.org/amp/2021/05/how-much-energy-does-bitcoin-actually-consume

which makes sense, renewables are cheaper and makes mining much more profitable, so miners would flock to it naturally

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

Good.

[Fnige]

22 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

so... gaming is about 70% as bad as mining in term of energy consumption, dont see ya'll crucifying gaming to similar extent yet, maybe because ya'll benefit from it and cant leave other people alone

Quote

How Many Bitcoin Miners Are There?

 

Slushpool has about 200,000 miners. They have 12% of the network hashrate. Assuming all pools have similar numbers, there are likely to be over 1,000,000 unique individuals mining bitcoins.
 

Link

 

Quote

Video gaming is a hobby enjoyed by young and old across the globe. In 2020, there were more than 1.52 billion gamers in the Asia Pacific region, making it the largest market for video gaming worldwide. In total, there were an estimated 2.8 billion gamers across the globe in 2020

Link

 

The complaint isnt the amount in total, its the amount per person. Even if you multiply the amount of miners by 10 or even 100, the amount per person is nothing in comparison.

[Moonzy]

13 minutes ago, SlimyPython said:

its the amount per person

it's a weird metric to compare, though

would u compare an old grandpa using a PC for facebook with someone using it for AAA gaming?

different tasks requires different tools

[BuckGup]

2 hours ago, Jet_ski said:

That's a politically loaded view though. I would say it's bad for cryptos to present themselves as a threat to any government's authority. Because that'll make them a target. If it ever comes to that, governments control the internet so they'll always have the "kill switch" power over the cryptos and everything else.

It's not a bad thing when the government is against you. In a perfect world the government is suppose to do everything to help you and make your life easier they are meant to serve YOU. That's sadly not the case anywhere in the world. Also the internet is not controlled by the government. There are governmental agencies that oversee parts of it and try to patrol it but they can't just turn off the internet. 

[Jet_ski]

1 hour ago, BuckGup said:

There are governmental agencies that oversee parts of it and try to patrol it but they can't just turn off the internet. 

They can’t control all of it but most countries have protocols to shutdown the entire communications systems in their territory which includes internet access. Even larger countries like India have done this recently. I’m not saying they would do it to hurt cryptos but they have the power to. Even though the blockchain can survive a large part of the network going down for a while, the loss of access can be damaging.

[tikker]

8 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

Any numbers on how many actually hold crypto? The number is probably a few percentage compared to those that don't or would rather use conventional currency.

According to a recent survey in the US from Gemini about 14% of adult Americans hold crypto with the majority aiming to either hold or daytrade for profit: https://www.gemini.com/state-of-us-crypto

It's not a majority by any means, but it's not really an insignificant fraction anymore either.

 

8 hours ago, miagisan said:

Yeah......great argument once again.  Bitcoin is less than vital.  

Gaming is less than vital as well, so I don't see how yours is any better. We won't accept that because games are so ubiquitous nowadays and is seen as "essential" entertainment almost. I agree that mining energy consumption is getting out of hand. I also think that we shouldn't point fingers and pretend gaming is any better. We're all hypocrites in that regard, because just like miners won't let go of mining, gamers won't let go of gaming.

 

At the end of the line the energy consumption is bad, wether it's gaming or mining doesn't matter. If we want to keep doing what we do we'll either have to sacrifice part of both, or make a better effort in switching to sustainable and ecologically less impactful energy sources.

[BuckGup]

12 hours ago, Jet_ski said:

They can’t control all of it but most countries have protocols to shutdown the entire communications systems in their territory which includes internet access. Even larger countries like India have done this recently. I’m not saying they would do it to hurt cryptos but they have the power to. Even though the blockchain can survive a large part of the network going down for a while, the loss of access can be damaging.

Turkey tried to do it but users bypassed it with TOR. China has the great firewall but people still get around it. They would need shut down all the main backbone routers in the US which would most likely kill thousands of people as internet is vital to some

[jagdtigger]

13 hours ago, Jet_ski said:

They can’t control all of it but most countries have protocols to shutdown the entire communications systems in their territory which includes internet access.

There is one other way to kill crypto, just instruct financial institutions to blacklist exchanges. Cant convert it to real money demand will drop like a brick dummy.....

