As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options

I'm old, and I don't get Bitcoin [Cryptocurrency and society].

14344464849100

Posts

  • Options
    daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    dispatch.o wrote: »
    China doesn't like currency exchange it can't control. Even if it's pretend money.

    Just give them a few months to release MaoCoin.

    They're probably not big fans of the electricity requirements either.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • Options
    TryCatcherTryCatcher Registered User regular
    daveNYC wrote: »
    dispatch.o wrote: »
    China doesn't like currency exchange it can't control. Even if it's pretend money.

    Just give them a few months to release MaoCoin.

    They're probably not big fans of the electricity requirements either.

    All those places that are "great for investing on Bitcoin" have a tendence to be places where electricity is subsidized by the government.

    Not that Libertarians have any sense of shame from being the biggest welfare queens around.

  • Options
    HevachHevach Registered User regular
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbrett/2019/11/29/us-authorities-arrest-virgil-griffith-for-teaching-cryptocurrency-and-blockchain
    Despite receiving warnings not to go, Griffith allegedly traveled to one of the United States’ foremost adversaries, North Korea, where he taught his audience how to use blockchain technology to evade sanctions.

    I'm starting to get vibes of the Betamax and Napster lawsuits from crypto. Both cases were against technology that was extensively used for illegal purposes, and the decision hinged on how important the legal use was and how unfairly those users would be affected by losing it.

  • Options
    jothkijothki Registered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbrett/2019/11/29/us-authorities-arrest-virgil-griffith-for-teaching-cryptocurrency-and-blockchain
    Despite receiving warnings not to go, Griffith allegedly traveled to one of the United States’ foremost adversaries, North Korea, where he taught his audience how to use blockchain technology to evade sanctions.

    I'm starting to get vibes of the Betamax and Napster lawsuits from crypto. Both cases were against technology that was extensively used for illegal purposes, and the decision hinged on how important the legal use was and how unfairly those users would be affected by losing it.

    Odd, I'd think that the internet would be full of people going into great detail about exactly how cryptocurrency works, and only slightly less detail about how to do illegal things with it.

  • Options
    I ZimbraI Zimbra Worst song, played on ugliest guitar Registered User regular
    jothki wrote: »
    Hevach wrote: »
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbrett/2019/11/29/us-authorities-arrest-virgil-griffith-for-teaching-cryptocurrency-and-blockchain
    Despite receiving warnings not to go, Griffith allegedly traveled to one of the United States’ foremost adversaries, North Korea, where he taught his audience how to use blockchain technology to evade sanctions.

    I'm starting to get vibes of the Betamax and Napster lawsuits from crypto. Both cases were against technology that was extensively used for illegal purposes, and the decision hinged on how important the legal use was and how unfairly those users would be affected by losing it.

    Odd, I'd think that the internet would be full of people going into great detail about exactly how cryptocurrency works, and only slightly less detail about how to do illegal things with it.

    If North Korea wanted to know how blockchain works they should have just watched a 90 minute youtube video of a dude with a bad hairline monologuing from his gaming chair like the rest of us.

  • Options
    Void SlayerVoid Slayer Very Suspicious Registered User regular
    Sure but they probably wanted someone that could give them the full details of the scam... I mean business. From an insider perspective.

    He could argue that blockchain has no value in court and he didnt teach them anything that violated the law.

    He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
  • Options
    HevachHevach Registered User regular
    North Korea, from my understanding, doesn't actually have internet access. Where China and other countries have national firewalls and censorship systems, NK instead has a closed and curated system. So they might actually need an outsider to physically come and show them this stuff.

  • Options
    ArchangleArchangle Registered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbrett/2019/11/29/us-authorities-arrest-virgil-griffith-for-teaching-cryptocurrency-and-blockchain
    Despite receiving warnings not to go, Griffith allegedly traveled to one of the United States’ foremost adversaries, North Korea, where he taught his audience how to use blockchain technology to evade sanctions.

    I'm starting to get vibes of the Betamax and Napster lawsuits from crypto. Both cases were against technology that was extensively used for illegal purposes, and the decision hinged on how important the legal use was and how unfairly those users would be affected by losing it.
    North Korea having difficulty paying for things is only half the sanctions issue though - actually delivering goods can also be pretty difficult, and crypto hilariously amplifies this issue.

