Crypto Miners buying up entire power plants

[Moonzy]

7 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Do you or I get to return a shoe for a refund because it's poor at hammering in nails?

Hi, yes, I'll take a refund for my buying of Bitcoin at twice the current price

[Donut417]

On 7/20/2021 at 9:07 AM, TGG23 said:

o cut out the middle man and power it directly.

My question is the cost. I mean they would legally have to follow all Federal, State, and local regulations correct? They would have to meet all emission standards. It seems to me that this would cost more than its worth, at least in the US where we have pretty strict regulations. I guess if your in a country where the government didnt give a shit then it would be a different story. 

[MultiGamerClub]

Not suprising but.. suprised a law isnt passed on this to prevent more fossil fuel to add more fuel to the fire already.. I know some old factories in norway has been converted to just mine bitcoin and other crypto over the years but power plants.. aww shucks

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, MultiGamerClub said:

Not suprising but.. suprised a law isnt passed on this to prevent more fossil fuel to add more fuel to the fire already.. I know some old factories in norway has been converted to just mine bitcoin and other crypto over the years but power plants.. aww shucks

Factories have hardcore power connections and sometimes their own powerplants. Often emergency use fossil fuel ones that run on things like bunker oil. 

[MultiGamerClub]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Factories have hardcore power connections and sometimes their own powerplants. Often emergency use fossil fuel ones that run on things like bunker oil. 

Hardcore power connectors? Damn ive only seen a few big ones in my life but they were wayyy too thick for anything that looked normal.

 

For now i only know 2 factories that are still running because neighbors complained about too much noise from the factory.. even after it was converted

 

Wouldnt be suprised if they die down if crypto takes a few more dives in the future.. Or atleast i hope it dies down..

[Donut417]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Factories have hardcore power connections and sometimes their own powerplants. Often emergency use fossil fuel ones that run on things like bunker oil. 

Speaking of that one of my mom's friends husband works at the Ford Rouge plan and he works at the power plant on site. The Ford Plant in Wayne Michigan has bunch of solar setup. Given the money they probably lost during the blackout of 2003, it makes sense to build their would power plants so they are not reliant on a power utility. 

[Jtalk4456]

4 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Things get used outside of their intended design all the time though.  As to the murder analogy, no. It’s still murder in that someone is still dead.  There will still be a police enquiry.  It’s whether or not it’s defensible or reasonable murder. “Murder” is a specific legal term though which might be termed “unjustifiable homicide”. The whole home defense thing might be “justifiable homicide” but it’s still homicide. The nature of the argument has not changed.

Murder - the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another. Keyword there is premeditated, so no defending myself is not murder. Homicide is just another word for murder, same definition. It's not even manslaughter as that definition refers to the unlawful killing that's not premeditated or caused from negligence, crime of passion, drunk driving, etc. Defending myself with a hammer is a lawful killing, justified under self defense, assuming the scenario we concocted. This single act of self defense for my immediate safety does not make home depot place hammers in the safety equipment aisle. My 1 situation will not force hammer brands to start marketing to home security companies. I have not changed the purpose/intent of the device at all, I've simply used the device for something other than it's purpose. Defending myself once didn't change my intent to use the hammer on skulls more often, and as a matter of fact, some people would be so horrified by the unintended use that they might throw it away and replace it lest the hammer remind them of the unintended use that left them with psychological trauma. The intent absolutely changes the argument, ESCPECIALLY in semantics heavy arguments like this.

But lets not forget that the actual facts already showed it being used for crime LESS than standard currency. So unless you want to argue the USD has the innate purpose of crime, your argument falls thru with a bit of reality.

[Bombastinator]

10 minutes ago, MultiGamerClub said:

Hardcore power connectors? Damn ive only seen a few big ones in my life but they were wayyy too thick for anything that looked normal.

 

For now i only know 2 factories that are still running because neighbors complained about too much noise from the factory.. even after it was converted

 

Wouldnt be suprised if they die down if crypto takes a few more dives in the future.. Or atleast i hope it dies down..

There was a Ford plant south of my house that actually had a gated section with high tension cables and signs with lightning bolts on them and equipment that had stacks of ceramic glass insulation pucks because the voltage was so high.  Looked like it’s own little power station.  Heavy manufacturing facilities as a general rule of thumb require good access to electricity, water, and rail.  Mere road is often considered a potentially fatal disadvantage to give you an idea of the scales involved.

