Bitcoin discussion and news

[littlebabyjesus]

it’s energy usage is nothing to do with its price “... unless the value of the currency slumps”). The energy cost per transaction will just go up and up because that’s how the mathematical problem is set up

That is true. However, the continuing rise in the price is a driver for intensifying 'mining' and thus increasing the energy cost. The reward for the 'miners' is paid in bitcoin, after all. Other than that, they just have whatever they can squeeze out of people to pay for their transactions on that block, which is peanuts compared to the current value of the bitcoins they receive for unlocking it.

The value of the commodity slumping will help.

 

[platinumsage]

Good read from an asset manager about why they're not diving into bitcoin:

http://www.cgasset.com/~/media/Files/C/CGAM/Special%20Report/We%20need%20to%20talk%20about%20Bitcoin.pdf

 

[NoXion]

Bigger than Argentina? Jesus fucking Christ, BitCoin is an absolute cancer.

Let's put that into perspective; Argentina is a country of just under 45 million people, with an energy consumption in 2014 of 2,029.92 kg of oil equivalent per capita. For comparison, the UK is a country of just under 67 million, with energy usage per capita being 2,764.52 kg of oil equivalent in 2015. Given how quickly shitcoin has been growing, it won't be long until it's consuming more energy than we do.

All that energy, wasted for greed. It's a disaster and BitCoin should be stamped out.

 

[kabbes]

Good read from an asset manager about why they're not diving into bitcoin:

http://www.cgasset.com/~/media/Files/C/CGAM/Special%20Report/We%20need%20to%20talk%20about%20Bitcoin.pdf

I notice they start off by saying the thing I’ve said multiple times in this thread:

Textbooks all agree that money has three features: a medium of exchange, a unit of account and a store of value1. How does Bitcoin stack-up against these?

Bitcoin is not used as a medium of exchange. Certainly, a small number of businesses accept Bitcoin but this tends to be a marketing gimmick. Indeed, so spectacular has been Bitcoin’s rise and such is the speculative fever surrounding it, that users tend to hoard it. On 18 May 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 Bitcoins for 2 pizzas. Today those 10,000 Bitcoins are worth $355 m. This example is frequently cited as why Bitcoin should never be used to purchase real world goods. Bitcoin is also not a very good payment network. It is only able to process around 4.6 transactions per second compared with Visa that, on average, transacts 1,700 per sec- ond. Of course, this limitation may yet be resolved but would require fundamental changes to the code that underpins the currency. For the time being Bitcoin’s use in payment transactions is confined to illegality: drugs, child pornography, money laundering, etc.

Nor is Bitcoin a unit of account, historically its price has been so volatile that most merchants (whose expenses are denominated in fiat currency) will immediately convert Bitcoin into fiat currency to meet their liabil- ities. We don’t rule out this changing – Paypal have recently launched Bitcoin denominated wallets, for example – but we judge this outcome to have a low probability.

To date then, Bitcoin has only taken a single characteristic of money that of – at least in the eyes of its proponents – a store of value. That property is the subject of this essay.

 

[Chilli.s]

Yeah but... doesn't the internet use more power than the whole of the continent of Africa...

 

[Saul Goodman]

Yeah but... doesn't the internet use more power than the whole of the continent of Africa...

The Internet is controlled by nobody and benefits the whole world. Conversely, Shitcoin is controlled by and benefits a relative handful of people.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yeah but... doesn't the internet use more power than the whole of the continent of Africa...

Quite possibly. But, despite a lot of the crap we post here seemingly proving otherwise, the internet isn't a complete and utter waste of fucking energy.

 

[nogojones]

The Internet is controlled by nobody and benefits the whole world. Conversely, Shitcoin is controlled by and benefits a relative handful of people.

And bitcoin has no kittens either

 

[tommers]

Dogecoin has doges.

 

[Wolveryeti]

Are there any cryptocurrencies that don't rely on the very energy intensive block mining approach?

 

[pbsmooth]

NANO seems to cited as a green crypto. What the hell it is or is good for, is of course a whole other question...

 

[kabbes]

The article platinumsage linked to raises a good point about a problem with Bitcoin I hadn’t even considered. Its selling point is supposed to be that there are limited numbers of them. But that only works if Bitcoin has something that makes it intrinsically more valuable than alternatives. Otherwise, if crypto were to ever become genuine money, there is nothing stopping people just using a different cryptocurrency, increasing the money supply without limit.

