Bitcoin and other Crypto...

[Red Phoenix]

I find this interesting if accurate : Bitcoin Mining Consumes Less Energy Than Gaming, Reveals Report

 

Mainly because on that chart gaming only uses slightly more than Bitcoin mining does. I thought gaming would use way, way more than that around the world. I do get that Bitcoin mining can be a problem, especially if scaled right up by going more mainstream and if our energy sources aren't improved. I'd prefer to be optimistic though and hope we switch to better energy more. Ukraine/Russia, the resulting sanctions and energy prices have hopefully made that a lot more of a focus from now on too.

 

I'm not obsessed with Bitcoin over anything else either, there's several different ways of running crypto and Ethereum is currently one of those examples with proof of stake, even if it's not the best. That has more centralisation problems though I think so maybe there's going to be a few more different attempts at crypto systems before we finally work out what's best.

 

edit - this is from a more recent Ethereum article :

 

Quote

Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency, has completed a plan to reduce its carbon emissions by more than 99%.

The software upgrade, known as “the merge”, will change how transactions are managed on the ethereum blockchain, a public and decentralised ledger that underpins the cryptocurrency and generates ether tokens, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency after bitcoin.

 

Ethereum cryptocurrency completes move to cut CO2 output by 99%

 

[Bob]

1 hour ago, Red Phoenix said:

 

That's great and hope it goes well. As for not creating shit we have to offset, that's just part of us being Human and creative I think. The best solution is surely going to be focusing on transforming our energy sources so that those creations are using better energy from the off instead of us trying not to be as creative and limiting energy usage.

Just jumping in here quickly as someone that has made a small amount of money previously with this stuff but absolutely never understood it, but does understand the green side, Karl is mostly right in my opinion.

 

the aviation example is an understandable one to go to, however I reject that a bit too. Many of the airlines have been very much greenwashing but actually most are now working very hard and spending lots of money to try and find solutions to difficult decarbonisation challenges, while also being wanted and needed for the welfare of millions of people. Travel for holidays is hugely beneficial for the human race, as is travel to visit families etc. Tourism also provides huge global employment levels and is a main source of GDP in many developing countries. That said, Airline carbon emissions are a problem and we should all fly less generally to reduce demand, obviously, and the airlines should work hard to decarbonise also.

 

Crypto mining is gold rush in the Wild West in comparison by the look of things. It’s fighting over short term positions to maximise profits and potential for profits for little clear need beyond money.

 

blockchain technologies will be a huge part of our future world and I imagine some of those technologies and solutions which we come to rely on will likely be improved as a result of the crypto boom, but only the way things we have today came from development of war machines which killed millions in WW1 and WW2.

[Red Phoenix]

8 hours ago, Bob Spunkmouse said:

Just jumping in here quickly as someone that has made a small amount of money previously with this stuff but absolutely never understood it, but does understand the green side, Karl is mostly right in my opinion.

 

the aviation example is an understandable one to go to, however I reject that a bit too. Many of the airlines have been very much greenwashing but actually most are now working very hard and spending lots of money to try and find solutions to difficult decarbonisation challenges, while also being wanted and needed for the welfare of millions of people. Travel for holidays is hugely beneficial for the human race, as is travel to visit families etc. Tourism also provides huge global employment levels and is a main source of GDP in many developing countries. That said, Airline carbon emissions are a problem and we should all fly less generally to reduce demand, obviously, and the airlines should work hard to decarbonise also.

 

Crypto mining is gold rush in the Wild West in comparison by the look of things. It’s fighting over short term positions to maximise profits and potential for profits for little clear need beyond money.

 

blockchain technologies will be a huge part of our future world and I imagine some of those technologies and solutions which we come to rely on will likely be improved as a result of the crypto boom, but only the way things we have today came from development of war machines which killed millions in WW1 and WW2.

 

I can understand several of your points, same with Karl too. It probably didn't help when I saw "Cryptocurrency is a fucking scam and doesn't need to exist in the first place" in Karl's first response after the tweet I posted though. Crypto is useful for people in other countries that have issues with the banking system/inflation/sanctions as well. Telling them that it shouldn't exist and that it's gambling/a scam probably won't help much. A couple of articles on that here but many more can be found searching around I think.

 

As Venezuela's economy regresses, crypto fills the gaps

 

Crypto Is Quietly Thriving in Sub-Saharan Africa: Chainalysis Report

[Bob]

I’d say with a huge lack of regulation and controls, and massive opportunity for market manipulation, the thriving crypto markets in developing countries is a major concern for those people feeling reliant on them.

 

I hope they don’t suffer.