Edited July 24, 2021 by Bombastinator

[Beerzerker]

13 hours ago, Jtalk4456 said:

intention of use is purpose. and the idea that crypto is overwhelmingly used for crime just hasn't held up to any facts
https://www.forbes.com/sites/haileylennon/2021/01/19/the-false-narrative-of-bitcoins-role-in-illicit-activity/?sh=24a6df813432

Also just because etherium got popular with more people in no way makes etherium questionable for casual miners. It met and exceeded it's purpose. but the purpose still was the purpose, the same way some hammers have been used for murders, but murder doesn't suddenly become the purpose of a hammer

I beg to differ on that point.
From some recent things that's happened in the UK along with an article or two that says otherwise.

I'll let the articles speak for themselves:
British Police Seize $250 Million Of Cryptocurrency In International Money Laundering Crackdown
The rise of crypto laundries: how criminals cash out of bitcoin | Financial Times
U.K. Police Seize $160 Million In Cryptocurrency In Money Laundering Investigation
Money Laundering - CoinDesk

[tikker]

23 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

I beg to differ on that point.
From some recent things that's happened in the UK along with an article or two that says otherwise.

I'll let the articles speak for themselves:
British Police Seize $250 Million Of Cryptocurrency In International Money Laundering Crackdown
The rise of crypto laundries: how criminals cash out of bitcoin | Financial Times
U.K. Police Seize $160 Million In Cryptocurrency In Money Laundering Investigation
Money Laundering - CoinDesk

Of course crypto will be used for money laundering, but this isn't that much different from saying "300M USD seized in drug bust" or "1B USD worth of art seized in money laundering investigation". It sounds like a lot of money, until you realise there is a few trillion USD in circulation. These occurences need to be compared to the legitimate transactions and e.g. the report I mentioned above points to a tiny fraction of those transactions being illicit. Even your own sources say so:

Quote

While the majority of crypto transactions are legitimate, the anonymous and international nature of the digital currencies make them attractive to criminals.

While the “proceeds of crime are laundered in many different ways,” Deputy Assistant Commissioner Graham McNulty said, organized criminals are increasingly “using cryptocurrency to launder their dirty money.” However, McNulty added: “Cash still remains king in the criminal world.”

These specific seizes amount to ~500 million, which is a huge amound of money of course, but dwarfs to the total amount of BTC in circulation which is worth 640 billion at the moment (and 1.4 trillion for the entirety of crypto). These busts don't amount to even a fraction of a percent. Of course it's good they are acting up against these operations as at the least it will help scare them off and clear the misconceptions that crypto is anonymous and untraceable. I am in favour of tracking them down, as it'll help the legitimate causes.

[Jtalk4456]

35 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

I beg to differ on that point.
From some recent things that's happened in the UK along with an article or two that says otherwise.

I'll let the articles speak for themselves:
British Police Seize $250 Million Of Cryptocurrency In International Money Laundering Crackdown
The rise of crypto laundries: how criminals cash out of bitcoin | Financial Times
U.K. Police Seize $160 Million In Cryptocurrency In Money Laundering Investigation
Money Laundering - CoinDesk

some good headlines there showing some big numbers. But as @tikker mentioned, there's plenty of the same with other fiat currencies in the title. No one rational is claiming crypto hasn't been used for crime. What's being said is that as a percentage of the overall use, it is not overwhelmingly used for crime. It's certainly far from being the main use of crypto. It's part of a percent of the overall overwhelmingly legitimate use, and depending on what article you read and the time of the study, it has been lower as a percentage than the USD, and on a trend the percentage of transactions being criminal is lowering. 

[HenrySalayne]

1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

My question is the cost. I mean they would legally have to follow all Federal, State, and local regulations correct? They would have to meet all emission standards. It seems to me that this would cost more than its worth, at least in the US where we have pretty strict regulations. I guess if your in a country where the government didnt give a shit then it would be a different story. 

To get this into perspective I can give you some data from Europe/Germany in 2020:

Power plants would sell their energy for an average of 30.50€/MWh to the market. A private household would pay an average of 0.33€/kWh or 330 €/MWh. A company might get something in the neighbourhood of 150 to 180 €/MWh.

The power plant owners still made a profit. So cutting the middleman and especially cutting the charges for the grid and taxes seems to be quite a big step in optimizing the yield from crypto mining. It's simply not profitable to mine with your gaming rig in Germany.

[WkdPaul]

7 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

To get this into perspective I can give you some data from Europe/Germany in 2020:

Power plants would sell their energy for an average of 30.50€/MWh to the market. A private household would pay an average of 0.33€/kWh or 330 €/MWh. A company might get something in the neighbourhood of 150 to 180 €/MWh.

The power plant owners still made a profit. So cutting the middleman and especially cutting the charges for the grid and taxes seems to be quite a big step in optimizing the yield from crypto mining. It's simply not profitable to mine with your gaming rig in Germany.

