"However, my claim that "the resource & labour cost in making and mining 1 Bitcoin with an ASIC mining is huge" is completely correct - because even it costs $8,000 of resources, to mine $10,000 of BTC, it would still be a profitable enterprise. (In the meantime, you just wasted $8,000 of resources, to make... Nothing that puts bread on the table, a roof over my head, etc.)"
I think you are completely ignoring the potential benefits that a decentralized currency has on society. Therefore you can't say that Bitcoin's proof-of-work is going completely to waste. Bitcoin is already, today, starting to concretely help people in a way similar to "putting a roof over their head":
- it is helping Argentinians escape their government's stupidity who is inflating their currency and limiting access to safer currencies (eg. USD) [1]
- it is helping Iranians working or living abroad to send bitcoins to their families [2]
- it is freeing people from financial censorship, eg. oppressive governments freezing bank accounts or donations to political opposition
- etc
Bottom line, it is too early in Bitcoin's history to tell whether the SHA256 proof-of-work is really a net waste or not. You just cannot make the claim that Bitcoin "produces no value". If I can help reduce financial censorship by spending some computing cycles on Bitcoin, I will do it.
Comments
"However, my claim that "the resource & labour cost in making and mining 1 Bitcoin with an ASIC mining is huge" is completely correct - because even it costs $8,000 of resources, to mine $10,000 of BTC, it would still be a profitable enterprise. (In the meantime, you just wasted $8,000 of resources, to make... Nothing that puts bread on the table, a roof over my head, etc.)"
I think you are completely ignoring the potential benefits that a decentralized currency has on society. Therefore you can't say that Bitcoin's proof-of-work is going completely to waste. Bitcoin is already, today, starting to concretely help people in a way similar to "putting a roof over their head":
- it is helping Argentinians escape their government's stupidity who is inflating their currency and limiting access to safer currencies (eg. USD) [1]
- it is helping Iranians working or living abroad to send bitcoins to their families [2]
- it is freeing people from financial censorship, eg. oppressive governments freezing bank accounts or donations to political opposition
- etc
Bottom line, it is too early in Bitcoin's history to tell whether the SHA256 proof-of-work is really a net waste or not. You just cannot make the claim that Bitcoin "produces no value". If I can help reduce financial censorship by spending some computing cycles on Bitcoin, I will do it.
[1] http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/07/17/bitcoin-downloads-...
[2] http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-29/dollar-less-...