Cryptocurrency mining has eaten away all our graphics cards, not only from current but also from previous generations – and as if that weren’t enough, now the miners have started to drive. However, their huge greed for hardware is not the only problem – its energy consumption will also be a problem.
Governments do not like cryptocurrencies, especially not those they do not control. Bitcoin was created as a tool to circumvent government control, it is a pseudonymous cryptocurrency – so you can track transfers between accounts, but not to whom the individual accounts belong, so it is not a problem to transfer money to an account where no one knows who controls it. And that, in itself, annoys the government – it annoys so much that it is India has decided to ban it completely.
True, we can tell them: Good luck with that! A country that is unable to control how many people gather for them on religious holidays to then they spread covid at a rocket pace across the country, will certainly celebrate great success in the campaign against a system that was specifically designed so that it could not be banned.
Governments cannot effectively ban you from holding cryptocurrencies. But they can come up with draconian punishments if they show you that you hold cryptocurrencies, for example, when they map your wallet to some of your stores. They may also prohibit trading, prohibit organizations from receiving and sending payments in cryptocurrencies, and order banks not to trade in cryptocurrencies or organizations that trade with them. In short and well: They can give them a patch similar to that of terrorists and ban all transactions that stink a little of the crypt.
Cryptocurrencies annoy governments to the extent that the most advanced, such as the UK government, have flirted with the idea of banning cryptography altogether. In 2015, it required considerable efforts of experts to David Cameron they explained that banning cryptography was complete bullshit and would send Britain to the Middle Ages, because without it, neither telephone services nor the Internet could be practically operated. And that it is also about mathematics and that cannot be banned either.
Enigma G v National Cryptologic Museum (Zdroj: Wikimedia Commons, photo: Austin Mills)
Or – math can be banned in principle, but that will turn your country into a frightening example of a civilization heading for the abyss. In modern society, we cannot do without information processing machines, and they cannot function safely without cryptography, without it we can function at the level of the late 19th century.
For now, Britain has come to terms with the RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000), which will require you to decode your equipment – and if you don’t, you can go to the dome for up to five years. We do not have such legislation in our country and in America it is fighting for it, so it is being decided whether issuing a password is protected by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution (the one that allows you to protect yourself from accusing yourself), or it is not.
Another problem that has come with cryptocurrencies is the extreme hunger for hardware. Although specialized ASICs are being built, not everyone wants to spill $ 7,000-9,000 apiece – and there are risks associated with the ASIC being entirely single-purpose and may lose value if the algorithm changes. The GPU is against it a flexible solution that sometimes allows you to mine multiple cryptocurrencies at once – and when something new appears, it can be easily adapted.
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Comments can be found at the end of the last chapter.
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