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/

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

14647495152100

Posts

  • chrisnlchrisnl Registered User regular
    I have zero sympathy for anybody involved with bitcoin or any other "cryptocurrency". The entire system is a solution in search of a problem at best, and is intentionally designed to use an astounding quantity of resources. The incredible amount of electricity and manufacturing capacity and raw resources used to provide a service that is already handled far more efficiently and quickly through other methods is mind boggling.

    This doesn't even begin to get into the various ways that these things reek of scams, from so many being setup where the founders are able to get a ton of the coins for almost no effort to the numerous stories of exchanges just flat up disappearing or coins being sent to an address that (supposedly) can't accept them and just disappearing.

    The blockchain is a semi-interesting technology, but it is not suited to being used as a currency or even an alternate method of performing transactions. I shudder to think what would happen if any of the existing blockchains tried to handle the number of transactions that any major credit card does, much less all of them.

    But mostly I have no sympathy for these people that are wasting resources in such a blatant fashion.

    steam_sig.png
  • DaenrisDaenris Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    On a fundamental level I'm not solidly convinced anyone is holding what they say or think they're holding in Bitcoin. There are no reliable numbers nor any real stability.

    The people cashing out at the 100k level seem to be about the plausible limit.

    I don't know about that. I've cashed out about $200k in cryptocurrency over the past couple years, and I'm only a casual user who lucked into a good situation a few years ago. There are almost certainly people who have walked out with multiple millions.

    Edit: Don't get me wrong, crypto is almost entirely a scam and hugely resource wasting for those that require mining. But it has definitely made a bunch of people a ton of money.

    Daenris on
  • chrisnlchrisnl Registered User regular
    Wait there are cryptocurrencies that do not require mining? That seems counter to the definition to me, though apparently I am wrong about that.

    steam_sig.png
  • DaenrisDaenris Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    chrisnl wrote: »
    Wait there are cryptocurrencies that do not require mining? That seems counter to the definition to me, though apparently I am wrong about that.

    Yeah there definitely are. And ethereum, one of the biggest cryptocurrencies is currently mined but their planned roadmap for this year involves updating it to not be mined anymore.

    Edit: actually I may have misunderstood that. There may still be mining involved in eth 2.0 but it just changes how it works and is less power hungry. https://medium.com/better-programming/the-problems-that-ethereum-2-0-proof-of-stake-aims-to-solve-5361c155461a

    But there are definitely other currencies that don't require mining.

    Daenris on
  • ArchangleArchangle Registered User regular
    As I understand it, "mining" is a required component for Proof of Work designs - since if the system is expected to do a truckload of work to add a new block to a chain, there needs to be some kind of incentive for those people doing the majority of said work (it's essentially payment in company scrip).

    Protocols which use other types of proof (such as Proof of Stake for Ethereum 2.0) may not require mining as an incentive, but I think "mining" as a concept seems to seep through the majority of crypto-proponents as a way of recognising their innate "genius" for being early adopters.

  • manwiththemachinegunmanwiththemachinegun METAL GEAR?! Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    Daenris wrote: »
    On a fundamental level I'm not solidly convinced anyone is holding what they say or think they're holding in Bitcoin. There are no reliable numbers nor any real stability.

    The people cashing out at the 100k level seem to be about the plausible limit.

    I don't know about that. I've cashed out about $200k in cryptocurrency over the past couple years, and I'm only a casual user who lucked into a good situation a few years ago. There are almost certainly people who have walked out with multiple millions.

    Edit: Don't get me wrong, crypto is almost entirely a scam and hugely resource wasting for those that require mining. But it has definitely made a bunch of people a ton of money.

    As I said in the finance thread, there is a benefit to being 10% stupid when it comes to investments.

    manwiththemachinegun on
  • PhyphorPhyphor Building Planet Busters Tasting FruitRegistered User regular
    Forar wrote: »
    I mean, maybe they get out with $180 million, maybe it's 400 million, maybe it's about tree fiddy. As I said, it's likely to still be an unreasonable amount of cash for the average person, but in the grand scheme of things, I always see those articles as being akin to clickbait unless they provide a lot of context. Like the ones about the 30,000 bitcoin Pizza that was allegedly one of the first purchases with the tokens, which would be like a Billion dollars these days. Imagine eating a pizza and a decade later finding out you could have instead been worth nearly a Billion dollars?

    But I'm sure there must be a recovery team worth their salt (and a hefty chunk of change) where they could be trusted with that kind of work. Someone cleared for government contracts and state secrets or major corporations or something?

