An insight on Bitcoin

[Elegiac]

Imagine having more faith in something that's being printed by the trillions and handed to bankers/insiders as opposed to something that's openly visible, finite and far harder to manipulate by our big nosed friends.

Most of us aren’t antisemitic conspiracy theorists, sweaty.

[Jastall]

the long term effect of bitcoin is massive deflation (instead of consuming, people hold on their savings because they know it'll increase in value)
which removes waste and over consumption, in favor of only what people really want to consume
which is a kind of extreme ecology

Sometimes I wish I could be this... let's charitably say optimistic.

People aren't going to voluntarily adopt a lifestyle that requires them to dial down their wants and needs so dramatically because their currency is extraordinarily volatile and best jealously hoarded than actually used.

To say nothing of the fact that very large-scale crypto mining, which would be required if it becomes the common currency, would produce an amount of waste that likely dwarfs that of modern consumerism, unless you somehow think all that power and electronic components are going to be generated by 100% green energy/not be e-waste.

All that isn't going to happen anyway, because for the foreseeable future crypto isn't a recipe for societal change, but an investment opportunity to make actually usable money.

[Howel]

Sometimes I wish I could be this... let's charitably say optimistic.

People aren't going to voluntarily adopt a lifestyle that requires them to dial down their wants and needs so dramatically because their currency is extraordinarily volatile and best jealously hoarded than actually used.

To say nothing of the fact that very large-scale crypto mining, which would be required if it becomes the common currency, would produce an amount of waste that likely dwarfs that of modern consumerism, unless you somehow think all that power and electronic components are going to be generated by 100% green energy/not be e-waste.

All that isn't going to happen anyway, because for the foreseeable future crypto isn't a recipe for societal change, but an investment opportunity to make actually usable money.

Quick math, for cryptocurrency to replace all currencies and values, at its current price, with its current emissions, we are talking 7.4 billion tons of CO2. That's 1/6 of the worlds total emission in a year. For digital money, that we already have, at a far lower emission.

[Shadowferal]

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[Cæli]

Sometimes I wish I could be this... let's charitably say optimistic.

People aren't going to voluntarily adopt a lifestyle that requires them to dial down their wants and needs so dramatically because their currency is extraordinarily volatile and best jealously hoarded than actually used.

To say nothing of the fact that very large-scale crypto mining, which would be required if it becomes the common currency, would produce an amount of waste that likely dwarfs that of modern consumerism, unless you somehow think all that power and electronic components are going to be generated by 100% green energy/not be e-waste.

All that isn't going to happen anyway, because for the foreseeable future crypto isn't a recipe for societal change, but an investment opportunity to make actually usable money.

I mean, that's not a choice, if bitcoin keeps growing in price and keep spreading like it does, volume will grow, which will lower volatility, which will economically beat many national currencies for the purpose of saving; it already does by an astronomical margin, but it is currently risky because of low adoption.

and if people can have actual savings that gain value over time, there will be less consumption. people will still consume, but there is no better mechanism if you want to reduce waste. people will never act out of goodwill regarding this. and tough regulation isn't really an interesting alternative.

if everyone used bitcoin right now, it wouldn't demand more energy usage; it's just that if prices go up, there is more miners, but at one point it will stop growing in price, because there's not an infinite amount of money in the world, so the consumption will plateau at some point.

[Gaidax]

Imagine having more faith in something that's being printed by the trillions and handed to bankers/insiders as opposed to something that's openly visible, finite and far harder to manipulate by our big nosed friends.

Damn and here I thought we get a pass on this one, guess our evil Jewish tentacles are behind this as well...

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Quick math, for cryptocurrency to replace all currencies and values, at its current price, with its current emissions, we are talking 7.4 billion tons of CO2. That's 1/6 of the worlds total emission in a year. For digital money, that we already have, at a far lower emission.

The whole thing is still in nappies. The technology behind it will change, there is already a coin that does not rely on GPU at all and is mined at tiny fraction of power required otherwise.