 

[kabbes]

.

 

[Flavour]

Well to use marxian terms... Bitcoin definitely has exchange value but only in the same way as gold, i.e., people have collectively decided it is valuable, and this is partly due to perception of its rarity / limited supply. But it has very, very little use value. Most of the smallholders will just be holding it and hoping for the price to higher and higher in order to sell for fiat. Nobody is waiting for their estate agent to start accepting BTC so they can buy a house with it without going through fiat currency, to my knowledge!

Ethereum on the other hand has use value as a cryptocurrency because it is used as "gas" to power so many other cryptocurrencies and indeed the majority of blockchain applications use Ethereum.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The article platinumsage linked to raises a good point about a problem with Bitcoin I hadn’t even considered. Its selling point is supposed to be that there are limited numbers of them. But that only works if Bitcoin has something that makes it intrinsically more valuable than alternatives. Otherwise, if crypto were to ever become genuine money, there is nothing stopping people just using a different cryptocurrency, increasing the money supply without limit.

It's part of the smoke and mirrors act, isn't it. Sadly, we've seen posters here who've fallen for the whole 'anti-inflation' spiel. Given that 'miners' receive their reward for unlocking a block in bitcoins - it was 12.5, may have gone down a bit now, does go down at some point - how are they paid when there are no more left to be 'mined'? In terms of its use as a means of exchange, not sure this really matters, and of course its use value is miniscule anyway, but in terms of maintaining the myth that keeps the bubble inflated, that's a built-in self-destruct button.

 

[Pickman's model]

Dogecoin has doges.

St mark on one side and the winged lion on the other

 

[Pickman's model]

Yeah but... doesn't the internet use more power than the whole of the continent of Africa...

Not to mention the whole of Antarctica, so two whole continents

 

[Flavour]

It's part of the smoke and mirrors act, isn't it. Sadly, we've seen posters here who've fallen for the whole 'anti-inflation' spiel. Given that 'miners' receive their reward for unlocking a block in bitcoins - it was 12.5, may have gone down a bit now, does go down at some point - how are they paid when there are no more left to be 'mined'? In terms of its use as a means of exchange, not sure this really matters, and of course its use value is miniscule anyway, but in terms of maintaining the myth that keeps the bubble inflated, that's a built-in self-destruct button.

i think it's designed so they get harder to mine as they get closer to the total and the last one will essentially be impossible to mine

 

[littlebabyjesus]

i think it's designed so they get harder to mine as they get closer to the total and the last one will essentially be impossible to mine

So by that point, bitcoin will have taken over the world. Each bitcoin will be worth a billion dollars or so, and miners will keep going even if they're all just chasing that final one?

But they need to keep the blocks opening at a rate of one every ten minutes to maintain the pretence that this is something with some kind of use value. There are problems here.

 

[butchersapron]

The article platinumsage linked to raises a good point about a problem with Bitcoin I hadn’t even considered. Its selling point is supposed to be that there are limited numbers of them. But that only works if Bitcoin has something that makes it intrinsically more valuable than alternatives. Otherwise, if crypto were to ever become genuine money, there is nothing stopping people just using a different cryptocurrency, increasing the money supply without limit.

This is very interesting - it gets directly to something i have been thinking about. Bitcoin being closer to speculative ownership of collectibles, which, using marxist stuff, brings it closer to being understood through stuff like monopoly rent rather than money (and it's simply not a commodity in marx's terms). That could be be the sort of stuff like buying expensive art or buying trainers with the right name (a form of monopoly brand-rent). The originality or authenticity is what drives the value here and now, not the utility - and that can easily be undermined if something more useful (and that use may simply be as a vehicle for speculation) comes along and establishes its own authenicity in turn - then the speculation will move to that. I think that's maybe more key here than risk of knob-head cryto-currency inflation (although this would, of course, be part of it too). Either way, what a terrible route to go down.

Edit: see David Harvey on cultural production/art as rent:

The art of rent - David Harvey

 

[Crispy]

i think it's designed so they get harder to mine as they get closer to the total and the last one will essentially be impossible to mine

No, the "difficulty" is regularly adjusted to keep the block rate constant, while the reward for each block halves every 210,000 blocks.
~90% of all bitcoins have been mined so far, so we are well on to the flat part of the curve.
The next ~9% will be mined in the next decade and then it's tiny fractions for a century.
At current rates, the last fraction of a bitcoin will be mined in 2140, although this is likely to creep closer to the present.

