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Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

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Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#781

Post by vmception »

millstone wrote: post #766
tsimionescu wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why not stop producing it, instead of using it on Bitcoin? Even 'clean' energy production has environmental costs, from environment destruction for hydro to maintenance/production costs for solar and wind.

Excess electricity can be a real problem, and is getting worse with renewables. But surplus energy would be better used to desalinate seawater, or produce hydrogen through electrolysis, or storage.

Except the plants are not built at the sea and desalination is not a clean process.

Or with electrolysis or storage you need to generate it and transport it to where it can be used, getting you back to square one because nobody is doing that because it is uneconomical. Whereas mining is not because it can be all done on site in remote locations and doesn't even need great internet. High latency, spotty internet is good enough for crypto mining.

We know what the ideals are: no pollution and infinite energy, or no pollution and less energy use. Thats not going to happen, and crypto wasn’t part of those 50 year old models, yet it is accomplishing a lot of those ideals and people choose not to respect its existence as it alters their worldview.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#782

Post by vmception »

tsimionescu wrote: post #756
vmception wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because a lot of energy is not utilized if it will be lost in transit. they don't send it and there is extra capacity on site and from the specific source of energy. there are gigawatts of energy that can only be used at the source, which has never had a use until the mining machines showed up.

Then why not stop producing it, instead of using it on Bitcoin? Even 'clean' energy production has environmental costs, from environment destruction for hydro to maintenance/production costs for solar and wind.

Now that we've moved the goal posts, is it still more of an environmental cost than just imagining it was fossil fuels or energy that being pulled away from other use cases?

The answer to your question depends on which power source we are referring to. Where Bitcoin is a sustainability solution, it is reducing waste by products which were already being produced and now are not being produced because they are used for energy.

Bitcoin is a multi-billion industry whether you respect its existence or not, your arguments will simply have to get more nuanced to have a real conversation about what's happening.

Organizations that know better are intentionally omitting the source of energy, in their discussion about the amount of energy. Don't fall for it.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#783

Post by sneak »

jmcqk6 wrote: post #746
sneak wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ransomware thing is a red herring. The trust is not related to the counterparty- the trust is in the ledger itself. Once you have the tokens, you know you have them, and as long as your keys are secure, that fact remains true. That's not the case with any other monetary or payment system or store of value. You can trust that your balance in your account is what the blockchain says it is, and that nobody but someo…

is there some widespread issue with trusting the ledgers of banks currently? I wasn't aware that this is a pressing issue, or really an issue at all. >You can trust that your balance in your account is what the blockchain says it is, and that nobody but someone in possession of those keys can use it. And there are definite risks around that too. This really feels like a solution in search of a problem to me.

Some would think so.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/04/paypal-shuts-d...

There are also many restrictions on how, why, when, and where transfers from those accounts can be made. There is no trust in an institution required, because you know the blockchain will carry out your wishes regardless of any other factors.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#784

Post by jsutton »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #244
seibelj wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My crypto friends have raised millions outside of VC and then became very rich once their projects launched basically over night. Liquid immediately and never paid a lawyer. Truly is a paradigm shift and I think a big problem on HN is that VC can’t see they are being disrupted and have no way of avoiding it, plus they think they are untouchable geniuses, so being wrong this hard isn’t pleasant for them.

Which part of the $28 average transaction fee is the paradigm shift?

You're missing the forest for the trees. Transaction fees aren't important. In this case, it's the ability to raise funds for a project outside of an elite class of investors, and not have to wait 5-10 years for a liquidation event.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#785

Post by dodobirdlord »

DSingularity wrote: post #775
dodobirdlord wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Productive capital. Financial speculation is fun and all but it has to remain a sideshow to the real economy, since we fundamentally rely on individuals and companies investing in the creation of more productive capital. If it ever came to pass that hodling Bitcoin was actually the best use of money because it somehow became a universal deflationary currency, then the government would have to step in and deploy its m…

Overall a good answer but I wonder if this direction of thought applies to something like BTC or can even be broadly applied in general. It seems to me that it is difficult to measure the productivity of a decentralized asset like BTC. Maybe it’s even harder to compare it to asset classes which produce physically consumable products as we are talking about a new way to define value in the digital era. There is some t…

> It seems to me that it is difficult to measure the productivity of a decentralized asset like BTC.