[Red Phoenix]

39 minutes ago, Bob Spunkmouse said:

I’d say with a huge lack of regulation and controls, and massive opportunity for market manipulation, the thriving crypto markets in developing countries is a major concern for those people feeling reliant on them.

 

I hope they don’t suffer.

 

Yeah I've thought similar too. It's not so bad holding some after getting it with spare cash and watching the prices go up and down, different story if you're relying on it though obviously.

[Elite]

I've signed up to a Plutus card for every day spending. £5 a month. 

 

2 perks (including Spotify, Netflix, Disney, Amazon Prime or £10 free at Tesco every month)

 

Plus 3% cashback on spending (Upto £2000 spend per month).

 

 Worth it for the subscriptions alone.

[TheHowieLama]

1 hour ago, Red Phoenix said:

different story if you're relying on it though obviously.

You mean like actually money?

[Red Phoenix]

6 hours ago, TheHowieLama said:

You mean like actually money?

 

Bitcoin often rises and falls depending on what US stock markets do and almost every crypto coin follows bitcoin. I hope it does well over time and last got some recently, I don't ever remember saying that crypto as it currently stands is best as a form of stable currency though. I do hope bitcoin decouples from US stocks more over time and that in turn other crypto coins decouple from bitcoin more. It can all be manipulated too easily and it's one of the main weak points. There's not many things that unite govs of the East and West too but disliking bitcoin/crypto is one I think so it's probably going to be volatile for a good while yet.

[ZonkoVille77]

On 10/01/2023 at 07:36, Bob Spunkmouse said:

Crypto mining is gold rush in the Wild West in comparison by the look of things. It’s fighting over short term positions to maximise profits and potential for profits for little clear need beyond money.

 

 

Crypto is ultimately another transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Poor guys at the bottom gambling to get rich and the ones at the top gain most. As usual. It's a gold rush except there's no gold and nothing tangible to hold at the end of it all.

 

Did I buy some? Yes. Did I make a fortune no? It's just another method of gambling - pure speculation with no real use.

[Red Phoenix]

50 minutes ago, ZonkoVille77 said:

It's just another method of gambling - pure speculation with no real use.

 

It has use if enough people believe in having a system not ran by central bankers and governments, they carry on using it for payments and the network doesn't get taken over or crash. Money, stock markets, metals, etc, only carry on because people decide they're worth using. If enough people decide they no longer believe in any of them they'll all come to an end. We've used fiat money for long enough and been ok with carrying on using it yet this is still the case and I don't see people dumping cash because it's a ponzi :

 

Quote

By the broadest defin­i­tion of a Ponzi scheme, the entire global banking system is a Ponzi scheme.

 

Firstly, fiat currency is an artifi­cial commodity, in a certain sense. A dollar, in and of itself, is just an object made out of paper, or repre­sented on a digital bank ledger. Same for the euro, the yen, and other curren­cies. It pays no cash flows on its own, although insti­tu­tions that hold it for you might be willing to pay you a yield (or, in some cases, could charge you a negative yield). When we do work or sell something to acquire dollars, we do so only with the belief that its large network effect (including a legal/government network effect) will ensure that we can take these pieces of paper and give them to someone else for something of value.

 

Secondly, when we organize these pieces of paper and their digital repre­sen­ta­tions in a fractional-reserve banking system, we add another compli­cated layer. If about 20% of people were to try to pull their money out of their bank at the same time, the banking system would collapse. Or more realis­ti­cally, the banks would just say “no” to your withdrawal, because they don’t have the cash. This happened to some US banks in early 2020 during the pandemic shutdown, and occurs regularly around the world.

 

That’s actually one of the SEC’s red flags of a Ponzi scheme: diffi­culty receiving payments.

 

Why Bitcoin is Not a Ponzi Scheme: Point by Point

 

Bitcoin literally works because the network is still going after all these years and enough people decide it's worth carrying on with. Just because it's volatile it doesn't render it worthless.

[Red Phoenix]

At the same time I'm not trying to make out like bitcoin is some type of flawless thing that's never going to fail. Hardly anyone really believes that about anything though. That's why I focus on people giving it the worth it has and I'm mentioning bitcoin seeing as currently, the entire crypto system depends on bitcoin doing well.

 

I do have concerns though :

 

- Like I said, bitcoin can be seen as a single point of failure for the entire crypto market. I hope this changes over time.

 

- It could eventually be hacked in some way. Just because people say it's really difficult for anyone to ever have the resources to hack it, it doesn't mean that it'll never happen.

 

- Governments could simply shut it down. They could decide they've had enough of the competition to their fiat schemes, pump out tons of propaganda and distorted info and then say people can't use it. But can they do it all over the planet at the same time? If not what happens when other countries carry on using it, especially if it works fine for them?

