I’m asking because I saw this ridiculous tweet coming by and multiple people interacted with it but weren’t answered.
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If you are going to Tweet out sth like that…Absolutely pathetic to not to at least respond!!!
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Agree with OP. Controversial statements need backing up with an argument. There is a genuine debate about PoR vs PoW, which will likely get lost without mentioning PoR’s relative merits.
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I think the intention with the tweet was to highlight the amount of electricity that Bitcoin mining uses in order to highlight more efficient Proof Of mechanisms are in the works (.i.e. PoR). Interestingly a saw an article this week that suggested confirming 1 bitcoin transaction used the equivalent electricity to boiling 36,000 kettles.
Part of our marketing will require us to challenge many of bitcoin’s core concepts and demonstrate where we feel the SAFE Network provides improvement. It will be tricky to always strike the right balance, maybe we haven’t done so on this occasion?
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I agree, but the tweet didn’t highlight where safe net makes improvements.
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Totally agree. I’m all for making provocative statements (they’re more likely to grab attention) that are grounded in truth. I think it’s both important to underscore how the alternative (in this case, SAFE) is better, and to continue the conversation. I responded to the tweet with a link to this article where @dirvine lays out (among other things) how SAFE is more energy efficient.
I think it could be worth it for whoever manages the twitter account to repost the article in a separate tweet in a day or so. I’d also tag/prod influential people who agree/disagree. Just a thought.
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I don’t see the problem with this tweet either, and MaidSafe might not always be able to engage - still a tiny marketing team with an immense task in hand unable to be on twitter all the time. Even I can’t manage that 
It’s always open to the community to enter the argument and respond.
I use Twitter a lot and if you want to help you can get SAFEnetwork in front of a lot of people, including many influencers. Try not to be spammy but don’t be shy either.
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That’s a fair comment, Paul. We appreciate the feedback.
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Don’t get me wrong; while I do think there was a missed opportunity, I don’t think the original tweet is “ridiculous” or “pathetic” (quite on the contrary, which is why I posted the article although I pretty much never use Twitter).
I agree with you that this is a great opportunity for community members to get involved, especially if they are active on Twitter. I think it’s the same with other social media platforms. We have to take the conversation to the party, so to speak.
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Perhaps it would be good to reference this article too? https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/27/bitcoin-mining-consumes-electricity-ireland
Also from the above: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index - Digiconomist
That’s a bit of a half-truth. Generally speaking, the value of electricity burned by mining a block approaches the reward that mining that block gives. Right now a huge part of the block reward is the 12.5 BTC of the inflation algorithm, and only 1-2 BTC is earned in transaction fees. A more accurate statement would be that miners may burn energy up to an equivalent amount of the fee you pay for your transaction. If you pay a $1 transaction fee up to $1 in energy more is burned by a miner (broadly speaking). The vast majority of the energy burn right now is to create new BTC, not to process transactions. Since the inflationary reward halves every four years, this picture will change over time.
Sure, I mostly disagreed with the word “wasteful”, because I think the result of Bitcoin’s Proof of Work mechanism (exceptional immutability) is incredibly valuable. Bitcoin is being attacked too often by mainstream media on this issue without explaining to the public why Proof of Work is used in the first place, creating a lot of unwarranted hate towards Bitcoin. These articles often include false sensationalist extrapolations, such as that in the future Bitcoin will “need” more power than humanity can provide.
I think there’s a good number of people in this community that are quite appreciative of both Bitcoin and SAFE because both projects resonate strongly with our values. Championing them is hard enough already without (perceived) hostility between them. As others have indicated already, the tweet in question sounded more like “Bitcoin sucks” rather than “This is what SAFE could do better than Bitcoin”.
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Maidsafecoin is also on the Bitcoin blockchain too, so respect is due.
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A nuanced explanation of what is meant with wasteful is indeed helpful, as far as possible on twitter.
But in my opinion Bitcoin is certainly ‘wasteful’ is in an ecological sense, long term, if the same ‘value’ can be provided with more energy efficient solutions. Like a fridge (store of food) of type a+++, which is better then type c…
I’m personally not thinking: the food is more valuable in the type c fridge, because it has more electricity costs then the type a+++ fridge (which cools as good, if not better). But even if one would think that the food in the type c fridge is more valuable, it is still (more) wasteful.
