Listening to a recent episode of the Solarpunk Presents podcast reminded me the importance of consistently calling out cryptocurrency as a wasteful scam. The podcast hosts fail to do that, and because bad actors will continue to try to push crypto, we must condemn it with equal persistence.
Solarpunks must be skeptical of anyone saying it’s important to buy something, like a Tesla, or buy in, with cryptocurrency. Capitalists want nothing more than to co-opt radical movements, neutralizing them, to sell products.
People shilling crypto will tell you it decentralizes power. So that’s a lie, but solarpunks who believe it may be fooled into investing in this Ponzi scheme that burns more energy than some countries. Crypto will centralize power in billionaires, increasing their wealth and decreasing their accountability. That’s why Space Karen Elon Musk pushes crypto. The freer the market, the faster it devolves to monopoly. Rather than decentralizing anything, crypto would steer us toward a Bladerunner dystopia with its all-powerful Tyrell corporation.
Promoting crypto on a solarpunk podcast would be unforgivable. That’s not quite what happens on S5E1 “Let’s Talk Tech.” The hosts seem to understand crypto has no part in a solarpunk future or its prefigurative present. But they don’t come out and say that, adopting a tone of impartiality. At best, I would call this disingenuous. And it reeks of the both-sides-ism that corporate media used to paralyze climate action discourse for decades.
Crypto is not “appropriate tech,” and discussing it without any clarity is inappropriate.
Update for episode 5.3: In a case of hyper hypocrisy, they caution against accepting superficial solutions—things that appear utopian but really reinforce inequality and accelerate the climate crisis—while doing exactly that by talking up cryptocurrency.
I call it ponzipunk
Valid points all.
if you’d like a fantastic example of how Crypto is going to fuck up power supplies, just look at Texas - they can’t keep their statewide grid running, shit on their renewable strengths constantly, and cut deals with cryptochuds so they’re PAID to stop mining. SO FUCKED-UP.
Honorable mention: the GNU Taler project
https://taler.net/en/index.html
Could be a better alternative to crypto.
Thanks for highlighting it! Never saw it, and now looking into it.
For all I understood, it essentially resembles the banking system, except you have a digital cash option. But other than that, isn’t it just integrated into traditional finances, with national currencies and everything? Or is that the point?
Also, from all I understood, Taler is currently a demo and not an actual system for real-world transactions, right?
Or is that the point?
Kinda. You can think of GNU Taler as a standardized “Paypal” that your bank can self-host and that vendors can implement without having to do something special for each individual bank. In addition it offers cash like privacy protections for buyers.
The EU is currently funding a pilot with two cooperative banks (in Germany and Hungary) to scale this up a bit and NLnet is offering grants for projects like open-source online shop software to implement GNU Taler support.
But it could also be used for things like cash-less payments on music festivals, similar to how you often have to buy paper tokens on those. And of course it is not linked to a specific currency, so you can have many different currencies (even unofficial ones) in your Taler wallet, similar to how you could do that with cash.
If a government is backing it, color me skeptical on the privacy claims.
The lack of privacy is one of the founding principles of the project. There is no privacy for the merchants.
Its all open-source and well documented, and they make it very clear that sellers have strict built-in transparency, which is really what governments care the most about (for tax purposes).
So the privacy protections for buyers are very real and something most democratic governments actually support, no conspiracy required.
That’s still a very different understanding of governments than I have.
Thank you!
I certainly don’t like the fact commercial banks are still part of the equation here. To me, the system should either be controlled through a central bank, or use a network of decentralized middlemen (like crypto does), though the latter may be inefficient. Commercial banks are cancer.
I’m also riddled with the technical details of it, in that transactions rely on blind signatures instead of blockchain.
How do blind signatures replace some sort of ledger? Or is it still kept somewhere somehow? Did Taler solve the issue of locally storing money in a way that they can’t be tampered with?
Central banks could certainly also be Taler exchanges, in fact the Swiss central bank published a paper on exactly that and their outcome was: yes feasible but we don’t need that right now.
As for commercial banks: I think it is worth differentiating there a bit. IMHO cooperative banking is exactly the kind of decentralised structure you seem to want, yet technically you lump them with other commercial banks. Currently both banks that participate in the GNU Taler pilot are strong examples of coop banks. I was quite positively surprised when they announced the participation of these two banks.
