Crypto is an unproductive bubble • Hacker News Board

Re: Crypto is an unproductive bubble

#511

Post by lern_too_spel » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #508

lern_too_spel wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a random Ukrainian citizen in Russia, you can buy assets outside Russia and have your wealth on the other side before the sanctions. The fact that you can buy Bitcoin in Russia from other Russians and leave is only a temporary workaround with Russia not yet regulating it. People consistently mistake the fact that Bitcoin hasn't been regulated with the idea that Bitcoin can't be regulated, which is false.

It’s harder to regulate and easier to buy than assets outside of Russia. This is probably why Chinese wealth leverages it to get around attempted controls by the ccp despite regulation.

> It’s harder to regulate

Why? It is just as easy to regulate as any other tracked asset. Physical items are much harder to regulate.

China simply hasn't started enforcement.

Re: Crypto is an unproductive bubble

#512

Post by benoketamad » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

FridgeSeal wrote: post #406

mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to indiscriminately start beheading technology which uses energy why not start with vehicles, video games, machine learning, or anything at all? Its because in order to ask whether something should use energy you must first ask whether its worth it, and your sophistication when it comes to crypto-currencies, finance, and economics is too weak to have that conversation: ergo, you resort to zero value,…

Because vehicles bring value (transport people, food, resources, etc) and have energy optimisations (mass transit, electric, etc) because the energy use as a gatekeeper is not an inherent part of its functionality. I’d be shocked if video games as an industry outranked crypto for energy use. Even if we assume all gamers run their GPU’s at 100% the entire time they play games, miners will quickly dwarf the energy usag…

Well, fiat money has no backing whatsoever. A while ago the USD was backed by gold, nowadays it is backed by faith, just like any other fiat currency.

Let this sink in: crypto is money that is backed by energy. Finally a money that is backed by some tangible thing. The systems providing it might be suboptimal, but the basic premise, that this is finally backed by a universally accepted thing, energy, is absolutely perfect.

Just like coal is concentrated sunlight, crypto money is concentrated energy.

Thassal.

Re: Crypto is an unproductive bubble

#513

Post by gonehome » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #511

gonehome wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s harder to regulate and easier to buy than assets outside of Russia. This is probably why Chinese wealth leverages it to get around attempted controls by the ccp despite regulation.

> It’s harder to regulate Why? It is just as easy to regulate as any other tracked asset. Physical items are much harder to regulate. China simply hasn't started enforcement.

It’s harder to enforce regulations for self-custody crypto than it is to enforce regulations on centralized banks that hold wealth for you.

Mostly because it’s harder to confiscate (more akin to a physical item in your possession)

Re: Crypto is an unproductive bubble

#514

Post by ecocentrik » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 6:01 PM UTC

Crypto fails a few key platform viability indicators. New and exciting platforms tend to attract business creators that create outward facing services at a rate that is significantly higher than crypto ever has. It's fairly telling how few truly clever people will go anywhere near crypto for any reason other than quick value extraction. The art sales market looks like engineered market depth with a slice of window dressing. I'd love to see how artists give up on the platform over the course of the bear market. It seems like most already have.

Re: Crypto is an unproductive bubble

#515

Post by lottin » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 7:17 PM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #507

lottin wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, just don't call it the future of money. A form of money that is worse at everything except clandestine transactions is not the future of money. Regarding the supposed guarantees of limited supply, this is both irrelevant and factually wrong. The issuer of a currency (e.g. a central bank, or the "bitcoin protocol" in the case of bitcoin) does not control the supply of the currency. This is because fractional res…

I didn’t call it the future of money. Limited supply is not irrelevant or “factually wrong” for a long term store of value (like gold) which is more the role BTC plays specifically.

Gold isn't particularly attractive as a store of value. Historically it's lost value over long periods (see [1]). And bitcoin is likely to do worse than gold, because it's a purely virtual asset that relies entirely on a particular technology, and therefore is liable to become obsolescent eventually.

[1] https://static.wixstatic.com/media/e17377_2a348fd21fc543f9a0...

Re: Crypto is an unproductive bubble

#516

Post by gonehome » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 7:58 PM UTC

lottin wrote: post #515

gonehome wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t call it the future of money. Limited supply is not irrelevant or “factually wrong” for a long term store of value (like gold) which is more the role BTC plays specifically.

Gold isn't particularly attractive as a store of value. Historically it's lost value over long periods (see [1]). And bitcoin is likely to do worse than gold, because it's a purely virtual asset that relies entirely on a particular technology, and therefore is liable to become obsolescent eventually. [1] https://static.wixstatic.com/media/e17377_2a348fd21fc543f9a0...

