231–240 of 268 posts
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Do you have a measure against the banking system? If you do, then I'd love to see how Bitcoin is worse.
According to this: https://www.blockchain.com/charts/cost-per-transaction Bitcoin costs $150-$300 per transaction. Unless I'm misunderstanding something? Needless to say, nothing in the regular banking system comes anywhere near those kinds of costs.
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Whats your suggestion, how should crypto people react? They currently dont hide the fact the network split twice (8 years ago), so what else should they do?
Like, maybe have a thing that doesn't break its own core rules when a bunch of jerks decide that it should? That would be a start. “It's so decentralized, very nice! Oh, wait, let us centralize it real quick. Here, now it's decentralized just like the other day! No, wait, we need to centralize it again for a minute. Done, now it's surely decentralized and immutable, tell all your friends!”
LOL
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I'd argue the opposite, if the US government ceased to exist, the electrical grids in North America would collapse shortly thereafter, followed by the Internet and Bitcoin. Without the rule of law and threat of prosecution, a massive surge in usage due to theft would overwhelm systems. Without the nuclear status quo and the threat of retaliation, NA would either be glassed or invaded.
I'd argue the opposite, if the US government ceased to exist, the electrical grids in North America would collapse shortly thereafter, followed by the Internet and Bitcoin. No, there will just be temporary outages and prices these things (electrical grids, internet) will rise to extortionist levels as local authorities / militias take over. Just like they do in any other conflict zone in the world.
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There is a meaningful service cost, it's just paid for by mining. Environmentally there's also a massive cost, one that is not offset by the benefits bitcoin brings - which is primarily financial speculation and scams. Cryptocurrency is probably one of the worst inventions in recent memory.
> Cryptocurrency is probably one of the worst inventions in recent memory Keep in mind that not all Cryptocurrency use mining. Nano, for example, is zero fee, environmentally friendly coin that is incredibly fast. Bitcoin gets all the talk but there are some great and interesting tech out there. Get yourself a wallet ( https://natrium.io/ ) and I'll send you some so you can try it out. https://nano.org/
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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.
People absolutely do use bitcoin mining for heating. It's just not yet popular enough, and it makes sense only in certain climates.
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Bitcoin's at the same price today as it was on this date last year. Wen moon? Srsly: $40.8K on 8th Jan 2021 and 2022 https://www.statmuse.com/money/ask/bitcoin+price+jan+2021
Adjusting for inflation that is actually a loss year to date. S&P 500 was up 26 percent last year.
Bitcoin is 41 times higher in the same time period
Nasdaq is down 6% in a week
Bitcoin is up 4% in the last year, it was 40,254 on the 9th Jan 2020, and currently 41,766. Its lowest point in Dec 2019 was 6,540.05. Dec 2020 was 17,619.53. Dec 2021 was 42,874.62.
None of that really tells you anything about the relative worth or the direction.
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> 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…
> Did you sell any bitcoin you owned when up 70% and, if so, have we reached a bottom when it is optimal to buy back in? This is the ultimate investing question. What signals a top or a bottom? How do I sell just before the price falls and buy just before it climbs back up? Is there even an answer? There must be since there are literal trading bots out there making millions.
At some point of course that has to end, as everything based on exponential growth does.
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>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 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 to avoid credit card fees. 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 utili…
I don't see that as true. A short term boost followed by long term bust in many scenarios is not good for business. See payday loans. Mass murder is a payday loan to funeral directors, you get a little bit early now but a big loss in the long run from drop in reproductivity rate (and ultimately, long-run death rate) of the populace.
>Totally specious.
Here's an idea, if you don't like using electricity don't use. There's no single "right" way to use electricity. Your beef again seems to be with externalities of electricity use. So you probably hate video games and AI too, albeit proportionately less on CO2 output. And you probably hate those in cold climates keeping their houses near 70 in the winter even more than bitcoin.
> So you consider yourself a libertarian?
The attribution you made suggesting my libertarianism was your statement "Which is about all I expect from libertarians, to be fair." This is your words, not mine, directly replying to me. Ad hominem doesn't require the label to actually be accurate. I've never called myself a libertarian, although I'm sure some might label me that way. I call myself an anarchist but that's really the only political label I give to myself.
