I still don't understand the skyrocket valuations these cryptocurrencies (especially Dogecoin) have. It just doesn't make sense. It has no real intrinsic value and I can't reconcile that in my head.
Fiat currency (your US dollars, Pounds Sterling, Euro, Swiss Franc etc ect) also has NO intrinsic value.
blockchain technology is the only hope of a corruption-free world that i know of. id love to hear about any alternative visions out there for our common future? just touting CBDCs as a solution reminds me of those dogs trained to walk by the owners holding the leach themselves.
Anyone reminiscing about paper money needs to know that there will be none soon. there will only be digital currencies. then u can choose ones that are created by central banks freely - just like now but even easier for them.. or we can have digital currencies with built-in deflationary aspects among other impressive tech, preventing anyone to create currency at will and deflating every other unit of currency.
We can repeat whatever clown we resonate with on the news, but we will never feel comfortable with anyone stuffing their hands in our pockets. no matter how persuasive the clown may be.
99% of all cryptocurrency is transparent to track, in the blockchain spirit. The American Dollar is and always as been by far the currency of choice for crime. you cannot easily trace dollar bills in those briefs, but you can know everything about every transaction and trace every satoshi/cent of bitcoin ever. at all times.
this leads to other important questions regarding the remaining 1% of crypto mentioned here, but if central banks are your thing then the most transparent form of currency should be obvious?
A friend of mine continously posts about buying Dogecoin and I interpret it as her trying to "pump and dump" instead of any actual investment.
I know people that made a nice living from it. A part of me wishes I got in early and cashed out like they did, but I just don't have the drawers to get into such a speculative and unstable market. Can't blame those that made like a bandit, but crypto is a gambler's tool, nothing more. I still don't understand the skyrocket valuations these cryptocurrencies (especially Dogecoin) have. It just doesn't make sense. It has no real intrinsic value and I can't reconcile that in my head.
I can see the value to bad actors, from North Korea to ransomware outfits to con artists.
cjcoops said: Fiat currency (your US dollars, Pounds Sterling, Euro, Swiss Franc etc ect) also has NO intrinsic value.
These kinds of arguments are pointless. Ultimately, "value" is always just a matter of human perception. Why is a crypto like Bitcoin worth more now than when it was first introduced and there was less of it available? Perception, i.e., "wow, billionaire Elon Musk thinks crypto is valuable so it must be valuable". It's like complaining that the dollar isn't literally backed by gold when the value of gold was backed by...nothing. Gold was just another form of perceived value itself.
with built-in deflationary aspects among other impressive tech
You think deflation is good??
Pretty sure he just means non-inflationary by means of restricting the supply. It's not deflationary, just reasonably static.
Plus, deflationary measures can be good if they're counteracting inflation. Overall deflation can be very much not good, but that's a whole different story; I don't think anyone is suggesting that BitCoin will lead to deflation.
I don’t understand. Musk seems like an intelligent and knowledgeable person. It was known before Tesla bought Bitcoin the amount of energy required to mine crypto. Now to have that epiphany moment that crypto is bad for the environment. Surely Musk can add 2+2.
His particular medical condition might make him a genius at some things and not so much at others. Hopefully the good will always outweigh the not-so-good.
Here is a suggestion for the Biden administration— to help ease the chip shortage, reduce energy waste, and make life harder for criminal organizations (eg, Russia), make cryptocurrency illegal in every possible way. Work with other world leaders to do the same. It’s a scourge that must be ended.
LOL criminals will still be doing crime with or without crypto
cjcoops said: Fiat currency (your US dollars, Pounds Sterling, Euro, Swiss Franc etc ect) also has NO intrinsic value.
These kinds of arguments are pointless. Ultimately, "value" is always just a matter of human perception. Why is a crypto like Bitcoin worth more now than when it was first introduced and there was less of it available? Perception, i.e., "wow, billionaire Elon Musk thinks crypto is valuable so it must be valuable". It's like complaining that the dollar isn't literally backed by gold when the value of gold was backed by...nothing. Gold was just another form of perceived value itself.
Strictly, gold has intrinsic value because it has utility. For example, it lets you make reasonably corrosion-resistant metal objects, and it has low electrical resistance, both of which have certain industrial applications. The societal portion of its value clearly dominates, because gold is almost always noticeably more expensive than platinum, which is much better at everything we use gold for industrially (more corrosion-resistant, less electrically resistant, and much harder).