[Zodiark1593]

17 hours ago, Moonzy said:

 

75 billion kWh = 75e9+3 = 75e12 = 75TWh

so... gaming is about 70% as bad as mining in term of energy consumption, dont see ya'll crucifying gaming to similar extent yet, maybe because ya'll benefit from it and cant leave other people alone

 

 

Playing Devil’s advocate here: It would be perfectly fair to crucify gaming as well due to the plethora of low power, yet still reasonably capable options available, and diverting resources from productive and scientific applications. 

[Zodiark1593]

2 hours ago, BuckGup said:

Turkey tried to do it but users bypassed it with TOR. China has the great firewall but people still get around it. They would need shut down all the main backbone routers in the US which would most likely kill thousands of people as internet is vital to some

So long as users can code and run whatever they want on their own hardware, government are powerless against determined users and programmers. 

[BuckGup]

14 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

So long as users can code and run whatever they want on their own hardware, government are powerless against determined users and programmers. 

Exactly and this extends to things outside of just computers. If there’s a will there’s a way. It’s an endless cat and mouse game that the government can’t seem to realize 

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Playing Devil’s advocate here: It would be perfectly fair to crucify gaming as well due to the plethora of low power, yet still reasonably capable options available, and diverting resources from productive and scientific applications. 

This is the kind of bad-faith arguments that continue to happen in threads about cryptocoins. It's very simple:

 

a) Cryptocoins are the single worst use of computational power, imagine if all that power was put into something like folding instead. At least folding has a net benefit without the greed factor.

 

b) Cryptocoins are an inefficient use of computational power, and exacerbates the chip shortages across multiple markets, which results in a feedback loop of people (both miners and scalpers) seizing control of the price of specific parts. That said, if you only want to game at 1080p60, you still can't get even a 3060. We literately do not know the extent of what chip shortages have affected other than PC and Car shipments. We had a chip shortage long before the GPU shortage came into being, as OEM's like HP and Dell could not build computers fast enough for businesses, let alone consumers starting in early 2019. Many businesses were directed to "make do" with their existing hardware if it wasn't failing. 

 

c) Cryptocoins are bad on the environment because mining operations are buying fossil-fuel power plants and consuming power at the level of countries. This speaks for itself, the planet is heading for an extinction event within two generations if we continue on this path. Meanwhile most countries haven't done jack to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and the free-market doesn't care about long-term repercussions. As it's referred to "privatize the profits, socialize the losses". This is why when things like mines (actual mines) and oil/gas wells continue to destroy the environment a century after they have been closed, and the government is stuck cleaning it up.

 

Contrast this with the energy used by data centers where google, microsoft and amazon try to offset their GHG emissions from those datacenters.

 

d) Other uses of computers are not equal to mining. You watching a youtube video, sure there's all kinds of energy used in the process of making the video and the process of watching, but you are entirely in control of how much energy you spend on it. You could buy a $6000 computer that lasts 10 years just to save $40 per year on energy. Or you could buy a $1000 SmartTV that lasts 5 years, or a smartphone that lasts 5 years. Your smartphone, and smarttv, are not on the same level as cryptocoin farming. When they are idle, they are either not consuming energy, or consuming next-to-nothing. Rather people then hyperfocus on the material input costs which guess what, are the same as mining, see B.

 

The best thing for humanity would be to have an emission-less energy generator (which means hydro or geothermal in the current context) that requires no replacement (both solar and wind require replacement) and is not in competition for scarce materials ( turbines use copper windings and magnets which only need to be produced once.) Thermal sources that have to boil water, are emissions generators (in the form of steam), and whatever is being burned (producing ash and radioactive waste materials, even from coal.) The thing is the most efficient, low-emission generator sources are in competition with other things. Hydro-electric is in competition for farmland along the same waterway (which is destroyed in the process), and should the glaciers all melt, or the earth heats up too much, those rivers will dry up. That just leaves geothermal, which requires water as well to produce steam.

 

Like it's not hard to consider the possibility that if we continue to do certain things on the surface of earth, the planet is in trouble, even if you don't believe in climate change. All the heating has been concentrated in the last 40 years, and so has the emissions, and shows no signs of slowing down. So targeting things like bitcoin mining are just a very easy political target if you need an easy win with environmental groups. But unlike say regulating food, which directly impacts those consuming it, regulating bitcoin can't be done piecemeal. You have to regulate energy prices to punish waste, which means you also chase away many traditional industries from lumber to smelting. That can have just as bad collateral damage. But again, if bitcoin is consuming all the energy somewhere so the utility has to buy it on the spot market, see what happened twice this year in Texas with ERCOT. You do not want to be in a position of the utility having to do rolling blackouts because the utilities are unwilling to pay for generation capacity to keep the lights and heat/ac on.