    I can't wait for the first time North Korea gets scammed trying to pay for goods and the "seller" completely ghosts them with no way to reverse the transaction because, hey, blockchain!

  • Options
    cloudeaglecloudeagle Registered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbrett/2019/11/29/us-authorities-arrest-virgil-griffith-for-teaching-cryptocurrency-and-blockchain
    Despite receiving warnings not to go, Griffith allegedly traveled to one of the United States’ foremost adversaries, North Korea, where he taught his audience how to use blockchain technology to evade sanctions.

    I'm starting to get vibes of the Betamax and Napster lawsuits from crypto. Both cases were against technology that was extensively used for illegal purposes, and the decision hinged on how important the legal use was and how unfairly those users would be affected by losing it.

    What makes this funnier is that this guy is a member of the Etherium project.

    Switch: 3947-4890-9293
  • Options
    bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    TryCatcher wrote: »
    daveNYC wrote: »
    dispatch.o wrote: »
    China doesn't like currency exchange it can't control. Even if it's pretend money.

    Just give them a few months to release MaoCoin.

    They're probably not big fans of the electricity requirements either.

    All those places that are "great for investing on Bitcoin" have a tendence to be places where electricity is subsidized by the government.

    Not that Libertarians have any sense of shame from being the biggest welfare queens around.

    They see it as they're sticking it to the liberals who want to socialize that stuff.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • Options
    DonnictonDonnicton Registered User regular
    edited December 2019
    Founder/CEO of cryptocurrency #7628381 dies, is the only person who had access to any of the currency wallets - rest of the company is heading towards bankruptcy(aka users are fucked). Lawyers for aggrieved users are demanding to examine the body to make sure he actually died and didn't just run and disappear with the funds.

    https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/14/business/lawyers-exhumation-gerald-cotten-intl-scli/index.html
    Lawyers representing users of the collapsed Quadriga CX cryptocurrency exchange platform are requesting that Canadian authorities exhume and examine the body of its late founder, Gerald Cotten, to check if the person buried there is really him.

    Cotten, co-founder and CEO of Quadriga, died of complications in December 2018 arising from Crohn's Disease while traveling in India, the company said on Facebook. At the time, Quadriga -- once Canada's biggest cryptocurrency exchange -- said it was unable to gain access to his digital assets. At least $145 million were left frozen in Cotten's account.

    Cotten's death plunged Quadriga into crisis and left it struggling to figure out how to refund more than 100,000 users of the currency. In April, Quadriga announced that the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia had issued a Termination and Bankruptcy Assignment Order outlining the process by which the Quadriga CCAA proceedings would be converted to bankruptcy proceedings.

    Miller Thompson LLP wrote to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Friday requesting an exhumation and post-mortem autopsy on Cotten's body "to confirm both its identity and the cause of death given the questionable circumstances surrounding Mr. Cotten's death and the significant losses of Affected Users." The company confirmed to CNN the letter was genuine.

    Many of the digital currencies held by Quadriga are stored offline in accounts known as "cold wallets," a way of protecting them from hackers. Cotten was the only person with access to the wallets, according to the company. In the letter dated Friday, lawyers outlined "the need for certainty around the question of whether Mr. Cotten is, in fact, deceased."

    Donnicton on
  • Options
    Descendant XDescendant X Skyrim is my god now. Outpost 31Registered User regular
    edited December 2019
    Here's a great story about Gerald Cotten from Vanity Fair. Turns out he and the other dude who started Quadriga spent a bunch of time on forums dedicated to moneymaking schemes. The article comes to the conclusion that Quadriga itself was a Ponzi scheme and that Cotten got out while the gettin' was good.

    Every time I read a story about Quadriga I chuckle quietly to myself.

    Descendant X on
    Garry: I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time I'd rather not spend the rest of the winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!
  • Options
    Smaug6Smaug6 Registered User regular
    Here's a great story about Gerald Cotten from Vanity Fair. Turns out he and the other dude who started Quadriga spent a bunch of time on forums dedicated to moneymaking schemes. The article comes to the conclusion that Quadriga itself was a Ponzi scheme and that Cotten got out while the gettin' was good.

    Every time I read a story about Quadriga I chuckle quietly to myself.