Fiat currencies have very little intrinsic value (the metal in coins technically has a small amount of utility; paper money could be burned for heat). Almost all of their value is from the agreement of society that they have value. They are also generally backed by an economically-large entity with an army, which significantly reduces volatility. Zimbabwean dollars have suffered ridiculous inflation, but their volatility is still lower than a lot of stocks.
Instead of a large backer with an army, cryptocurrencies have mathematically provable properties around their supply, which limits inflation, but increases volatility. They have literally no intrinsic value (the numbers involved in Bitcoin aren't even interesting mathematically), just value from other people saying they have value. So they take everything bad about fiat currencies, and they make it worse, all while having slower transactions which consume vastly more energy. They are like stock shares in a company which doesn't make anything and which will never pay dividends.
Here is a suggestion for the Biden administration— to help ease the chip shortage, reduce energy waste, and make life harder for criminal organizations (eg, Russia), make cryptocurrency illegal in every possible way. Work with other world leaders to do the same. It’s a scourge that must be ended.
Completely agree - crypto currency has become the main currency for criminal and terrorist organizations. Make bitcoin illegal and ransomware suddenly becomes less attractive.
with built-in deflationary aspects among other impressive tech
You think deflation is good??
Pretty sure he just means non-inflationary by means of restricting the supply. It's not deflationary, just reasonably static.
Plus, deflationary measures can be good if they're counteracting inflation. Overall deflation can be very much not good, but that's a whole different story; I don't think anyone is suggesting that BitCoin will lead to deflation.
Regardless of what he means, BitCoin is incredibly deflationary, which is a huge problem. Since BitCoin was introduced, the price of everything (as measured in BitCoin) has plummeted. If BitCoin were the only currency, we would have experienced a depression so great that it would have killed democracy entirely.
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd think cryptocurrency is part of a plot to destroy western democracy.
I'm not saying hyperinflation is good or ok, clearly it isn't. But deflation is far more dangerous, primarily because it's so hard to stop once it has started.
Here is a suggestion for the Biden administration— to help ease the chip shortage, reduce energy waste, and make life harder for criminal organizations (eg, Russia), make cryptocurrency illegal in every possible way. Work with other world leaders to do the same. It’s a scourge that must be ended.
LOL criminals will still be doing crime with or without crypto
No one is under the delusion that crime exists because of crypto. What crypto does do is make crime easier, more profitable and more difficult to trace.
cjcoops said: Fiat currency (your US dollars, Pounds Sterling, Euro, Swiss Franc etc ect) also has NO intrinsic value.
These kinds of arguments are pointless. Ultimately, "value" is always just a matter of human perception. Why is a crypto like Bitcoin worth more now than when it was first introduced and there was less of it available? Perception, i.e., "wow, billionaire Elon Musk thinks crypto is valuable so it must be valuable". It's like complaining that the dollar isn't literally backed by gold when the value of gold was backed by...nothing. Gold was just another form of perceived value itself.
No modern currency has any intrinsic value beyond the medium (paper or metal) with which it’s produced. One may discount ‘government backing’ of traditional currencies, but compare that to crypto currencies which have no backing at all.
THen there’s the case of the CEO of a Canadian crypto wallet firm that died and took the password with him, leaving all of the assets unretrievable...
99% of all cryptocurrency is transparent to track, in the blockchain spirit. The American Dollar is and always as been by far the currency of choice for crime. you cannot easily trace dollar bills in those briefs, but you can know everything about every transaction and trace every satoshi/cent of bitcoin ever. at all times.
That's not true at all.
Ransomware attacks are one the greatest threats in world today and are only viable thanks to the anonymous nature of cryptocurrencies. While a Bitcoin transactions record the wallet addresses, a wallet address alone does not provide any identifiable detail of the owner.
Cash is far easier to trace; through fingerprints, fibres and serial numbers. Cash is also a lot harder to store and hide.
One may discount ‘government backing’ of traditional currencies, but compare that to crypto currencies which have no backing at all.
I totally agree.
Government backing isn't some minor issue, it's fundamental.
People who are pro-crypto tend to be anti-government. The irony, though, is that the only governments that allow people to be anti-government are democracies. So in practice, proc-crypto types are working to undermine democracy in favor of authoritarian / totalitarian regimes.
Musk just pivoted because he got hit by the 'noodle gun' (you'll have to listen to No Agenda to get that one). Selling eco-car while backing eco-destruction thing is bad PR. Whatever reality there may or may not be to that is irrelevant. He can't risk mob-'justice'.