    There are certainly reputable data-recovery services out there who deal with highly valuable and secure data. That said, based on a quick google, nobody's ever successfully cracked an IronKey. Though if the guy who owns it believes the password is following one of several password schemes he's used in the past one of those companies (or, indeed, possibly even IronKey themselves) might be able to bypass the lockout to let him try more than 10 combinations. That's probably a lot more straight-forward than trying to just straight-up brute-force 256-bit AES.

    Typically the way these things work (if they are designed well) is that the cpu has an on-die private key set by burning fuses, the EEPROM contains password data encrypted by that key and probably the drive encryption key. The theory is that even decapping and trying to read the fuses with an electron microscope might trigger them so you can't read the key

    So on the last failure the software just burns its remaining fuses and wipes EEPROM and there's no more key material anywhere

  • cloudeaglecloudeagle Registered User regular
    The good news is that tech companies have finally stopped trying to randomly and loudly shoehorn "blockchain" into their mission statements.

    "With the power of blockchain, we can ensure delivery of the highest-quality hats for your dogs!"

    Switch: 3947-4890-9293
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    chrisnl wrote: »
    I have zero sympathy for anybody involved with bitcoin or any other "cryptocurrency". The entire system is a solution in search of a problem at best, and is intentionally designed to use an astounding quantity of resources. The incredible amount of electricity and manufacturing capacity and raw resources used to provide a service that is already handled far more efficiently and quickly through other methods is mind boggling.

    This doesn't even begin to get into the various ways that these things reek of scams, from so many being setup where the founders are able to get a ton of the coins for almost no effort to the numerous stories of exchanges just flat up disappearing or coins being sent to an address that (supposedly) can't accept them and just disappearing.

    The blockchain is a semi-interesting technology, but it is not suited to being used as a currency or even an alternate method of performing transactions. I shudder to think what would happen if any of the existing blockchains tried to handle the number of transactions that any major credit card does, much less all of them.

    But mostly I have no sympathy for these people that are wasting resources in such a blatant fashion.

    Meh the blockchain isn't even interesting. Bittorrent is a better implementation of it.

    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
  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    chrisnl wrote: »
    I have zero sympathy for anybody involved with bitcoin or any other "cryptocurrency". The entire system is a solution in search of a problem at best, and is intentionally designed to use an astounding quantity of resources. The incredible amount of electricity and manufacturing capacity and raw resources used to provide a service that is already handled far more efficiently and quickly through other methods is mind boggling.

    This doesn't even begin to get into the various ways that these things reek of scams, from so many being setup where the founders are able to get a ton of the coins for almost no effort to the numerous stories of exchanges just flat up disappearing or coins being sent to an address that (supposedly) can't accept them and just disappearing.

    The blockchain is a semi-interesting technology, but it is not suited to being used as a currency or even an alternate method of performing transactions. I shudder to think what would happen if any of the existing blockchains tried to handle the number of transactions that any major credit card does, much less all of them.

    But mostly I have no sympathy for these people that are wasting resources in such a blatant fashion.

    I remember seeing math about using a blockchain to replace the transactions handled by a single credit union. The bitcoin chain is currently ~300 gigs, but one for a modestly busy single-branch credit union would hit that in less than two years. Bank of America's would be that within a week.

    And a LOT of bitcoin transactions have actually been done OFF the blockchain. People put their coins into an exchange's wallets and can buy, sell, trade, and complete transactions within that exchange without generating transactions on the blockchain.

  • SmurphSmurph Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    Archangle wrote: »
    As I understand it, "mining" is a required component for Proof of Work designs - since if the system is expected to do a truckload of work to add a new block to a chain, there needs to be some kind of incentive for those people doing the majority of said work (it's essentially payment in company scrip).

    Protocols which use other types of proof (such as Proof of Stake for Ethereum 2.0) may not require mining as an incentive, but I think "mining" as a concept seems to seep through the majority of crypto-proponents as a way of recognising their innate "genius" for being early adopters.

    "Mining" just means the creation of new coins. If mining is free, people just create as many coins as they want and it's worthless. If it has a cost, like actually digging mines to find real gold, that can help prop up the cost of the coins.

    Proof of Work mining, which bitcoin uses and etherium uses at the moment, requires computing power to find hashes that satisfy certain requirements. I don't 100% understand it, but I know you need to be able to find the hashes quickly to have a chance at finding one that works. If you do, you are given the newly minted coins for that 'block'. On top of just finding these hashes (hard), you are also verifying transaction that will go in the block (easy). You're basically checking each address and making sure it has enough coins to cover a transaction it wants to add to the block. If you don't do this correctly and try to let bad transactions through, all of your hashes will be thrown out and you'll have no chance at ever earning a reward.