As for the technical questions: you are looking at it through the warped perspective of blockchain. None of these issues are real and in fact had been solved long before block chain was even invented. They only become an issue when you enter the realm of “let’s pretend you can create an trustless system”, but that’s starting from a wrong premise.
This presentation does a good job of explaining it. The gist of it is:
- People making payments are always anonymous, but people receiving money are not.
- Using already traditional currency infrastructure is relatively power efficient and cheap (especially compared to Crypto)
But I just learned of it from this thread as well, so that’s just what I’ve gleaned so far.
Thanks for the link!
Cryptocurrency is the online equivalent of the neo-Nazi bar.
You know how the story goes, with the bartender who tells the customer “you have to throw out neo-Nazis as soon as you see the uniforms or the tattoos, no matter how polite and well-behaved they are. Because if you let Nazis stay and get comfortable they’ll invite their friends, and word gets around that Nazis can drink comfortably at your bar, and customers who don’t want to drink with Nazis leave, and suddenly you have a Nazi bar”. You all remember that story?
Well, cryptocurrency in online spaces - especially futurist spaces and technological spaces - it’s a lot like that. Cryptocurrency supporters are constantly looking for opportunities to promote cryptocurrency. And they obviously see a movement like solarpunk, which talks a lot about decentralization, and mistrusts the global financial system, and so on, as fertile ground for shilling cryptocurrency.
And if you let cryptocurrency supporters hang out and talk about how awesome cryptocurrency is, they will inevitably start shilling their particular flavor of cryptocurrency. And that’s inevitably a capitalist scam and will inevitably harm anyone stupid enough to fall for it.
And the problem is not just that cryptocurrency is a capitalist scam. It’s that, if you don’t shut down cryptocurrency talk aggressively, you get more cryptocurrency supporters. Because the crypto bros see that cryptocurrency discussion is allowed, and they join in, and they invite their friends, and they start shilling their scams. And then you get crypto spammers and scam bots and the personal messages inviting you to elite investment opportunities and all the other scummy garbage that infests cryptocurrency websites. You either block cryptocurrency talk or you get a website full of crypto garbage.
In other words, cryptocurrency supporters need to be shut down as quickly and ruthlessly as any other bots and spammers. Because if you don’t you inevitably get a website full of bots and spammers.
Because the crypto bros see that cryptocurrency discussion is allowed, and they join in, and they invite their friends, and they start shilling their scams. And then you get crypto spammers and scam bots and the personal messages inviting you to elite investment opportunities and all the other scummy garbage that infests cryptocurrency websites
At this point any cryptocurrency discussion space by necessity has strict policies against promotion, people who like to talk about cryptocurrency have realized it’s generally rude and unwelcome to shill their bags outside of designated areas, and crypto scam bots don’t limit themselves to only those spaces. Not every group of people you don’t like is the equivalent of Nazis.
pedonazi instance
Yeah this doesn’t seem like a great take. I think there’s severe selection bias.
I like a narrow band of crypto projects. I think the vast majority of things you hear about are scams. There’s a ton of bad actors in the space. My advice to people is just to be careful, but I don’t promote crypto because I don’t promote things that you should have a good understanding of before investing in them. I’m not in the business of risking other people’s money. I’ll talk about the tech, but usually uninterested in a specific token.
I don’t think your brand of zero tolerance will work on such a broad scale. I do think you should aggressively shut down any specifics about [token or project], but it’s not inevitable that people go towards shilling.
I was one of the top users of a crypto subreddit, and it got over run in the way you are talking about. Shills and people talking about price, etc. I wanted to have real conversations about the tech and implications. I left because it wasn’t what I wanted anymore.
There are people who can talk about those topics with the nuance required, but I agree many cannot.
Aggressive moderation? Good idea.
Zero tolerance policy? Bad idea.
Given the above you’ll retreat to “so a little Nazi-ism is OK?” - and if you can’t figure out the difference between the two and your view is that polarized, I don’t think we’ll really find any common ground here.
