[2022-09-15] In the US conservationists want BTC to switch to PoS too

[zasad@]

https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/2022/09/climate-groups-bitcoin-cut-pollution-and-bs?
"The “Change the Code, Not the Climate” campaign will now intensify its efforts with $1 million in new online advertisements, and Greenpeace launched a petition calling on Fidelity Investments to push bitcoin to follow ethereum’s lead in switching to an energy-saving protocol that dramatically reduces the cryptocurrency’s contribution to the climate crisis. "

[SFR10]

The campaign is urging the biggest corporate partners and institutional investors – Fidelity Investments, PayPal and Jack Dorsey’s Block, among others – to push bitcoin to move away from a high-energy proof of work protocol.

I was surprised to see Block's name ^{[one of the first companies that's supposed to get "Intel's upcoming mining chips"]} among the companies that they're trying to persuade in pushing for their target!
^{- Personally, I highly doubt the same thing is going to happen to Bitcoin and a part of me thinks even if the total green energy usage reaches 80%, they'd still go around in circles!}

[DooMAD]

If they're happy to waste their money on advertising that won't have any impact, we're happy to watch 'em do it.  Utterly futile endeavour.  And since when does the US give a shit about the environment anyway?  These groups would be better served trying to influence their own government who are fucking up the planet way faster than Bitcoin ever could.

[ololajulo]

I dont think the protest will succeed, Ethereum is at another level and I think it needs it more than Bitcoin. Ethereum has fewer developers than bitcoin with sole developers that can make unanimous decision. More so ethereum has unlimited supply of coin and many more problems to resolve, from high transaction fee, token economics etc

[bbc.reporter]

If they're happy to waste their money on advertising that won't have any impact, we're happy to watch 'em do it.  Utterly futile endeavour.  And since when does the US give a shit about the environment anyway?  These groups would be better served trying to influence their own government who are fucking up the planet way faster than Bitcoin ever could.

I am afraid that this might only be the beginning. They might only be starting to create a storyline and use this to manipulate the public. Once manipulated into thinking with a storyline that proof of work is bad for the environment, they begin funding their lobbyists to call on lawmakers and politicians to create an argument and campaigns to regulate cryptocoin mining or ban it similar to China.

This is the article published in greenpeace.org's website.

https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/climate-groups-to-bitcoin-cut-the-pollution-and-the-b-s/

Also, if strict regulations everywhere have taken place in bitcoin and cryptocoin mining, I would argue that illegal cryptomining will be good for any proof of work coin's decentralization and also good for the security and authenticity of their blockchains. There should be a group of miners who mine outside of regulations, government control and do their jobs under a real type of decentralization. It would be head shaking to witness bitcoin become a decentralized coin under the control of a centralized government hehehehe.

[ABCbits]

I spend few minutes to check their campaign website and found some biased/incorrect statement. For example,

We know Bitcoin stakeholders are incentivized not to change. Changing Bitcoin would render a whole lot of expensive infrastructure worthless, meaning Bitcoin stakeholders will need to walk away from sunk costs — or find other creative solutions.

This statement imply Bitcoin is centralized and there are group which control Bitcoin.

We know a basic software code change would reduce Bitcoin’s energy use by 99.9%. If only 30 people — the key miners, exchanges, and core developers who build and contribute to Bitcoin’s code — agreed to reinvent proof-of-work mining or move to a low-energy protocol, Bitcoin would stop polluting the planet. So why isn’t Bitcoin changing its code?

They don't know different between code and protocol. Additionally, they underestimate difficulty of software development.

[PrimeNumber7]

If they're happy to waste their money on advertising that won't have any impact, we're happy to watch 'em do it.  Utterly futile endeavour.  And since when does the US give a shit about the environment anyway?  These groups would be better served trying to influence their own government who are fucking up the planet way faster than Bitcoin ever could.

I am afraid that this might only be the beginning. They might only be starting to create a storyline and use this to manipulate the public. Once manipulated into thinking with a storyline that proof of work is bad for the environment, they begin funding their lobbyists to call on lawmakers and politicians to create an argument and campaigns to regulate cryptocoin mining or ban it similar to China.

You are probably right. Fidelity holds very little crypto on behalf of their customers, when compared to other holders. Although this does conform with an ongoing problem with major investment fund companies (such as BlackRock) that try to use their holdings of their customer's shares in order to advance their own political/social agenda. The problem in this case is that no investment company has the influence over bitcoin's development that investment companies have over most public corporations.