    Proof of Stake mining works with you putting your own coins up as collateral, and then just verifying transactions. If you try to let a bad transaction through, your stake is taken from you and divided up among the person you tried to rip off and/or the rest of the network that didn't fuck up.

    Proof of Work only works if it's hard enough and expensive enough that nobody can afford to get 51% of the mining under their control. Proof of Stake only works if nobody can get 51% of the supply.

    I don't think crypto works as money or as a product, but it a cool experiment to see how something very high trust (money & banking) can be decentralized to an extent. But right now it's a product that nobody actually needs and almost nobody uses that's been seized by speculators as a play thing.

    Smurph on
  • DoodmannDoodmann Registered User regular
    But seriously ya'll why is Bitcoin so high right now? I'm a little surprised it's maintained this level and wasn't a massive bull trap.

    Whippy wrote: »
    nope nope nope nope abort abort talk about anime
    Sometimes I sell my stuff on Ebay
  • Inquisitor77Inquisitor77 2 x Penny Arcade Fight Club Champion A fixed point in space and timeRegistered User regular
    Doodmann wrote: »
    But seriously ya'll why is Bitcoin so high right now? I'm a little surprised it's maintained this level and wasn't a massive bull trap.

    Bitcoin is a speculative commodity and illustrates how wealth and capital are largely concentrated in the hands of a few people who can afford to play with money. See also: the stock market.

  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    Doodmann wrote: »
    But seriously ya'll why is Bitcoin so high right now? I'm a little surprised it's maintained this level and wasn't a massive bull trap.

    Bitcoin is a speculative commodity and illustrates how wealth and capital are largely concentrated in the hands of a few people who can afford to play with money. See also: the stock market.

    The rumour I currently believe is that Tether is basically speculating like crazy with their USD capital, and it's going to cover crashing down once that company goes bankrupt or is shutdown by to be SEC.

  • SchrodingerSchrodinger Registered User regular
    Doodmann wrote: »
    But seriously ya'll why is Bitcoin so high right now? I'm a little surprised it's maintained this level and wasn't a massive bull trap.

    https://youtu.be/IqIsgemJdww

  • DoodmannDoodmann Registered User regular
    Doodmann wrote: »
    But seriously ya'll why is Bitcoin so high right now? I'm a little surprised it's maintained this level and wasn't a massive bull trap.

    Bitcoin is a speculative commodity and illustrates how wealth and capital are largely concentrated in the hands of a few people who can afford to play with money. See also: the stock market.

    The rumour I currently believe is that Tether is basically speculating like crazy with their USD capital, and it's going to cover crashing down once that company goes bankrupt or is shutdown by to be SEC.

    I am not deep enough into coin stuff to have this on my radar, holy crap this is shady as hell even in the context of bitcoin shadiness being normalized. This makes a lot of sense to me.

    Whippy wrote: »
    nope nope nope nope abort abort talk about anime
    Sometimes I sell my stuff on Ebay
  • GarthorGarthor Registered User regular
    Daenris wrote: »
    chrisnl wrote: »
    Wait there are cryptocurrencies that do not require mining? That seems counter to the definition to me, though apparently I am wrong about that.

    Yeah there definitely are. And ethereum, one of the biggest cryptocurrencies is currently mined but their planned roadmap for this year involves updating it to not be mined anymore.

    Edit: actually I may have misunderstood that. There may still be mining involved in eth 2.0 but it just changes how it works and is less power hungry. https://medium.com/better-programming/the-problems-that-ethereum-2-0-proof-of-stake-aims-to-solve-5361c155461a

    But there are definitely other currencies that don't require mining.

    I’m glad to see that they solved the “how do we protect our decentralized, trustless system from bad actors” by having a centralized, trusted source. Such innovation much wow.

  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    another forty, fifty years and they'll have re-created the modern banking system.

  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    another forty, fifty years and they'll have re-created the modern banking system.

    It's honestly impressive how cryptocurrency managed to invent a way to be even more destructive than normal capitalism generation.

  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    Garthor wrote: »
    Daenris wrote: »
    chrisnl wrote: »
    Wait there are cryptocurrencies that do not require mining? That seems counter to the definition to me, though apparently I am wrong about that.

