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.
Thanks for emphasizing this. I was a bit disappointed in that episode. I don’t remember any mention of decentralization which is integral to solarpunk. One of the hosts seemed to just respond to the other with a lot of whataboutism and negativity that just revealed a lack of understanding of solarpunk’s relationship to technology. For example, promoting electric cars instead of public transportation and reducing the amount of cars on the rode. Maybe that was the both-sides-ism to create discussion but it seemed like a missed opportunity to really dive into solarpunk technology. Maybe someone from this community could reach out about our approach to technology. They seem like they’d be open to hearing different viewpoints from the solarpunk community.
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.
Crypto is Fecespunk
This is annoying in its inaccuracy. Crypto is a variegated set of technologies that are competing with each other.
Bitcoin, ethereum, etc all use proof of work, which is ridiculously energy-intensive, and not required for crypto to function.
…but there are lots of other cryptocurrencies out there that don’t use proof of work, and are no more energy-intensive than any other typical internet service.
It’s hard enough to get people on board with social movements that directly help them and have no downsides; you’re going to have a hard time promulgating a financial system that undermines the wealth of the people who dominate the standard financial system, especially when the more wealth you’ve accumulated (in the standard system) is directly proportional to your ability to spread propaganda to support your wealth.
There are better, more winnable, battles to fight than the global financial system.
While i agree that a victory there would be huge, part of the reason it would be so huge is because of how very, very unwinnable it is.
That said, if you’re super stuck on finance as the issue you want you be involved with, imo, the best thing you can do is communicate the questions – the problems with contemporary finance, of which there are so very many – and don’t waste your time offering solutions.
(Even if we had a solution that could work, it would surely be obsolete by the time it could be meaningfully implemented. Cryptos of all kinds, at this point, can only provide their benefits to people with disposable wealth, who can afford to take the risk, and those are exactly the people who don’t need you to fight for their interests. Or anyone – but you’re not anyone, you are you; your energy is finite, spend it where it can help the people who need it most.)
I appreciate your well-considered response.
I have a lot of things in involved with in life, and to varying degrees. Crypto is by no means my absolute focus.
However, crypto is immensely useful, and no amount of wishing it away or saying ‘the time hasn’t come’ for it will be effective. It has a niche, and will occupy that niche successfully, without any big battles to fight.
It also is flexible, and new uses will come around, paralleling the existing ones.
My own uses for it are primarily in DAOs, which are really neat and useful, for me. There are plenty of other uses, but voting and traceable structure and organizational finance as exist in some DAOs really is a major one.
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.
It doesn’t have to be a wasteful if it’s generated with clean energy. It doesn’t have to be a scam, either. Just because it is those things IRL doesn’t mean it has to be in fiction.
But that energy could be used for anything else. Those chips could be used for anything else.
deleted by creator
Oh. So the past two hundred years or tailorized bullshit and monkey paw globalism haven’t made a single energy intensive process geographically fungible? Huh.
I guess solving a lot of social problems will be easier than I thought!
deleted by creator
I’m not trying to sound clever, and this requires zero knowledge of crypto mining. It is, in fact, about every other industrial process from the past two hundred years.
You didn’t refute my point. You just said I sound smart and called me an idiot about an entirely irrelevant topic.
That seems like a pretty irrational defense, in that it completely avoids addressing anything I actually said. Do you think that’s going to convince anyone of anything other than ‘cryptobros are vicious irrational little goblins’? You’re not making your cause look good.
deleted by creator
No I just think very few of us are dim enough for cryptocurrency.
You seem to have responded as if I said something, so you didn’t read it as a question. Youre being extremely disingenuous here. Which is pretty standard for you sort, but I’d like to hope for better.
Instead of computing hashes you show proof how much of the sun’s energy you harvested this transaction block.
Boom I just solved blockchain and green energy. You’re welcome.
You could say a new algorithm was made that makes it barely use energy at all, too. It’s fiction. You can basically do whatever you want if you write it. lol
Look into Nano. Actually trying to be an alternative currency, instant transfer (0.4s average), no fees, and uses 1KWh per 10,000 transactions.
Lots of different ways to apply this technology, don’t assume it’s all bitcoin.
Removed by mod for providing an example of a counterpoint that’s eco friendly?
Yeah, I’ve worked on a wind farm that powered a Bitcoin mine built right next door, and another one that that powered an oil refinery. Both felt pretty messed up.
-
“But they don’t come out and say that, adopting a tone of impartiality.”
-
“… nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’” —Isaac Asimov
-
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?
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!
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.
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.
If a government is backing it, color me skeptical on the privacy claims.
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.
The lack of privacy is one of the founding principles of the project. There is no privacy for the merchants.
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.
‘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.
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”.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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?
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.
- 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/
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.
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.
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.
I, for one, like the idea of Ricky’s hash coins.
Nice!
-
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
That’s the problem with fiction. Unlike reality it needs to be believable.
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
@ComradeKhoumrag @JacobCoffinWrites The US dollar became a fiat currency in the 1970s. Funny enough, US rate of growth starts to decline around that time. The first steam engine went into use around 1776, kicking off the industrial revolution.
This is a little confusing to me. Clearly the arguments are centered around cryptocurrencies and on that note it’s exactly right - those are a steaming pile of shit that have no place in solarpunk. But the language of this post sounds inclusive of all forms of encryption, and that’s problematic given the essential role of various forms of encryption for protecting privacy, and the security of those with little or no political power.
“Crypto” has become a common shorthand for “cryptocurrency”. Unless I’m missing something, I saw nothing in their post that references cryptographic technology as a whole.
Use this as an opportunity to clear house, you’ve got a bunch of nazis revealing themselves here.
Lol what
Words I no like = nazi
Duh
