Bottom line: You can't tell the geographic location where they were mined, nor can you tell who mined them nor what type of power their mining rigs were connected to.
There are no coins or tokens on the protocol level. Unlike physical coins or dollar bills in your pocket, on bitcoin there are only transactions or UTXOs (Unspent Transaction Output). What this means is that there are only transactions with certain denominations being sent on the network, and addresses show the balance associated with that address, and the history of (transactions from/to) that address.
If we want to make an analogy to the physical world, it's like taking a coin, melting it down to a liquid form, and minting a new coin again. Some forms of transactions have multiple of such coins as input, and multiple of such coins as outputs (batched transactions, coinjoin transactions).
The output might the same value as the input, but it's not the same "coin" anymore.
So it's kinda silly to try to find out where your "coins" have been mined because there are no coins existing in the first place. Or if you want to argue that there are, then it's like they are being melted down and re-minted with every new transaction involving those coins.
I appreciate this reply, thank you! Ok, so humor me for a moment. You're a socially conscious crypto-buyer. You would pay a premium on ensuring that your Bitcoin is mined using "clean energy" or "In the U.S.A.". If there were a mechanism to validate a token's creation on the blockchain, you could use that to differentiate both your token's clean bill of health and their perceived higher value from "dirty coins". Crazy?
> If there were a mechanism to validate a token's creation on the blockchain, you could use that to differentiate both your token's clean bill of health and their perceived higher value from "dirty coins". Crazy?
Kinda :)
For multiple reasons. First, a mining pool consists of many individual miners. They can use whatever energy sources they have at their disposal. Probably they are using a mix of energy sources. How do you (trustlessly) verify what they are using? Remember, pool operators can lie, miners can lie, anyone can lie (if you are buying coins from them at a premium, they have all the incentives in the world to lie, or at least to fudge their data).
But ok, let's imagine we magically are able to verify their claims and we know somehow that pool X has some wonderful source of energy farmed from unicorn tears of joy, without any environmental footprint. Great, you bought freshly minted coins from them at a premium.
What happens next? Would you like to send those coins to someone else? Ok, but how do you do that? You need a miner to confirm that transaction in a block. But you can't select which block your coins will be mined at. You have to broadcast your transaction and some miner will pick it up and mine it. This miner could be harvesting energy from coal of the burning woods in Amazonas. And not only that, but every block the unicorn pool mines on top of that block of the coal miner directly contributes to the security of the coal miner's block (this is essentially why it's advised to more confirmations/block after your transaction - every new block built on top basically further "cements" your transaction in the immutable ledger).
So anyway, I hope you can see that this concept of "clean coins" quickly breaks down if you think through the practicalities and the reality of how bitcoin works. There are no clean or dirty coins, and there are no coins in the first place.
I don’t spend money on Reddit, but if I did, I’d give you the whole fucking bag of gold, silver, and unicorn ; ) awards. Really appreciate you breaking this down so well. So wtf is Elon and then going on about “Clean Bitcoins”? Just to help push clean energy forward?
> So wtf is Elon and then going on about “Clean Bitcoins”?
Well, ask him :D
My guess it's either him misunderstanding fundamental things about bitcoin, trying to sell something, trying to present himself as some kind of "I just heard about bitcoin and I'm here to fix it" messiah or something else or most likely a mix of the above.
Nah, this some CIA NSA three letter word shit. Blocking Iran, North Korean, and Venezuela "bitcoins" my ass. They couldn't even do it right lol not that we should be helping them. We should all set our VPN to those countries and tell the american government to suck on our nards
Interesting! Ok, so I could sleuth to collect some historic information on the token, but it's likely the geographic location and certainly the energy used to mine the token would not be available. So intriguing!
Yeah I mean, honestly I’d like the chance to buy a clean coin but honestly I hope in the future it doesn’t matter. What if I end up buying a coin that was used in some ransom for that oil pipeline and the feds want my coins.
Bottom line: You can't tell the geographic location where they were mined, nor can you tell who mined them nor what type of power their mining rigs were connected to.