When all the mining is done, the reward will come from transaction fees only.

 

[BigTom]

The article platinumsage linked to raises a good point about a problem with Bitcoin I hadn’t even considered. Its selling point is supposed to be that there are limited numbers of them. But that only works if Bitcoin has something that makes it intrinsically more valuable than alternatives. Otherwise, if crypto were to ever become genuine money, there is nothing stopping people just using a different cryptocurrency, increasing the money supply without limit.

Funny thing is that this is essentially one of the answers I've been given to the question of what happens when there aren't enough bitcoins to manage the amount of transactions an economy needs. They said that ultimately bitcoin won't really be used, it'll underpin the value of all other crypto currencies which would actually be used (similar to how they see gold should underlie the value of fiat currencies).
When I asked why this was practically different to simply creating more bitcoins... as you can guess, I got no answer. I think they might have said it's not creating more bitcoins so that's why it's different. Create more bitcoins = bad. Create more b1tcoins = good.

 

[extra dry]

The article platinumsage linked to raises a good point about a problem with Bitcoin I hadn’t even considered. Its selling point is supposed to be that there are limited numbers of them. But that only works if Bitcoin has something that makes it intrinsically more valuable than alternatives. Otherwise, if crypto were to ever become genuine money, there is nothing stopping people just using a different cryptocurrency, increasing the money supply without limit.

I think of the other side of a transaction if the product is iffy like most tesla's, poorly made and expensive when gone wrong or bump

 

[q_w_e_r_t_y]

Funny thing is that this is essentially one of the answers I've been given to the question of what happens when there aren't enough bitcoins to manage the amount of transactions an economy needs. They said that ultimately bitcoin won't really be used, it'll underpin the value of all other crypto currencies which would actually be used (similar to how they see gold should underlie the value of fiat currencies).
When I asked why this was practically different to simply creating more bitcoins... as you can guess, I got no answer. I think they might have said it's not creating more bitcoins so that's why it's different. Create more bitcoins = bad. Create more b1tcoins = good.

Other cryptos being underpinned by btc means that their value is derived from being worth a certain amount of btc, but with properties that make it suitable for one use or another.

 

[BigTom]

Other cryptos being underpinned by btc means that their value is derived from being worth a certain amount of btc, but with properties that make it suitable for one use or another.

Which increases the supply of money, right? So how is that different to increasing the supply of money by creating more bitcoins?

Also could you elaborate on what uses you see a cryptocurrency having as a currency that would make different coins more suitable?

To my mind a currency really has one purpose which is to provide a central reference value by which all goods and services can be measured and thereby traded without needing to barter.

I can see how cryptocurrency could theoretically do this (really anything can if it's agreed on by enough people), what i don't get is why there would be situations where ethereum is better than dogecoin but other situations where dogecoin is better than ethereum. I feel like if a cryptocurrency is better at being a currency in one situation, it'll be better in all.

The only reason i can think of is about confidence, similar to how fiat currencies won't (necessarily) be accepted outside of their own country, but then i can only really see governments giving that amount of credibility to a specific currency to oust all others which means it's a fiat currency that happens to be purely digital, which isn't what crypto enthusiasts generally want as far as i know.

 

[Serge Forward]

On of my sons asked me about a crypto currency called "Initiative Q". I said is it connected to qanon, and if yes, fuck it right off. He reckons it's not. Anyone know anything about it?

 

[ddraig]

On of my sons asked me about a crypto currency called "Initiative Q". I said is it connected to qanon, and if yes, fuck it right off. He reckons it's not. Anyone know anything about it?

nothing on coinbase about it
then googled and this What's happened to Initiative Q and its free currency offer?

 

[Serge Forward]

Cheers for that

 

[savoloysam]

What's the best easiest way to buy Monero without jumping through hoops for wankers or having to buy bitcoin first?

I've been using local monero up until now but it seems every dickhead on there now expects all sorts of shit such as filming your bank transfer and sending it to their phones as well as sending them copies of your passport and shit. Talk about a gold mine for scammers and ID theives FFS

 

[NoXion]

Doesn't all that ridiculous faff go against the purported benefits of using cryptocurrencies over real money? Not that making yourself vulnerable to identity theft could be counter-balanced by any reasonably expected benefit.