If you could sell a stock, and then tank its value, and then buy it again cheaper, and then endorse it, wouldn't you? Repeatedly?
If only we had some kind of regulatory body that existed to prevent exactly this kind of chicanery.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I don't really have an issue with Musk fleecing Bitcoin people. If people have any substantial amount of money invested in it, it's their own fault for investing heavily in something with essentially no actual protections.
If you could sell a stock, and then tank its value, and then buy it again cheaper, and then endorse it, wouldn't you? Repeatedly?
If only we had some kind of regulatory body that existed to prevent exactly this kind of chicanery.
We have one, and they have tutted and tittered and vigorously waggled fingers at Elon Musk and even asked other people to tell him to please stop. I don't know why it hasn't been working.
Like so many Federal agencies, they're not adequately equipped to go after the serious violators and instead prey on relatively minor offenders.
If you could sell a stock, and then tank its value, and then buy it again cheaper, and then endorse it, wouldn't you? Repeatedly?
no, because I have a fucking soul.
(which is one reason I'm not rich, though not being born rich is a much bigger one.)
These are bitcoin buyers though. Fleecing them doesn't count.
One of my brothers has gotten into crypto at, like, the penny stock level (more like a couple of hundred, I guess).
I love him, and I don't want it to be something that comes between us. But when he told me, I was just oh dude, no.
My roommate is like this. His wife has basically shut him down from even talking about it and I don't think he's put much money into it, but he really got hooked by it. I don't think I've ever had so many one-sided conversations in my life.
There are videos and e-mail newsletters and everything to make it a whole vibrant ecosystem of people really jazzed to think that they'll be able to successfully make a lot of money by daytrading the right crypto.
I don't really have an issue with Musk fleecing Bitcoin people. If people have any substantial amount of money invested in it, it's their own fault for investing heavily in something with essentially no actual protections.
This is a mistake. 50% of the people are dumber than average. Saying its OK to steal from 10% of the people because they're dumb is a recipe for disaster
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I don't really have an issue with Musk fleecing Bitcoin people. If people have any substantial amount of money invested in it, it's their own fault for investing heavily in something with essentially no actual protections.
This is a mistake. 50% of the people are dumber than average. Saying its OK to steal from 10% of the people because they're dumb is a recipe for disaster
I struggle with the idea that it could even remotely could be called theft. Crypto currencies were created from libertarian nonsense of "true scarcity" generating value and shit like that, all of it is just one huge scam with people racing each other to not be the one left holding the bag at the end. It's not an actual currency. It has no legal protections. Generating it is literally trading environmental damage for theoretical (not even actual, just theoretical) financial gain. If somebody with lots of actual money takes a run on Bitcoin and other people manage to lose money on it, then that's part of playing the crypto game. They should never have put money in the nonsense in the first place.
The fact they don't see the game isn't Musk's problem, he isn't tricking them into playing it. The real issue is that the ongoing existence of crypto currencies is even allowed given the energy costs, inherent environmental damage for zero product, and the near-total lack of meaningful regulation. This shit should've been banned five years ago and it should be just as banned now, expressly so the likes of Musk can't exploit idiots to rake in extra cash for himself.
I don’t understand how Bitcoin, whose value is based on a finite amount of coins, would even work. People will just hold on to their precious bits, not spending them because they’ll be worth EVEN MORE tomorrow, which… kinda defeats the purpose.
I don’t understand how Bitcoin, whose value is based on a finite amount of coins, would even work. People will just hold on to their precious bits, not spending them because they’ll be worth EVEN MORE tomorrow, which… kinda defeats the purpose.
The problem is they don't understand the purpose of money.
I don’t understand how Bitcoin, whose value is based on a finite amount of coins, would even work. People will just hold on to their precious bits, not spending them because they’ll be worth EVEN MORE tomorrow, which… kinda defeats the purpose.
The problem is they don't understand the purpose of money.
This is most people. Average people have never been challenged to think about money - they don't have to. Money is a thing you want more of to get more things.
A scary number of people do not comprehend interest despite almost all of them paying it.
I don’t understand how Bitcoin, whose value is based on a finite amount of coins, would even work. People will just hold on to their precious bits, not spending them because they’ll be worth EVEN MORE tomorrow, which… kinda defeats the purpose.
The problem is they don't understand the purpose of money.
This is most people. Average people have never been challenged to think about money - they don't have to. Money is a thing you want more of to get more things.
A scary number of people do not comprehend interest despite almost all of them paying it.