    Incredible read. My money is on this guy is dead, but still a conspiracy theory that will love on forever.

    steam_sig.png
  • Options
    electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    Smaug6 wrote: »
    Here's a great story about Gerald Cotten from Vanity Fair. Turns out he and the other dude who started Quadriga spent a bunch of time on forums dedicated to moneymaking schemes. The article comes to the conclusion that Quadriga itself was a Ponzi scheme and that Cotten got out while the gettin' was good.

    Every time I read a story about Quadriga I chuckle quietly to myself.

    Incredible read. My money is on this guy is dead, but still a conspiracy theory that will love on forever.

    It's crypto - if there's a ground zero for things that wouldn't normally be real...

  • Options
    HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited December 2019
    It sets off all my crazy conspiracy alarms, like talking to Alex Jones in a pet store, but damn, every inch of the Quadriga story is suspicious.

    He died suddenly and unexpectedly of Crohn's complications, which generally isn't how Crohn's kills when it does.

    He died in a city in India known as the world capitol of faked deaths, where westerners have frequently gone to government offices and signed for their own death certificates (India as a whole has cracked down on this, but there's still several places where it's happened and this city is reputedly the worst for it).

    The surviving founder ended up being a convicted identity thief running the company with a stolen identity after getting multiple name changes in both Canada and the US to obfuscate his original name.

    Blockchain analysis seems to suggest they weren't actually holding anything anyway. They routinely failed to give people cash or transfer out crypto coins when withdrawals were made and even sent some to an unmarked vacant building to pick up withdrawals in person, which generally failed and got at least one guy mugged.

    The company had no accounting records tracking fiat or crypto, didn't have an account at the bank they claimed to use, and appeared to keep what little funds they actually had either in cash with Paypal and similar payment processors.


    100% Quadriga was a scam. Almost certainly Cotton was fleeing when he went to India. What happened once he got there could be suicide, death, fake death, but the getting was good and I suspect he at least tried if not succeeded to get.

    Hevach on
  • Options
    Descendant XDescendant X Skyrim is my god now. Outpost 31Registered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    It sets off all my crazy conspiracy alarms, like talking to Alex Jones in a pet store, but damn, every inch of the Quadriga story is suspicious.

    He died suddenly and unexpectedly of Crohn's complications, which generally isn't how Crohn's kills when it does.

    He died in a city in India known as the world capitol of faked deaths, where westerners have frequently gone to government offices and signed for their own death certificates (India as a whole has cracked down on this, but there's still several places where it's happened and this city is reputedly the worst for it).

    This is where the story gets me, even before I learned of all the other fraud-related bullshit. If Cotten had been ill enough to die upon his arrival in India he would have been too ill to travel in the first place. Crohn's is crippling before it becomes deadly; Cotten wouldn't have been able to get to the airport, much less onto an airplane.

    Garry: I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time I'd rather not spend the rest of the winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!
  • Options
    DonnictonDonnicton Registered User regular
    Speaking of cryptoscams

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/12/this-alleged-bitcoin-scam-looked-a-lot-like-a-pyramid-scheme/
    The world of cryptocurrency has no shortage of imaginary investment products. Fake coins. Fake blockchain services. Fake cryptocurrency exchanges. Now five men behind a company called BitClub Network are accused of a $722 million scam that allegedly preyed on victims who thought they were investing in a pool of bitcoin mining equipment.

    Federal prosecutors call the case a “high-tech” plot in the “complex world of cryptocurrency.” But it has all the hallmarks of a classic pyramid scheme, albeit with a crypto-centric conceit. Investors were invited to send BitClub Network cash, which would allow the company to buy mining equipment—machines that produce bitcoin through a process called hashing. When those machines were turned on, all would (in theory) enjoy the spoils. The company also allegedly gave rewards to existing investors in exchange for recruiting others to join. According to the complaint, the scheme began in April 2014 and continued until earlier this month.

    ...

    The scheme appears to have started as a relatively modest scam and spiraled dramatically in ambition. Internal messages between the conspirators give the impression of growing glee at the ease of taking advantage of investors, referring to “building this whole model on the backs of idiots.” The men allegedly described their victims as “dumb” investors and “sheep.”

    ...

    In October 2014, a few months after BitClub Network was founded, Goettsche allegedly posted about the need to “fak[e] it for the first 30 days while we get going,” instructing a co-conspirator to do some “magic” on the company’s revenue numbers. They allegedly agreed on a method of cooking the numbers that would include inconsistencies to make sure they appeared real. The tricks swiftly became more daring. Later, Goettsche allegedly suggested the company “bump up the daily mining earnings starting today by 60%.”