But really this is all your self aggrandization about your moral superiority to libertarians, because in reality tons of people, even liberals or socialists and even authoritarians (North Korea government) use crypto. Crypto isn't exclusive to a subset of libertarians.
>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.
Nah, 'weapons of war' aren't immoral. They're tools. Used to defend, or to aggress. Or maybe in my case, to put some holes in paper for enjoyment. Ever shot an SKS or an AK? Good fun. Even shot one at ISIS once, never felt bad about it but every once in awhile have a laugh at the fact I survived. They can be used for good or bad.
Yes I look at the F15 and see it like a hammer too. If aggressive fighter enters and bombs innocent people, I see it as fair game for that fighter getting blown out of the sky. The F15 isn't immoral, its use on the innocent is. Killing in self defense isn't immoral. Although sure the government and individuals in it have used the F15 immorally. Actually it's probably easier to use an F15 in a moral fashion than a larger bomber not as well suited for defensive fighting, although neither are immoral at face value.
>"greed is good" and "unregulated capitalism is the ideal" are libertarian tenets
Was selfishness the subject at hand? I don't see selfishness as bad, I see coercive selfishness as bad. Selfishly building a farm so you can make money with the effect others around you are fed is at least neutral and probably good. Using coercion to rob your neighbor is bad.
>I did include the unbanked and productive manufacturing (which you neglected to mention until now - are you a jeweler?)
I mentioned it because that's a large percentage of use of gold (going off memory here, but I think it's like 40%), for instance. Were you not aware of this? You know people use precious metals for different purposes right? For instance most platinum / palladium buyers are actually industrial rather than those perhaps seeking to hold on to it until manufacturers need it more and thus yielding a profit and providing market liquidity.
> But you have to assess a technology based on its overall effect
And your assessment is 'totally specious.'
> If somebody were to say "I don't like Jews and that's why I'm a nazi"
Not a fan of Nazis, but if someone simply calls themselves a Nazi and doesn't hurt any Jews or aggress on anyone then I call them a whacko not a bad person.
>Libertarianism is fundamentally about "fuck you got mine", which I find to be immoral.
This encompasses so much stupidity and naivety I don't know where to start. But I think you know more about libertarians than you give off, and you understand if we're (we're as in you an me, not we as in aforementioned libertarians) dumbing things down to your level socialism or democracy can be about "fuck you got mine" by those who vote to redistribute funds from the others to themselves, telling those who pay the tax "fuck you, got mine from the tax you paid."
No one gets their shoes shined anymore, but [1], [2]. In 15 years, everyone touting crypto now is going to be either: 1) bragging about how they got out before the wipeout 2) changing the subject [1] https://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archiv... [2] https://work4btc.com/the-shoeshine-boy-in-1929-and-my-co-wor...
Had you put $1k in at the peak in 2000 then you'd be below water for 12 years, but by now 22 years later you'd have $3300.
Had you instead dripped $50 in each year since 2000 you'd have $3500.
If you'd have put that $1k in a bank returning around the fed funds rate, you'd have about $1400. Dripping it in would be about $1300.
To be down over the course of 15 years, you'd have to go back to the 1926-1930. Even putting your entire life savings into the stock market on Jan 1st 1929 you'd be above water after 23 years, would have doubled your money in 30 years, and quadroupled it in 40 years.
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I'd argue the opposite, if the US government ceased to exist, the electrical grids in North America would collapse shortly thereafter, followed by the Internet and Bitcoin. No, there will just be temporary outages and prices these things (electrical grids, internet) will rise to extortionist levels as local authorities / militias take over. Just like they do in any other conflict zone in the world.
If a major superpower falls, adversarial superpowers will be the ones to move in to fill the power vacuum, not local tribal warlords. See Russia after the fall of the USSR, but before Putin.
I don't think you can say there's a general "rule" like this, throughout history. If anything the cases where these powers become straight-up subjugated from the outside (absent outright military invasion) are in the minority. Counter-examples abound, e.g. the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary, or Spain after the disaster of 1898.
See Russia after the fall of the USSR, but before Putin.
Post-Soviet Russia was weak for sure, but not a vassal state by any interpretation.