It’s actually really easy, because the answer is just 0. Bitcoin is not productive capital in exactly the same way that the USD is not productive capital. “Investing” in Bitcoin is not like investing in an enterprise, it’s financial speculation. This is perfectly demonstrated by the “1 BTC = 1 BTC” meme, at the end of some period of hodling nothing has been produced, no matter how long you hodl for. Now, there are some second-order benefits to financial speculation, it can drive price discovery and provides the liquidity to make markets efficient, but financial speculation on Bitcoin doesn’t have these second-order effects because those second-order effects are only relevant when some amount of non-speculation demand exists for the speculation target. There are other cryptocurrencies that can be used for more than just financial speculation, i.e. that actually have productive uses, and some people are working on finding ways to staple productive use cases to the Bitcoin blockchain, but a Bitcoin is still not productive capital. It’s not good for the economy if too much financial activity gets sucked into financial speculation, since we need financial resources to actually be invested or the economy grinds to a halt.

Now, none of these are issues for a currency. Of course a currency isn’t productive capital, it’s a medium of exchange. But currencies are most useful when they are stable, and Bitcoin is a resounding failure as a currency.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#786

Post by jonnydubowsky »

oraphalous wrote: post #447
tylerhou wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citing "latent demand" or "induced demand" as counter-evidence to my original statement shows your (mis)understanding of basic economics. In fact, basic economics predicts "latent demand" for ordinary goods! > But currency is different - opposite even. If supply goes through the roof - then demand will respond inversely. This is terrible reasoning. It depends on why that supply is going through the roof. Maybe the su…

>Citing "latent demand" or "induced demand" as counter-evidence to my original statement shows your (mis)understanding of basic economics. Your original statement: >The demand for USD is robust because people need USD to pay taxes and to purchase most goods ...remains an absurdly simplistic explanation of USD demand. I wasn't citing latent demand as a counter example to this explanation - just an illustration of easy…

Ohio became the first state to accept Bitcoin for tax payments. It will be interesting to see how this progresses. https://www.coindesk.com/ohio-becomes-first-us-state-to-allo...

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#787

Post by fwiwm2c »

saalweachter wrote: post #751
fwiwm2c wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets assume it is a ponzi scheme and then make judgments based on that assumption.

... when people make money off Bitcoin, where does that money come from? At least when the scam is selling shares of an imaginary gold mine, there is hypothetically somewhere for the profits to come from. With Bitcoin, there is only a $12B/year loss to electricity charges and no where for money to come into the system but absurd transaction fees.

My brain hurts when reading these silly replies. It is like you don't want to learn how things work. BTC has value because people assign to it and there is new money coming in (fiat converted to BTC) which is what makes the existing investors rich.

You all do deserve to stay poor and be labeled as #nocoinists.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#788

Post by abiogenesis »

djschnei wrote: post #710
abiogenesis wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what the OP says. It's either security (your wallet) or convenience (exchange).

> Yeah, one of the problems with the BTC model. You either get convenience or security but not both. No, it's not what OP says... He's saying security and convenience are mutually exclusive in BTC. I'm saying that is not the case... You can use an exchange and transfer or use a hardware wallet with built in exchange capabilities. Making it seem like there is some inherent issue with the design/architecture that makes…

I don't think I follow. The point is a hardware wallet is not as convenient as an exchange as you can always recover your account if you forget your password. It's not as secure though, as the private keys are hold by someone else.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#789

Post by tradertef »

incrudible wrote: post #738
dlubarov wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> broader money supply hasn't really changed much Did you zoom out? M2 money supply increased 25.6% in the past year. Might be easier to see at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2

A modest change, considering that M1 has almost doubled.

What? Is 25% change in total money a modest change?

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#790

Post by AshWolfy »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #514
AshWolfy wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe just markets are stupid and bitcoin is mostly driven by hype based speculators

I think this would be covered by the "judgemental dismissal of market rationale" explanation I was talking about.

Because they self evidently are, markets are so self evidently irrational the concept of "animal spirits" is one of the first thing we learned in econ 101, almost every post about the stock market will have someone saying the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent

unless you want to explain how what happened with gme reflected a rational valuation of the company

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