    ...

    The defendants also allegedly sold shares of the company in violation of securities law, traveling around the world with marketing materials that touted the company as “transparent” and “too big to fail.” (The BitClub website now has a disclaimer saying investments are not available to investors in the US or the Philippines.) At one point, one of the defendants appeared to express remorse, referring to selling shares in BitClub without using the money to purchase mining equipment as “not right.”

    The identities of the alleged victims are unclear, but there are hints in still-online videos and advertisements that the company had wide reach. In one ad, appearing on the website of Ben Franklin Technology Partners, a nonprofit investment firm affiliated with the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, a company calling itself BitClub Network promotes “Founder” status for people who agree to purchase shares in four purported mining pools. The going rate was $1,000 per “GPU share,” a unit of measure that isn’t illuminated in the marketing materials. (Ben Franklin did not respond to an after-hours request for comment).

    In 2018, a large number of Facebook posts about BitClub Network caught the eye of Japhet Mesa in Zambia. In a Medium post, he described what he saw as signs of a scam. Despite BitClub’s claims of radical transparency, the location of the purported mining rigs appeared to be a mystery, and the individuals behind the company were hard to identify. “Going by the hype around BCN, I was amazed to see the number of people getting into it,” he wrote at the time. “This could be seen by the number of people posting about it on social media, facebook especially.”

  • Options
    dispatch.odispatch.o Registered User regular
    On some level it irritates me that they validate crypto by considering it an asset that you can have scammed from you. I don't know how to properly articulate why I think it shouldn't be without wrongfully invalidating the need to pay taxes on monetary profits made in legitimate currency.

    There's no analog for crypto currency that has ever existed. It's all one huge scam, you're trading unicorn horn futures. Projected value of an item that doesn't exist.

  • Options
    HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited December 2019
    There have been "close enough" analogs. Mine scrip. Wooden nickels. Wildcat banknotes. All forms of "civilian" money that's only worth the short list of places you can spend it. Wildcat notes are probably the best comparison because they were propped up past their well earned collapse by people convinced the real money would collapse any day now and everybody would be sorry they didn't have a fallback plan, their value driven not by use but by a churn of trade between different options and real money.

    All those things were scams in and of themselves, but defrauding somebody out of them was also itself a crime, the fact that the victim was also being defrauded when they received it in the first place didn't diminish the crime of taking it away by fraud.

    Hevach on
  • Options
    FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    Fraud doesn't require the thing being defrauded to have any value by the United States government.

  • Options
    ArchangleArchangle Registered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    He died in a city in India known as the world capitol of faked deaths, where westerners have frequently gone to government offices and signed for their own death certificates (India as a whole has cracked down on this, but there's still several places where it's happened and this city is reputedly the worst for it).
    India is terrible for management of death data. There is an organisation dedicated to undoing death certificates that have been improperly declared - it's actually a real problem for people who have been declared dead without their knowledge and are now unable to avail themselves of government services, including things like opening a bank account.

    It got to the point where one guy deliberately committed crimes as a protest, and the police couldn't charge him as he was officially deceased.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttar_Pradesh_Association_of_Dead_People

  • Options
    Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    Archangle wrote: »
    It got to the point where one guy deliberately committed crimes as a protest, and the police couldn't charge him as he was officially deceased.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttar_Pradesh_Association_of_Dead_People

    DrSeVTsXQAELt1n.jpg

  • Options
    ApogeeApogee Lancks In Every Game Ever Registered User regular
    edited December 2019
    Hevach wrote: »
    It sets off all my crazy conspiracy alarms, like talking to Alex Jones in a pet store, but damn, every inch of the Quadriga story is suspicious.

    He died suddenly and unexpectedly of Crohn's complications, which generally isn't how Crohn's kills when it does.

    He died in a city in India known as the world capitol of faked deaths, where westerners have frequently gone to government offices and signed for their own death certificates (India as a whole has cracked down on this, but there's still several places where it's happened and this city is reputedly the worst for it).

    The surviving founder ended up being a convicted identity thief running the company with a stolen identity after getting multiple name changes in both Canada and the US to obfuscate his original name.

