Crypto Currency (Bitcoin)

[chspeed]

10 hours ago, iacas said:

Blockchain-based systems are not what they say they are

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If you go out seeking to learn why blockchains and the systems built atop them are apparently the future of our web, you’ll begin to see some...

If you go out seeking to learn from their proponents why blockchains and the systems built atop them are apparently the future of our web, you’ll begin to see some common themes. Two of the ones I see most frequently are:

• Decentralization: data in blockchains are distributed across innumerable servers run by innumerable people and organizations, rather than stored on servers controlled by one organization
• Immutability: what is written to a blockchain cannot be changed or deleted, unlike more traditional databases

These fall apart under further scrutiny.

Completely agree with this. Look at the success of Coinbase - they're essentially a centralized bank/crypto retailer that makes a big profit on centralizing transactions.

Blockchain technology itself can make data immutable and decentralized, but if you're a company that wants to make money in crypto, you're going to centralize something along the supply chain.

Regardless of it's inability to provide what it promised, crypto may still take hold and become disruptive and transformative to the entire monetary system and banking. No way to know.

Edited January 15 by chspeed

[saevel25]

Yea, a buddy of mine believes the fiat system is a Ponzi scheme and touts crypto as what will save us. But, he gets all hyped when centralizes banks start to legitimize crypto and start making it function like a currency. 

[iacas]

Mozilla stops accepting cryptocurrency, Wikipedia may be next: Are dominos falling?

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Mozilla announced a donation pause after co-founder Jamie Zawinski tweeted his opposition. Will more organizations follow suit and take the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies into account?

 

[iacas]

Crypto, NFTs, Web3: People Hate the Future of the Internet - The Atlantic

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Web3 is making some people very rich. It’s making other people very angry.

 

[saevel25]

Yea, I have very little knowledge of Web3 to even understand why people are upset about it. Reading that article, I was just think, WTF is going on here! 

 

[GolfLug]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Crypto, NFTs, Web3: People Hate the Future of the Internet - The Atlantic

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Web3 is making some people very rich. It’s making other people very angry.

 

Kardashian launched her own crypto..? Ha. I like her as she gets a lot undeserved hate but this should be considered an ominous sign - in not a good way. This laughs in the face of the whole idea that FIAT is manipulated and and crypto is immune from it.. i.e. it is true value. Nah.    

[klineka]

2 minutes ago, TonyRark6 said:

At the moment, cryptocurrency is the world's most important and expensive currency. 

Based on what? Your opinion?

2 minutes ago, TonyRark6 said:

Our economy has moved from actual money to virtual money as technology has progressed.

Not really though. Especially not if you are talking about things like direct deposits, electronic money transfers, paying with a credit card, sending money via venmo, etc to be "virtual money" because in all of those it is actual money being transferred that can be cashed out for "actual money"

[cdh79]

29 minutes ago, klineka said:

Not really though. Especially not if you are talking about things like direct deposits, electronic money transfers, paying with a credit card, sending money via venmo, etc to be "virtual money" because in all of those it is actual money being transferred that can be cashed out for "actual money"

only about 8% of the money worldwide exists as physical cash, the rest is just digital shifting of numbers between entities. 

If for whatever reason everybody decided to "cash out for 'actual money'" simultaneously this would not be possible and you'd soon realise the actual limitations of how flawed our banking-system has become.   

I'm not sure what was meant with crypto being "expensive", but even when just looking at fiat currency, 92%  of it is "virtual money" and that percentage will only increases in future.. And just like with crypto, if enough people think that fiat currency (Dollar, Euro, etc) is not worth anything, then the value will diminish (see the drop of the Rubel over the past months or any unstable country). There is no more direct connection to i.e. the gold-reserves like it used to be in the 70's to actually have physical assets that will dictate the value of the money. Nowadays it's mostly imaginary..

[iacas]

Why This Computer Scientist Says All Cryptocurrency Should “Die in a Fire” ❧ Current Affairs

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<p>UC-Berkeley’s Nicholas Weaver has been studying cryptocurrency for years. He thinks it’s a terrible idea that will end in disaster. </p>

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Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

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Cautionary Tales from Cryptoland

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Web3 is off to a rocky start. Optimists may rattle on about progress on the horizon, but at present the space is rife with fraud, hacks, and collapses. In this Q&A with Web3 critic Molly White, creator of the...

(That's three links, FWIW.)

[Big Lex]

Great thread. The energy requirement of these, as @iacas pointed out, is a travesty, and is something which in my opinion has been conspicuously ignored. In a world where we are told the progressive view is to protect the environment, we talk little about the environmental impact of the cloud, Bitcoin, etc.

Regarding value...Yeah, the "value" of anything is just what we all agree we are willing to trade for it, I get that. But it goes further than that. Gold and silver were chosen, I read, because they are durable, rare, have intrinsic value, and also require work and effort to acquire and produce. But this doesn't mean that creating some of these attributes in a digital/software entity makes it a better or even equivalent form of value. 

I don't know much economics, but I remember a famous quote by JP Morgan in which he said he knew the stock market was headed for a catastrophe when a shoe-shine kid started giving him advice about stocks. Just look at the youtube content on crypto currencies. It's absurd. This is as old as mankind, it's just people gaming others, taking advantage, hucksters and carneys. It's all bullshit.

I have a friend who is obsessed with this stuff. He's smart enough not to "invest" anything beyond trivial amounts, but he follows all these coins, NFTs, crypto gaming (whatever that is), and so forth. Recently, I guess the entire crypto market took a massive dump because some coin UST, pegged to $1 value, was annihilated by negative price pressure. Supposedly whoever "manages" UST had a multi-billion dollar reserve to try to prop up the value of the coin, but they blew through it in a matter of hours. Again, it's all bullshit.

Run like hell away from this stuff. The only way it becomes a real thing, maybe, is if a government decides to sanction it, protect it with laws, adjudicate diputes, etc.; in other words, all the things the crypto people say they don't want. 

[Double Mocha Man]

Well said.