Currently it's like these American gold rushes of mid-late 19th century - mostly it's plain guys coming and picking mining up silver and gold that lies on the top and shallow ground with their primitive tools. Corporations with real hardware and knowledge come later to dig out the real dough.

---

What will happen with this whole thing going forward? Who knows... It might all crash to shit or it might skyrocket many times the current value. It's mostly down to what governments will decide - if there will be decision to crack down on it, it will crash.

Frankly it's another "gold rush" lesson from 19th century - there used to be a huge Silver magnate there, the name eludes me, who had amazing fortune with silver mines - there was so much silver mined that at some point US government repealed act that supported silver status as dollar guarantor. This literally destroyed the guy (and other silver miners) overnight. They went from filthy rich to literally nothing in a blink of an eye.

Live example of this is recent Biden's announcement that doubled the income tax for rich, that made BTC lose more than 10% instantly, because it is indirectly affected. And it's just that - just him announcing they will do it.

If tomorrow US will decide to hit BTC hard, it will crash. It might not even need to be a ban or some such, but actual regulation. It will come.

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P.S. Men to match my mountains - amazing book by Irving Stone, I read when I was like 12. Was a really fun read, I'll probably hit it again sometime. History might repeat itself - there will be many who will be filthy rich and there will be many of those who will put all their eggs in one basket and lose it all overnight by a legislative change outside their control and die penniless, like example above.

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P.S. 2 - this is the guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Tabor

And this is the act that got repealed that devastated his riches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherma...r_Purchase_Act

[Jastall]

Quick math, for cryptocurrency to replace all currencies and values, at its current price, with its current emissions, we are talking 7.4 billion tons of CO2. That's 1/6 of the worlds total emission in a year. For digital money, that we already have, at a far lower emission.

That seems about right, I'm curious how you achieved your results, for curiosity's sake? Not saying you're wrong but does that include IE the environmental impact of the humongous amount of electronic devices that will be required to farm so much currency, for example? E-waste is already a concern now, imagine when you'll need to burn through literally millions of ASIC/GPUs/whatever works if crypto becomes the norm, and silicon or lithium are hardly ecofriendly to extract in the first place.

@Cæli Volume on investment in bitcoin grows. Volume on adoption and, more importantly, transactions barely does alongside it, the two aren't necessarily linked exactly because the people who have bitcoin jealously hoard it and there will be less and less of it available as time goes on; why do you think all those meme coins and shit like Ethereum emerge? It's already way too expensive for random joes to even think about adopting bitcoin in any meaningful capacity, it'll only get worse as the price increases. How do you propose most Americans, many of which live paycheck to paycheck, transition to a volatile, wildly expensive currency that drastically fluctuates, requires specialized apps to buy in itty bitty chunks, and will take a very long time to be accepted -everywhere- like USD is? Most people don't even invest in sake stocks or at best have a 401k, and you want them to dive into something far riskier? Good luck.

That's like saying that, because the price of gold increases, people will start buying and carrying around gold coins and bars on themselves as if real life were Skyrim. No, that's not how economics work, that's not how anything works. Bitcoin offers no advantage to the consumer and won't be widely adopted until it does (which is a long ways off), especially since traditional currency is backed by governments that can regulate shit while crypto is backed by data and "dude just trust me" and more open to manipulation by big names than fiat currencies ever are going to be.

[crewskater]

What will happen with this whole thing going forward? Who knows... It might all crash to shit or it might skyrocket many times the current value. It's mostly down to what governments will decide - if there will be decision to crack down on it, it will crash.

How would the government crack down on it? The whole point of it being decentralized prevents this from happening. They would need around 50% of the entire network to be able to do so. Remember how they tried to crack down on illegal file sharing, this isn't any different. Cracking down on it will just drive up the demand, look at the war on drugs. Cryptocurrency is here to stay so you can either fight it or join it.
@Edge Here's the video I mentioned earlier - How does a blockchain work - Simply Explained

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Do people even use BC? I've never heard/read anything about anyone actually using it in every day life. All I ever hear about is the farming of it, the price of graphics cards, and how the price is totally never going down even when there are massive dips in the price.