I don't think most people have the interest.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
+16
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Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
I don't really have an issue with Musk fleecing Bitcoin people. If people have any substantial amount of money invested in it, it's their own fault for investing heavily in something with essentially no actual protections.
This is a mistake. 50% of the people are dumber than average. Saying its OK to steal from 10% of the people because they're dumb is a recipe for disaster
No, 50% of people are dumber than the median, a small population of very dumb or very smart people could skew the average.
I don't really have an issue with Musk fleecing Bitcoin people. If people have any substantial amount of money invested in it, it's their own fault for investing heavily in something with essentially no actual protections.
This is a mistake. 50% of the people are dumber than average. Saying its OK to steal from 10% of the people because they're dumb is a recipe for disaster
No, 50% of people are dumber than the median, a small population of very dumb or very smart people could skew the average.
Sorry, pet peeve of mine.
Technically even that may not be true, depending on how many people are exactly on the median!
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ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
I don't really have an issue with Musk fleecing Bitcoin people. If people have any substantial amount of money invested in it, it's their own fault for investing heavily in something with essentially no actual protections.
This is a mistake. 50% of the people are dumber than average. Saying its OK to steal from 10% of the people because they're dumb is a recipe for disaster
I struggle with the idea that it could even remotely could be called theft. Crypto currencies were created from libertarian nonsense of "true scarcity" generating value and shit like that, all of it is just one huge scam with people racing each other to not be the one left holding the bag at the end. It's not an actual currency. It has no legal protections. Generating it is literally trading environmental damage for theoretical (not even actual, just theoretical) financial gain. If somebody with lots of actual money takes a run on Bitcoin and other people manage to lose money on it, then that's part of playing the crypto game. They should never have put money in the nonsense in the first place.
The fact they don't see the game isn't Musk's problem, he isn't tricking them into playing it. The real issue is that the ongoing existence of crypto currencies is even allowed given the energy costs, inherent environmental damage for zero product, and the near-total lack of meaningful regulation. This shit should've been banned five years ago and it should be just as banned now, expressly so the likes of Musk can't exploit idiots to rake in extra cash for himself.
Definitely agree that our collective governments have failed to take necessary action, but I'm not going to excuse someone like Musk doing something obviously manipulative to increase his own wealth, power, and influence. He is doing real damage, it's not ok, and it doesn't matter that someone else would be doing it if he weren't.
And sure you can change a line in your server config but all of the certificate infrastructure must necessarily assumed to be compromised and reissued, and there is plenty of software out there that likely won't even support sha-3 without updates, especially embedded shit
More importantly, there are oceans of code out there using either SHA-2 directly via some library or relying on SSL/TLS via libraries. Not only does all that code need to be touched to change what hashing function it uses, the library they're using may not have support for switching to another function. Or it may have support but need to go through a security vetting process to be included in production code. And even in a best-case scenario where it's a one-line change to switch from SHA-2 to something else for a given piece of software, there's still the entire build, test, and release process to go through. Even expediting things as much as humanly possible in view of a severe security vulnerability, some software simply cannot go from code change to release in a day. And then every consumer of that software is going to have to go and update to a version with the vulnerability patched. Which, in the case of major enterprises and government entities, is sometimes deeply non-trivial even from a practical standpoint to say nothing of the red tape required to do an update. Sure, companies should stay up to date to avoid vulnerabilities but if you don't think there are companies out there with un-patched Windows 98 boxes on their network you don't work in network security.
And then there's all the code that people are still using which isn't being maintained by anyone so won't get an update to switch its hash algorithm and, quite possibly, the people using it won't know or understand that it needs to switch so will simply do nothing about it ever.
I don't really have an issue with Musk fleecing Bitcoin people. If people have any substantial amount of money invested in it, it's their own fault for investing heavily in something with essentially no actual protections.
This is a mistake. 50% of the people are dumber than average. Saying its OK to steal from 10% of the people because they're dumb is a recipe for disaster
And it often has very little to do with being "dumb" and more to do with not being properly informed. Most people don't have the background in economics to know why the model of cryptocurrencies is bad. Most people don't have the background in CS to know all the flaws. And there is a lot of hype about them, especially around how it's basically easy money. So, you have an esoteric thing that is hyped to all hell with promises of easy money. Who do you think that is going to affect? The desperate and poor. That's who cryptocurrencies and other pyramid schemes tend to steal from.
+3
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Gabriel_Pitt(effective against Russian warships)Registered Userregular
I don’t understand how Bitcoin, whose value is based on a finite amount of coins, would even work. People will just hold on to their precious bits, not spending them because they’ll be worth EVEN MORE tomorrow, which… kinda defeats the purpose.