    Yeah there definitely are. And ethereum, one of the biggest cryptocurrencies is currently mined but their planned roadmap for this year involves updating it to not be mined anymore.

    Edit: actually I may have misunderstood that. There may still be mining involved in eth 2.0 but it just changes how it works and is less power hungry. https://medium.com/better-programming/the-problems-that-ethereum-2-0-proof-of-stake-aims-to-solve-5361c155461a

    But there are definitely other currencies that don't require mining.

    I’m glad to see that they solved the “how do we protect our decentralized, trustless system from bad actors” by having a centralized, trusted source. Such innovation much wow.

    We don't believe in trust! We can't trust anyone to keep an accurate record of trasactions!

    ...Unless...

    What if we trusted the wealthiest people the most and the poor not at all?! Nothing could possibly go wrong!

    PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
  • Jam WarriorJam Warrior Registered User regular
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55658942

    'Bitcoin: Newport man's plea to find £210m hard drive in tip'

    This is fairly harrowing.

    MhCw7nZ.gif
  • ApogeeApogee Lancks In Every Game Ever Registered User regular
    Garthor wrote: »
    Daenris wrote: »
    chrisnl wrote: »
    Wait there are cryptocurrencies that do not require mining? That seems counter to the definition to me, though apparently I am wrong about that.

    Yeah there definitely are. And ethereum, one of the biggest cryptocurrencies is currently mined but their planned roadmap for this year involves updating it to not be mined anymore.

    Edit: actually I may have misunderstood that. There may still be mining involved in eth 2.0 but it just changes how it works and is less power hungry. https://medium.com/better-programming/the-problems-that-ethereum-2-0-proof-of-stake-aims-to-solve-5361c155461a

    But there are definitely other currencies that don't require mining.

    I’m glad to see that they solved the “how do we protect our decentralized, trustless system from bad actors” by having a centralized, trusted source. Such innovation much wow.

    We don't believe in trust! We can't trust anyone to keep an accurate record of trasactions!

    ...Unless...

    What if we trusted the wealthiest people the most and the poor not at all?! Nothing could possibly go wrong!

    I've never understood the thinking behind Proof-of-Stake crypto. BTC is incredibly inefficient, but at least it *is* secure - it is practically impossible to reverse transactions in the blockchain, which is the point of a blockchain. Proof of stake just says 'fuck it, the guys with all the money decide what transactions are real' which is just banking all over again. Why even bother with crypto at that point?

    8R7BtLw.png
  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    It's "secure" because it's practically impossible to reverse transactions?

    No, that just means when someone steals your fortune you're shit outta luck.

  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    what if I had all my money as cash and stuffed it under my bed

    It's so secure!!!!!

  • ApogeeApogee Lancks In Every Game Ever Registered User regular
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    It's "secure" because it's practically impossible to reverse transactions?

    No, that just means when someone steals your fortune you're shit outta luck.

    In a PoW cryptocurrency, as long as you hold the keys yourself then you can be assured that no one can take it from you. At least not virtually... having a piece of paper (or a computer file) that's worth $$$ and is effectively a bearer bond comes with... risks.

    If you leave currency with anyone else then it's just asking to be stolen, yes. Minimal regulation means that any company can just take it, and good luck suing the institution officially headed from, I dunno, Norway. Or even better, China.

    8R7BtLw.png
  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    Banks in the US are incredibly heavily regulated. Even with the deregulation that allowed the mortgage crisis to happen it's key to remember that nobody in the US lost money except the government. Banks can't play the "We're not actually in America" game that Apple or Activision or so many others play, and the basic price of entry to do banking in the US is sufficient that even when the mortgage crisis hit its peak, no account holders in the US lost money. Bank of Italy was only allowed to do business in the US by setting up a completely disconnected bank by the same name (later to be known as Bank of America ).

    The mortgage crisis was because of deregulation, but even at the peak of bank and loan deregulation, banks were more heavily regulated than industries that produced or used fissile material.

    And even when you get into "not really banks" you run into a lot. You might remember when Paypal started emptying donation accounts for everything from Stargate fan sites to FSF-backed open source libraries early in its history. They played the "we're not really a bank and they're not really accounts" card and the courts were unimpressed with the argument.


    Edit: let me put it simpler: that guy with two password attempts left, if he doesn't get it in the last two tries will have lost more money than every bank or credit union account holder in the entire US since the creation of the FDIC combined. Eighty years. Four goddamn generations, and this guy with a non-unique story has lost more money than all of them combined in a system meant to save him from the system that's kept them all safe.