Sites like Silk Road pulled in billions of dollars. They are still doing it to this day.

[Gaidax]

How would the government crack down on it? The whole point of it being decentralized prevents this from happening. They would need around 50% of the entire network to be able to do so. Remember how they tried to crack down on illegal file sharing, this isn't any different. Cracking down on it will just drive up the demand, look at the war on drugs. Cryptocurrency is here to stay so you can either fight it or join it.
@Edge Here's the video I mentioned earlier - How does a blockchain work - Simply Explained

How they can crack down on it?

Simple, make all the companies receiving payments in crypto take additional huge tax on each such transaction. Add special taxation for these as part of environmental policies and so on and so forth.

I already gave you a good example above - Biden's double tax for rich hit BTC by over 10% immediately the moment he announced it and it's not even really directly related to that.

They can simply make life VERY hard for everyone who deals with crypto by taxes, even before actual legal or regulatory steps.

[crewskater]

How they can crack down on it?

Simple, make all the companies receiving payments in crypto take additional huge tax on each such transaction. Add special taxation for these as part of environmental policies and so on and so forth.

I already gave you a good example above - Biden's double tax for rich hit BTC by over 10% immediately the moment he announced it and it's not even really directly related to that.

That's no cracking down on it. I can send my coins to another person and they can't do anything about it. There are underground websites that don't adhere to what the government says. Shutting it down is basically impossible.

[Gaidax]

That's no cracking down on it. I can send my coins to another person and they can't do anything about it. There are underground websites that don't adhere to what the government says. Shutting it down is basically impossible.

You can do whatever you want with it, but in the end, as long as you can't safely and conveniently turn it into $$ or stuff - you'll just be sitting on pile of worthless shit.

That's my point - much of this crypto rally is thanks to corporations beginning to accept crypto as legitimate payment method, that's the thing though - unlike Billy the miner, Amazon/Tesla/Whatever have to report this to authorities down to a penny for taxation purposes. If tomorrow govt decides to quadruple all the taxes these corporations pay for these transactions - crypto will drop like a stone.

And that's the easiest way they can tackle it. If they'd decide to actually regulate it - they will and you won't be able to do shit, unless you legit want to put yourself in legal danger or try to edge the laws. Some do, that's why money laundering exists, but most don't.

All governments have to do is hit it at that point where you turn coins into actual stuff/$$, because much of it is actually registered as transaction and reported.

I'm not even saying that it's not only US. If tomorrow China decides to ban Crypto, it will also crash hard. Or EU introduce some sort of rules. And so on and so forth.

That's why people who gamble on crypto need to be aware they can legitimately lose much in a blink of an eye.

[jonnysensible]

That's no cracking down on it. I can send my coins to another person and they can't do anything about it. There are underground websites that don't adhere to what the government says. Shutting it down is basically impossible.

china where most bitcoin is mined can decide it doesnt like bitcoin evading capital control, up the price of electric (or go full liberty reserve) and put the miners out of business. The energy costs are astronomical. Now that alot of bitcoin are not being brought with fiat, but instead people are buying them with tethers, it could all end in tears if miners cant sell their bitcoin for fiat to pay the bills. The amount of suckers lining up to hold the bag will run out.

also governments cant make exchanges operate like banks and then be liable to the Dodd-Frank Act. Or if they dont they can put restrictions in place to protect retail investors.

but really its all on whether tether dies or not imo.

[Cæli]

That seems about right, I'm curious how you achieved your results, for curiosity's sake? Not saying you're wrong but does that include IE the environmental impact of the humongous amount of electronic devices that will be required to farm so much currency, for example? E-waste is already a concern now, imagine when you'll need to burn through literally millions of ASIC/GPUs/whatever works if crypto becomes the norm, and silicon or lithium are hardly ecofriendly to extract in the first place.

