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some_guy ,

Wasn’t fooled by crypto in the first place.

technocrit ,

Don’t be fooled by the 20000th round of “crypto is dead” articles.

I agree that BTC is trash but it’s still up 100% from last year.

The people who write these articles have no clue.

edit: The Brookings Institute lmao. Right-wing boomer nonsense.

realitista ,

It’s a great platform for being able to transfer money that would otherwise be under sanctions and for storing criminal profits. And that’s probably what it will always be for.

Hirom OP ,

What does it mean for bitcoin to double in value?

Has bitcon’s utility or usefulness doubled?

Or has bitcoin behaved as a highly volatile speculative asset?

sonori ,
@sonori@beehaw.org avatar

It means that despite being fifteen years old, it still takes more electricity for a single bitcoin transaction than to drive an electric SUV from Florida to California, cost per single transaction has still spiked over 50 USD twice in the last six months, and it remains too prone to wild inflation and deflation for any serious business to actually price anything in.

In other words, it has the same inherent value it always has, none at all.

kbal ,
@kbal@fedia.io avatar

Other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, which are far more energy efficient than Bitcoin

Calling those that don't depend on proof-of-work "more energy efficient" is understating it to the point of being dishonest. The difference is not that they're more efficient in any conventional way. It's that they don't have the amazing bitcoin feature of relying for their operation on the practice of deliberately wasting enormous amounts of energy for the purpose of being able to prove that you've wasted enormous amounts of energy.

All the way through the cryptocurrency crash which the average reader of headlines might've thought had put an end to it by now, the bitcoin network has kept on burning up absurd amounts of power.

freedomsailor ,
@freedomsailor@programming.dev avatar

What asset would you consider a good value reserve?

kbal ,
@kbal@fedia.io avatar

A small plot of land with good soil and a steady supply of fresh water, a good education, and a sturdy pair of boots.

freedomsailor ,
@freedomsailor@programming.dev avatar

I don’t think you got it. So everything you get extra from this work would be used to multiply the same work? Also, you got me curious: why a small plot, not more?

kbal ,
@kbal@fedia.io avatar

If you can afford more than a small plot of land in this economy, you've probably been hoarding too much wealth. I know it's a very popular hobby, but it's quite bad for you if taken to excess. But this is getting somewhat off-topic.

Some kind of technology that resembles today's cryptocurrencies may or may not have a future. As they exist right now none of them are anything like a good investment opportunity or a safe store of value.

onlinepersona ,

So, something the majority of people can never attain. Awesome.

Or are you going to hand me a plot of land that isn’t as big as a thimble? If so, sign me up. I want it.

Anti Commercial-AI license

ericjmorey ,

Back when Bitcoin was released, nobody was giving a thought to computer energy use.

VT for long term
Money Market Funds for short term

sxan ,
@sxan@midwest.social avatar

the practice of deliberately wasting enormous amounts of energy for the purpose of being able to prove that you’ve wasted enormous amounts of energy.

C’mon, that’s being disingenuous. Back when Bitcoin was released, nobody was giving a thought to computer energy use. A consequence of proof-of-work is wasted energy, but a focus on low-power modalities and throttling have been developed in the intervening years. The prevailing paradigm at the time was, “your C/GPU is going to be burning energy anyway, you may as well do something with it.”

It was a poor design decision, but it wasn’t a malicious one like you make it sound. You may as well accuse the inventors of the internal combustion engine of designing it for the express purpose of creating pollution.

ericjmorey ,

Back when Bitcoin was released, nobody was giving a thought to computer energy use.

It didn’t take long before people saw that energy was a major factor in cost of operations of the network.

It was a poor design decision

One that is fiercely defended by people who invested into the implementation. So it may not have started with it being anticipated, but not it is and people are actively choosing to perpetuate this use of energy.

kbal ,
@kbal@fedia.io avatar

If I were looking to assign blame, I'd start with the coal and gas operators who are digging up fossil fuels that would otherwise remain in the ground just to fuel their bitcoin mining rigs, those who peddle specious arguments claiming that it somehow isn't a problem, those who turned the whole thing into a machine for separating the gullible from their money, and those who've built the shaky, buggy, mostly proprietary, convoluted, half-finished, untrustworthy, horrible mess that is the software ecosystem surrounding the whole cryptocurrency sphere. Perhaps none of that could have been foreseen by whoever designed bitcoin. On them we can instead put the blame for the failure to make it anywhere near sufficiently scalable, and the ridiculous choice of mechanism for the bitcoin monetary policy which serves to make it function only as a get-rich-quick pyramid scheme and not a durable currency. Regardless of who's to blame, it's got to go.

Perhaps there's already an alternative out there somewhere which is actually useful and not based on avarice, fraud, unsustainable resource usage, or unsustainable hype, but if so it's currently hidden under such an enormous pile of shitcoins that it's impossible to identify. At least the internal combustion engine was good at doing the thing it was supposed to do.

chameleon ,
@chameleon@fedia.io avatar

It's absolutely not the case that nobody was thinking about computer power use. The Energy Star program had been around for around 15 years at that point and even had an EU-US agreement, and that was sitting alongside the EU's own energy program. Getting an 80Plus-certified power supply was already common advice to anyone custom-building a PC which was by far the primary group of users doing Bitcoin mining before it had any kind of mainstream attention. And the original Bitcoin PDF includes the phrase "In our case, it is CPU time and electricity that is expended.", despite not going in-depth (it doesn't go in-depth on anything).