This is an emotionally charged post, yet everyone you disagree with is secretly trying to influence everyone else? How the fuck are you going to compare people who like a type of software to literal Nazis? Anyone who relies on emotional arguments like that is clearly not a rationalist.
How do you achieve communism without authoritarianism? This sub says they like decentralization, but if you decentralize based on computers, how do you stop adversaries from performing a Sybil attack? How do we establish command and control for a decentralized network, without letting authoritarians seize that command and control? How do you establish a decentralized identity system, without also establishing a decentralized system for data management and governance?
Now, should a Blockchain be that? Maybe not, I’m not trying sell whatever to you. I get being annoyed by all the advertisers, but to go an extra step to say that the principles of cypherpunk is something to compare to Nazis, is just proof you care more about emotional arguments and setting narrative.
So everyone that talks about crypto is akin to a Nazi? Lmao
Looks like you’ve been dubbed One Of Them.
There is time and place for everything.
For starters, most modern cryptocurrencies (not Bitcoin, though) use Proof-of-Stake or a similar validation model, which pretty much solves the energy hogging problem. But the issue of laissez-faire capitalism persists, and crypto, in my opinion, is poorly equipped to deal with it - that is, assuming it wasn’t meant as a perfect money model to force unregulated capitalism over everyone’s throats.
And that is why it shouldn’t suddenly become the main means for payments. But at the same time, that doesn’t mean crypto doesn’t have legitimate use cases. There are cases where anonymity, immutability and quick settlements matter, be it financially supporting protesters, moving money across borders, or, say, my use case of evading sanctions when trying to send money to my brother over the Russian border (outside of Russia, mind you).
But the issue of laissez-faire capitalism persists, and crypto, in my opinion, is poorly equipped to deal with it
I mean, proof-of-stake protocols didn’t exist until 2012, and that was a hybrid protocol. Exclusively proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies weren’t available until long after that IIRC. There’s a lot we still don’t know about what blockchains are capable of, and it’s entirely possible that we figure out how to regulate them effectively.
But you point still stands;
And that is why it shouldn’t suddenly become the main means for payments.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Thanks for added info! Yes, crypto market is turning for regulation, since its continued growth relies on getting institutional investors aboard, and institutions love clear regulations instead of a “grey zone”.
‘Didn’t exist until over a decade ago’.
Just saying, this isn’t exactly a fresh meme.
You’re not wrong, but it took a while to figure out how to eliminate proof-of-work entirely. The only reason I’m not giving a year is I’m not sure who was first.
Aside from that, integrated economic regulation isn’t a particularly “flashy” area of research, nor is it lucrative, so naturally it will progress more slowly. That doesn’t mean anything about the possibility or practicality of it, though.
Fair enough.
Crypto is Fecespunk
In S5E3 they invite on a guest in favor of crypto. The hosts do nothing to counter his statements. Even if they had on that episode, it would have been a zero-sum game. They could invite more guests on who oppose crypto. That still would fail to undo the damage of introducing crypto as something that deserves debate, rather than consistent and clear condemnation.
“Debate me,” is the rallying cry of the alt-right. You absolutely should not debate them. Those ready to argue in bad faith of the indefensible know the power of muddling issues, of eroding moral clarity, and creating uncertainty when there should be none.
I expect solarpunk media to have enough clarity of vision that they present a future that is better than a zero-sum game. And I expect them to do better than being permissive toward crypto. I have lost faith in the ability of “Solarpunk Presents” to deliver bold and radical truth. I have canceled my Patreon support and unsubscribed from their podcast.
Not all cryptocurrencies are the same. Sounds like you don’t quite understand their differences and just want something to rage about.
To expand on this, there are crypto such as Nano, which take very little energy and time to crunch transactions. I wouldn’t expect most people talking about crypto to be talking about that kind of coin, though. Bitcoin and Etherium are the heavy hitters, and they are incredibly wasteful.
I’m not going to get behind the finger pointing on the comment I am replying to, though :)
Bitcoin has a market cap comparable to apple. It’s not going away anytime soon. You should do your own research and not let the mainstream media establish your perception. It’s not like the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on crime, or the opioid/Xanax crisis were complete blunders by the media, right? But now, they’re opinions on a crypto asset that fundamentally threatens their status quo is not full of shit?