    Blockchain analysis seems to suggest they weren't actually holding anything anyway. They routinely failed to give people cash or transfer out crypto coins when withdrawals were made and even sent some to an unmarked vacant building to pick up withdrawals in person, which generally failed and got at least one guy mugged.

    The company had no accounting records tracking fiat or crypto, didn't have an account at the bank they claimed to use, and appeared to keep what little funds they actually had either in cash with Paypal and similar payment processors.


    100% Quadriga was a scam. Almost certainly Cotton was fleeing when he went to India. What happened once he got there could be suicide, death, fake death, but the getting was good and I suspect he at least tried if not succeeded to get.

    During my brief foray into the bitcoin business world I got to meet Gerald Cotten - only briefly for a handshake and hello, but at the time he seemed like a perfectly normal guy. In fact, he seemed a lot more 'normal' than most people I had encountered at that point. I had figured out by that point that most people in crypto were not to be trusted, and in hindsight I'd say that the crypto world is 10% tech enthusiast (I'd count myself among this group), 10% crazy libertarians ("the government is run by lizard people and/or jews"), and the remaining 80% are out to make a buck. Most of those people are just grifters of one type or another.

    Given the amount of incredibly greasy people I saw in that business, someone who appeared as squeaky clean as Cotten was a breath of fresh air. A guy who wore unassuming clothes, didn't look like he smoked a pack a day and didn't claim he'd double investor money in a month was a rare thing - he appeared like an actual businessman (note that this was loooong before Quadirga went downhill). He knew his game well and played the long con - why bilk people out of thousands when you can go for millions, or hundreds of millions?

    Apogee on
    8R7BtLw.png
  • Options
    HevachHevach Registered User regular
    It's also entirely possible Cotten really was just a normal guy, all the awful mismanagement *could* just be cluelessness due to being in way over his head or struggling to hold a sinking ship together.

    All the theories focus on Cotten and his weird death. They generally forget about Patryn, the other guy running it, who was only found after the fact to be a known con man taking considerable lengths to hide his real identity. It's possible Patryn was running his own scam inside what Cotton thought was a legit business, or that he just took advantage of Cotten's death and noped off with what was left of the loot.

  • Options
    ApogeeApogee Lancks In Every Game Ever Registered User regular
    Well, given that Cotten was also a known scam artist, running what amounts to pyramid schemes and committing fraud. If he didn't have those previous dealings I'd say odds were good he was fleeced. Since he did, I think he was most likely planning to bail at some point, although perhaps the plan went awry.

    8R7BtLw.png
  • Options
    [Expletive deleted][Expletive deleted] The mediocre doctor NorwayRegistered User regular
    Crypto is just infinite layers of scams, one nested on top of the other. If you think you've reached the inntermost, final, scam, you're wrong (and probably being scammed).

    Sic transit gloria mundi.
  • Options
    Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    Crypto is just infinite layers of scams, one nested on top of the other. If you think you've reached the inntermost, final, scam, you're wrong (and probably being scammed).

    If only there were someway to use computers to algorithmically generate cryptocurrencies that you can then use as a kind of currency, then maybe...

  • Options
    FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    edited February 2020
    The SEC karate chops Steven Seagal

    It turns out regulators are actually serious when they want you to disclose paid promotion.

    Fencingsax on
  • Options
    Stabbity StyleStabbity Style He/Him | Warning: Mothership Reporting Kennewick, WARegistered User regular
    Fencingsax wrote: »
    The SEC karate chops Steven Seagal

    It turns out regulators are actually serious when they want you to disclose paid promotion.

    I appreciate they opened with an Under Siege reference in the title. Also, man, even outside that SEC disclosure thing, I was surprised at just how much of a goose he turned out to be.

    Stabbity_Style.png
  • Options
    cloudeaglecloudeagle Registered User regular
    Fencingsax wrote: »
    The SEC karate chops Steven Seagal

    It turns out regulators are actually serious when they want you to disclose paid promotion.

    The best part, if you didn't read the article, is that Segal was flogging "Bitcoiin2Gen" (not a typo), which sounds like the name of a bootleg NES/SNES.

    Switch: 3947-4890-9293
  • Options
    daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    Two Segal movies in one headline. That's journalism.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • Options
    Stabbity StyleStabbity Style He/Him | Warning: Mothership Reporting Kennewick, WARegistered User regular
    daveNYC wrote: »
    Two Segal movies in one headline. That's journalism.

