UKH

UKC/UKH are launching a collection of Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs, the digital collectible cryptoasset craze that's booming globally and gaining traction in the digital art world, the US basketball fanbase and beyond.

I'm thinking of releasing a collection of my most liked UKC posts as NFTs. Fiver a post. Any takers?

Is this bad for the environment does anyone know please?

It's reckoned that if bitcoin was to become the main goal currency we would have to double our global energy generation.

So yes.

Thanks, yeah that's what I thought. In which case it seems to jar with some of UKC's other values. Ah well, I guess its all choices at the end of the day.

Not quite sure if you've been April fooled or double bluffing back?

It was one of the more tricky ones given that NFTs seem to be a massive ongoing aprils fool.

Totally suckered. Well done UKC you've done it again lol!

I prefer my tokens to be fungible...

I am sure one can buy a cream for that...

Bitcoin is definitely ridiculously harmful to the planet, due to the amount of energy expended on "mining" new coins. That doesn't mean all uses of blockchain have the same problem. I don't see why there'd be any significant energy consumption behind NFTs. They're still ridiculous but I don't think they're particularly harmful like Bitcoin and the other "proof of work" cryptocurrencies.

I can't say I have any real knowledge of blockchain tech, but my understanding was that the reasons bitcoin is designed to be so energy intensive is that having calculations repeated over and over again all over the system verifies that nobody has managed to alter the sequence. How would you secure a distributed system without doing a lot of duplicate calculations?

Surely a centralised system is always going to be more efficient?

I'm a long way from being an expert either but as far as I'm aware one of the more successful alternative blockchain models (instead of bitcoins proof of work model) is proof of stake, which allocates responsibility for verifying transactions according to the amount of asset the miner holds, instead of it being a competition where the miner with the most computational power wins. Like I say, not an expert but it sounds at the very least less wasteful.

Proof of Stake (PoS) Definition (investopedia.com)

Edit: for some reason my link isn't pasting properly and I'm not computer savvy enough to add a link into the text, but I'm sure you can google it!

You're right, I was almost entirely wrong. I'd misunderstood how NFTs actually work. They do seem to have an alarmingly substantial carbon footprint, though there does seem to be some degree of controversy about whether they're actually increasing the carbon footprint or just piggybacking off an existing large footprint. Either way, as Ben points out, a transition to proof of stake would be a big step forward.

Bitcoin proof of "work is dreadful", as stated "proof of stake" is less harmful.

Ironic (although not to Musk apparently ), Tesla are taking payment in cryptocurrency.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_work

Nothing ironic about it. Remember, that's the guy who openly defied state guidelines during Covid, with hundreds of resulting cases, just for his profits. He would be happily fracking on native lands if that business wasn't already crowded enough.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/12/hundreds-covid-cases-reported-tesla-plant-following-musks-defiant-reopening-county-data-shows/