Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, yes, it's taking over traditional finance except they still haven't figured out how to make loans, but never mind that.
There are undercollaterized / no collateral loans on Ethereum. You can build a credit score using decentralized identities. But yeah, keep dismissing it. You'll eventually use Ethereum or something like it whether you want to or not.
Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip
221–230 of 688 posts
Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip
#222As an outside observer, who has no crypto holdings at all, but is very deeply invested in the public stock market with a heavy weight on technology stocks... this doesn't look like a crash to me at all. It just looks like some steam being let off and old investors cash out and new investors get more comfortable with how much and where to invest. I consider crypto currency as it is to be an elaborate Ponzi scheme (per…
Read up on what a ponzi scheme actually is. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/ponzischeme.asp#:~:text... . I'm so tired of people saying crypto is a ponzi scheme. Maybe you think it's nonsense, or a bad investment, but it is not a ponzi scheme. > A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud in which clients are promised a large profit at little to no risk. Companies that engage in a Ponzi scheme focus all of their energy…
But it is by definition not a "ponzi scheme" or "scam".
Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
My rational take is that Bitcoin's carbon footprint is more-or-less a direct function of its price. The market forces are such that you can expect mining to expand until, on average, each miner's expected reward is only a little bit higher than their electricity bill and hardware costs. If prices come down, that is going to encourage some miners to take capacity offline, which is probably great for anyone who's inter…
And you think China's going to shut down their coal plants and dismantle the train tracks carrying coal there just because the price of bitcoin drops? Or are they just going to use the pollution for something else?
However the world always needs more energy so the plants built will unfortunately continue operating in some other capacity for a while, but the sooner the mining stops, the sooner they will be replaced by renewables.
Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
But at least gold has some inherent value, crypto is just math that is worth whatever the buyers/sellers think it should be. Stock in a company that stays in business will never go to zero as the company always has some value due to having revenue, but crypto has no real world floor (though unlikely to actually get to zero since someone will always buy).
Silly comparison. Crypto holds value for its utility. Why do you seem to think that its utility will just vanish?
- they can be pumped and dumped without state oversight
- with the use of a tumbler, you can launder money pretty effectively (in fact we should stop calling them tumblers and start calling them money launderers, that's exactly what they are)
It's pretty obvious that this is bad for society. In addition, the transactions are extremely slow and wildly expensive--even without factoring in externalities like carbon burn. The price is extremely volatile. It's highly unavailable (ex: good luck getting your money if Coinbase goes down). The governing structures don't inspire confidence (look at ETH's PoW -> PoS, or BTC's block size debate).
Things don't have value simply because people decide they have value. This is a weird kind of tautology or circular reasoning based on a deep misunderstanding of markets. It's clearer to say that people price things based on a perception of value. Crypto seems like it does--a lot of people go around saying so--but unless you're a comic book villain, it doesn't.
However, things like gold or oil do! You can make electrical contacts out of gold. You can refine oil into fuel. Commodities have physical utility. BTC doesn't.
State-backed currencies also do! You can get pretty much anything for USD. You can get a great pint for GBP. This is because the states and entities producing those goods price them in currencies they can get other goods for, reliably. You can't reliably use BTC to get other goods, and you can't reliably say your BTC will hold the same value even minute to minute. Further, it's very likely your transaction fees will be more than the purchases you make.
Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip
#225BItocin has among the worst risk-adjusted returns of any investment. I would not touch it. NASDAQ 100 and or fang portfolio way better.
Why not have 5% or less in BTC, if it does well, good for you, if it does not, its just 5% of your portfolio.
Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip
#226Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are undercollaterized / no collateral loans on Ethereum. You can build a credit score using decentralized identities. But yeah, keep dismissing it. You'll eventually use Ethereum or something like it whether you want to or not.
undercollaterized loans are valid for one transaction only. You should research what you preach before dismissing others
Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip
#228Bitcoin is the ultimate, purely financial object. It has no revenues or profits. The supply is fixed -- unlike, say, gold, where high prices mean people will eventually start digging mines, BTC supply is entirely price-inelastic. The only thing that determines BTC price is demand. And over the past 13 years, we've seen reflexivity at work: The price has gone up, so more people want it, so the price goes up further, a…
BTC has substitutes in the altcoin sphere which can make similar claims to scarcity. So if BTC ends up being too illiquid and slow - build another coin.
Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If $SPY dropped 40% we'd all call it a crash. This isn't that different If $SPY was 40% up since last month, would that be normal? ETH is still currently higher than its value from April 19th. Cryptocurrency market is extremely volatile. This isn't that far from normal.
SPY is up 50% since 2019 (pre covid crash). As someone partially invested in index ETFs, this worries me. Index funds aren't supposed to be nitro, they are supposed to be slow and plodding, and 10% annual is supposed to be huge. I think major indices should be nice, slow, inertial gains from ~6-7% annual, tops. Why? When at any point as an engineer or a scientist have you observed large exponential growth to be susta…
what on _earth_ do you think 6-7% a year is? that's exponential growth.
> SPY is up 50% since 2019 (pre covid crash). [...] Index funds aren't supposed to be nitro, they are supposed to be slow and plodding, and 10% annual is supposed to be huge. I think major indices should be nice, slow, inertial gains from ~6-7% annual, tops.
you've confused long-term averages with short term behavior.
the market gets its 6-10% annual by going up a lot when it does, to make up for the years where it goes down, or just moves sideways.
Re: Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder what % of our Economic stimulus was used to buy crypto, and how much of that money has simply disappeared over the past 24 hours.
It wouldn't disappear, money is just changing hands. Bitcoin doesn't add or destroy any value, it's just a speculative way of zero-sum trade. When you buy bitcoin, someone else gets your money.