You’re right, some are ponzi schemes designed to burn the entire amazon and rest are ponzi schemes designed to only burn half the amazon.
Can you please explain how all cryptocoins are ponzi schemes?
If we look at other types of investments/stores of value there is always something:
Stock -> Company
Personal loan -> Work
Gold standard currency -> Gold
Fiat currency -> Taxes *
Crypto -> ?The only way for the prices of a thing to go up is investment or the thing providing value to someone. Therefore the price of Bitcoin is either the result of speculation or the value it provides as a currency. Bitcoin is to slow and expensive for normal use and I don’t think it provides billions of dollars in value to controlled substances market.
A system of investment where the only money comes from new investment is considered a Ponzi scheme.*It can’t just be trade because all the others could work. Is it ease of trade? No, otherwise everyone would use USD. It’s the ability to pay taxes and settle legal debt in the country you are in.
Ask anyone who talks shit about crypto for anything besides a meme, and you’ll still get a meme. That’s how their perception of it was established. They probably don’t know the difference between the internet and their web browser, let alone decentralized vs centralized, or all the many reasons why the economy has gone to shit the last few decades.
But they do know memes! The same two memes that have been told since Bitcoin was priced under $10k
Ok here’s the thing, crypto as a concept it’s not a completely bad idea the main problem is that the entire ecosystem was kidnapped by scammers and vcs, most of projects are scams at this point and it’s extremely difficult to even talk about the concept without talking about bitcoin, which is the worst offender. But there are small projects like nano that tried to bring back the original concepts after fixing the principal flaws like mining and by extension the transaction fees, of course as you might guessed this project isn’t popular among crypto bros because there’s no profit to be made from the currency itself. I think all of this is still in it’s infancy and has potential to develop in a positive way, what it needs is to remove the idea of easy money and systems that prevent users from earning from trading, in other words remove capitalists from the equation
I’m sorry but I have to disagree on this one.
Core to the design of the public-ledger blockchain system that powers all crypto is the idea that you have to have a proof-of-work mechanism. That’s actually the big innovation that Satoshi Nakamoto brought to the table. Blockchain systems have been around forever, but blockchain in the crypto context came about because of the idea of proof-of-work. Before that you didn’t have a way of securing the public-ledger against bad actors.
Proof-of-work is a system that gives control to whoever will put in the most “work”, and work in this case is measured in computing power. That means that, by design, the system has to produce endless and unfathomable amounts of e-waste. It’s a system that rewards infinite growth and exploitation; to be the dominant power in the crypto ecosystem you have to be constantly expanding the amount of compute power at your disposal. That means endless resource extraction, for one thing. This is as fundamentally un-solarpunk as you can get. It’s also why a reward scheme is built in; there have to be incentives for providing that compute power, and payments to balance out its cost.
(By the way, all of the alternative schemes, like proof-of-storage or proof-of-stake, either have the same problem of endless resource costs, or just hand even more power to those with the most resources)
But if you take away the reward structure, all you’ve done is change the incentives, not remove them, because there’s still the reward of being able to control the system as a whole. If you own the bulk of the processing power, you get to decide what the authoritative version of the chain is. You can decide to change the rules of how transactions are processed, or just roll-back transactions entirely. Without a monetary reward, you’ve now simply handed that control to the people who already have the wealth required to simply throw at it for the sake of the control itself. Your public-ledger blockchain is now owned by Jeff Bezos. You could have a state step in and use its combined resources to prevent this from happening, but then why run it as a public-ledger system at all? It’s already publicly owned if it’s being done by the state, so just have a central bank with an authoritative database system that wastes far less energy and far fewer material resources.
It’s Cypher punk, not Cyber punk. Ones a movie genre about swords and dystopian tech, ones a decentralized trustless protocol powered by encryption
I’ve been a fan of cyberpunk for years, and I feel like an unsecured currency backed in computational waste (proof-of-work style) is a perfect fit for a cyberpunk setting. If I’d read it in a story years ago I’d have said it was a little on the nose
How is it insecure? Schnorr signatures and the txID system literally make it quantum resistant. Even if you cracked a transaction’s key, you’d only have access to already spent funds. Like a receipt instead of a debit card, with no certainty who has the money until they spend it.
