211–220 of 268 posts
So bitcoin failed its guarantees two times at least, but it's fine and dandy by the ‘crypto’ people. Such cryptography, wow.
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I am curious as well. I’ve created a wallet: nano_1g6bkdkp9h6y4594sa3kiyu4xdmfz3nbj9z4zeptrdatcztpprcdsno5p6nr How is it secure if it’s not doing any wasteful mining though?
This article ( https://www.kraken.com/en-us/learn/what-is-nano ) goes into how it keeps the network secure. But Proof of Stake is the basics of it. I sent you one Nano to play with. Let me know what you think! For me, I think Nano is a great replacement to cash. You can give and receive without fees. It makes a great way to donate or pay for things.
I am curious how the 99.98% SLA compares to other payment networks (eg: Visa, etc). A bit apples to oranges, since the transaction volume is different.
You can buy goods and materials with visa though. Not sure people want to wait 30 minutes to buy a cup of coffee with bitcoin.
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You can't take one snapshot in time and compare it when the two assets exhibit wildly different volatility characteristics. You are capturing Bitcoin's price when it is down. If we were to do the same thing at the end of the year last year we could say it went up 70% in 2021 (and that was after a big drop from it's ATH) whereas the S&P only went up 26%. See how that isn't the whole story?
> You can't take one snapshot in time and compare it when the two assets exhibit wildly different volatility characteristics. I mean, you certainly can if you're taking the "buy and hold" approach, or hodl amongst the cool kids. It simply points out that buy and hold crypto is not guaranteed to be better than something like SPY, and the excess volatility is maybe not a good thing? The highest possible returns != what…
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You can't take one snapshot in time and compare it when the two assets exhibit wildly different volatility characteristics. You are capturing Bitcoin's price when it is down. If we were to do the same thing at the end of the year last year we could say it went up 70% in 2021 (and that was after a big drop from it's ATH) whereas the S&P only went up 26%. See how that isn't the whole story?
> You can't take one snapshot in time and compare it when the two assets exhibit wildly different volatility characteristics. I mean, you certainly can if you're taking the "buy and hold" approach, or hodl amongst the cool kids. It simply points out that buy and hold crypto is not guaranteed to be better than something like SPY, and the excess volatility is maybe not a good thing? The highest possible returns != what…
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Don't believe the lies they say about fiat currencies in crypto circles. Currency is way more complicated than they lead you to believe. After all fractional reserve banking has existed since before currency did. And if you have fractional reserve banking you aren't "back up by something" unless you count the credit of the bank as something. Given that is the literal definition of fiat currency (backed by the full fa…
>After all fractional reserve banking has existed since before currency did. We don't even have fractional reserve banking. There is no reserve ratio, it's 0. Bernanke's own published book states it is only fractional reserve banking when it is required to keep a fractional reserve.
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Don't believe the lies they say about fiat currencies in crypto circles. Currency is way more complicated than they lead you to believe. After all fractional reserve banking has existed since before currency did. And if you have fractional reserve banking you aren't "back up by something" unless you count the credit of the bank as something. Given that is the literal definition of fiat currency (backed by the full fa…
My statement was that the currency (in this example, USD) until 1971 has always been at least partially backed up by something beyond control of any single government (gold). That was the whole reason of Nixon's speech and abolishing gold convertibility on August 15, 1971 [1]. This regime existed since at least Ancient Greece, but probably longer. I have no empirical reason to believe that the currency system of last…
The answer to both of those questions was no. The actual amount of currency in circulation (including balance sheets) was certainly well in excess of what the US was holding in reserve.
You could say that by offering gold at a rate you fix the value of the currency but I already covered how that is nuanced.
The reality of course is the reason we had trades for reserves and reserve requirements were to provide faith from consumers that the currency was worth something. I don't think anyone can claim that USD isn't worth anything today.
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I'm more lamenting crypto's existence than waving the guards over to come shoot people. I don't see how bitcoin can at all be a positive thing on a systemic level when it's primary purpose is financial speculation and scamming (neither of which are materially productive) and its primary cost is massive amounts of CO2. Of course it can be individually beneficial - mass murders are financially beneficial to funeral dir…
>I don't see how bitcoin can at all be a positive thing on a systemic level when it's primary purpose is financial speculation and scamming I understand this is all opinion on both sides. I would add this opnion risks overlooking, say, Argentinian free-lancers who are paid in crypto because the system surrounding them makes it untenable to use conventional banking. Or the jewler buying precious metals with litecoin t…
I did include the unbanked and productive manufacturing (which you neglected to mention until now - are you a jeweler?) in examples of positive use, in my utility list. But you have to assess a technology based on its overall effect.
> So you hate electricity? Join the Amish.
Totally specious.
> Funeral directors want people to live highly reproductive lives, not short lives.
This is overly reductive. Clearly a short term boost in business is a financial boon for funeral directors, as it would be for any business.
> How many mass murders actually happened specifically and only because of the existance of crypto?
Uh, what? Maybe I should just give up trying to explain my point to you if a simple analogy is beyond your comprehension.
> I see crypto like a hammer, it's a tool that can be used morally, immorraly, or merely in a morally neutral fashion.
You can look at actual use to determine the effect of something. Not many people are using F15s for anything else but killing people, so it's fair to call weapons of war broadly immoral.
> Is this supposed to be some sort of ad-hominem attack?
"greed is good" and "unregulated capitalism is the ideal" are libertarian tenets, so yes, I think it's fair to say that they're selfishly self interested. So you consider yourself a libertarian?
> I have a hard time making sweeping generalizations about morality based on one's political choice.
Given that politics is an expression of values, I really don't. If somebody were to say "I don't like Jews and that's why I'm a nazi" (this is an argument from absurdity, BTW) I could reasonably call them a bad person. They also wouldn't need to say the first part because its implicit in the identification. Libertarianism is fundamentally about "fuck you got mine", which I find to be immoral.
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People use way more energy for dumb heating. In my region humans can't survive in winter without it. There is no reason why mining rigs can't be used for 'smart' heating, heat being a byproduct of mining. It is not done currently only because the energy use of bitcoin is so miniscule compared to other uses, that it's not even worthy to bother yet . Down the road, it'll likely change, but currently complaints about 'm…
If the energy use of bitcoin was minuscule while heating a building, and it could generate mining rewards while doing so, then people would be using it for that purpose. They aren't.
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Quantify the environment cost that has been borne by bitcoin and now compare it to the cost by overheating or cooling houses (except perhaps a few elderly or infants, no one needs a house to stay within 60-80 degree band, you can survive with much less heating/cooling energy usage). Then explain to us how anyone living in a comfortable room temperature heated home that complains about bitcoin isn't a hypocrite, using…
"You criticise bitcoin for using more electricity than Ireland while using disproportionately high levels of coal power usage, and yet you live in a house. Hypocrite!" This isn't a cogent argument. Yes, overheating or overcooling houses is also bad. If AI training used as much electricity as Ireland I'd be critical of that too.