 

- Like Karl says, it has environmental issues. I don't tend to only blame something like bitcoin for that though and think that it's also the responsibility of governments to make sure that we're transitioning to better energy sources. It's them that have failed us so far, I don't see why bitcoin and similar coins should take the fall for that. The main issue here is if it scales massively and we don't change our energy usage enough, and that could become more apparent over time. Governments whining about it though are the ones that are in the main position to help us change what energy we use and they could also encourage crypto people to use different sources instead of being constantly negative. Maybe they're too addicted to helping oil and gas corps out though and things like bitcoin partly expose that.

 

So I don't think it's perfect and it could eventually fail, for now though it seems to be working ok and I hope that the energy situation is gradually resolved well enough as we move to renewables more. If not there's several other forms of crypto using proof of stake so the environment argument falls apart there and they'll have to come up with some other complaint.

[ZonkoVille77]

28 minutes ago, Red Phoenix said:

 

It has use if enough people believe in having a system not ran by central bankers and governments, they carry on using it for payments and the network doesn't get taken over or crash. Money, stock markets, metals, etc, only carry on because people decide they're worth using. If enough people decide they no longer believe in any of them they'll all come to an end. We've used fiat money for long enough and been ok with carrying on using it yet this is still the case and I don't see people dumping cash because it's a ponzi :

 

 

Why Bitcoin is Not a Ponzi Scheme: Point by Point

 

Bitcoin literally works because the network is still going after all these years and enough people decide it's worth carrying on with. Just because it's volatile it doesn't render it worthless.

 

Bitcoin *might* have a use, but not if most of it is owed by rich entities. Which is exactly what's happening now.

You can bang on about central bankers and governments, trust etc. But there's more fraud in Crypto at the moment than on the stock exchange.

 

When I said it was gambling, it is. Especially the other "Tokens" and what not. Invented to pump and dump. There isn't a single use for any of them.

 

Blockchain tech has been around for about 30 years or more.

Here's an example of how that's going.

 

https://www.reuters.com/markets/australian-stock-exchanges-blockchain-failure-burns-market-trust-2022-12-20/

[TheHowieLama]

Bitcoin was invented by crooks to make untraceable payments to crooks. That is it's function.

[Red Phoenix]

Sorry, fixed a bunch of typos in my last post.

 

13 minutes ago, ZonkoVille77 said:

 

Bitcoin *might* have a use, but not if most of it is owed by rich entities. Which is exactly what's happening now.

You can bang on about central bankers and governments, trust etc. But there's more fraud in Crypto at the moment than on the stock exchange.

 

When I said it was gambling, it is. Especially the other "Tokens" and what not. Invented to pump and dump. There isn't a single use for any of them.

 

Blockchain tech has been around for about 30 years or more.

Here's an example of how that's going.

 

https://www.reuters.com/markets/australian-stock-exchanges-blockchain-failure-burns-market-trust-2022-12-20/

 

The article states itself that the thing was screwed up by dysfunctional management and a lack of experts. So maybe with those problems resolved it would've gone a lot better. I don't think that's blockchain's fault.

 

And of course there's tons of scammers in crypto and pump and dump coins that are pointless apart from making scammers some cash. It doesn't mean crypto itself should only be associated with those clowns though. Bitcoin, litecoin, ethereum have been going on reliably enough for a good while now along with some others and I hope that carries on.

[ZonkoVille77]

This is why its no use @Red Phoenix

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://cryptonews.com/exclusives/who-owns-the-most-bitcoin.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Red Phoenix]

50 minutes ago, ZonkoVille77 said:

This is why its no use @Red Phoenix

 

https://cryptonews.com/exclusives/who-owns-the-most-bitcoin.htm

 

 

 

It's only no use if those people are going to crash the market selling at some point and then bitcoin doesn't recover. It's not certain that Satoshi has 1 mil of them either I don't think, and we have no idea if he/she's still around or if he/she still has access to all of those coins. Even if Satoshi never uses any coins though I agree that the rest of the list there could cause some real chaos with bitcoin in the future if they wanted to. If it doesn't become less popular though and there aren't other problems, I'd guess that after one or more of them dump their coins people will be buying cheaper bitcoin not long after and moving it back up again.

[ZonkoVille77]

Just so happened to come across this podcast this evening. Worth a listen @Red Phoenix

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Colonel Bumcunt]

5 hours ago, TheHowieLama said:

Bitcoin was invented by crooks to make untraceable payments to crooks. That is it's function.

That's why ultimately it will succeed. 