I’m assuming good faith, but I feel like you’re intentionally ignoring and redirecting away to prove some existing conclusion.

We’re talking about advantages and capabilities - specifically granted by crypto of which self-custody is a prerequisite (yes technically true of stock, but not indexes and not as comparable). Within that context it has advantages over other options and more capabilities.

I’m not pretending it’s better at everything or it should be 100% of your holdings or anything like that, but it is better at some things and the new capabilities it provides are interesting and valuable.

That chart is a limited slice of time. The nice thing about economic bets is it doesn’t really matter what you (or I) think, the market will play it out. I suspect you’re probably wrong, but we’ll see.

Re: Crypto is an unproductive bubble

#517

Post by mattwilsonn888 » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 9:23 PM UTC

amon22 wrote: post #449

jakupovic wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alm you're doing here is measuring what you think the benefits to the society are from cars vs bitcoin. Just because it is useless in your opinion does not make it so, and you should qualify your statements with, "in my opinion", rather than saying this with absolute conviction.

Crypto in it's current form is indeed useless.

Not according to the market. What makes you think you can make such a claim in stark contrast (even if you believe a large portion is frivolous speculation) to the market?

Re: Crypto is an unproductive bubble

#518

Post by mattwilsonn888 » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 9:30 PM UTC

FridgeSeal wrote: post #406

mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to indiscriminately start beheading technology which uses energy why not start with vehicles, video games, machine learning, or anything at all? Its because in order to ask whether something should use energy you must first ask whether its worth it, and your sophistication when it comes to crypto-currencies, finance, and economics is too weak to have that conversation: ergo, you resort to zero value,…

Because vehicles bring value (transport people, food, resources, etc) and have energy optimisations (mass transit, electric, etc) because the energy use as a gatekeeper is not an inherent part of its functionality. I’d be shocked if video games as an industry outranked crypto for energy use. Even if we assume all gamers run their GPU’s at 100% the entire time they play games, miners will quickly dwarf the energy usag…

> Because vehicles bring value

So you must now convince people why crypto does not bring value, which first requires coherently stating the argument for why it does - which most skeptics fail and which you have not attempted.

> I'd be shocked if video games as an industry outranked crypto for energy use

The point is that they use energy, and is that energy worth the benefit? No one brings that up when discussing climate - so an ignorance of the value crypto can bring must be the source rather than genuine bookkeeping on value vs. energy usage. If we are really cutting back than I don't see how most video games have any place in our electric grid.

> Machine Learning is computationally expensive, but unlike crypto, is basically constantly trying to make their systems faster and more efficient all the time.

Unlike crypto? This is why skeptics like you get ridiculed. Spending two days researching crypto will reveal that most of the market which isn't into simply holding Bitcoin and waiting or DeFi schemes is solely focused on making ledgers more efficient.

> scaling current crypto up to that levels would bring its energy use to astronomical levels.

Again raw ignorance of the technology, economics and logistics of it all drives your thinking. Layered, custodial approaches, PoS advancements and why that all works seem to be beyond what you understand about the space despite your persistent pontification about the direction it should be heading.

Re: Crypto is an unproductive bubble

#519

Post by lottin » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 9:49 PM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #516

lottin wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold isn't particularly attractive as a store of value. Historically it's lost value over long periods (see [1]). And bitcoin is likely to do worse than gold, because it's a purely virtual asset that relies entirely on a particular technology, and therefore is liable to become obsolescent eventually. [1] https://static.wixstatic.com/media/e17377_2a348fd21fc543f9a0...

I’m assuming good faith, but I feel like you’re intentionally ignoring and redirecting away to prove some existing conclusion. We’re talking about advantages and capabilities - specifically granted by crypto of which self-custody is a prerequisite (yes technically true of stock, but not indexes and not as comparable). Within that context it has advantages over other options and more capabilities. I’m not pretending i…

A "limited slice of time" comprising of the last 200 years. It provides pretty damning evidence against gold (and by extension against virtual commodities that are purported to be gold-like).

Re: Crypto is an unproductive bubble

#520

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 1:25 AM UTC

lottin wrote: post #519

gonehome wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m assuming good faith, but I feel like you’re intentionally ignoring and redirecting away to prove some existing conclusion. We’re talking about advantages and capabilities - specifically granted by crypto of which self-custody is a prerequisite (yes technically true of stock, but not indexes and not as comparable). Within that context it has advantages over other options and more capabilities. I’m not pretending i…

A "limited slice of time" comprising of the last 200 years. It provides pretty damning evidence against gold (and by extension against virtual commodities that are purported to be gold-like).

[deleted]