The late 00s weren't the late 90s where the most common OS in use did not support CPU idle without third party tooling hacking it in.

technocrit , (edited )

This whole article is dishonest nonsense. So many lols.

Apparently unwilling to put their full faith in a trustless technology,

Just like people are unwilling to put their money under their mattress.

Moreover, it has become clear that risks could spill over from decentralized finance to traditional finance,

Maybe “traditional finance” is an unstable scam too. But these people would never hint in that direction.

Its volatile value, which is evident in its wild price swings in the last few days,

How does Bitcoin look over the long term though? If going from $0 to $60,000 is volatile, then I’ll take it. It’s doubled since the past year. These articles that extrapolate from a “few days” are just opportunistic sleaze.

Don’t get me wrong. Bitcoin is a bad “investment” versus other cryptos. But these articles are dishonest trash.

limerod ,

I never understood the crypto hype. There was even an article by protonmail detailing its history and all. Yet, I remain oblivious.

freedomsailor ,
@freedomsailor@programming.dev avatar

Do you know anything about financial markets? It’s there for you to make money out from it. Study and you’ll understand everything you could do with it. Also, on crypto, the hype respects a cycle.

limerod ,

Do you know anything about financial markets?

I’m at a beginner level in Investments and stock market.

Study and you’ll understand everything you could do with it.

I’m already learning about Investments and stock market. Maybe, once I finish that I could consider this. But, I don’t see much value in crypto so won’t bother.

Perhaps, if my perception changes in the future I could reconsider. Just not in the near future.

freedomsailor ,
@freedomsailor@programming.dev avatar

But crypto is just like the stocks: you can buy it because you believe on the project or just because it’s what’s delivering the best results at the moment. Consider cryptocurrencies as a little portion of your portfolio, intended for risk. You can operate it via ETFs, and thus don’t expose yourself to the risks (and benefits) of the blockchains.

BakerBagel ,

A stock is based on the profits and production of real companies that offer real goods and services. Crypto is based entirely on hype and sunk cost fallacies.

locuester ,

This is simply not true. I’ve been a fulltime software dev in the crypto space for 3 years. Moved to crypto after 25 years in the financial sector. My work in the crypto space is a near parallel to the legacy financial sector wrt products and services I’m delivering.

Sure crypto has a scammer and hype and meme angle but I operate in none of those.

Think of NASDAQ without all the rules. Where anyone can list and trade anything, even complex financial derivatives. It’s so freeing for the little guy. It levels the playing field of the financial system and access to capital quite a bit.

sonori ,
@sonori@beehaw.org avatar

You realize that the things listed on the NASDAQ actually represent more than just an entery in a database, right? Like the groups listed on there tend to make physical objects and software that does things beyond move things that can be traded for currency around?

You also realize that the NASDAQ, without all the protections and basic rules the public forced it to adopt after vast numbers of little guys got screwed out of all their money, isn’t actually that great of a pitch? At least not to anyone but the far right uber rich libertarians that hold majority control of the crypto space.

We are talking about a technology that is about as old as smartphones, but which has still yet to see any widespread use to solve a problem it did not itself create.

locuester ,

I spent 25 years in tradfi as mentioned previously. I’m not delusional or a grifter/scammer.

You realize that some of the things listed on crypto markets actually represent more than just an entry in a distributed ledger, right? I live in Solana (a distributed ledger) world and there’s dozens of tokens which represent true products. Sure most are financial related themselves - but that’s no different than tradfi where banks and exchanges are themselves listed on the exchanges. Others are depin models and governance things for example. It’s a real industry which gets a bad rap since it does enable bad people to do bad things too, and that gets most the press.

First off, our securities regulation is ancient and much is based on a pre internet global world. There’s many changes that can be made to give consumers access to private equity and capital efficiency which currently the rich have guarded for themselves.

Secondly, there are far bigger and badder scams under the current regulation. Enron, worldcom, madoff, tyco, healthsouth, centennial, bre-x etc.

Bad people do bad things under either model, but the free, permissionless model sure opens the door to allow little guys to have a chance.

Raising capital for a small venture in a free global market is a tough nut to crack. And yeah thar be dragons there. But it’s such a freeing concept once you see it in action. I believe in freedom of money, and the global revolution it can bring.

sonori ,
@sonori@beehaw.org avatar

Most people when starting out are, or at least should be, very uneasy about putting money into things with no underlying value or feasible purpose beyond being bought by a greater fool in the future.

unexposedhazard ,

Most people who got fooled once will get fooled twice. Thats just what fools do.

Hirom OP ,

Fool me once…

Rolive ,

You can’t get fooled again?

freedomsailor ,
@freedomsailor@programming.dev avatar

Statistically, yes. But they’re not fooled by crypto, but by other people, or just by their own not understood feelings.

FlashMobOfOne , (edited )
@FlashMobOfOne@beehaw.org avatar

This is 100% why it’s good to have a small chunk of your portfolio in crypto. It’s hit all-time-highs four times in the last ten years, and now that you can buy into Bitcoin ETF’s, you can get dividends as well.

It’s hard to argue that it won’t again after that, but I wouldn’t put any more than 10% of your investment capital into it.

technocrit ,

Yes, crypto people keep getting fooled by record breaking prices. So sad.

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