291–300 of 394 posts
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Not necessarily. That would only be true if storing and/or transporting energy was cheap or easy.
Yes, that is a factor. Other factors include abandoned coal fire plants being restarted for mining. The question is not if there is a factor that is positive, but whether the positives outweigh the negatives. Every source I have seen is confident they do not.
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> Energy use is not energy source I’ll go a step further - Bitcoin’s energy use is centralized around the cheapest sources due to economic forces. If renewables are cheaper at scale than fossil fuels, Bitcoin’s energy use could in fact become a net positive for the world. To put it another way, the profitability of mining is directly proportional to the cost of electricity compared to the global average. This should…
Absolute rubbish. You talk like there's something magical about Bitcoin, when in fact every profit-maximising firm will always use the cheapest energy available. Seriously what kind of pathetic argument is this, or am I missing something?
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Coinbase. Where I suspect most people actually transact.
Can you think of a traditional international transfer service that has better rates for I think the only thing cheaper may be to find some company that allows international wire for very cheap, and that normally requires holding a lot of fiat in the bank.
Since USD is an official currency of El Salvador, you can just send a USD wire without currency conversion fees, that can be up to $50 -- but Fidelity charges $0. [3]
You could also set up a Wise multi-currency account, which is supported in El Salvador. You'll get banking details in the US (and many other jurisdictions) to which you can ACH money free of charge, or receive a Fedwire for $7. [1]
[edit] If you need to send small amounts of money, Wise is hard to beat. If you need to send big money, InteractiveBrokers Forex trading is the definition of market rate, and their commission is 0.002% (2/10th of a basis point), minimum $2. So, $20 per million.
This has been a solved problem for a very long time.
[1] https://wise.com/multi-currency-account/
[2] https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/the-best-way-to-understand-b...
[3] https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/banking/wire-transfers-wh...
Let's ignore that Bitcoin is climate arson, and that its only used for money laundering and buying drugs. Bitcoin has a max throughput of 7 transactions per second. It's utter lunacy to suggest that it could function as a currency for a country. This will only end in tears.
Such an ignorant comment. There are hundreds of millions Bitcoin users globally, and only a very small fraction of them are criminals of any kind. And let's ignore the actual criminals who legally counterfeit US dollars to finance war all around the world.
Could someone explain me the intuition behind the BTC drop? Why changing the owners of a small fraction of an asset that is not affected by any policy should reflect this? Is it just the feeling from some investors that BTC can not be taken seriously? It is hard for me to understand the logic of it and the only reason that could come to my mind is that some investors don't understand what they are buying.
Seems a bit farfetched, but maybe.
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Using renewables to do something that doesn't need to be done is not a win. I divested from all PoW coins except ETH in expectation that PoS will be completed soon.
> Using renewables to do something that doesn't need to be done is not a win. It is if it spurs development of the underlying tech. Pornography isn’t necessary, but because it was consumed in volume we ended up with ubiquitous household VCRs in the 80s and 90s.
How does that work? For example, if leave a lightbulb on all day long, does that spur adoption or development of renewable energy sources?
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"Professionals." That's a funny way to define criminals.
[citation needed]
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What advantage would a stablecoin have over using the underlying currency directly? It has the significant disadvantage of adding an additional trust entity (the backing bank) which could prove untrustworthy. Over a long enough timescale, I would argue that all backing banks have proven to be untrustworthy.
Doesn’t it seem concerning to tie a countries currency to something so volatile that it could literally halve over night? Not trying to argue. Just trying to understand.
All forms of money have risks. I think the diversification of supporting BOTH USD and BTC seems to get a bit of the best of both worlds.
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No, again that's simply not correct. We can empirically observe purchasing power and money supply, so there's no need to speculate. One-time changes to M2 of that magnitude have been shown to have small to no effect on inflation [0]. [0] https://www.commonfund.org/blog/chart-of-the-month-money-sup...
The post talks about inflation but doesn't mention which measure it uses. Hmmm... Also, the correlation coefficient 0.15 and an R^2 of 0.02. It means it doesn't explain all variance in the inflation but it clearly influences it. Finally, your last comments sounds like we actually can have a free lunch.
And re: free lunch-- keep in mind that empirical reality isn't affected by our internal sense of fairness. It is possible that we will find free lunches in our existence. Nuclear energy is arguably a kind of free lunch.
That said, my last comment was specifically contrasting more sustained M2 expansion, or an expansion of a higher order of magnitude. We don't know exactly what would happen then, but there's a decent possibility of high inflation in that case.
It’s amazing how countries are wholeheartedly adopting this thing as an official currency that we have no idea who invented and for what purpose. I mean sure, there’s a white paper that says why it was invented, but why should anyone believe it? If it does turn out to be malicious it’s going to make for one hell of a cautionary tale.
Actually it's far more transparent and verifiable by anyone than you would think. I highly encourage you to read more about it. I have no doubt the more understand the more you appreciate it.