 

[Blademaster91]

3 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Playing Devil’s advocate here: It would be perfectly fair to crucify gaming as well due to the plethora of low power, yet still reasonably capable options available, and diverting resources from productive and scientific applications. 

What other options for gaming are there, besides game streaming to a tablet or a laptop? Most people can't use game streaming because latency would be too high, and most people either have a bandwidth cap, or don't have fast enough internet. Gaming consoles use power also, and are more limited in use and become obsolete more quickly than a gaming PC.

And if you want to get rid of gaming graphics cards, then those cards that also get used for productive applications such as rendering, and scientific applications would also go away and everyone else would be forced to buy more expensive workstation hardware.

[Kisai]

5 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

What other options for gaming are there, besides game streaming to a tablet or a laptop? Most people can't use game streaming because latency would be too high, and most people either have a bandwidth cap, or don't have fast enough internet. Gaming consoles use power also, and are more limited in use and become obsolete more quickly than a gaming PC.

And if you want to get rid of gaming graphics cards, then those cards that also get used for productive applications such as rendering, and scientific applications would also go away and everyone else would be forced to buy more expensive workstation hardware.

There is literately "go outside and play in the dirt" metaphorically. It's what we did before there were computer games. A baseball bat and a ball, a frisbee, horseshoes two steel rods and some sand, lawn bowling, etc.

 

In cities, of course, there is no "backyard" to play in. There are activities to do that all cost money, but you don't get the "countryside" version of playing games.

 

Even before CRPG's there were tabletop/pen-and-paper RPG's. So that's still an option as well.

 

But nobody wants to hear "save the earth by playing D&D rather than WoW"

[Moonzy]

On 6/23/2021 at 5:17 PM, tikker said:

According to a recent survey in the US from Gemini about 14% of adult Americans hold crypto with the majority aiming to either hold or daytrade for profit: https://www.gemini.com/state-of-us-crypto

It's not a majority by any means, but it's not really an insignificant fraction anymore either.

honestly, 14% is way more than i expected, i expected like 2-5%

but this current boom did drag in a few of my friends, specifically DOGE and GME (not a crypto but for the memes), so i shouldn't be too surprised

[Jet_ski]

44 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

honestly, 14% is way more than i expected, i expected like 2-5%

but this current boom did drag in a few of my friends, specifically DOGE and GME (not a crypto but for the memes), so i shouldn't be too surprised

 

On 6/23/2021 at 5:17 AM, tikker said:

According to a recent survey in the US from Gemini about 14% of adult Americans hold crypto with the majority aiming to either hold or daytrade for profit: https://www.gemini.com/state-of-us-crypto

It's not a majority by any means, but it's not really an insignificant fraction anymore either.

If you check the link it’s a survey of “3,000 investors and crypto-curious consumers in the United States.” That’s not the same thing as a survey of US adults. They only polled people who are already holding cryptos or want to get into it:

“Survey respondents were polled from October 19 to November 16, 2020, and included 921 self-identifying current cryptocurrency owners and 1,697 consumers who were interested in learning more about cryptocurrency.”

[tikker]

3 hours ago, Jet_ski said:

 

If you check the link it’s a survey of “3,000 investors and crypto-curious consumers in the United States.” That’s not the same thing as a survey of US adults. They only polled people who are already holding cryptos or want to get into it:

“Survey respondents were polled from October 19 to November 16, 2020, and included 921 self-identifying current cryptocurrency owners and 1,697 consumers who were interested in learning more about cryptocurrency.”

Yes it's a samply study. A lot of people studies have this problem, as it's hard to interrogate an entire continent, so take it as you will.

[dragonfly43]

The collapse of planet earth.

Go on, gaming to death.

I am almost 80, so don't have much time left, but the future is for you young guys.

I think not twice but dozen times before buying anything new: cars, computers, clothes ...

Even I own a car , I seldom use it - my banks, grocery stores ... are within 2 kms of our home. Why exercise then drive around running these errands? Why not combining the two ?

The 'youngest' of my computers is an 8 year old Chromebook, which is still running strong.