The value in crypto is like the value in anything, utility and/or storage. Government backed fiat has value, until it doesn't. The USA spends trillions backing up the value of the USD with the US military. If that scheme ever falls apart, though, it will come quickly crashing down. And, there are a lot of powers gunning for that (but internal collapse will likely get it first).
I think a lot of the interest in crypto, is certainly, hype. It reminds me a lot of the dot-com ramp up. I remember being dragged to a couple 'investment' meetings by friends because I was the tech-guy they knew. You'd hear these pitches about how much a 'click' is worth and how much more it will be worth tomorrow.
BUT, the other side of crypto, is a recognition of how fragile fiat is and the crazy place the world has become. It is a system of storage and transaction outside the system. For example, if you're 'deplatformed' you might not be able to take payments/donations via any of the normal channels we think of. But, you can take crypto, and no one can stop you.
There are also technological advantages. Take a look at what Adam Curry is doing with Podcasting 2.0 and Lightning Network (it doesn't have to be that, but it is where they are starting). cf. PodcastIndex.org Basically Lightning Network is kind of like the cash-drawer & safe at your store. Because Bitcoin transactions have a cost, you store up a bunch of them, and then at the 'end of the day' take them to the bank to settle out. It could work with other forms of crypto as well, but this gets around the Bitcoin 'cost' issue.
What they are doing is baking in a value block to the podcast RSS feed, which directs and splits streaming funds when someone wants to support a podcast. The funds (micro-payments) will automatically end up in different parties wallets (think podcast host, audio editor, podcast app developer, podcast host, etc whoever you want.) with no 3rd party in the middle to meddle, control, or charge. This could work for lots of things. The documentary people have been talking to Adam. It could happen to the music industry. etc.
This would be hard to do with other forms of payment, and you'd have a middle entity involved. This was just to give you an example on the utility side.
Personally, I think we'll eventually see a few major forms of crypto shake out of all of this. Maybe Bitcoin and Etheurum. But, I suppose it could be something else too. It's just like hundreds of competing 'standards' right now, and a ton of speculation about which will win and what is will eventually be worth. But, you're fooling yourself if you don't think there is value here at all. The question is how much.
As for the whole power and environment thing, a couple of points. First, if you look around, there have been some lengthy (and fairly technical) papers written to debunk much of the hysteria. But, more importantly, we're not going to stop using energy. I'm all for efficiency and improving tech, but unless we wipe ourselves out, we'll always need and use it. We have to find better ways of creating it, not poo-pooing things that use it.
For a long time I ignored crypto. Then the world changed. I can no longer ignore it, but I also wish I hadn't in the past. While I was using my computer resources to substantially contribute to Folding@home, I could have secured my future if I'd done some crypto-mining. I can't go back and fix that, but I can stop ignoring it. Just like the dot-com bust, the silliness went away, but the Internet and websites remain... and are more important than ever. I think something like this will happen to crypto as well. The silliness will get ditched, and then what remains will become a crucial aspect of society.
99% of all cryptocurrency is transparent to track, in the blockchain spirit. The American Dollar is and always as been by far the currency of choice for crime. you cannot easily trace dollar bills in those briefs, but you can know everything about every transaction and trace every satoshi/cent of bitcoin ever. at all times.
That's not true at all.
Ransomware attacks are one the greatest threats in world today and are only viable thanks to the anonymous nature of cryptocurrencies. While a Bitcoin transactions record the wallet addresses, a wallet address alone does not provide any identifiable detail of the owner.
Cash is far easier to trace; through fingerprints, fibres and serial numbers. Cash is also a lot harder to store and hide.
So an FBI agent using crytpocurrency would be golden… surely https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35038971 “ A former US Secret Service agent has been jailed for six years for stealing electronic currency while investigating the Silk Road online marketplace, according to the Associated Press ”
or https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/cryptocurrency-fraudster-sentenced-021119 ” “We relied heavily on the extensive analysis by the SEC,” said Munster. “Then it was a matter of interviewing employees and other investors and following the money trail—looking at what was brought in and what was spent, what was real and what was invented.”
Munster said it was easy to see where some of the money was going: “Garza had a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, and a Maserati. He went to Las Vegas in a private jet and took his employees out on the Vegas strip. He was definitely caught up in the lifestyle of being a start-up mogul.””
You think criminals are laundering money and leaving their fingerprints on it? Good grief…
Even the makers of Dogecoin can’t believe it’s an actual thing.