@Cæli Volume on investment in bitcoin grows. Volume on adoption and, more importantly, transactions barely does alongside it, the two aren't necessarily linked exactly because the people who have bitcoin jealously hoard it and there will be less and less of it available as time goes on; why do you think all those meme coins and shit like Ethereum emerge? It's already way too expensive for random joes to even think about adopting bitcoin in any meaningful capacity, it'll only get worse as the price increases. How do you propose most Americans, many of which live paycheck to paycheck, transition to a volatile, wildly expensive currency that drastically fluctuates, requires specialized apps to buy in itty bitty chunks, and will take a very long time to be accepted -everywhere- like USD is? Most people don't even invest in sake stocks or at best have a 401k, and you want them to dive into something far riskier? Good luck.

That's like saying that, because the price of gold increases, people will start buying and carrying around gold coins and bars on themselves as if real life were Skyrim. No, that's not how economics work, that's not how anything works. Bitcoin offers no advantage to the consumer and won't be widely adopted until it does (which is a long ways off), especially since traditional currency is backed by governments that can regulate shit while crypto is backed by data and "dude just trust me" and more open to manipulation by big names than fiat currencies ever are going to be.

bitcoin trades on markets and markets have volumes. that's not investment in bitcoins, that's bitcoin. we're talking about spot volume not derivatives. the price doesn't matter to use it, you can have the whole economy on 1 single bitcoin since you can divide it as much as you like. the "cents" are called "sats". like I explained, with volume comes lower volatility. volume won't come from the average joe. if bitcoin is adopted, the average joe will use bitcoin after it plateau'd, when there's no risks. there is no "instant" adoption. governments cannot guarantee the value of their currency. there is such a thing as a national currency losing value. anything can lose value. and I would rather trust a currency that keeps getting value, than a currency that keeps losing value with inflation personally. if you meant "backed by" as "making sure it works regardless of the value", sure. the governement does that. bitcoin does that with "proof of work", which guarantees the system works but in an automated way.

at this point it's pure risk and it won't be adopted anytime soon, if adopted. but it grows.

[Edge-]

@Edge Here's the video I mentioned earlier - How does a blockchain work - Simply Explained

Cool, so it's just the basic, "Blockchain is secure" explanation, which isn't really what I was disagreeing with or what I think anyone is really discussing.

What are the potential benefits for something like a cryptocurrency over fiat currencies? How does this address the problem with rampant pump-n-dump schemes and artificial boosting of value? Cool, it validates everything all the time and whatnot but like, does that matter when the shiny new cryptocurrency comes out to soaring values and instantly crashes because the whole point of that ICO was to make a quick buck and nope the fuck out?

[Jastall]

bitcoin trades on markets and markets have volumes. that's not investment in bitcoins, that's bitcoin. we're talking about spot volume not derivatives. the price doesn't matter to use it, you can have the whole economy on 1 single bitcoin since you can divide it as much as you like. the "cents" are called "sats". like I explained, with volume comes lower volatility. volume won't come from the average joe. if bitcoin is adopted, the average joe will use bitcoin after it plateau'd, when there's no risks. there is no "instant" adoption. governments cannot guarantee the value of their currency. there is such a thing as a national currency losing value. anything can lose value. and I would rather trust a currency that keeps getting value, than a currency that keeps losing value with inflation personally. if you meant "backed by" as "making sure it works regardless of the value", sure. the governement does that. bitcoin does that with "proof of work", which guarantees the system works but in an automated way.

at this point it's pure risk and it won't be adopted anytime soon, if adopted. but it grows.

Bitcoin is influenced by inflation every time its value lowers- which is common. It rises back up again the next day, maybe next week, maybe next month, maybe next 3-4 years in places- nobody knows. My CND also fluctuates in value- by maybe half a percent per day most of the time, if that. Bitcoin can rise or plunge by 20 times more than that on a normal day. I know what my Canadian dollar will be worth in five years, give or take- I can't even know what a bitcoin would be worth in a month, let alone five years where could be 500 000$ CND or 500$.

Governments can absolutely guarantee the value of their currency, all within reason of course. There's no such guarantee for bitcoin except for some assurance that maybe at some point in the future proof of work and the blockchain and widespread adoption and a bunch of other five dollar words are all going to fuse together to fix the volatility problem.

