Online Habits Killing The Planet - Dispatches

[wazzickle]

Point of order:



Not having a dig at you personally wazzickle because I've seen examples from many people, but this is the kind of post I want Hexus to get away from using because it doesn't add anything to the debate and risks reducing the tone of argument - I think we can take it as read that when someone posts something they are posting it as their opinion. The best way to counter that is to address the fact that is being presented, not post something about the poster/their authority/way they've posted something and say nothing about the fact that's being argued.

So in this case, where you take exception to the statement that PoW is unnecessary, simply provide rationale that it is, in your opinion, in fact necessary. That's all.

With respect, please don't tell me how how to argue, this isn't Oxford Debating Society and I wasn't being rude in my assertion. I find it odd that you would focus on my argument style when I'm trying pretty damn hard to toe a neutral-ish line and everyone else is piling on and at times seemingly intentionally misreading my words. Feel free to PM me about this if you like but if you're going to call me out in public for what to me is an entirely reasonable line of discussion, expect to be challenged on it. I'm already feeling plenty backed into a corner on all this without mods getting involved and telling me I'm reducing the tone of the argument.

[DanceswithUnix]

You could split hairs over the ambiguous definition of a bubble, but the fact is it cost a lot of people a lot of money.

Even the pro crypto crowd expects some large dips. If you Google "Bitcoin stock to flow model" you get pro crypto predictions of the boom to bust cycles seen so far. If you believe that model, then the interesting take home is that long term the price will keep going up, and the crashes don't drop to the previous low they always sit a bit higher.

OFC if you consider that the "flow" of demand could stop due to the whim of public opinion, then it all falls in a heap.

Crypto is a poor investment in that I wouldn't put my pension into it. OTOH, as a lottery ticket style entertainment it is actually quite fun.

[wazzickle]

The way I see it is that regulation is a necessary thing to stop certain excesses as well as prevent abuse of the system, and where crypto is largely unregulated, it's going to suffer from sharp practice, as well as suffering the current unfortunate side-effect of costing more energy and money than they ought to. But the default system is one where regulations are broadly in favour of the richest. That money trickles up, that inequality and the cost of living are always increasing. That just because more people have been promoted to the middle classes by capitalism in the last century or so, doesn't mean that more capitalism is the right thing to lift the rest of the world to our current standard of living in the west. We should have to downgrade our capitalism, restrict it, with watchdogs with actual teeth and regulations on a par more with that at least of the 70s, before all the deregulation. Because we can't afford to let capitalism just ride along, serving its own purposes, and taking the planet down with it by having bribed this huge population of people with newfound middle class status, while funnelling ever more money and power up to the top.

Crypto does some of it, and most of it it does far less than the regular banking system. Banks finance all manner of gigantic operations that ravage our planet, as do high finance. Crypto supports almost exclusively web-based content, or at least content that has to pass through the web, as well of course as some shady shizzle, but look at the housing bubble, people gambling with public money to insane levels, no convictions, of course, insider trading, all manner of fraud perpetuated on the public.

To favour the banking system over crypto because crypto supports some shadiness and has significant drawbacks is, well, frankly, much like whatever analogy you can think of that perfectly describes this situation, but in a stark way. It's like that - think about it.

Edit: you can cry whatabouttery if you really want, but it's sorta necessary whatabouttery when we're talking about two direct and exclusive options. In that context, it's a legitimate concern, and is one of the driving forces behind lots and lots of clever people working for clever companies, like my mate, and Nahmii / Hubii, are looking to reduce the energy output and cost of transactions and ultimately if they're taken up widely (in which case wheeeeeeeee) GPU prices coming down because mining is less attractive. These are projects to get behind.

[Corky34]

Someone can tell me if this is significant or a drop in the ocean, but TechPowerUp claims "Cryptocurrency Market Bleeds Trillions in Less Than 24 Hours; Did the Bubble Pop?"

Is it? Has it?

As of time of writing, leading cryptocurrency by market cap Bitcoin has lost more than 30% in value, dropping to $31,000. Ethereum is down by 40% to $2,424, and memecoin Dogecoin has fallen by 45%

[kompukare]

https://coinmarketcap.com/ shows large drops but quite as large as that.

Still 15% of 1.7 trillion is a lot of (virtual) money.

The top three are all down a lot too.
Mind you, while panic certainly can set it, if people started it by selling that money usually pops up elsewhere either chasing a new bubble or fleeing to 'safe' places.

[ik9000]

it's on the beeb now too:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57169726

[Ttaskmaster]

I'm not wading through the arguments, but has anyone mentioned the video currently doing the rounds, with what looks like some guy's spare bedroom and his mining rig with 120 MSI 30xx cards all churning out Etherium?

That's using something like 66,000w!!!