The problem is they don't understand the purpose of money.
I'm feeling the urge to link to the Silver Circles trailer again. When was the last time that came up?
I don't really have an issue with Musk fleecing Bitcoin people. If people have any substantial amount of money invested in it, it's their own fault for investing heavily in something with essentially no actual protections.
This is a mistake. 50% of the people are dumber than average. Saying its OK to steal from 10% of the people because they're dumb is a recipe for disaster
No, 50% of people are dumber than the median, a small population of very dumb or very smart people could skew the average.
Sorry, pet peeve of mine.
IQ is based on a curve that assumes both are statistically the same.
Of course,, measuring intelligence is kind of bullshit in general, so attempting to apply a technical definition of average here is meaningless.
And sure you can change a line in your server config but all of the certificate infrastructure must necessarily assumed to be compromised and reissued, and there is plenty of software out there that likely won't even support sha-3 without updates, especially embedded shit
More importantly, there are oceans of code out there using either SHA-2 directly via some library or relying on SSL/TLS via libraries. Not only does all that code need to be touched to change what hashing function it uses, the library they're using may not have support for switching to another function. Or it may have support but need to go through a security vetting process to be included in production code. And even in a best-case scenario where it's a one-line change to switch from SHA-2 to something else for a given piece of software, there's still the entire build, test, and release process to go through. Even expediting things as much as humanly possible in view of a severe security vulnerability, some software simply cannot go from code change to release in a day. And then every consumer of that software is going to have to go and update to a version with the vulnerability patched. Which, in the case of major enterprises and government entities, is sometimes deeply non-trivial even from a practical standpoint to say nothing of the red tape required to do an update. Sure, companies should stay up to date to avoid vulnerabilities but if you don't think there are companies out there with un-patched Windows 98 boxes on their network you don't work in network security.
And then there's all the code that people are still using which isn't being maintained by anyone so won't get an update to switch its hash algorithm and, quite possibly, the people using it won't know or understand that it needs to switch so will simply do nothing about it ever.
I don't really have an issue with Musk fleecing Bitcoin people. If people have any substantial amount of money invested in it, it's their own fault for investing heavily in something with essentially no actual protections.
This is a mistake. 50% of the people are dumber than average. Saying its OK to steal from 10% of the people because they're dumb is a recipe for disaster
And it often has very little to do with being "dumb" and more to do with not being properly informed. Most people don't have the background in economics to know why the model of cryptocurrencies is bad. Most people don't have the background in CS to know all the flaws. And there is a lot of hype about them, especially around how it's basically easy money. So, you have an esoteric thing that is hyped to all hell with promises of easy money. Who do you think that is going to affect? The desperate and poor. That's who cryptocurrencies and other pyramid schemes tend to steal from.
Oh yeah these predatory schemes almost exclusively target the poor, partly because the poor are so much less likely to be able to do anything about it. When you think about it, Bernie Madoff was scum but in the end the amount of money lost in his scheme wasn't anything near what most people think it was. I believe something like 80% of the money was recovered (obviously that only counts the money actually put in, not the supposed ridiculous returns he was promising or the opportunity cost of not being able to invest that money in a real investment vehicle), but since he stole from rich people they had to make an example of him and sentenced him to 150 years in prison.
Meanwhile you have tons of scams that take far more money (in aggregate, I doubt any single scheme to steal from the poor is measured in billions) from poor people that are even considered to be technically legal, like multi level marketing firms and prosperity doctrine sermons. From a criminal's point of view it is pretty much always better to steal from people that don't have the power to do anything about it, even if the potential returns you could get by stealing from the rich are higher so is the associated risk.
As bad as Elon Musk is being right now, Spike Lee's commercial is vastly worse.
Because at least Musk is mainly targeting overconfident tech bros who think they know better than everyone else and who have heard all the counter arguments but refuse to listen.
Spike is specifically targeting underprivileged communities with a scam that they're largely unaware of.
If you could sell a stock, and then tank its value, and then buy it again cheaper, and then endorse it, wouldn't you? Repeatedly?
no, because I have a fucking soul.
(which is one reason I'm not rich, though not being born rich is a much bigger one.)
These are bitcoin buyers though. Fleecing them doesn't count.
Why is it ok for Musk, someone worth like a hundred billion dollars, to fleece people? It's not like he needs the money.
Why is it ok for people to get fleeced? Just because they should have known better? That's not a good enough reason, people should know better than to smoke or gamble their lively hood away, but they do because for many it's an addiction and not a rational choice. Treating everyone involved in bitcoin as someone that deserved to be scammed is no better than treating every smoker as someone who deserved to die of lung cancer.