[Red Phoenix]

1 hour ago, ZonkoVille77 said:

Just so happened to come across this podcast this evening. Worth a listen @Red Phoenix

 

 

 

 

Thanks, will bookmark and listen later.

[Red Shift]

On 11/01/2023 at 07:28, Elite said:

I've signed up to a Plutus card for every day spending. £5 a month. 

 

2 perks (including Spotify, Netflix, Disney, Amazon Prime or £10 free at Tesco every month)

 

Plus 3% cashback on spending (Upto £2000 spend per month).

 

 Worth it for the subscriptions alone.

What’s the cost of putting money on the card?
 

Wirex, the card I use, was great last year. I was getting 4% cashback and there was no cost for transfers of cash onto the card.

Now they charge 1.5% to put money on the card, so the 4% crypto back is actually only 2.5%

 

On top of that, they put a threshold on the accumulated crypto rewards that can be exchanged for cash………making those rewards always out of reach in redeeming.

 

Needless to say, the Wirex card is now only worthwhile for the rich and famous.

[Red Shift]

14 hours ago, Red Phoenix said:

Sorry, fixed a bunch of typos in my last post.

 

 

The article states itself that the thing was screwed up by dysfunctional management and a lack of experts. So maybe with those problems resolved it would've gone a lot better. I don't think that's blockchain's fault.

 

And of course there's tons of scammers in crypto and pump and dump coins that are pointless apart from making scammers some cash. It doesn't mean crypto itself should only be associated with those clowns though. Bitcoin, litecoin, ethereum have been going on reliably enough for a good while now along with some others and I hope that carries on.

Bitcoin was hijacked, and the BSV fork, is the real BTC. Craig Wright, the man behind BSV, is actually Satoshi Nakamoto.

 

There. I’ve said it.

[ZonkoVille77]

www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/sec-says-crypto-companies-offered-unregistered-securities/442860

 

S.E.C. Charges Winklevoss Twins' Crypto Companies With Offering Unregistered Securities

Genesis Global Capital and Gemini Trust allegedly raised billions from thousands of investors with an unregistered program.

January 13, 2023

On Thursday, the Securities and Exchange Commission (S.E.C.) charged Genesis Global Capital and Gemini Trust, run by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, with offering unregistered securities. According to a New York Times report, the "Gemini Earn" program promised investors would profit from high interest on deposits — but it was never registered with the agency.

 

Genesis is part of the Digital Currency Group, while the Winklevosses run Gemini. In a statement quoted by the Times, S.E.C. chair Gary Gensler said the companies ignored "disclosure requirements designed to protect investors." The charges, Gensler continued, "make clear to the marketplace and the investing public that crypto lending platforms and other intermediaries need to comply with our time-tested securities laws."

 

According to the S.E.C., up to 340,000 investors lost nearly $900 million worth of crypto.

 

The S.E.C.'s action signals that the crypto winter that began in 2022 has prompted much greater scrutiny of the cryptocurrency industry. Here's more from the Times:

 

A crash in the prices of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin last spring led to a domino effect, with crypto hedge funds such as Three Arrows Capital and other crypto companies declaring bankruptcy. In November, FTX, a major cryptocurrency exchange run by the entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried, also collapsed after the crypto equivalent of a bank run.

 

The S.E.C. complaint detailed how Gemini Earn investor money disappeared. Customers were supposedly earning interest on money loaned through Gemini to Genesis. Gemini — which was sued by investors at the end of 2022 — would take a steep agent fee out of the earnings intended for Gemini Earn investors.

 

According to the complaint, Genesis also reportedly loaned more than half-billion dollars worth of crypto to Digital Currency Group. Then F.T.X. collapsed in early November, prompting Genesis to freeze customer assets. As a result, Gemini Earn customers couldn't get their money back.

 

While the Winklevoss twins expressed belief in an interview that there is "a path to getting a deal done that's a resolution for Earn users," the Times says Gemini has filed a response claiming it was just the middleman — that the transaction was really between the customers and Genesis.

[Red Phoenix]

3 hours ago, Red Shift said:

Bitcoin was hijacked, and the BSV fork, is the real BTC. Craig Wright, the man behind BSV, is actually Satoshi Nakamoto.

 

There. I’ve said it.

 

I think if he really was him he'd have been able to prove it to the point where people would just know and there'd be no debate. I don't pay any attention to other bitcoin forks either and try and avoid the arguments of what's the best one, etc. If any of the others do well though I've no issues with that.

[Red Phoenix]

It could go back down again shortly but bitcoin has mostly recovered from Scam Bankrun Fraud and the FTX crash :

 

[razor]

On 13/01/2023 at 09:34, ZonkoVille77 said:

 

 

Preferred his earlier work.