Bitcoin discussion and news
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David Clapson
Well-Known Member
Because a third of North Korea's missile programme is paid for by crypto theft. I mentioned it upthread
maomao
普費斯
The largest non-investment related use of btc is buying drugs. Is this now the place for pill reviews?
Ranbay
The same rules apply
David Clapson
Well-Known Member
Before crypto corruption was, by revenue, the tenth biggest industry in the world.
8ball
Maximum Facepalm
Where is it now?
Shippou-Sensei
4:1:2.5
hostile take over by disney
Supine
Newt Member
File under ‘not a fan’
www.ft.com
Stephen Diehl: Crypto is the ‘commoditisation of populist anger, gambling and crime’
The software engineer has denounced crypto assets as vehicles for pure speculation. But his views have made him a target of harassment — including death threats
I like this guy:File under ‘not a fan’
Stephen Diehl: Crypto is the ‘commoditisation of populist anger, gambling and crime’
The software engineer has denounced crypto assets as vehicles for pure speculation. But his views have made him a target of harassment — including death threats
“After 14 years, it is still a solution in search of a problem. It’s not building a new financial system. It’s not building a new internet. It’s not an asset uncorrelated with the market. It’s not a hedge against inflation. It is a vehicle for pure, naked speculation detached from anything in the economy. It’s a casino that’s wrapped in all of these lies. When you tear back those lies, what’s left looks like a net negative for the world.”
Hear, hear.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Good article. Although I would say that. It reads like a summary of the arguments put forward on this thread.File under ‘not a fan’
Stephen Diehl: Crypto is the ‘commoditisation of populist anger, gambling and crime’
The software engineer has denounced crypto assets as vehicles for pure speculation. But his views have made him a target of harassment — including death threats
I like the Tesco line. Good one to use. Bitcoin processes transactions at a speed 'roughly enough to run a small Tesco’s'.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
I'm just listening to a good interview with him on 'The Life Itself' podcast. Worth a listen.
Although I am aware there's a degree to which I'm enjoying it because it's confirming what I already think, as you say.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
And he manages to destroy it without even touching on the waste of energy that is bitcoin mining. Crypto is Epic Fail.
He makes a good point about people being willing to move to high-risk investments to do things like getting a deposit on a house because there's no other option. Even if you know it's a gamble, it may be worth taking: gamble and fail = no house; but don't gamble at all also = no house.
The rise of crypto required certain conditions to exist first.
He makes a good point about people being willing to move to high-risk investments to do things like getting a deposit on a house because there's no other option. Even if you know it's a gamble, it may be worth taking: gamble and fail = no house; but don't gamble at all also = no house.
The rise of crypto required certain conditions to exist first.
I’d potentially include chronically low interest rates on that list. It normalised risky and then highly risky assets as investments because many felt like what’s the point in getting 0.2% in a low-volatility or even 5% in a medium-high volatility option?
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
I think there's an element of truth in that but to a large degree the appeal is (or certainly was) getting rich wasn't it. Not getting enough together for a house deposit, or making a return above what you'd get from a bank, but in getting properly loaded. And some people did manage that tbf, for all that that moment is long gone now.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I hope not. I think there are more shocks to come, specifically when Tether fails. This does look different this time, but I'm also not going to make any firm predictions. I won't see this as a proper crash until the miners are pulling out en masse. That's still not happened. Oddly, mining has gone up this year as the price of btc has declined. I don't see how that can continue.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
Well maybe. There's a lot of people with a lot of money and a lot of vested interests hoping that it will.
It's not just some random thing that happens though. The only way it booms is to suck in more money from new investors - either through mass adoption by small investors or the really big money from the much smaller number of really big players. And a lot of those on both sides have now been burnt by the collapse over the last year and have seen a lot of the dodgy stuff that's linked in with it. That wasn't the case, at least not to anywhere like the same degree, when it peaked before. And if by boom you mean well above the previous peak (I know you didn't say that but it's been the hype model) you need way more money than was involved before to come in. It can't keep going forever.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Yep. One of the central planks of 'Line Goes Up' was that it never goes back to below the high point of the previous boom. That has now happened. Lots of bullshit was invented explaining how it couldn't happen. They'll have to invent some new bullshit to cover that.