Oh, and in terms of computational waste, the fiat backed inflation based currency system we have now, has incentivized a world of endless growth which isn’t sustainable. Switching to an asset with finite supply like Bitcoin would remove those incentives. There’s other costs to using deflationary assets, but if you actually value the environment, switching to Bitcoin would economically inventivize a world where people are encouraged to save more instead of spend more
Unsecured, as in stuff like mt gox where the nearest thing to a bank for crypto just closed one day and stole hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins with no recourse. Unsecured like watching the crypto scene reinvent/rediscover financial regulation one theft, scam, or disaster at a time. That’s a perfect fit for a cyberpunk setting.
Unrelated to my point about the genre, I’ll admit I’m especially skeptical that it’s the devaluation of currency is what’s responsible for the endless growth mindset of capitalism, or that systems that seem to be used more like investment stocks than a currency are structurally capable of fixing it.
I’m sure the some of blockchain technology has some practical uses, there’s probably a way it can work as currency, but I have a hard time seeing any way to separate the modern cryptocurrency scene from investment capitalism
Edit: I really do wish you luck in doing so though
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Crypto is cypherpunk not cyberpunk.
You can create new alternative economic systems outwith existing monetary systems. Global mutual credit, local exchange trading systems, etc. There are plenty of solarpunks and leftists in crypto and have been since the start.
Not really. This usecase is infinitesimal compared to speculation.
For now.
Unfortunately an economic system is only as useful as its buy-in, and that’s the hard part. If you want you fight financial hegemony, don’t give wealthy people another lever of control.
What about local exchange trading systems?
“I am a solarpunk in crypto because I want to burn the entire energy output of a second Ecuador in order to help criminals extort ransoms out of hospitals and libraries.” - An idiot
Literally a children’s hospital in my city had their shit locked up by “hackers” – they were using pen and paper to schedule appointments for weeks, using handwritten notes to pass health details from ER to ICU, etc. It could still be down for all i know, I haven’t checked in a while.
I don’t know exactly how much pain and suffering this has caused kids, or how many died because of it, but i know how hard it was when my son was in the hospital for months when he was little, and that was with a fully functional hospital.
It’s fucking disgusting. And I’m like kinda pro-crime a lot of the time…
Why would Satoshi do this
Ransomeware is a pretty small segment. Much dodgier shit happens with cash.
PoW can be used to store energy. Geothermal farms in remote areas mining energy credits. Spending energy on important stuff is also fine. We spend much more on inane nonsense. US tumble dryers use more energy than bitcoin. Other countries just use drying racks
Confidently incorrect.
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Who are you to define solarpunk? It’s fine to disallow talk of crypto in the sub but I don’t know that any individual or group has the right to define solarpunk at this point.
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Many coins are indeed scams, and many NFTs are scams. This does not mean the underlying technology is a scam. Many scams use the dollar. Somehow we have to get from here to there, from an exploitative unsustainable capitalist world to a solarpunk world. This will almost certainly mean many years in a state of transition where money of some sort will still be needed. Crypto currencies could be a tool on the path, I don’t know but I’m not ready to throw out a whole technology because of some scams. In fact, it’s usefulness for scams might actually be a sign of it’s utility, just like cash.
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Fiat currencies also take massive amounts of power, and they are exclusively controlled by the bad guys. Banks have racks of servers and/or use cloud services, financial exchanges also run racks of servers and build microwave towers for fast communication.
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I know this one will sound incredulous to most, but have you considered that those with billions invested in the current system spend money to influence communities like ours and social media to make something that could be their kryptonite have a bad reputation? Isn’t odd how the anti-crypto crowd is so uneducated on the topic and yet so rabidly against it? Why would people interested in changing the balance of power not have interest in a tool that has potential there?
Maybe crypto is not strictly solarpunk but that doesn’t mean that it cannot be a useful tool in the transition away from capitalist control to solarpunk.
Those against crypto, how do you propose we get to a solarpunk world from here? What is the path? What are the tools?
- Anyone can define solarpunk as they wish.