I suspect that the next step in this campaign is to trying to get congress to implement regulations over mining.

[NotATether]

We know a basic software code change would reduce Bitcoin’s energy use by 99.9%. If only 30 people — the key miners, exchanges, and core developers who build and contribute to Bitcoin’s code — agreed to reinvent proof-of-work mining or move to a low-energy protocol, Bitcoin would stop polluting the planet. So why isn’t Bitcoin changing its code?

They don't know different between code and protocol. Additionally, they underestimate difficulty of software development.

Somebody should ask the cleanupbitcoin.com people whether they have ever worked on a large-scale codebase before.

As I am typing this, I am squashing multiple bugs in a 50K lines-of-code proprietary C++ crypto payment processor (nearly all of it written by myself over the months). It is about to undergo heavy integration testing in a few days before it becomes a Release Candidate.

So yeah. I don't see how the basic software code change is as basic as they say it is.

[cr1776]

We know a basic software code change would reduce Bitcoin’s energy use by 99.9%. If only 30 people — the key miners, exchanges, and core developers who build and contribute to Bitcoin’s code — agreed to reinvent proof-of-work mining or move to a low-energy protocol, Bitcoin would stop polluting the planet. So why isn’t Bitcoin changing its code?

They don't care about security and probably in their case actively want to destroy it because a secure bitcoin prevents the statists from essentially enslaving everyone to be subservient to their whims.  Clearly a fork would be beneficial because it would cause chaos, and a change to PoS would empower them.

The only thing the conservationists want to conserve is their own power over everyone else.  Bitcoin threatens that.  They'd like to expand it of course and bitcoin stands in the way of that too.

[bbc.reporter]

In addtion to my argument on mining cryptocoins illegally. This will only increase if cryptomining regulations everywhere begins to be strictly enforced. I also speculate that much of illegal cryptomining will occur in third world countries where it would be easier to tap electric lines and steal electricity.



Three crypto miner sites in Argentina were caught last week by the country's tax and customs policy agency, the Administración Federal de Ingresos Públicos (AFIP).

Upon investigation, authorities identified a taxpayer that had imported mining equipment using a company of which he was partner. That person initially told inspectors that he had sold equipment, but eventually showed them where the machines were operating.

Source https://www.theblock.co/post/169345/clandestine-crypto-miners-in-argentina-caught-by-authorities

[electronicash]

BTC had been attacked for a long time and because they can't get to win, they are using Greenpeace.
Greenpeace is losing its plot after this anti Bitcoin publication. they are losing millions of donors from Bitcoiners who had funded them because of this and they don't deserve to be funded anymore. if BTC turned POS, this is going to become a security and we all know the SEC was aiming to regulate securities.

[zasad@]

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-climate-crypto-idAFL8N30T03R
REFILE-Cost of crypto: report says U.S. bitcoin as dirty as 6 million cars
"LOS ANGELES, Sept 23 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The carbon footprint of the U.S. bitcoin industry is rising at breakneck speed, a report from environmental groups found on Friday, now rivaling the emissions of 6 million cars each year."

[DooMAD]

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-climate-crypto-idAFL8N30T03R
REFILE-Cost of crypto: report says U.S. bitcoin as dirty as 6 million cars
"LOS ANGELES, Sept 23 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The carbon footprint of the U.S. bitcoin industry is rising at breakneck speed, a report from environmental groups found on Friday, now rivaling the emissions of 6 million cars each year."

And yet, for the last few years, the US alone have manufactured between 8 and 12 million cars every year.  Funny how it's only a good thing when it's in their interests. 

[bbc.reporter]

@DooMAD. Agreed. However, we can complain everyday but they will always control the storylines, the scripts and the narratives. I reckon the only way for miners to get back complete control is to take mining away from their jurisdictions or mine bitcoin illegally.

[Betwrong]

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-climate-crypto-idAFL8N30T03R
REFILE-Cost of crypto: report says U.S. bitcoin as dirty as 6 million cars
"LOS ANGELES, Sept 23 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The carbon footprint of the U.S. bitcoin industry is rising at breakneck speed, a report from environmental groups found on Friday, now rivaling the emissions of 6 million cars each year."

