Ukraine could soon become the second country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

[Redaktion]

Following El Salvador's example, Ukraine is gearing up to transition to a fully digitized economy and deem Bitcoin as legal tender. The ex-Soviet country may also focus on Bitcoin mining using its clean and sustainable nuclear power sources.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Ukraine-could-soon-become-the-second-country-to-adopt-Bitcoin-as-legal-tender.561547.0.html

[grrr]

Does that mean they'll give up the capital gain tax on bitcoin even with the price hikes?

[kek]

"We might soon see a race for Bitcoin adoption among many developing countries as governments start to understand the true benefits that Bitcoin brings to a global digitized economy."

Care to explain what benefits? The value fluctuates too much, and Bitcoin is not something that's represented by a physical entity (like shares in companies do). Aside from that, Bitcoin has a limited number of hashes that can be created, so once it's done, that's it.

[ariliquin]

This is a joke. Bitcoin has too many issues to be a genuine replacement for traditional currency and the leading option for a sovereign backed Cryptocurrency. This is a measure of how desperate these countries are.

[Erik]

"The ex-Soviet country may also focus on Bitcoin mining using its clean and sustainable nuclear power sources."

Sure, after all Ukraine has just sacrificed an area of 2600 km², the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, in the name of nuclear power's cleanliness and sustainability; Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe, they have a lot more of land that they can contaminate before people will figure out that nuclear power is neither clean nor sustainable.

[Barebooh]

Barf.

[Mama]

Wow, how does this "article" make it through editorial review!? Amazing.

[_MT_]

Care to explain what benefits? The value fluctuates too much, and Bitcoin is not something that's represented by a physical entity (like shares in companies do). Aside from that, Bitcoin has a limited number of hashes that can be created, so once it's done, that's it.

It doesn't really matter that it's virtual. Modern currencies have value because of the economies that stand behind them. An attempt to reinstate a gold standard would be just as foolish as adoption of Bitcoin. People forget that the primary function of currency is to simplify trade. And in that function, what really matters is stability and predictability. Inflation doesn't really matter as long as you can predict it and account for it. And really, inflation is a function of prosperity. Because price is a function of our willingness and ability to pay. The more money we make, the more willing we are to spend, which allows for rising prices and creates inflation. Bitcoin was specifically designed to not inflate. That's why there is a finite number of coins that can ever exist. And new coins are only created through mining, as a hidden cost of transaction (obscene cost - banks can only dream of raking such fees). Those people often fail to realize that our economies stand on borrowing. Who would lend you money or spend it if it deflates at an astonishing rate? Inflation creates pressure to spend (or invest), deflation to save. It's like when clueless politicians praise affordable mortgages as a solution to housing crisis. No, cheap mortgages will only accelerate the problem. Two big factors being that online platforms make short term leasing very profitable while low interest rates (which is what allows cheap mortgages) mean that it doesn't pay to keep money in a bank. And so money goes into a housing market, sucking it dry.

[_MT_]

Sure, after all Ukraine has just sacrificed an area of 2600 km², the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, in the name of nuclear power's cleanliness and sustainability; Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe, they have a lot more of land that they can contaminate before people will figure out that nuclear power is neither clean nor sustainable.

The problem with nuclear power is that it's still in its infancy and we're generally re-using military designs. A reactor designed for a attack submarine is not necessarily the best fit for a civilian power station. A big factor in Chernobyl was that it was a dual use reactor IIRC. Meaning that it had a military role apart from civilian power generation - it was part of Soviet nuclear weapons program. Which influenced the design of that reactor and how it was operated. Specifically, it had high void and temperature coefficients. Meaning that as temperature rises, activity in the reactor would rise as well, creating more heat. And as water started boiling and bubbles were created (= voids), it would again lead to more activity. It's a very stupid design for a civilian reactor. It makes it very temperamental and if you lose sight of it, it will bite your head off. Once it goes, it will very quickly get very bad. After that accident, they altered operating parameters of the remaining reactors of that type making them safer (lowering the coefficients). We can design much, much better reactors. Even reactors that are fail-safe with passive cooling. But because of attitudes like yours, nobody wants to invest in them. We made very little progress in the last 50 years. When we look back into the '50s, they were really killing it, making huge strides. It's a technology capable of powering us for centuries, even millennia (depending on rising demand for energy). Capable of working underground - it can handle ice age, supervolcano eruption, etc. We can design reactors that produce a lot less waste (what we call waste today is still a very rich fuel) and IIRC waste that has a lot shorter half life. But mining Bitcoins is a stupid use of electricity. It's utterly wasteful. Essentially, you're expanding energy to get around a trust issue.

[_MT_]

Even reactors that are fail-safe with passive cooling.

By that I mean reactors so safe that even if all humans disappeared overnight, they would just shutdown on their own without any intervention necessary. Even with a complete computer meltdown, generators failing, pumps failing, whatever. Just using basic principles of physics. And we could have done it 50 years ago. We have nuclear power plants we have because of our own stupidity. Or the stupidity of our politicians. It's as simple as that.

[8&8]

_MT_ I marry your brain

[boiiii34]

being from ukraine, i feel sad.

[vertigo]

On top of what @_MT_ said, the other problem with Chernobyl was its management. The problem only occurred because they had safeties disabled for testing and ignored the warnings. If they had proper protocols in place, and had used them, it never would have happened. And the sickness and death it caused would have been significantly less had the government immediately admitted what had happened and evacuated the area, but they tried to cover it up.

The military has been using nuclear reactors for half a century plus, without incident. There have been only a couple other incidents of note, and only one (Fukushima) had real consequences, and those have been relatively minor. And as _MT_ said, we have the knowledge and technology to build them so much better than the ones we've been using, which have already done incredibly well. But, as he also said, people are generally vastly misinformed, because they don't bother to do their research and simply say things they've heard or believe, instead of what's real. For example, years ago, I read a comment by somebody saying reactors are unsafe because somebody can just shoot one with a .50-cal. Reactor domes are designed to withstand the impact of a 747, and reactors generally have high security. But why let the facts get in the way?

_MT_ also mentioned that the waste is still a rich fuel, which is true. The only reason we have so much nuclear waste is because people complain about nuclear reactors and the waste they create and so don't want new ones built, so the waste sits around instead of being used in a breeder reactor, which would reduce the current waste to something like 1%. Meanwhile, some countries have figured this all out, and one European country (France, I think) generates so much nuclear power they export a lot of it to surrounding countries, so they're generating GDP from it.

And the thing I really don't get about all this is that it's typically the same people that complain about global warming and say the world is going to end soon if we don't take drastic action that are the most against nuclear power. They'd rather a near-guaranteed, slow death of the planet than the implementation of a technology that would solve the problem almost immediately, just because it might have disastrous, mostly local, consequences, even though the risk of that is extremely low based on our history with and knowledge of the technology.

But then, those same people believe a certain action should be legal because their body, their choice, yet that people shouldn't have a choice about another action being performed on their bodies. So logic clearly isn't at play here.

If you want to be anti-nuclear, that's fine, but at least educate yourself on it first.