Also concerning respect: not only is Maidsafecoin on the blockchain, I’m pretty sure the remaining Bitcoin-part of last years BnkToTheFuture investment round is very helpful
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Right, but until alternatives have proven themselves in both theory and practice it should not be scorned I believe. One thing that Bitcoin’s PoW has going for it is that it’s a far simpler system than alternative Proof-ofs, which makes it a lot easier to model threats for.
Another drawback that SAFE might have is similar to Zcash’s main drawback, namely that the system may fail without it being detected for a significant period of time. A 51% attack on Bitcoin is detected instantly by all full nodes, but a vulnerability in Zcash’s homomorphic encryption could allow an attacker to conjure new Zcash coins without limit without anyone being aware (until hyperinflation hits the market price). Since SAFE doesn’t give nodes a full view of the network but only a very “local” one, potentially compromised consensus might not be detected quickly.
So even if attacks are harder to pull off, maybe the fact that a successful attack would be harder to detect gives the solution less ‘value’? I don’t know, it’s all quite subjective, and in the end we are just making (hopefully educated) guesses. All the more reason to be careful with making claims too strong and to promote prudent discourse.
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Can’t argue with the fact that the proof of the (cooled) pudding is in the eating and as long that’s not the case, it is better to be modest. But generally speaking, I’m pretty sure that Bitcoin can be improved upon and that if Bitcoin can’t adapt (e.g something else then proof of work), another solution will take its place. My prediction is also that it won’t take 10 years.
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I think it makes sense to take a step back and view methods for transfer of value as steps on a continuum, pyramid or ladder.
A bank’s function is to transfer value, this has x transaction cost. This is higher than bitcoin, which transfer value at y transaction cost. Which again is higher than Safecoin, which transfer value at z transaction cost.
X>Y>Z.
XYZ each represent the aggregate resource cost for each method of value transfer, where electricity is one of several factors.
If Safecoin is to use the environmental argument to differentiate itself from Bitcoin, and assuming that many of the nodes in the SAFE network would be computers/devices that normally stay on 24/7 anyway, then I think it would be more interesting to learn about the marginal electricity cost of running a node.
This environmental cost could be put against the environmental gain of increasing utilization % of already produced computer hardware. A production process I am sure consumes a lot of electricity.
Edit: Computer factories eat way more energy than running the devices they build | Network World
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I don’t agree. It’s certainly not productive to start having a flame war over twitter by responding to trolls. That is a known forum technique used by trolls to dilute your message. “Don’t feed the trolls” is good advice. Post your message and don’t feel obliged to engage with every 14 year old with a twitter account who might respond back.
Nothing ridiculous about it. Bitcoin has serious issues. It worries me a lot, since it’s failure will impact all other projects. One of those serious issues is the amount of energy/dollars required to mine it, and the resultant centralization that is caused by that.
Attacking bitcoin brings out a lot of emotions, surprisingly, even among people who know about SAFE. It’s because bitcoin was what showed us all, what was possible, and it was exciting. Only later, did some of us realize that scaling and centralization were rapidly becoming an elephant that couldn’t be ignored.
It’s similar to our love affair with the internet in the 90’s, when it seemed like anything was possible. Then we realized that big corporations and governments were able to control and censor it and it no longer was quite as magical as it used to be.
SAFE will fix both of these issues, which is why it’s so exciting to me.
How to compare/contrast a POR system vs a POW system without pissing off bitcoin fanboys I don’t know. I think they’re a feisty bunch, and any criticism of bitcoin will earn you some harsh words, even from people who should know better. That’s OK. The discussion needs to be had at some point.
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It doesn’t really though, it works right? It’s at an all time high, more and more people are buying it. Centralization in the mining aspect will only decrease the coming years, and it has fought of a serious corporate attack only a few weeks ago.
You simply can’t compare the maybe someday coming Safecoin which targets a different usecase with Bitcoin which is simply said digital gold right now.
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I really think this is the worst way to target potential users at the moment. Everyone is fomo’ing into Bitcoin and they won’t listen or even try to listen to arguments right now.
Why would you want to be a replacement for Bitcoin, something we all know isn’t really going to happen anymore in the coming years.
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