Well, it's an actual thing. The problem is there are several hundred other actual things, all competing for one of a few purposes. As mentioned earlier, I anticipate at some point, it will all shake down maybe a dozen or half-dozen successful crypto-currencies. The rest will go up in a poof of speculation. My hunch is that DOGE will be one of the latter (but I have 100 of them, just in case).
Comments
Fiat currency (your US dollars, Pounds Sterling, Euro, Swiss Franc etc ect) also has NO intrinsic value.
They do have the backing of their respective Governments - which is of little comfort to those in Zimbabwe, or Turkey.... (and notoriously Germans in the past https://keripeardon.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/wheelbarrows-of-money-and-the-weimar-republic/)
This is a good little book to help give some understanding of ' money', Crypto assets and blockchains
https://www.amazon.com/Basics-Bitcoins-Blockchains-Introduction-Cryptocurrencies-ebook/dp/B07BWK82DC/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=bitcoin+lewis&qid=1620964681&sr=8-1
And as far as the energy consumption of bitcoin here's an alternative view.
I don't have any Bitcoin, just to be clear.
I do own ADA (Cardano), which
"Thanks to a more energy-efficient mechanism to verify transactions, Hoskinson has claimed Cardano uses just 6 gigawatt hours of energy annually—not even 0.01% of the 115.85 terawatt hours bitcoin is estimated to use"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/05/13/cardano-surges-during-300-billion-crypto-crash-as-musk-eyes-sustainable-bitcoin-alternatives/?sh=360998f6259e
blockchain technology is the only hope of a corruption-free world that i know of. id love to hear about any alternative visions out there for our common future? just touting CBDCs as a solution reminds me of those dogs trained to walk by the owners holding the leach themselves.
Anyone reminiscing about paper money needs to know that there will be none soon. there will only be digital currencies. then u can choose ones that are created by central banks freely - just like now but even easier for them.. or we can have digital currencies with built-in deflationary aspects among other impressive tech, preventing anyone to create currency at will and deflating every other unit of currency.
We can repeat whatever clown we resonate with on the news, but we will never feel comfortable with anyone stuffing their hands in our pockets. no matter how persuasive the clown may be.
99% of all cryptocurrency is transparent to track, in the blockchain spirit. The American Dollar is and always as been by far the currency of choice for crime. you cannot easily trace dollar bills in those briefs, but you can know everything about every transaction and trace every satoshi/cent of bitcoin ever. at all times.
this leads to other important questions regarding the remaining 1% of crypto mentioned here, but if central banks are your thing then the most transparent form of currency should be obvious?
Plus, deflationary measures can be good if they're counteracting inflation. Overall deflation can be very much not good, but that's a whole different story; I don't think anyone is suggesting that BitCoin will lead to deflation.
Fiat currencies have very little intrinsic value (the metal in coins technically has a small amount of utility; paper money could be burned for heat). Almost all of their value is from the agreement of society that they have value. They are also generally backed by an economically-large entity with an army, which significantly reduces volatility. Zimbabwean dollars have suffered ridiculous inflation, but their volatility is still lower than a lot of stocks.
Instead of a large backer with an army, cryptocurrencies have mathematically provable properties around their supply, which limits inflation, but increases volatility. They have literally no intrinsic value (the numbers involved in Bitcoin aren't even interesting mathematically), just value from other people saying they have value. So they take everything bad about fiat currencies, and they make it worse, all while having slower transactions which consume vastly more energy. They are like stock shares in a company which doesn't make anything and which will never pay dividends.
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd think cryptocurrency is part of a plot to destroy western democracy.
Remember, YouKnowWho didn't come to power after hyperinflation in Germany -- he came in over a decade later, and in reaction to austerity+deflation+gridlock (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/12/16761880/study-austerity-nazi-power-hitler-elections).
I'm not saying hyperinflation is good or ok, clearly it isn't. But deflation is far more dangerous, primarily because it's so hard to stop once it has started.
No modern currency has any intrinsic value beyond the medium (paper or metal) with which it’s produced. One may discount ‘government backing’ of traditional currencies, but compare that to crypto currencies which have no backing at all.
THen there’s the case of the CEO of a Canadian crypto wallet firm that died and took the password with him, leaving all of the assets unretrievable...
https://www.engadget.com/2019-03-08-quadrigacx-bitcoin-missing-millions.html
Ransomware attacks are one the greatest threats in world today and are only viable thanks to the anonymous nature of cryptocurrencies. While a Bitcoin transactions record the wallet addresses, a wallet address alone does not provide any identifiable detail of the owner.