    Damn, I totally missed that. I've only seen him in the Under Siege movies :0

    Stabbity_Style.png
  • Options
    MayabirdMayabird Pecking at the keyboardRegistered User regular
    edited March 2020
    Most everybody missed it while being distracted by more important things like the worldwide goddamn pandemic and the worldwide economic crashing caused by the pandemic but Bitcoin crashed too.

    At what point does it become unprofitable to mine one of these things and are people trying to sell off the rest of the cryptocurrencies as well?

    Mayabird on
  • Options
    Stabbity StyleStabbity Style He/Him | Warning: Mothership Reporting Kennewick, WARegistered User regular
    Mayabird wrote: »
    Most everybody missed it while being distracted by more important things like the worldwide goddamn pandemic and the worldwide economic crashing caused by the pandemic but Bitcoin crashed too.

    At what point does it become unprofitable to mine one of these things and are people trying to sell off the rest of the cryptocurrencies as well?

    Still too high :<

    Stabbity_Style.png
  • Options
    AiouaAioua Ora Occidens Ora OptimaRegistered User regular
    Mayabird wrote: »
    Most everybody missed it while being distracted by more important things like the worldwide goddamn pandemic and the worldwide economic crashing caused by the pandemic but Bitcoin crashed too.

    At what point does it become unprofitable to mine one of these things and are people trying to sell off the rest of the cryptocurrencies as well?

    Still too high :<

    has anyone done a recent analysis of the supply?

    Like I assume the majority of coins that are even "circulating" see being held by exchanges making fake transactions to try and goose the price.

    life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
    fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
    that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
    bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
  • Options
    Stabbity StyleStabbity Style He/Him | Warning: Mothership Reporting Kennewick, WARegistered User regular
    Aioua wrote: »
    Mayabird wrote: »
    Most everybody missed it while being distracted by more important things like the worldwide goddamn pandemic and the worldwide economic crashing caused by the pandemic but Bitcoin crashed too.

    At what point does it become unprofitable to mine one of these things and are people trying to sell off the rest of the cryptocurrencies as well?

    Still too high :<

    has anyone done a recent analysis of the supply?

    Like I assume the majority of coins that are even "circulating" see being held by exchanges making fake transactions to try and goose the price.

    I dunno, I don't really follow it closely. Every time I think about it I just end up kinda bummed out that this is what we decided to spend so many of our finite resources on.

    Stabbity_Style.png
  • Options
    honoverehonovere Registered User regular
    I feel like every time I read something about bitcoin it just gets dumber and more aggravating.
    There's a "halving" incoming? From that point on the amount of coin you get for mining is halved? That seems like a thing that happens with currencies that aren't worth shit, so appropriate, I guess.

  • Options
    Phoenix-DPhoenix-D Registered User regular
    honovere wrote: »
    I feel like every time I read something about bitcoin it just gets dumber and more aggravating.
    There's a "halving" incoming? From that point on the amount of coin you get for mining is halved? That seems like a thing that happens with currencies that aren't worth shit, so appropriate, I guess.

    Oh it gets worse. Eventually you get zilch for mining. It's intentionally deflationary.

  • Options
    ForarForar #432 Toronto, Ontario, CanadaRegistered User regular
    My understanding is that there is also a hard cap of 21,000,000 bitcoins that can ever exist, so not only are they coming out more slowly, at some point they will cease to be produced entirely (though even with advances in computing efficiency I'm sure we'll have generated ALL the greenhouse gasses mining the stupid things).

    And of course, for widespread adoption we'd be adding something ridiculous (I've seen 3% thrown around) to global emissions just maintaining the blockchain bouncing around to verify transactions, on top of the simply silly amounts of storage it'd be consuming to have this shit on millions of computers worldwide.

    Yes yes, I'm sure there is some perfect edge case scenario where Blockchain Is The Light And The Future. As implemented by Bitcoin, by my basic outsiders understanding, it doesn't seem like the pros outweigh the cons (unless I really wanted hard drugs or illegal pornography or someone murdered, I guess).

    First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
  • Options
    OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    Except even then it seems incredibly stupid since unless you never let it leave the system and you generated the coins yourself, there's a permanent, indelible record of every single transaction a wallet has ever made and every wallet a bitcoin has been through.

    Sounds fantastic for doing illegal stuff to me! Perfect traceability!

This discussion has been closed.