And yet, for the last few years, the US alone have manufactured between 8 and 12 million cars every year.  Funny how it's only a good thing when it's in their interests. 

There are almost 1.5 billion cars in the world in 2022. This "6 million cars each year" argument is a weak one. Some people want to use cars and some people want to use Bitcoin. Why the former should be more privileged than the latter?

As for the switching to PoS resulting in using less energy, here's a nice article on that:

"The Environmental Myth Of Proof Of Stake"

[bbc.reporter]

@Betwrong. This is because their argument is bitcoin does not do anything productive for society except help criminality by making it much easier for criminals to launder their money, much easier to create drug dealing marketplaces in the darknet, much easier to pay for pedophilia content from the darknet and many much more negative reasons. In my own personal interpretation, if they are being used for those things, this good for bitcoin as a technology because it makes real peer to peer payments across the world much easier to do. I do not support criminality, however.

[Betwrong]

@Betwrong. This is because their argument is bitcoin does not do anything productive for society except help criminality by making it much easier for criminals to launder their money, much easier to create drug dealing marketplaces in the darknet, much easier to pay for pedophilia content from the darknet and many much more negative reasons. In my own personal interpretation, if they are being used for those things, this good for bitcoin as a technology because it makes real peer to peer payments across the world much easier to do. I do not support criminality, however.

Using cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, for money laundering and other criminal activities results in capture of those criminals in the increasing number of cases. Imo, ciminals will still be using crypto, but only because of their own stupidity.

Check out this article, "Crypto Crime Trends for 2022" by Chainalysis Team:

In fact, with the growth of legitimate cryptocurrency usage far outpacing the growth of criminal usage, illicit activity’s share of cryptocurrency transaction volume has never been lower.

Btw, unscrupulous journalists can use the same article to blame BTC in helping criminals, but we all know what is really true.

[cr1776]

@Betwrong. This is because their argument is bitcoin does not do anything productive for society except help criminality by making it much easier for criminals to launder their money, much easier to create drug dealing marketplaces in the darknet, much easier to pay for pedophilia content from the darknet and many much more negative reasons. In my own personal interpretation, if they are being used for those things, this good for bitcoin as a technology because it makes real peer to peer payments across the world much easier to do. I do not support criminality, however.

Using cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, for money laundering and other criminal activities results in capture of those criminals in the increasing number of cases. Imo, ciminals will still be using crypto, but only because of their own stupidity.

Check out this article, "Crypto Crime Trends for 2022" by Chainalysis Team:

In fact, with the growth of legitimate cryptocurrency usage far outpacing the growth of criminal usage, illicit activity’s share of cryptocurrency transaction volume has never been lower.

Btw, unscrupulous journalists can use the same article to blame BTC in helping criminals, but we all know what is really true.

Exactly.  Criminals use tools. That doesn't make the tools evil or good.  A bank robber driving a getaway car doesn't mean cars are evil. Ditto a gun or bitcoin. People can be killed with things that are "all natural and organic" and people can be saved or killed by various medicines (see e.g. Michael Jackson).

When you see "journalists" saying something is evil or bad, it pays to really thing about it.

[bbc.reporter]

@cr1776. I made a similar argument like that already, however, @Betwrong's argument based on Chainalysis' data is different. It is telling everyone that crinimal usage of bitcoin is very low. I reckon this might give the antagonizers another argument. They will also begin to say that bitcoin is a ponzi and only good for speculation without creating much value for society.

Also, if there is really a shortage of electricity, what will common society demand to be turned of first? The bitcoin miners or the things that they consider more important to them like the factories that create their goods or the banks that run their financial fiat system? We bitcoin users are only less than 1.5% of society.

[Ozero]

I dont think the protest will succeed, Ethereum is at another level and I think it needs it more than Bitcoin. Ethereum has fewer developers than bitcoin with sole developers that can make unanimous decision. More so ethereum has unlimited supply of coin and many more problems to resolve, from high transaction fee, token economics etc

This project will not succeed primarily because at this stage, Bitcoin is not able to switch to the PoS algorithm. Whether bitcoin needs it or not, this question has always been debatable, but most developers have always insisted on the immutability of bitcoin in this matter. It should be noted that any changes to Bitcoin are very difficult for its developers to accept, since there has never been unity among them. Apparently, bitcoin will remain so, with the exception of minor changes. Whether this is good or not, time will tell.