    Hevach on
  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    edited January 2021
    Hevach wrote: »
    Banks in the US are incredibly heavily regulated. Even with the deregulation that allowed the mortgage crisis to happen it's key to remember that nobody in the US lost money except the government. Banks can't play the "We're not actually in America" game that Apple or Activision or so many others play, and the basic price of entry to do banking in the US is sufficient that even when the mortgage crisis hit its peak, no account holders in the US lost money. Bank of Italy was only allowed to do business in the US by setting up a completely disconnected bank by the same name (later to be known as Bank of America ).

    The mortgage crisis was because of deregulation, but even at the peak of bank and loan deregulation, banks were more heavily regulated than industries that produced or used fissile material.

    And even when you get into "not really banks" you run into a lot. You might remember when Paypal started emptying donation accounts for everything from Stargate fan sites to FSF-backed open source libraries early in its history. They played the "we're not really a bank and they're not really accounts" card and the courts were unimpressed with the argument.


    Edit: let me put it simpler: that guy with two password attempts left, if he doesn't get it in the last two tries will have lost more money than every bank or credit union account holder in the entire US since the creation of the FDIC combined. Eighty years. Four goddamn generations, and this guy with a non-unique story has lost more money than all of them combined in a system meant to save him from the system that's kept them all safe.

    Granted, nobody would be putting $220 million in FDIC ensured bank accounts. Are there even enough banks to do so?

    Even aside from which he wouldn't have $220 mil without massive speculation.

    Orca on
  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    Orca wrote: »
    Hevach wrote: »
    Banks in the US are incredibly heavily regulated. Even with the deregulation that allowed the mortgage crisis to happen it's key to remember that nobody in the US lost money except the government. Banks can't play the "We're not actually in America" game that Apple or Activision or so many others play, and the basic price of entry to do banking in the US is sufficient that even when the mortgage crisis hit its peak, no account holders in the US lost money. Bank of Italy was only allowed to do business in the US by setting up a completely disconnected bank by the same name (later to be known as Bank of America ).

    The mortgage crisis was because of deregulation, but even at the peak of bank and loan deregulation, banks were more heavily regulated than industries that produced or used fissile material.

    And even when you get into "not really banks" you run into a lot. You might remember when Paypal started emptying donation accounts for everything from Stargate fan sites to FSF-backed open source libraries early in its history. They played the "we're not really a bank and they're not really accounts" card and the courts were unimpressed with the argument.


    Edit: let me put it simpler: that guy with two password attempts left, if he doesn't get it in the last two tries will have lost more money than every bank or credit union account holder in the entire US since the creation of the FDIC combined. Eighty years. Four goddamn generations, and this guy with a non-unique story has lost more money than all of them combined in a system meant to save him from the system that's kept them all safe.

    Granted, nobody would be putting $220 million in FDIC ensured bank accounts. Are there even enough banks to do so?

    Even aside from which he wouldn't have $220 mil without massive speculation.

    There are about 4500 FDIC insured banks in the US, which means you would be able to store about 450m fully insured. However you could also purchase other secure instruments which were riskless and hold those in banks that, while not FDIC insured, were functionally FDIC insured because the only way to lose them is if the non-physical asset was destroyed/stolen in such a way as to be unrecoverable rather than the bank simply going under.

    But he didn't "put" $220m in a bitcoin account. He probably put a few thousand or less and now its "worth" $220m.

    Goumindong on
    wbBv3fj.png
  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    The FDIC does pay above the guaranteed amount. Unlike your homeowners insurance, the advertised amount is the minimum covered amount rather than maximum, each time the FDIC had to step in for a failing bank they were able to cover accounts exceeding the threshold as well.

    Hevach on
  • TetraNitroCubaneTetraNitroCubane The Djinnerator At the bottom of a bottleRegistered User regular
    Bitcoin potentially involved in funding right-wing terrorism. So it's got that goin' for it, lately.
    On Dec. 8, someone made a simultaneous transfer of 28.15 bitcoins — worth more than $500,000 at the time — to 22 different virtual wallets, most of them belonging to prominent right-wing organizations and personalities.

    Now cryptocurrency researchers believe they have identified who made the transfer, and suspect it was intended to bolster those far-right causes. U.S. law enforcement is investigating whether the donations were linked to the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.

    While the motivation is difficult to prove, the transfer came just a month before the violent riot in the Capitol, which took place after President Trump invited supporters to “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” and “take back our country.”