Pretty much yeah, plus, if mining becomes unprofitable, they still have a functional power plant.

[tikker]

10 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

0.33€/kWh

Dang and I'm complaining the Netherlands is expensive at around €0.23 per kWh.

[Bombastinator]

17 minutes ago, tikker said:

Dang and I'm complaining the Netherlands is expensive at around €0.23 per kWh.

It varies drastically in the U.S.  it’s a determine factor of where a company may are up, so larger businesses often get breaks.  There was a period where the TVA (Tennessee valley authority) so trolled some kind of massive power generation system, probably hydro electric or nuclear or something, and they had residential power prices that were some of the cheapest int the world.  That was long ago though.  It’s apparently no longer that way.  I don’t know why.  I understand Niagara Falls became an industrial hub for electricity heavy businesses at one point.  One of which was chlorine based chemicals (again no particulars) might have been even earlier.  An issue was those businesses also produced toxic waste products and the Niagara river was right there.  There’s a story from long ago how one company installed a tiny very hard to see pipe  above the river through which they ran their most toxic most expensive to dispose of waste.  Activists learned about it and things got interesting.  There’s a book called “zodiac” which is a fictional account but includes altered examples of different things polluters have tried to keep knowledge of what they were doing from the public. 

[Vishera]

1 hour ago, MultiGamerClub said:

Damn ive only seen a few big ones in my life but they were wayyy too thick for anything that looked normal.

That reminds me that when i took an electrical engineering course,we had lots of 3 phase outlets in the lab.

Those things are monsters that deliver way more power than a typical outlet.

 

I didn't finish the course due to personal reasons.

[Bombastinator]

9 minutes ago, Vishera said:

That reminds me that when i took an electrical engineering course,we had lots of 3 phase outlets in the lab.

Those things are monsters that deliver way more power than a typical outlet.

 

I didn't finish the course due to personal reasons.

Heh.  I need to plug my car into one of those. I’m talking way way bigger.  High tension stuff.  Stuff so powerful it will kill you accidentally.  Stuff that they can’t even attach to the ground without weird equipment

[MultiGamerClub]

14 minutes ago, Vishera said:

That reminds me that when i took an electrical engineering course,we had lots of 3 phase outlets in the lab.

Those things are monsters that deliver way more power than a typical outlet.

 

I didn't finish the course due to personal reasons.

When im seeing connectors bigger than my hands.. oh dear people really need some power. (Big hands)

 

Suprised goverment havent shutdown the few factories left than actually power crypto mining.. unless i havent looked at the articles in a year.. *googling*

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, MultiGamerClub said:

When im seeing connectors bigger than my hands.. oh dear people really need some power. (Big hands)

 

Suprised goverment havent shutdown the few factories left than actually power crypto mining.. unless i havent looked at the articles in a year.. *googling*

You'd think that government regulations would only permit the factory to make specific products or categories of products. Bitcoin is not car parts, cars, jeans, aluminum, steel, etc. 

 

The reason criminal activity and bitcoin are often said in the same breath is because it tends to be true the bigger the scale it goes.

 

There is a reason why only exchanges over $10000 are investigated. Anything smaller than that is generally not worth looking into, and even if it's criminal, you'd have to see a lot of consecutive transactions into or out of the same acocunt, and that's why certain sites explicitly were created to launder crypto by "mixing" funds to disguise the source. Doesn't work so well when nearly all the transactions are dirty does it?

 

I mean the term is literately "Cryptocurrency Tumbler" , you know like a laundromat dryer. Sure, it might increase privacy and anonymity, but clearly this falls into the "if you have nothing to hide..."

 

It's one thing to use crypto to dodge money controls in your country (Which is illegal), it's another to hide the origin (laundering). Greed gets idiots every time. So by trying to cut out the regulatory middlemen, they put the focus on themselves.

[mon1ka]

On 7/20/2021 at 11:29 PM, TetraSky said:

Oh cool. More fossil fuel power plants being powered back on just for the sake of mining virtual currency that people decided to attribute value to. Just what the world needed.

As someone who is into crypto, i'm worried about the power consumption they use. Its beating out many small countries in power consumption. Hope the wider crypto community swaps to renewables soon, no matter how unlikely that is.

 

On 7/21/2021 at 2:35 AM, overthe6r said:

What's next, buying Sun to mind cryptocurrency?

Nah, we're gonna buy a supanova. 

[Bombastinator]

On 7/24/2021 at 1:00 PM, leadeater said:

Such is why you are having to say "outside of intended design". You have to say those very words should be a really big clue as to why usage doesn't change intent, otherwise all shoes were intended to be used as hammers because I once used my shoe to hammer a nail in. Do you or I get to return a shoe for a refund because it's poor at hammering in nails?

