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Is this the end of crypto?

economist.com

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Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#241

Post by feet »

tim333 wrote: post #236
compsciphd wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go a step further with the comparison to gold. If everyone would stop mining gold today, gold would retain value (or perhaps even go up in value). On the flipside, if we turned off all bitcoin miners today, bitcoin would go to zero instantly (as its worthless without continuous resources being pumped into it). This is why I'm sympathetic to those who say its ponzi scheme, it only has value because of new resource…

Nitpicking but >if we turned off all bitcoin miners today, bitcoin would go to zero instantly isn't true. You couldn't trade them normally with the miners off but you could start mining up the day after - it only takes a couple of computers really.

Turning mining back on is entirely changing the parent's statement.

"Well yea you could do that change to tank the value, but imagine if you just undid it huh???"

The point was without mining entirely, there is no value

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#242

Post by web3isgoing »

SoftTalker wrote: post #225
philippejara wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it stands, without crypto, you are pretty much a hostage to visa, mastercard, discover, and amex to exchange money effectively, and those companies are opinionated to a disturbing extent about who they deny business with when it comes to something so important. While those companies are not operated as some sort of common carrier of transactions crypto is essential for a free global society. Apparently Trump of al…

What happened to cash? While I don't use it a lot anymore myself, I'm struggling to think of any service or product I use whose provider would not happily accept cash as payment. There are more than a couple of small restaurants here that only accept cash. My barber only accepts cash.

Depends where you live. Most developed countries are moving away from cash. Some already have.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#243

Post by web3isgoing »

hellotomyrars wrote: post #179
Animats wrote: post #133

China has shut down every crypto asset activity in China that they can find.[1] The hammer came down in 2021. Mining farms had their power cut, and several hundred people were arrested. (There's a "digital yuan", but that's a payment system run by the People's Bank of China.) So a big part of the world has already ended crypto as an asset class. [1] https://coinpedia.org/cryptocurrency-regulation/cryptocurren...

I think this is a major contributing factor in why crypto isn’t going to work.

I can’t think of anything else that China is attempting to restrict that the rest of the developed world is open to.

Edit: perhaps need a /s tag here.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#244

Post by DennisP »

SoftTalker wrote: post #225
philippejara wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it stands, without crypto, you are pretty much a hostage to visa, mastercard, discover, and amex to exchange money effectively, and those companies are opinionated to a disturbing extent about who they deny business with when it comes to something so important. While those companies are not operated as some sort of common carrier of transactions crypto is essential for a free global society. Apparently Trump of al…

What happened to cash? While I don't use it a lot anymore myself, I'm struggling to think of any service or product I use whose provider would not happily accept cash as payment. There are more than a couple of small restaurants here that only accept cash. My barber only accepts cash.

Cash is risky for any business or charity that's not physically nearby.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#245

Post by randomdata »

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #106
cooljacob204 wrote: post #11

When Crypto was young it was this cool new technology that mostly interesting because of the underlying tech. But even back then it was mostly valuable for buying drugs online and other illegal stuff. Now it's that and a way to scam people of their life savings. I do hope it dies out, it should have been heavily regulated from the get go. Way too many people saw these high production commercials with their favorite c…

When bitcoin first came onto the scene I personally knew a guy who was running a website to act as an exchange. It was small because bitcoin itself at that time was very small. Then bitcoin had its very first dip and it became unprofitable to mine bitcoins. When that happened he shuttered the website and kept everyone's bitcoins. I knew of bitcoin early on due to this guy, but even then I had no interest and consider…

> It's not possible for the value of gold to go to zero

The price might go to zero, though. The price of oil, which is arguably more useful than gold, went negative a couple of years back. Having intrinsic value doesn't necessarily mean it is exchangeable, especially if it needs to be exchanged at a given moment in time.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#246

Post by agentultra »

strix_varius wrote: post #233
agentultra wrote: post #44

It will continue to fall under increased scrutiny and market regulation until it's no longer profitable to run any kind of financial system on it. There will still be believers and people who will throw money at it and try. But I think they will have a harder time convincing investors going forward. I suspect it will end up mirroring the MLM market: still there, still profitable for a few, but depends largely on an u…

I would argue it's already Avon for tech bros. That $10,000 Avon "investment" by a teacher making $30k is similar to a $100,000 crypto "investment" by a tech bro making $300k.

Trying to imagine Bloomberg managing an Avon market analysis dashboard and reporting on every peak and drop.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#247

Post by lend000 »

web3isgoing wrote: post #243
hellotomyrars wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a major contributing factor in why crypto isn’t going to work.

I can’t think of anything else that China is attempting to restrict that the rest of the developed world is open to. Edit: perhaps need a /s tag here.

Being an Uyghur? Freedom of speech? Encryption? The coronavirus (still)?

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#249

Post by AlwaysRock »

Animats wrote: post #133

China has shut down every crypto asset activity in China that they can find.[1] The hammer came down in 2021. Mining farms had their power cut, and several hundred people were arrested. (There's a "digital yuan", but that's a payment system run by the People's Bank of China.) So a big part of the world has already ended crypto as an asset class. [1] https://coinpedia.org/cryptocurrency-regulation/cryptocurren...

Isnt this just one of those headlines that isnt really true though? Like that China banned video games for kids?

From the same comic sansesk article you posted:

"Even though crypto-mining cracked down in China many miners have come out with several ways to continue the operations and escape detection. Twenty percent of the bitcoin network remains in China according to experts’ report."

Doesnt exactly seem like they have ended crypto if 20% of the bitcoin network remains there. It sounds like they cracked down on some and let others keep running.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#250

Post by Sargos »

runarberg wrote: post #230
ls15 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All the efforts pushing cryptocurrency for this particular niche would be better served pushing for international standards for cheap and simple instant money transfers. That seems impossible given today's geopolitics. Crypto remittance at least works.

Maybe that is true of transferring money between USA and Russia, or between USA and the EU, or the USA and any other country outside of Canada and Mexico, but there is no reason that the UK and Argentina don’t have a bilateral agreement in place that would make transferring money between the two countries quick, cheap, and easy.

>there is no reason that the UK and Argentina don’t have a bilateral agreement in place that would make transferring money between the two countries quick, cheap, and easy.

This may be true but the fact is there is no such agreement and therefore the friction remains. Crypto at least provides a universal low friction option to everyone with no need for disinterested political groups to spend precious time to take action.

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