Comment on Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power — government now requiring commercial miners to report energy consumption

• eager_eagle@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  the protocol can function without the massive power use

  At scale no, it can’t and that’ll never be the case because at any given time, someone will be willing to put more energy (work) into it to gain an advantage - so as long as there’s demand, PoW will always demand huge amounts of energy.

  And yes, I do blame the consensus protocol because ultimately that’s the culprit of causing this incentive to waste energy and targeting miners or any other actors is an utter waste of time.

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  • bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    > at any given time, someone will be willing to put more energy (work) into it to gain an advantage

    that's not a problem with the protocol. that's a problem with people. that's like saying that houses are a problem because people rent them to exploit the working class. the problem isn't the house, it's the people who try to buy all the houses.

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    • eager_eagle@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I never said there’s a problem with the protocol - that’s indeed, working as intended. There IS a problem of using the protocol though, because it creates this unsustainable environment.

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      • bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        >There IS a problem of using the protocol (at scale) though, because it creates this
        unsustainable environment.

        this isn't true. the protocol is still functioning fine. the problem is how people are using the protocol.

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  • bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    >At scale

    what does that mean?

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    • eager_eagle@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      meaning PoW is not such a problem when applied to create consensus in local or niche blockchains as the difficulty (and energy consumption) is orders of magnitude lower.

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      • bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        PoW isn't a problem at all.

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