Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Bitcoin discussion and news

I don't know how people who would put money they couldn't afford to lose into something like this got to the point where they were able to accumulate money in the first place
 
Yossarian said:
I don't know how people who would put money they couldn't afford to lose into something like this got to the point where they were able to accumulate money in the first place
Click to expand...

It's a bit of a mystery to me as well. There's apparently a rich seam of retired folks with gold-plated pensions and retirement funds in the hundreds of thousands, sufficient to support an entire industry of phone-based scammers. But my impression is that the crowd that tends to fall for crypto scams is a bit younger than that.
 
The next financial crash is going to be absolutely apocalyptic isn't it. The entire upper tranche of the US government is being run by pump and dump enthusiasts, the economy is floating on an immense speculative tech and property bubble which the acceleration of crypto is going to feed into like petrol on a bonfire. And the global political scene is in the midst of a protectionist-nationalist cycle ill suited to pull any Gordon Brown style rabbits out of hats. We're just left here waiting for the shoe to drop.
 
Boris Sprinkler said:
When you realise what a joke crypto is. Is when you realise money has no inherent value. And life gets easier.
Click to expand...
There are many credible theories of money. Money is as real with as much inherent value as any other social structure. As every other social structure, in fact, since it essentially stands in for them. Money has as much inherent value as justice or government or the nation-state or education.
 
Boris Sprinkler said:
When you realise what a joke crypto is. Is when you realise money has no inherent value. And life gets easier.
Click to expand...
I feel like you are half way there, but you have it arse over tit.

Fiat money has no inherent value, because all the intrinsic value has been abstracted away.

Historical money, from Yap Island stones, to beads, to shells, to gold has always been tied to the effort of producing it...the labour vested in extracting each unit. That labour is human energy. Fiat money was originally backed by gold, then backed by currencies tied to gold, then since 1971 when the dollar was taken off the gold standard has free floated. The post-72 petro dollar inverted the relationship between energy and money - rather than energy being utilised to create money, money has been created to obtain energy.

Bitcoin reverts back to the historic relationship between energy and money - expending electrical energy creates money, just like mining gold or producing beads.
 
q_w_e_r_t_y said:
I feel like you are half way there, but you have it arse over tit.

Fiat money has no inherent value, because all the intrinsic value has been abstracted away.

Historical money, from Yap Island stones, to beads, to shells, to gold has always been tied to the effort of producing it...the labour vested in extracting each unit. That labour is human energy. Fiat money was originally backed by gold, then backed by currencies tied to gold, then since 1971 when the dollar was taken off the gold standard has free floated. The post-72 petro dollar inverted the relationship between energy and money - rather than energy being utilised to create money, money has been created to obtain energy.

Bitcoin reverts back to the historic relationship between energy and money - expending electrical energy creates money, just like mining gold or producing beads.
Click to expand...
No, that’s not the origin of money at all. Before there was money, there was obligation. People kept track of who owed whom favours. People knew which families they could rely on because they had an alliance formed of mutual reciprocity. The early money was an extension of how those obligations were kept track of. Money, from the start, was debt. Money has always been about abstracted social relationships. It never had and still doesn’t have value dissociated from those social obligations. No people, no money.
 
kabbes said:
No, that’s not the origin of money at all. Before there was money, there was obligation. People kept track of who owed whom favours. People knew which families they could rely on because they had an alliance formed of mutual reciprocity. The early money was an extension of how those obligations were kept track of. Money, from the start, was debt. Money has always been about abstracted social relationships. It never had and still doesn’t have value dissociated from those social obligations. No people, no money.
Click to expand...
Back when half the world was pink and the seas a very Royal Navy Blye they had a thing called the rum ration...which were regularly traded for obligations.. to the extent they grogged the rum ratings received by adding water to it ..grog goes off rum doesn't
 
I haven't read the thread, mainly as I am completely baffled about Bitcoin. I have no idea of how crypto currency is supposed to work. I just get that it's dodgy. I had an email a few years ago trying to get me to do something with it. I can't remember the details, but obviously it was scammers. I actually reported it to the police at the time, as it was threatening and phishing. They said they had had loads of reports of the same nature, and that was it, basically I knew not to reply, but thought it needed reporting. That was years ago, and I dread to think what has happened since. I just know it's as dodgy as hell, well the orange thing has dealings with it, so that speaks volumes, but I still don't know what the point of it is, apart from scamming.
 
breadandcircuse said:
I haven't read the thread, mainly as I am completely baffled about Bitcoin. I have no idea of how crypto currency is supposed to work. I just get that it's dodgy. I had an email a few years ago trying to get me to do something with it. I can't remember the details, but obviously it was scammers. I actually reported it to the police at the time, as it was threatening and phishing. They said they had had loads of reports of the same nature, and that was it, basically I knew not to reply, but thought it needed reporting. That was years ago, and I dread to think what has happened since. I just know it's as dodgy as hell, well the orange thing has dealings with it, so that speaks volumes, but I still don't know what the point of it is, apart from scamming.
Click to expand...
It's exactly the same as a Ponzi scheme, except those involved are bigger crooks and even bigger fools. The one thing the crooks have in common with the fools is they both want to make money from gullible people losing their life savings.
 
breadandcircuse said:
I haven't read the thread, mainly as I am completely baffled about Bitcoin. I have no idea of how crypto currency is supposed to work. I just get that it's dodgy. I had an email a few years ago trying to get me to do something with it. I can't remember the details, but obviously it was scammers. I actually reported it to the police at the time, as it was threatening and phishing. They said they had had loads of reports of the same nature, and that was it, basically I knew not to reply, but thought it needed reporting. That was years ago, and I dread to think what has happened since. I just know it's as dodgy as hell, well the orange thing has dealings with it, so that speaks volumes, but I still don't know what the point of it is, apart from scamming.
Click to expand...

Scammers love cryptocurrency. I got a scam email recently claiming to have compromised all my devices and threatening me with blackmail unless I paid thousands of dollars into a crypto wallet. The whole thing seemed a lot more sophisticated than the typical Nigerian prince email, without the typical poor spelling and obvious grammar issues. It was even spoofed to look like it had been sent from my own email account, which I think would definitely be convincing to many people who don't know that such things can be faked.

The popularisation of the internet, and everything downstream of that including cryptocurrency, has been a massive boon and gift to all kinds of scammers and fraudsters.
 
NoXion said:
Scammers love cryptocurrency. I got a scam email recently claiming to have compromised all my devices and threatening me with blackmail unless I paid thousands of dollars into a crypto wallet. The whole thing seemed a lot more sophisticated than the typical Nigerian prince email, without the typical poor spelling and obvious grammar issues. It was even spoofed to look like it had been sent from my own email account, which I think would definitely be convincing to many people who don't know that such things can be faked.

The popularisation of the internet, and everything downstream of that including cryptocurrency, has been a massive boon and gift to all kinds of scammers and fraudsters.
Click to expand...
Yes, that sounds like what I had. I've never reported anything before, but had to for that one.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Protag
Israel-Iran conflicts - news and discussion
6 7 8 9 10
Replies
290
Views
16K
agricola
agricola
PR1Berske
Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion
547 548 549 550 551
Replies
17K
Views
731K
Gramsci
Gramsci
WhyLikeThis
Mpox - news and discussion
9 10 11 12 13
Replies
387
Views
22K
Cerv
C
tim
Donald Trump - MAGAtwat news and discussion
370 371 372 373 374
Replies
11K
Views
500K
kabbes
kabbes
emanymton
Good news! Silvio Berlusconi dead
Replies
16
Views
1K
gentlegreen
gentlegreen
Back
Top Bottom