You're half-right - I clearly needed more coffee when I was making that post.
However, my claim that "the resource & labour cost in making and mining 1 Bitcoin with an ASIC mining is huge" is completely correct - because even it costs $8,000 of resources, to mine $10,000 of BTC, it would still be a profitable enterprise. (In the meantime, you just wasted $8,000 of resources, to make... Nothing that puts bread on the table, a roof over my head, etc.)
When printing paper money, your profit margins are orders of magnitude greater - if it weren't for the part where 'mining' it is illegal. Since the government has the sole monopoly on printing money, it is (Most of the time) far more valuable than the paper it's printed on.
BTC, on the other hand, is barely more valuable then the 'paper' it's printed on - or, the electricity that was used to produce it.
If producing BTC were anywhere nearly as resource-efficient as producing paper money, the margins for mining it would go up and everybody would be mining it, instead of doing productive work (Producing goods and services) to earn it.
The government's monopoly on printing currency is exactly what keeps it more valuable then the sum of its parts.
As such, if you think that there's value in preserving the integrity of monetary transactions, keeping track of wallets, etc, BTC is the wrong horse to bet on. It can be done a lot more cheaply and efficiently with traditional currencies.
"However, my claim that "the resource & labour cost in making and mining 1 Bitcoin with an ASIC mining is huge" is completely correct - because even it costs $8,000 of resources, to mine $10,000 of BTC, it would still be a profitable enterprise. (In the meantime, you just wasted $8,000 of resources, to make... Nothing that puts bread on the table, a roof over my head, etc.)"
I think you are completely ignoring the potential benefits that a decentralized currency has on society. Therefore you can't say that Bitcoin's proof-of-work is going completely to waste. Bitcoin is already, today, starting to concretely help people in a way similar to "putting a roof over their head":
- it is helping Argentinians escape their government's stupidity who is inflating their currency and limiting access to safer currencies (eg. USD) [1]
- it is helping Iranians working or living abroad to send bitcoins to their families [2]
- it is freeing people from financial censorship, eg. oppressive governments freezing bank accounts or donations to political opposition
- etc
Bottom line, it is too early in Bitcoin's history to tell whether the SHA256 proof-of-work is really a net waste or not. You just cannot make the claim that Bitcoin "produces no value". If I can help reduce financial censorship by spending some computing cycles on Bitcoin, I will do it.
> because even it costs $8,000 of resources, to mine $10,000 of BTC, it would still be a profitable enterprise. (In the meantime, you just wasted $8,000 of resources, to make... Nothing that puts bread on the table, a roof over my head, etc.)
Huh? I don't understand this analysis at all. If a musician takes $8,000 of resources (recording equipment, labor, etc.) and creates an album that earns $10,000, is that also $8,000 of wasted resources? You list things like food and shelter, so is your point that all resources not used directly for basic human needs are "wasted"? Remember that the musician (or the bitcoin miner) can use their $2,000 profit to purchase their basic human needs.
> Since the government has the sole monopoly on printing money, it is (Most of the time) far more valuable than the paper it's printed on.
It would be more fair if you also tried to estimate the total cost of government, or of the part of the government that manages the centralized currency. It's definitely not just the cost of making physical bills.
> BTC, on the other hand, is barely more valuable then the 'paper' it's printed on - or, the electricity that was used to produce it.
The reason a bitcoin is valuable is because it is definitive proof of difficult work. This is fundamental to how the decentralized trustless transaction log works, and is the only reason bitcoin users can be relatively certain that there is no fraud on the network. I think you see this as wasteful because you don't consider the cost of governments' management of currencies.
No, because he created $10,000 of value for society (In this case, an album.) On the other hand, creating $10,000 of paper bills does not create $10,000 of value for society - instead, it transfers value from the rest of society, to me.
Spending money to create currency does not add any value to society. (Or at least, it is a horrible investment, compared to spending 8 cents to print 100 x $100 bills)
And yes, there's more costs to printed currency then just printing bills. However, it does not come anywhere close to the value of the currency. The same cannot be said for BTC. There's 1.2 Trillion printed USD in circulation. I strongly doubt that the cost of printing it is anywhere approaching that amount. There is a billion $USD worth of bitcoin in circulation - and the amount of resources expended on producing it is a much larger fraction of the monetary base.
BTC is not valuable because it is definitive proof of difficult work - its valuable because it is 'difficult' to create, which protects your BTC against inflation/counterfitting. There is nothing inherently valuable about doing difficult, pointless work (Or any work - really), that provides no value to anyone - except shovel manufacturers.
> No, because he created $10,000 of value for society (In this case, an album.) On the other hand, creating $10,000 of paper bills does not create $10,000 of value for society
I disagree. Paper bills and bitcoin provide value for society, as a convenient and fraud-exempt (at least for bitcoin) means of exchange.
> BTC is not valuable because it is definitive proof of difficult work - its valuable because it is 'difficult' to create, which protects your BTC against inflation/counterfitting.
The "difficult to create" part is the same as proof of work.
However, my claim that "the resource & labour cost in making and mining 1 Bitcoin with an ASIC mining is huge" is completely correct - because even it costs $8,000 of resources, to mine $10,000 of BTC, it would still be a profitable enterprise. (In the meantime, you just wasted $8,000 of resources, to make... Nothing that puts bread on the table, a roof over my head, etc.)
When printing paper money, your profit margins are orders of magnitude greater - if it weren't for the part where 'mining' it is illegal. Since the government has the sole monopoly on printing money, it is (Most of the time) far more valuable than the paper it's printed on.
BTC, on the other hand, is barely more valuable then the 'paper' it's printed on - or, the electricity that was used to produce it.
If producing BTC were anywhere nearly as resource-efficient as producing paper money, the margins for mining it would go up and everybody would be mining it, instead of doing productive work (Producing goods and services) to earn it.
The government's monopoly on printing currency is exactly what keeps it more valuable then the sum of its parts.
As such, if you think that there's value in preserving the integrity of monetary transactions, keeping track of wallets, etc, BTC is the wrong horse to bet on. It can be done a lot more cheaply and efficiently with traditional currencies.