To say nothing of the fact that the "volume" you speak of is heavily concentrated in the hands of big investors and early adopters- it's hardly going to help johnny rando who at best will be forced to adopt a currency he will only ever get scraps of when the market stops using fiat (fat chance but whatever). You can say it's like that now and not be entirely wrong, but I thought crypto was supposed to be an upgrade.

[Elegiac]

@Edge Here's the video I mentioned earlier - How does a blockchain work - Simply Explained

We know how blockchain works, sweaty.

What we're asking is why this particular use of blockchain is a good thing besides "government bad" and the shitsquillion other talking points that y'all have recycled from the gold bug days.

[Cæli]

Bitcoin is influenced by inflation every time its value lowers- which is common. It rises back up again the next day, maybe next week, maybe next month, maybe next 3-4 years in places- nobody knows. My CND also fluctuates in value- by maybe half a percent per day most of the time, if that. Bitcoin can rise or plunge by 20 times more than that on a normal day. I know what my Canadian dollar will be worth in five years, give or take- I can't even know what a bitcoin would be worth in a month, let alone five years where could be 500 000$ CND or 500$.

Governments can absolutely guarantee the value of their currency, all within reason of course. There's no such guarantee for bitcoin except for some assurance that maybe at some point in the future proof of work and the blockchain and widespread adoption and a bunch of other five dollar words are all going to fuse together to fix the volatility problem.

To say nothing of the fact that the "volume" you speak of is heavily concentrated in the hands of big investors and early adopters- it's hardly going to help johnny rando who at best will be forced to adopt a currency he will only ever get scraps of when the market stops using fiat (fat chance but whatever). You can say it's like that now and not be entirely wrong, but I thought crypto was supposed to be an upgrade.

what you describe is volatility yes. the more volume and the more users, the harder it will be to manipulate the market. so, it will lower in volatility. volatility nowadays have nothing to do with volatility years back, it got better because it grew.

governments can guarantee the value of their currency? no. there is guarantee in bitcoin, that is 1 bitcoin = no less than 1 bitcoin, that will never change. governments can't guarantee that their currency will exist forever or that no extra money is printed. that's why sometimes a country's currency collapse. governments can screw up, even though developed places like the eu and the us provided a stable currency so far. you trust the government, and governments are human beings. an antonomous protocol do no mistakes, it does what it was asked to do without failures.

crypto is an upgrade for some people at the moment. for people in the west, there is little use, except for those like me who like to control their money, who don't like seeing the value of the currency lowered by goverment action and inflation. except for the ideology, it's also used as a currency for people that are into computers, it's common in the programming world.

so bitcoin is in my opinion a revolution in the process of being a real currency, but it's not there yet. grows. but risky currently. I only know bitcoin, can't say for other competing crypto, but I'm not holding my breath. the bitcoin network is probably too far ahead. probably best to issue currency on layer 2 than starting from scratch.

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Cool, so it's just the basic, "Blockchain is secure" explanation, which isn't really what I was disagreeing with or what I think anyone is really discussing.

What are the potential benefits for something like a cryptocurrency over fiat currencies? How does this address the problem with rampant pump-n-dump schemes and artificial boosting of value? Cool, it validates everything all the time and whatnot but like, does that matter when the shiny new cryptocurrency comes out to soaring values and instantly crashes because the whole point of that ICO was to make a quick buck and nope the fuck out?

99% of crypto (or more) are scams but my opinion is controversial. the main advantage of a cryptocurrency over fiat currency is that it's not centralized; it's not controlled by anyone in particular. this can be good for automation purposes, for instance when you want to create a condition where x is paid if action y happens, you don't really want to go through a custom third party to ask him if that's okay. you also don't have to have 300 api to interface with every currency of the world, or having to trust one company that does it for you, you have a neutral network that is "low level", and you can plug extra services on top (including centralized services, issuing stock, middlemen, etc)

my point of view of developer, mainly it's for developers at this time; I don't think crypto will see "mainstream" adoption, but instead will be used by businesses and governments to save costs or provide services for the average people; the main difference being that this time when it comes to money, there is a neutral monetary protocol that no one can cheat and therefore that can be used as a basis for many automations. and also, banks will have less power, or change, since there is now a technology that appeared which allows to do most of what they do without them.

the other big benefit (for me, and in the case of bitcoin) is deflation. if the economy runs on a deflating currency, I believe there will be less waste because people know that their waste could have been money that increases in value over time. the concept is not very popular currently because everyone is about more and more consumption (except ecologists)

[crewskater]

You can do whatever you want with it, but in the end, as long as you can't safely and conveniently turn it into $$ or stuff - you'll just be sitting on pile of worthless shit.

