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Is this the end of crypto?

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Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#371

Post by mikhael28 »

Zaskoda wrote: post #209
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…

There's this unfortunate mixing up of the technology, the community, and the bad actors within the community. Ultimately, more crime gets committed with USD than with cryptocurrencies, yet we don't blame the dollars for those crime the way we blame crypto. There's a bigger paradigm here that I believe few people understand and that I will desperate attempt to explain. I may be about to write a word salad, but here's…

What was the last thing you bought with Bitcoin or Lightning? That was over the nominal value of $1?

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#372

Post by kragen »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #361
kragen wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, as I explained, savings is a demand for Bitcoin that isn't the same thing as "hopes and dreams of getting rich someday". Just having an asset that doesn't reliably evaporate like the peso or the bolivar is a pretty big win already, even if you aren't going to get rich. Another important use case that I didn't mention is leaving the country to live somewhere better. Suppose you've saved up money in, to use examp…

Are you concerned about the falling ratio of Bitcoin to USD? Or is the hope that this storm removes a lot of the scam artists/ponzi schemes and the ratio stabilizes in a way? Edit to add: it seems like the relative ratio doesn't matter much for the scenarios you describe because it is much better than the swings in local currency compared to USD.

Bitcoin has in fact lost more value than the Argentine peso (or any other fiat currency) over the last year, and this is its largest fall ever (it has fallen over 70% twice before, but I think this is the first time it's ever fallen 73%), and this is a big concern for its use as a savings vehicle, though only a minor inconvenience for its use for international remittances.

Also, because the US$ has itself lost about 10% of its value over that last year, the fall is even worse in real terms than in nominal terms, closer to 75%.

Over other periods of time, like the last two years or the last six months, this is not the case (that is, the peso has done worse than Bitcoin over those periods), and certainly anyone with savings in Bitcoin is hoping that a year from now it is at or near its current value, or even above it, rather than having fallen another 70% to US$4500. But it could. There is no guarantee, and my observation of periods of past Bitcoin volatility does not make me optimistic that scam artists will go away as a result.

There is no prospect that the peso will have equal or higher value a year from now; both the general dynamics of central-bank-controlled fiat currencies and the specific pathologies of Argentina militate strongly against it. The long-run expected value of the peso is zero — it's not a question of whether it will inflate over time, just how fast. Plausibly ruining the peso's usefulness as a unit of long-term account or a vehicle for savings is a worthwhile tradeoff for improving its usefulness as a medium of exchange; that opinion certainly has widespread acceptance among economists.

So clearly anyone who invests their savings in pesos will inherit the wind; it's possible that whoever invests their savings in Bitcoin will as well.

But maybe not.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#373

Post by saalweachter »

pseudostem wrote: post #223
azangru wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 considered it bullshit. Then when I saw what this guy did it just solidified my opinion that it can't be trusted. But isn't it instead an early lesson in "not your keys not your coin" maxim that Bitcoin advocates preach? > If the value of gold crashes it still h…

>it's bulky Slight nitpick, Total gold above the earth's surface is less than a cube with sides 25 metres each.

The weird thing to me is that the total mass of silver mined is only about 8x the total mass of silver, but the price spread is 80x.

Copper is much more abundant, over 400x more copper than silver has been mined, but silver is almost as scarce as gold. It really seems like the price spread should be closer.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#374

Post by wizofaus »

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…

I don't think I've ever seen a convincing argument that the physical "usefulness" of gold is a significant factor behind its market value. The closest is the argument that it's useful as marker for indicating wealth/status/privilege, because of its rarity (and obviously the skill involved in crafting it into various ornaments/utensils etc.). But yes, arguably more useful than cryptocurrency (where there's value in the concept of a distributed cryptographically-backed ledger, and the software that exists to support it, but not really in any individual unit of a cryptographic currency). Then again, there's really no absolute utility in units of fiat-issued currency either - it just happens to be the only sort of currency that governments accept for paying taxes (therefore necessary for keeping yourself out of jail).

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#376

Post by livueta »

Spivak wrote: post #327
ignoramous wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crypto as a currency - I can't directly buy food, water, shelter, transportation, energy, or anything fundamental with it. Cryptocurrency payments is a flourishing market, btw.

Where? I don't mean this as snark. Are there any household brands that actually accept crpyto?

I think household brands are the exact opposite of where there's been movement: ime, it's concentrated in spaces where there's a need or incentive to dodge moralistic payment processing cartels. The classic example is obviously DNMs, but it is expanding into areas that are legal but difficult to process payments for, like firearm parts or porn. Since those payment processors are, if anything, getting more opinionated, I bet that trend will continue, along with the "I personally disapprove of or do not require the utility provided by the technology, so I will claim it has no utility at all" arguments.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#377

Post by latchkey »

dragontamer wrote: post #367
latchkey wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are multiple liquid ETH staking pools where you deposit your ETH and get their token in return. You don't even need the full 32. https://ethereum.org/en/staking/pools/ These tokens have also been trading at discounts to ETH if you want to just buy and hold the token, which should eventually reach parity to ETH. That can also be an additional gain, but incurs additional risk.

> which should eventually reach parity to ETH You're ignoring the issue here. When I'm talking Fed Rate, its _OVERNIGHT LENDING_. Its not "eventually reach parity with dollar", its "this will turn into a real dollar tomorrow". Its a loan that is as safe as you can possibly get. You're trying to compare Ethereum staking with the Fed's overnight lending. The risk/reward structures at play here are completely different.…

> You're trying to compare Ethereum staking with the Fed's overnight lending.

I don't know how you're drawing that conclusion from my comment.

I am responding to your comment about coinbase and suggesting that they aren't the only product on the market. I also wanted to point out the fact that there are other actually liquid solutions to eth staking.

The coinbase product is more like staking as a service, but centralized, and not recommended.

https://ethereum.org/en/staking/#how-to-stake-your-eth

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#378

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

wizofaus wrote: post #374
P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think I've ever seen a convincing argument that the physical "usefulness" of gold is a significant factor behind its market value. The closest is the argument that it's useful as marker for indicating wealth/status/privilege, because of its rarity (and obviously the skill involved in crafting it into various ornaments/utensils etc.). But yes, arguably more useful than cryptocurrency (where there's value in th…

The point is that gold is useful, crypto-coins are not.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#380

Post by runarberg »

vaxintar wrote: post #252
runarberg wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people here agree that it is unnecessarily hard and expensive to transfer money between countries. However cryptocurrency is a technological solution to a regulatory problem. This issue could be solved tomorrow by legislation if governments would cooperate and work to do so. All the efforts pushing cryptocurrency for this particular niche would be better served pushing for international standards for che…

>This issue could be solved tomorrow by legislation if governments would cooperate and work to do so. Again, many countries around the globe don't have a functional government capable of produce such legislation _tomorrow_.

GP was talking about Argentina and the UK. Both have pretty functioning governments, and pretty stable relation. This could easily be solved for most people today. Even China and India have stable governments that pass legislation and adopt international standards. You will only find exceptions in places like the USA, Iran and Russia. However most people don’t live there.
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