The 'believers' cite a bitcoin price of around a million USD per coin. Obviously, people don't need to buy whole coins to ride the wave. There would have to be new investment, but all it would take is another big round of tech-bro pumping and it might happen.
I am very much in the 'it is absurd' camp, but I remember when bitcoin went from 30 to 300 dollars - and that looked crazy.
But, like I said, I am always wrong about these things...
I am very much in the 'it is absurd' camp, but I remember when bitcoin went from 30 to 300 dollars - and that looked crazy.
But, like I said, I am always wrong about these things...
Supine
Newt Member
Maybe a flaw in the tech would be a nice killer.
A million dollars per coin would make Bitcoin as a whole worth as much as the entire output of the US for an entire year. I have no idea where the money is supposed to be coming from to sustain that. The notion of a coin being valued at a million dollars is purely based on extrapolating an exponential curve, which is really no way to go about projecting anything. The real world has physical limits.
stdP
One Swiss dinosaur in Polly Gosling's anorak hood
Like God, bitcoin isn't constrained by your so-called "real world physical limits". It will rise in value whenever the Blockchain Spirit wills it to, and only when the Time is Right for it to do so, and that's what you small-minded petty pis-stakers will never understand.
q_w_e_r_t_y
You see an investment scam and I see divinity
I couldnt have said it better myself!!
These are interesting times. A spiritual battle is ongoing between fiat and crypto and its playing out in the soul of bitcoin (the alpha and the omega).
On the one hand you have fiat people. They care about number go up, because the only value that crypto has for them is how much fiat money they can aquire by having bitcoin. They can aquire fiat money from btc in one of two ways - sell it for fiat, or borrow fiat against the fiat equivalent value of the crypto.
On the other you have crypto people. They care about what crypto can do, because they generate value from utility, and as the network effect takes hold, that utility increases. They often require fiat money to pay for things that havent been build yet in Web3 to build the things in Web3 that can take us out of the fiat system altogether.
Value right now is measured in dollars, people who want to capture value think in dollars, people who want to build value dont and they want to keep the value within the crypto system.
Now the pivot point of the whole crypto industry is bitcoin miners. They are the link between the physical world of energy and the digital world of cryptography. Increasing hashrate suggests that miners are getting more competitive. They are currently mining at a significant loss (around 20%). presumably anticipating further rises, however many of them have borrowed substantially to fund an upgrade of mining hardware. The firms who funded those loans are looking a bit dodgy. There is a substantial lack of clarity about which bitcoins are where and lots and lots of rumours flying around. People are self-custodying (because that way you know where your bitcoin are) and exchanges are loosing liquidity. These are having opposite effects, as there is simultaneously a liquidity crunch pushing the exchange rate up, and a debt crisis pushing the exchange rate down.
The miners are the people to watch - this could go either way, but its not over yet.
There is no “value” outside of what humans do. “Value” is a human construct. Animals don’t place value on things. Plants don’t place value on things. They just experience the world directly. Humans experience it mediated through symbols, including the powerful symbol of money.
As such, monetary value is measured in human activity. The currencies people use are a placeholder for that activity. The actual currencies we use reflect how our societies are organised. This is also what defines the relative values of each subunit of the overall money system — what activity is taking place using each part of that organisation.
These are the physical real-world limits on the system and it’s what Bitcoin is trying to fit into. It can’t “build value” outside of what people want to do because there is no value outside of what people want to do.
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teqniq
DisMembered
Just read this. Seems fairly sensible analysis:
novaramedia.com
Crypto Was Meant To Be Radical, But It’s Been Taken Over By Wall Street | Novara Media
Decentralised currencies were intended to circumvent traditional financial markets – instead they’re mirroring them. Why?
novaramedia.com
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I think it's hard to work out the original intention of crypto. To make their founders a fast buck is the primary intention in many cases. Regarding the original, bitcoin, it often feels like it was a prank that got out of hand.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
Just read this. Seems fairly sensible analysis:
Crypto Was Meant To Be Radical, But It’s Been Taken Over By Wall Street | Novara Media
Decentralised currencies were intended to circumvent traditional financial markets – instead they’re mirroring them. Why?
That's the guy mentioned on the previous page - he is quite good on this I think. That headline is a bit of a misrepresentation of his views though I'd say, as far as it was meant to be 'radical' it's a very right-libertarian sort of radicalism.
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