[kompukare]

I'm not wading through the arguments, but has anyone mentioned the video currently doing the rounds, with what looks like some guy's spare bedroom and his mining rig with 120 MSI 30xx cards all churning out Etherium?

That's using something like 66,000w!!!

Did they say 66kw? Because that works out at around 550W each, yet according to the mining calculators, even the 3090 "only" use 330W mining whereas a 3070 or 3060 users around 130W.
Obviously the system will have over heads too.
Point being, max power consumption for gaming is the not the same as mining.

Even with the crash, the calculator still shows around $9 per 3060 per day. That's too much to remove the mining demand for GPUs.

[watercooled]

Even if you halve it to 33kW, that's still a concerning amount of power to be dissipating in one house and is likely way past being a safety concern unless modifications have been made to the supply (I've not seen anything about the video so am basing this on assumptions of course). Using UK as an example, the largest common service fuse in domestic settings is 100A, allowing for 23kVA of load. Many are smaller. And the UK is fairly high by international standards if anything!

That's ignoring (over)loading of individual circuits and the not-insignificant issue of dumping tens of kW of heat into a room!

Judging by the countless photos of burnt/melted components, I get the feeling electrical/fire safety is not a primary concern for these setups.

Regarding mining profits, they are bound to be high today with the huge transaction fees with people panic-selling etc. Mining profitability comes from a combination of currency value, transaction fees amongst other things. Hence why profits can be high even during a crash in value.

[Ttaskmaster]

Did they say 66kw? Because that works out at around 550W each, yet according to the mining calculators, even the 3090 "only" use 330W mining whereas a 3070 or 3060 users around 130W.
Obviously the system will have over heads too.
Point being, max power consumption for gaming is the not the same as mining.

There were some calculations, based on assumed approximations, posted on another forum where they seemed to know a bit more about the guy's rig. Apparently the cards are all overclocked so using a lot more power and I presume all those fans are pulling a fair bit, too.
Even at minimum, you're easily looking at 40kw.

[watercooled]

40kW is greater than the maximum rated heat output of many domestic central heating boilers. Surely they're not all in one bedroom? Has he included some major ventilation system in that build?

Or he's *really* not thought it through and will be regretting it once they've been running for a few hours, assuming he doesn't blow the service fuse first...

Another option of course is that it's not completely genuine. You can't just draw 40kW from a typical unmodified domestic electrical supply and dump the resulting heat into a bedroom without some considerable modifications to electrical supply and ventilation.

[Ttaskmaster]

40kW is greater than the maximum rated heat output of many domestic central heating boilers. Surely they're not all in one bedroom? Has he included some major ventilation system in that build?

High(er) quality video in this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/EtherMining...m_source=share
People here are instead saying they're only 3070s (I can't see the boxes clearly enough), so more in the range of 220-300w TGP... so very roughly 26Kw to 36Kw, plus whatever everything else uses, including all those RGB fans.

[watercooled]

Ah so it's quite a well thought-out setup then. I was just picturing some guy randomly throwing a ton of GPUs in the corner of his spare room and expecting it to work.

Still, I bet owners of that scale of installation get more than a bit twitchy when prices start to tank, assuming they haven't already amortised the cost of the hardware.

Edit: I can make out 3070 on one of the piles, not sure about the rest.

[DanceswithUnix]

Still, I bet owners of that scale of installation get more than a bit twitchy when prices start to tank, assuming they haven't already amortised the cost of the hardware.

I'm guessing they kept all the GPU and motherboard boxes ready for the exit.

So they say it is 170A, which assuming 110V would be about 19KW, which seems in line with the 4 big extractor fans built into the wall.

[watercooled]

The problem with that assumption, is if the profitability tanks enough to make miners sell off, they could be up against lots of miners selling off, driving the price through the floor. That's what a lot of the mining community seem to be ignoring in their 'plan b', and it has happened before. The still-unsatiated gamer demand could reduce the impact of that but it's a risk nonetheless, especially when you have what could be >$100k invested in hardware.

[DJNW]

Even if you halve it to 33kW, that's still a concerning amount of power to be dissipating in one house and is likely way past being a safety concern unless modifications have been made to the supply (I've not seen anything about the video so am basing this on assumptions of course). Using UK as an example, the largest common service fuse in domestic settings is 100A, allowing for 23kVA of load. Many are smaller. And the UK is fairly high by international standards if anything!

That's ignoring (over)loading of individual circuits and the not-insignificant issue of dumping tens of kW of heat into a room!

Judging by the countless photos of burnt/melted components, I get the feeling electrical/fire safety is not a primary concern for these setups.

Does this mean bitcoin-dried strawberries are back? I remember a crypto-person literally cooking themselves to heatstroke around the same time, too.