 

If you want to get in to specifics like this then it's not "murder". Police will start a homicide enquiry however an equerry does not mean such a crime as actually been committed. All they are doing is undertaking an act to ascertain what they believe happened, which may result in charges being laid against a suspect which must be proven in court. Until a court trial has been concluded no murder nor manslaughter has been committed.

 

The typical legal term for what is being talked about is involuntary manslaughter, however when talking about self defense under law where it exists and that is the defense you are going for you will be found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter meaning legally you did not commit any form of manslaughter. Somebody may have died but neither murder nor manslaughter were committed.

 

Do a criminal history check of any person that has successfully used self defense in a court trial and you shall find no mention of murder or manslaughter on their criminal record.

Shall I use the word “killing” then?  This argument avoids the concept that someone died at the hands of another.  That doesn’t change.  It’s just how the legal system chooses to view that.  

[leadeater]

6 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Shall I use the word “killing” then?  This argument avoids the concept that someone died at the hands of another.  That doesn’t change.  It’s just how the legal system chooses to view that.  

Well no, it matters a lot based on the conversation being had, what you were saying in reply and what was being said. Someone having died doesn't mean the person that caused the death committed murder nor manslaughter. However that entirely depends on local laws, here self defense causing death is not an actual defense to the result of causing death meaning you will at some level end up with a conviction however it may not even be manslaughter as we have lesser possible convictions than that.

 

Also my argument does not ignore that someone died, it specifically address the technical nit picking you were trying to have, I just addressed it to the finniest degree possible (that I could).

 

Anyone that's ever had to defend themselves and caused another's death because of that would be highly offended by you saying they murdered that person or you labeling them as a murderer, something they are not. Far as I. and many others, see it that attacker caused their own death as the knowing instigator of the incident, without their actions they would be alive.

[Bombastinator]

9 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Well no, it matters a lot based on the conversation being had, what you were saying in reply and what was being said. Someone having died doesn't mean the person that caused the death committed murder nor manslaughter. However that entirely depends on local laws, here self defense causing death is not an actual defense to the result of causing death meaning you will at some level end up with a conviction however it may not even be manslaughter as we have lesser possible convictions than that.

 

Also my argument does not ignore that someone died, it specifically address the technical nit picking you were trying to have, I just addressed it to the finniest degree possible (that I could).

 

Anyone that's ever had to defend themselves and caused another's death because of that would be highly offended by you saying they murdered that person or you labeling them as a murderer, something they are not. Far as I. and many others, see it that attacker caused their own death as the knowing instigator of the incident, without their actions they would be alive.

Missed the “intentional” bit. Which may change things slightly. I accept that “murder” is the wrong word.  Manslaughter can be unintentional but is modified by negligence where one doesn’t bother to look or care if an action is going to kill someone else or not. There’s a lot of polluters for example that are not guilty of manslaughter only because their action is not legally connectable. Morally though can be a different thing. 
 

This in my country is more or less the gun control argument via a different name. 

[asquirrel]

On 7/20/2021 at 8:29 AM, TetraSky said:

Oh cool. More fossil fuel power plants being powered back on just for the sake of mining virtual currency that people decided to attribute value to. Just what the world needed.

The funny thing is...nuclear power is actually perfect for crypto mining. Cheaper, cleaner, safer, etc. No, I do NOT want some randome joe buying a nuclear plant and 'owning' it. I want that run safely and properly. But the technology is an ideal fit. Nuclear excels at running 80-100% for 12 months straight.

[tikker]

On 7/27/2021 at 11:58 PM, Bombastinator said:

There’s a lot of polluters for example that are not guilty of manslaughter only because their action is not legally connectable. Morally though can be a different thing. 

Because not in the least legally this is a stretch. If you follow that line, then where does the responsibility stop? Is Makita guilty of involuntary manslaughter because someone commited murder with a drill of theirs? Or more realistically, is a coal power plant guilty of manslaughter because maybe their pollution has cost people lives. If so, aren't we guitly of manslaughter because that coal plant is only operational because we demand and use so much electricity? It would make you guilty of manslaughter every time you step in your car, because you pollute the atmosphere, driving the climate crisis which ultimately kills people. It would be differen if say you started using a river to generate power by which you now cut off a town's water supply. Then your actions are more or less directly killing people.

On 7/27/2021 at 11:58 PM, Bombastinator said:

This in my country is more or less the gun control argument via a different name. 

Guns are somewhat different and trickier, if you will, because their only function is to kill things or severely injure them.