- All coins are used for speculative investment, there’s very, very little practical use going on.
- What a silly thing to say. Banking servers wouldn’t use a fraction of the power mining operations do.
- Sorry mate this one is a bit kooky. Anyone who didn’t drink the koolaid can see it for the ponzi scheme it is.
Anyone can define solarpunk as they wish.
Pretty much, but it still has a general meaning. Just like the word “punk” itself. If Blink 182 said “This is punk”, Minor Threat and The Romones might have something to say.
All coins are used for speculative investment, there’s very, very little practical use going on.
This is mostly true now but doesn’t have to be. I’d say a large part of why it’s stuck is because of people’s negative attitudes towards it. Faith in a currency is critical.
What a silly thing to say. Banking servers wouldn’t use a fraction of the power mining operations do.
And you know this how? How are you measuring the electricity the modern dollar requires? What about crypto-currencies that don’t use proof-of-work and instead use a consensus algorithm like Raft?
Sorry mate this one is a bit kooky. Anyone who didn’t drink the koolaid can see it for the ponzi scheme it is.
No worries, it’s expected that heavily propagandized people view the claim they are propagandized as kooky.
heavily propagandized people view the claim they are propagandized as kooky.
you seem like a prime example of this phenomena.
likewise! :)
Obviously, terms like solar punk are subjective, it’s a bit dramatic to claim “x is not solarpunk” but it’s equally so to declare “you have no right to define solarpunk”. Just imagine they said “x doesn’t align with my values”.
I’ll concede that crypto doesn’t have to be all speculative. IDK how to get to somewhere useful from here though and I’m not sure it’s possible really.
Consensus and PoS or PoA or whatever are not the norm. Bitcoin needs to be mined which consumes energy, fiat does not. There’s no question that crypto is wasteful. Again, maybe it’s possible to fix this with some future iteration but that doesn’t seem likely.
We are all of is “propagandised”, but that doesn’t make my assertions any less valid.
Just imagine they said “x doesn’t align with my values”.
But they didn’t, they said “X isn’t solarpunk”.
Consensus and PoS or PoA or whatever are not the norm
Ethereum is arguably coin #2 – https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/consensus-mechanisms/pow/
Those against crypto, how do you propose we get to a solarpunk world from here?
Hold up, there’s a huge leap of logic in this question. Are you saying there is a path if only we embraced cryptocurrency? If not, then why even phrase the question that way?
My answer, then, would be “Mu”.
Are you saying there is a path if only we embraced cryptocurrency?
No, I’m saying if we actually plan on making progress, maybe use available tools and don’t let purist thought, groupthink, and propaganda take our tools from us.
OK, so we probably want to avoid crypto if we don’t want groupthink.
Why would avoiding a technology help you avoid groupthink?
You’re conflating communities full of idiots that crypto tends to attract for a technology. These are not the same.
Solar panels are technology that attracts lots of idiots and scammers (scammy companies abound if you’re not familiar), should we avoid solar panels? No, because solar technology doesn’t have anything to do directly with scammers right?
Because cryptocurrency is as much a culture as a technology. Solar panels are not.
So if a culture grew up around solar panels that you don’t like, we should avoid them and suffer the negative environmental consequences of throwing out one of our best tools to fight climate change?
Smart
Since crypto isn’t our best tool for anything, the analogy falls apart.
Keep in mind that the leftist answer to currency is quite possibly none at all.
So you propose we move from one fiat I can hold in my hand to a different fiat that I can no longer hold in my hand. You propose we move from having bad guys we know controlling the system to change to bad guys we don’t know controlling the system (see mystery whales).
There is no viable use case for crypto that has not already been solved by other, less power hungry, means.
And if you think the big banks, venture capitalists, and private equity don’t have disproportionate influence on crypto, something is very wrong.
“Solarpunk is an art movement that depicts nature and technology in harmony, and is also a subgenre of speculative fiction, fashion, and activism. The term was coined in 2008, and aims to tackle climate change, galvanize the community, and deploy existing technologies for the greater good of people and the planet. Solarpunk aesthetics include: Renewable energy Technology that disappears into the environment Lush green communities with roof top gardens Floating villages Clean energy transport Hope-filled sci-fi tales”
I’m not saying crypto talk should be explicitly banned here, but should at least be limited to the context in which it is applicable to the topic.