That's my point - much of this crypto rally is thanks to corporations beginning to accept crypto as legitimate payment method, that's the thing though - unlike Billy the miner, Amazon/Tesla/Whatever have to report this to authorities down to a penny for taxation purposes. If tomorrow govt decides to quadruple all the taxes these corporations pay for these transactions - crypto will drop like a stone.

And that's the easiest way they can tackle it. If they'd decide to actually regulate it - they will and you won't be able to do shit, unless you legit want to put yourself in legal danger or try to edge the laws. Some do, that's why money laundering exists, but most don't.

All governments have to do is hit it at that point where you turn coins into actual stuff/$$, because much of it is actually registered as transaction and reported.

I'm not even saying that it's not only US. If tomorrow China decides to ban Crypto, it will also crash hard. Or EU introduce some sort of rules. And so on and so forth.

That's why people who gamble on crypto need to be aware they can legitimately lose much in a blink of an eye.

If I buy something at the store with drug money, how will they know? It's not any different with crypto. There are ways to remain anonymous even though it's public knowledge. What do you think the majority of people do on the dark nets? Tracing my coins back to the source is extremely time consuming and costly. You can't regulate something decentralized. File sharing still exists even though they tried to crack down on it. Something tells me you don't know what P2P is.

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china where most bitcoin is mined can decide it doesnt like bitcoin evading capital control, up the price of electric (or go full liberty reserve) and put the miners out of business. The energy costs are astronomical. Now that alot of bitcoin are not being brought with fiat, but instead people are buying them with tethers, it could all end in tears if miners cant sell their bitcoin for fiat to pay the bills. The amount of suckers lining up to hold the bag will run out.

also governments cant make exchanges operate like banks and then be liable to the Dodd-Frank Act. Or if they dont they can put restrictions in place to protect retail investors.

but really its all on whether tether dies or not imo.

The only way China can do that is if they control over 50% of the entire network, which they don't. Pretty sure if China stopped mining other people would take over.

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Cool, so it's just the basic, "Blockchain is secure" explanation, which isn't really what I was disagreeing with or what I think anyone is really discussing.

I keep seeing in this thread and others calling it a scam or some type of ponzi scheme. That tells me they don't know what blockchain technology is considering it's the heart of cryptocurrency.

[Howel]

That seems about right, I'm curious how you achieved your results, for curiosity's sake? Not saying you're wrong but does that include IE the environmental impact of the humongous amount of electronic devices that will be required to farm so much currency, for example? E-waste is already a concern now, imagine when you'll need to burn through literally millions of ASIC/GPUs/whatever works if crypto becomes the norm, and silicon or lithium are hardly ecofriendly to extract in the first place.

Took world current value of 360 trillion, divided with 160 billion, that is cryptos current value. Then cryptos current emission of 36 megatons, and then multiplied that with the previous number I got.

Now, there might very well be something in there that is wrong, I'll gladly admit to that. But either direction of wrong, it is still going to end up being a freaking massive number.

[Edge-]

I keep seeing in this thread and others calling it a scam or some type of ponzi scheme. That tells me they don't know what blockchain technology is considering it's the heart of cryptocurrency.

Not the technology itself, the application of the technology. Cryptocurrency itself is built off of blockchain tech, but it's not "only" just blockchain. Cryptocurrency itself, separate from the technology it's built on, is often used as a get-rich-quick ponzi scheme with pump-n-dumps. That's why there are extensive guides online on how to pump-n-dump a new cryptocurrency.