    Right-wing figures and websites, including VDARE, the Daily Stormer and Nick Fuentes, received generous donations from a bitcoin account linked to a French cryptocurrency exchange, according to research done by software company Chainalysis, which maintains a repository of information about public cryptocurrency exchanges and whose tools aid in government, law enforcement and private sector investigations. Chainalysis investigated the donations after Yahoo News shared the data points about the transaction.

    VuIBhrs.png
  • GarthorGarthor Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    Apogee wrote: »
    Garthor wrote: »
    Daenris wrote: »
    chrisnl wrote: »
    Wait there are cryptocurrencies that do not require mining? That seems counter to the definition to me, though apparently I am wrong about that.

    Yeah there definitely are. And ethereum, one of the biggest cryptocurrencies is currently mined but their planned roadmap for this year involves updating it to not be mined anymore.

    Edit: actually I may have misunderstood that. There may still be mining involved in eth 2.0 but it just changes how it works and is less power hungry. https://medium.com/better-programming/the-problems-that-ethereum-2-0-proof-of-stake-aims-to-solve-5361c155461a

    But there are definitely other currencies that don't require mining.

    I’m glad to see that they solved the “how do we protect our decentralized, trustless system from bad actors” by having a centralized, trusted source. Such innovation much wow.

    We don't believe in trust! We can't trust anyone to keep an accurate record of trasactions!

    ...Unless...

    What if we trusted the wealthiest people the most and the poor not at all?! Nothing could possibly go wrong!

    I've never understood the thinking behind Proof-of-Stake crypto. BTC is incredibly inefficient, but at least it *is* secure - it is practically impossible to reverse transactions in the blockchain, which is the point of a blockchain. Proof of stake just says 'fuck it, the guys with all the money decide what transactions are real' which is just banking all over again. Why even bother with crypto at that point?

    Actually the issue is any ol’ schlub can just spin up a node, run a bunch of fake transactions, and convince the network that they have the real ledger.

    Etherium 2.0 solves this by saying “we will run trusted nodes that are the final authority of the chain.” Also they will confiscate coins from perceived bad actors.

    So. You know.

    Garthor on
  • DoodmannDoodmann Registered User regular
    It's all a stupid waste of energy and probably a ponzi scheme?

    Whippy wrote: »
    nope nope nope nope abort abort talk about anime
    Sometimes I sell my stuff on Ebay
  • chrisnlchrisnl Registered User regular
    Ethereum switching to a literal "people who have the most currency decide who is right" method is mind-boggling to me.

    steam_sig.png
  • Atlas in ChainsAtlas in Chains Registered User regular
    Doodmann wrote: »
    It's all a stupid waste of energy and probably a ponzi scheme?

    Isn't this the plot of Arrival? No, not that Arrival, The Arrival starring Charlie Sheen. Aliens are getting us to mine bitcoin in a bid to get us to greenhouse gas our planet to their liking.

  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    chrisnl wrote: »
    Ethereum switching to a literal "people who have the most currency decide who is right" method is mind-boggling to me.

    "He who has the gold makes the rules."

  • manwiththemachinegunmanwiththemachinegun METAL GEAR?! Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    "The sanity of his plan is of no consequence."
    "Why?"
    "Because he can do it."

    manwiththemachinegun on
  • SchrodingerSchrodinger Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    Bitcoin is basically a sunk cost fallacy. People think it's valuable BECAUSE of how wasteful it is. They need to rationalize that it must be wasteful for a reason.



    Tweeter is an engineer from Microsoft.

    Schrodinger on
  • chrisnlchrisnl Registered User regular
    Man I knew this shit was wasteful, but that's like an order of magnitude worse than I thought it was! Honestly with that level of waste we should outlaw the stuff for the good of the planet, it's ludicrous how much energy a transaction takes.

    steam_sig.png
  • SchrodingerSchrodinger Registered User regular
    It would be interesting if countries start cracking down on crypto, not based on financial interactions, but simply based on excessive electricity usage.

  • DoodmannDoodmann Registered User regular
    It would be interesting if countries start cracking down on crypto, not based on financial interactions, but simply based on excessive electricity usage.

    It's definitely a race to see which crackdown happens first, the very obviously illegal ponzi scheme aspects (on drugs now because of tether), the very obvious environmental garbage, or how it fundamentally doesn't work as a currency, which is it's stated purprose.

    Whippy wrote: »
    nope nope nope nope abort abort talk about anime
    Sometimes I sell my stuff on Ebay
This discussion has been closed.