Cash is far easier to trace; through fingerprints, fibres and serial numbers. Cash is also a lot harder to store and hide.
Government backing isn't some minor issue, it's fundamental.
People who are pro-crypto tend to be anti-government. The irony, though, is that the only governments that allow people to be anti-government are democracies. So in practice, proc-crypto types are working to undermine democracy in favor of authoritarian / totalitarian regimes.
Selling eco-car while backing eco-destruction thing is bad PR. Whatever reality there may or may not be to that is irrelevant. He can't risk mob-'justice'.
The value in crypto is like the value in anything, utility and/or storage. Government backed fiat has value, until it doesn't. The USA spends trillions backing up the value of the USD with the US military. If that scheme ever falls apart, though, it will come quickly crashing down. And, there are a lot of powers gunning for that (but internal collapse will likely get it first).
I think a lot of the interest in crypto, is certainly, hype. It reminds me a lot of the dot-com ramp up. I remember being dragged to a couple 'investment' meetings by friends because I was the tech-guy they knew. You'd hear these pitches about how much a 'click' is worth and how much more it will be worth tomorrow.
BUT, the other side of crypto, is a recognition of how fragile fiat is and the crazy place the world has become. It is a system of storage and transaction outside the system. For example, if you're 'deplatformed' you might not be able to take payments/donations via any of the normal channels we think of. But, you can take crypto, and no one can stop you.
There are also technological advantages. Take a look at what Adam Curry is doing with Podcasting 2.0 and Lightning Network (it doesn't have to be that, but it is where they are starting). cf. PodcastIndex.org Basically Lightning Network is kind of like the cash-drawer & safe at your store. Because Bitcoin transactions have a cost, you store up a bunch of them, and then at the 'end of the day' take them to the bank to settle out. It could work with other forms of crypto as well, but this gets around the Bitcoin 'cost' issue.
What they are doing is baking in a value block to the podcast RSS feed, which directs and splits streaming funds when someone wants to support a podcast. The funds (micro-payments) will automatically end up in different parties wallets (think podcast host, audio editor, podcast app developer, podcast host, etc whoever you want.) with no 3rd party in the middle to meddle, control, or charge. This could work for lots of things. The documentary people have been talking to Adam. It could happen to the music industry. etc.
This would be hard to do with other forms of payment, and you'd have a middle entity involved. This was just to give you an example on the utility side.
Personally, I think we'll eventually see a few major forms of crypto shake out of all of this. Maybe Bitcoin and Etheurum. But, I suppose it could be something else too. It's just like hundreds of competing 'standards' right now, and a ton of speculation about which will win and what is will eventually be worth. But, you're fooling yourself if you don't think there is value here at all. The question is how much.
As for the whole power and environment thing, a couple of points. First, if you look around, there have been some lengthy (and fairly technical) papers written to debunk much of the hysteria. But, more importantly, we're not going to stop using energy. I'm all for efficiency and improving tech, but unless we wipe ourselves out, we'll always need and use it. We have to find better ways of creating it, not poo-pooing things that use it.
For a long time I ignored crypto. Then the world changed. I can no longer ignore it, but I also wish I hadn't in the past. While I was using my computer resources to substantially contribute to Folding@home, I could have secured my future if I'd done some crypto-mining. I can't go back and fix that, but I can stop ignoring it. Just like the dot-com bust, the silliness went away, but the Internet and websites remain... and are more important than ever. I think something like this will happen to crypto as well. The silliness will get ditched, and then what remains will become a crucial aspect of society.
So an FBI agent using crytpocurrency would be golden… surely
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35038971
“ A former US Secret Service agent has been jailed for six years for stealing electronic currency while investigating the Silk Road online marketplace, according to the Associated Press ”
https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/cryptocurrency-fraudster-sentenced-021119
” “We relied heavily on the extensive analysis by the SEC,” said Munster. “Then it was a matter of interviewing employees and other investors and following the money trail—looking at what was brought in and what was spent, what was real and what was invented.”
Munster said it was easy to see where some of the money was going: “Garza had a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, and a Maserati. He went to Las Vegas in a private jet and took his employees out on the Vegas strip. He was definitely caught up in the lifestyle of being a start-up mogul.””
You think criminals are laundering money and leaving their fingerprints on it? Good grief…