#buttcoin

I think itch.io, and any other website who wants to do an end-run around this nonsense, should accept payment in cryptocoins.

FAQ

Q: How does this help? I don't use crypto and I don't really want to.

A: Because it doesn't actually require you to use crypto.

In practice, it means driving to the nearest liquor store with a crypto ATM, paying some cash, and telling it to "deposit" the money to the website you're trying to buy stuff from.

These ATM providers don't have any way to know what you're buying or from whom, and even if they did have a way of knowing they don't give a shit.

And as long as a website has that alternate method of getting payments, they suddenly get a lot of negotiating power in the prudish payment processor war.

Q: Crypto is a scam. Why are you supporting a scam?

A: There are a lot of scammers who use cryptocurrency. And there are a lot of cultists who will tell you that, if you buy a bunch of cryptocoins and bury them in a hole, in ten years it'll make you a millionaire thanks to Misesian goldbug magic. Screw those guys.

But, again, we're talking about a different model here, where your money spends, like... a few hours as cryptocoins, at most? And none of that time is spent in your possession. None of the usual scams really apply, unless you think itch.io (or whatever other website you're buying something from) is planning to run with your money.

Q: Why are you supporting a tech that steals from artists?

A: That's NFTs. It's a completely different kind of crypto token than what we're talking about here.

Q: Why are you supporting a tech that's destroying the environment?

A: Because the actually useful cryptocoins these days fixed their carbon footprint problem 2-3 years ago. Yes, Bitcoin's carbon footprint is still insane because they're too set in their ways to make any changes to their core rules, even just ones that change their PoW function to something more eco-friendly. But despite the brand name recognition, they're sorta the outlier at this point.

If you pay in Ether or USDC or USDT, the carbon footprint is negligible; the only downside is that the convenience store guy might be able to figure out who you're buying from (if he's tech savvy and – as previously mentioned – if he actually gave a shit).

Alternatively, if you pay in Monero (the most anonymous option), the carbon footprint of that is about the same as 1-2 gallons of automotive gas. Which still sucks, but sucks way less than it sucked the last time we had this conversation (and if you live someplace rural might be comparable to e.g. the carbon footprint of driving into town to buy something).

I'm pleasantly stunned by the amount of Wodehouse appreciation on this site! Sure, I'll write you some Ukridge

Es gibt heute eine Premiere zu verkünden, etwas das seit erscheinen dieses Blocks noch nie eingetreten ist: Ich habe verschlafen!

Warum auch immer habe ich mir den Wecker nicht gestellt oder im schlaftrunkenen Zustand ausgeschaltet🤷🏼‍♀️ Auf was allerdings Verlass ist, ist das ich regelmäßig in der Nacht wach werde. Das letzte Mal so ~4:50, ein Blick auf die Uhr, ohhh da kann ich noch liegenbleiben, eine knappe Stunde später das selbe Spiel noch einmal nur mit anderer Reaktion, ohhhh Scheiße ich muss los. Anziehen, Zähneputzen und auf's Fahrrad, Auto ist natürlich gerade in der Werkstatt. Tempo gemacht, Rekordfahrt hingelegt und ich bin sage und schreibe 1 Minute zu spät gekommen. Das hat mich selbst ein bisschen perplex gemacht.

Was mich ebenfalls staunend und mit weit aufgerissenen Augen dastehen hat lassen, ist ein Stück der ganz großen Poesie das gestern durch Zufall an meine Ohren herangetragen wurde. Lest selbst:

Ich brauche ein Glas Wasser,damit ich baden kann. Nach einem Bad fängt was neues an.

-M. Pauli

Auf den ersten Blick nichts besonderes, doch sobald einem die tiefere Bedeutung klar wird, eine lebensverändernde Botschaft.

While the carbon footprint of bitcoin is well studied, less attention has been paid to the vast churn in computer hardware that the cryptocurrency incentivises. Specialised computer chips called ASICs are sold with no other purpose than to run the algorithms that secure the bitcoin network, a process called mining that rewards those who partake with bitcoin payouts. But because only the newest chips are power-efficient enough to mine profitably, effective miners need to constantly replace their ASICs with newer, more powerful ones.

“The lifespan of bitcoin mining devices remains limited to just 1.29 years,” write the researchers Alex de Vries and Christian Stoll in the paper, Bitcoin’s growing e-waste problem, published in the journal Resources, Conservation and Recycling.

“As a result, we estimate that the whole bitcoin network currently cycles through 30.7 metric kilotons of equipment per year. This number is comparable to the amount of small IT and telecommunication equipment waste produced by a country like the Netherlands.”