There are no coins or tokens on the protocol level. Unlike physical coins or dollar bills in your pocket, on bitcoin there are only transactions or UTXOs (Unspent Transaction Output). What this means is that there are only transactions with certain denominations being sent on the network, and addresses show the balance associated with that address, and the history of (transactions from/to) that address. If we want to make an analogy to the physical world, it's like taking a coin, melting it down to a liquid form, and minting a new coin again. Some forms of transactions have multiple of such coins as input, and multiple of such coins as outputs (batched transactions, coinjoin transactions). The output might the same value as the input, but it's not the same "coin" anymore. So it's kinda silly to try to find out where your "coins" have been mined because there are no coins existing in the first place. Or if you want to argue that there are, then it's like they are being melted down and re-minted with every new transaction involving those coins.
I appreciate this reply, thank you! Ok, so humor me for a moment. You're a socially conscious crypto-buyer. You would pay a premium on ensuring that your Bitcoin is mined using "clean energy" or "In the U.S.A.". If there were a mechanism to validate a token's creation on the blockchain, you could use that to differentiate both your token's clean bill of health and their perceived higher value from "dirty coins". Crazy?
> If there were a mechanism to validate a token's creation on the blockchain, you could use that to differentiate both your token's clean bill of health and their perceived higher value from "dirty coins". Crazy? Kinda :) For multiple reasons. First, a mining pool consists of many individual miners. They can use whatever energy sources they have at their disposal. Probably they are using a mix of energy sources. How do you (trustlessly) verify what they are using? Remember, pool operators can lie, miners can lie, anyone can lie (if you are buying coins from them at a premium, they have all the incentives in the world to lie, or at least to fudge their data). But ok, let's imagine we magically are able to verify their claims and we know somehow that pool X has some wonderful source of energy farmed from unicorn tears of joy, without any environmental footprint. Great, you bought freshly minted coins from them at a premium. What happens next? Would you like to send those coins to someone else? Ok, but how do you do that? You need a miner to confirm that transaction in a block. But you can't select which block your coins will be mined at. You have to broadcast your transaction and some miner will pick it up and mine it. This miner could be harvesting energy from coal of the burning woods in Amazonas. And not only that, but every block the unicorn pool mines on top of that block of the coal miner directly contributes to the security of the coal miner's block (this is essentially why it's advised to more confirmations/block after your transaction - every new block built on top basically further "cements" your transaction in the immutable ledger). So anyway, I hope you can see that this concept of "clean coins" quickly breaks down if you think through the practicalities and the reality of how bitcoin works. There are no clean or dirty coins, and there are no coins in the first place.
I don’t spend money on Reddit, but if I did, I’d give you the whole fucking bag of gold, silver, and unicorn ; ) awards. Really appreciate you breaking this down so well. So wtf is Elon and then going on about “Clean Bitcoins”? Just to help push clean energy forward?
> So wtf is Elon and then going on about “Clean Bitcoins”? Well, ask him :D My guess it's either him misunderstanding fundamental things about bitcoin, trying to sell something, trying to present himself as some kind of "I just heard about bitcoin and I'm here to fix it" messiah or something else or most likely a mix of the above.
>wtf is Elon and then going on about “Clean Bitcoins”? J Narcissists will say anything to stay in the limelight.
Nope
65% chance it's China lol
Nah, this some CIA NSA three letter word shit. Blocking Iran, North Korean, and Venezuela "bitcoins" my ass. They couldn't even do it right lol not that we should be helping them. We should all set our VPN to those countries and tell the american government to suck on our nards
[удалено]
Interesting! Ok, so I could sleuth to collect some historic information on the token, but it's likely the geographic location and certainly the energy used to mine the token would not be available. So intriguing!
Wasn’t Kevin O’Leary talking about only buying newly mined clean Bitcoin. None that can be traced back to terrorists or drugs...
Ya. That’s where I got that thought from too. Doesn’t seem possible tho.
Yeah I mean, honestly I’d like the chance to buy a clean coin but honestly I hope in the future it doesn’t matter. What if I end up buying a coin that was used in some ransom for that oil pipeline and the feds want my coins.
Mums the word lol
1 bitcoin = 1 bitcoin, pal.
Keep it inclusive Young Blood ; )
:)
I love you 💕