So you propose we move from one fiat I can hold in my hand to a different fiat that I can no longer hold in my hand.
You don’t know what fiat means. Learn about money, and the technology behind before having such a strong opinion.
I’m not saying crypto talk should be explicitly banned here, but should at least be limited to the context in which it is applicable to the topic.
That sounds appropriate. Cryptocurrencies, when considered without the layers of misunderstanding and propaganda could be a useful tool in a transition to a more sustainable future similar to other imperfect but still at least temporarily useful technologies we might not ultimately want in a solarpunk future such as electric cars or tall buildings with trees all over them.
There could be implementations of crypto that don’t consume a small country’s worth of electricity and water just to work. Even the credit card industry uses a ton of energy and also continually funnels money to a small group of people who use it to prevent the sort of change we want to see.
Decentralizing the means of exchange and store of value is, I think, a very solarpunk thing. Crypto as it’s been implemented isn’t solarpunk at all. But the idea of alternative currencies and means of exchange that are more in line with the greater good of the people is solarpunk.
I, for one, like the idea of Ricky’s hash coins.
Sure. It’s not “Technically” a fiat currency. A government doesn’t back it’s value. But that just means it’s literally fucking worse. It’s so detached from the idea of representing anything that it is only worth something because someone believes it is. At least a gold standard is backed by something that has value. But I’m not fighting for a change to that either.
I just don’t see the point of replacing one meaningless strip of paper with a meaningless strip of 1s and 0s in the context of solarpunk futures. At the current point in our timeline, cryptocurrency has NO valid use case for which there is not already a better system out there, even if that better system isn’t the one we are currently using.
Also, fuck off. I’m entitled to my opinion, and I don’t particularly believe anyone when they say that crypto is a force for good or useful. It’s only been a way to rip people off.
it is only worth something because someone believes it is
Uh… ya… money
At least a gold standard is backed by something that has value
We don’t have a gold standard (in the U.S. or most western countries).
Also, fuck off. I’m entitled to my opinion
me too ya?
We don’t have a gold standard (in the U.S. or most western countries).
Did I fucking say you did? A gold standard. General case you myopic fuck.
it is only worth something because someone believes it is
Uh… ya… money
What the fuck are you talking about? A backed currency has value from the item it is backed by, a fiat currency has value from the government it is backed by. Crypto has value from…??? Burning GPU time? Proof of stake is better, but there’s no guarantee that it won’t just all lose value tomorrow. But, I hear you protest, so could all money? Yes, but you know, people generally have a vested interest in keeping their government running for a multitude of reasons and to that point, other countries have a vested interest in keeping other countries afloat. Crypto? Not so much.
Look. There’s nothing wrong per se with the technology itself. I just do not see it realistically being a necessary component for a solar punk future. Which was the point of the entire post.
I just do not see it realistically being a necessary component for a solar punk future. Which was the point of the entire post.
And I was asking who are you to make this decision for solarpunk, which was a major point of my response.
But I see you’re upset so no more responses.
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Editing the original post as follows, in response to their latest episode.
Update for episode 5.3: In a case of hyper hypocrisy, Solarpunk Presents caution against accepting superficial solutions—things that appear utopian but really reinforce inequality and accelerate the climate crisis—while doing exactly that by talking up cryptocurrency.
Yeah, I’ve worked on a wind farm that powered a Bitcoin mine built right next door, and another one that powered an oil refinery. Both felt pretty messed up.
I totally agree solarpunk and crypto should be separate.
however just talking about power usage - chains using “proof of stake” us something like 99.9% less power than “proof of work”. Ethereum (PoS) vs (Bitcoin) PoW power usage for example
Doesn’t really matter in this context, since anything above 0% is wasteful for something as completely unnecessary as crypto.
PoS doesn’t use any more electricity than it takes to write to a hard drive, which is minimal, and its also not a “race” in the same way PoW is for solving an increasingly difficult problem.
Proof of stake also rewards the biggest holders of the currency with the biggest payouts. It’s an inherently regressive system designed to give more to the haves at the expense of the have nots.