And I say that as someone who smoked for 15 years, quit 10 years ago, and would fucking kill for a cigarette right now. It's an addiction because you can't help yourself, and it's a constant struggle. People get involved in crypto or wallstreetbets or whatever because they are chasing the high of being a winner, despite that fact that most end up as losers. Musk should be vilified for his naked abuses.
If you could sell a stock, and then tank its value, and then buy it again cheaper, and then endorse it, wouldn't you? Repeatedly?
no, because I have a fucking soul.
(which is one reason I'm not rich, though not being born rich is a much bigger one.)
These are bitcoin buyers though. Fleecing them doesn't count.
Why is it ok for Musk, someone worth like a hundred billion dollars, to fleece people? It's not like he needs the money.
Why is it ok for people to get fleeced? Just because they should have known better? That's not a good enough reason, people should know better than to smoke or gamble their lively hood away, but they do because for many it's an addiction and not a rational choice. Treating everyone involved in bitcoin as someone that deserved to be scammed is no better than treating every smoker as someone who deserved to die of lung cancer.
And I say that as someone who smoked for 15 years, quit 10 years ago, and would fucking kill for a cigarette right now. It's an addiction because you can't help yourself, and it's a constant struggle. People get involved in crypto or wallstreetbets or whatever because they are chasing the high of being a winner, despite that fact that most end up as losers. Musk should be vilified for his naked abuses.
Every question you have is answered in that post.
+1
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
Tether Executives Said to Face Criminal Probe Into Bank Fraud
A U.S. probe into Tether is homing in on whether executives behind the digital token committed bank fraud, a potential criminal case that would have broad implications for the cryptocurrency market.
Tether’s pivotal role in the crypto ecosystem is now well known because the token is widely used to trade Bitcoin. But the Justice Department investigation is focused on conduct that occurred years ago, when Tether was in its more nascent stages. Specifically, federal prosecutors are scrutinizing whether Tether concealed from banks that transactions were linked to crypto, said three people with direct knowledge of the matter who asked not to be named because the probe is confidential.
...
Federal prosecutors have been circling Tether since at least 2018. In recent months, they sent letters to individuals alerting them that they’re targets of the investigation, one of the people said. The notices signal that a decision on whether to bring a case could be made soon, with senior Justice Department officials ultimately determining whether charges are warranted.
Ethereum Proof of Stake is still on the horizon and most of ETH's biggest competitors are already Proof of Stake. I would guess that 95% of GPU miners are mining ETH and dumping it for real money ASAP. Once ETH GPU mining is gone, they will only be able to mine smaller, even more speculative and risky coins. I'm hoping that a lot of them will just say "no thanks" and sell the GPUs and get out of the game.
apparently crypto is rebounding; just as the GPU market was starting a minor recovery.
There’s a rumor going around that Amazon plans to accept some crypto and is considering issuing a cryptocurrency of their own. Pure rumor, mind you, from what limited info I’ve seen.
Crypto turning out to be a long road to re-introducing company scrip makes a certain kind of horrible sense to me, though.
So, a question for the non-technical-minded. There's a finite amount of Bitcoin that can ever be mined, and we're within spitting distance of it. Once the last Bitcoin is mined, does that mean there's no more need for powerful GPUs to move it around? (Not counting all the other cryptocurrencies that can still be mined, of course.)
So, a question for the non-technical-minded. There's a finite amount of Bitcoin that can ever be mined, and we're within spitting distance of it. Once the last Bitcoin is mined, does that mean there's no more need for powerful GPUs to move it around? (Not counting all the other cryptocurrencies that can still be mined, of course.)
Nope!
Once the last bitcoin is mined the "only" impact on Bitcoin is that mining blocks no longer produces coins.
Currently if you're a bitcoin miner you are motivated to mine new blocks by two things: getting a coin and getting transaction fees for all the transactions in that block. Once the pool of coins is exhausted you will only be paid for mining blocks out of the transaction fees. The amount of work required to mine a block is arbitrary and determined by the total computational power available to mine blocks, so as long as the same number of miners keep competing for those fees it will take the same amount of wasted power to generate new blocks.
So, a question for the non-technical-minded. There's a finite amount of Bitcoin that can ever be mined, and we're within spitting distance of it. Once the last Bitcoin is mined, does that mean there's no more need for powerful GPUs to move it around? (Not counting all the other cryptocurrencies that can still be mined, of course.)
Nope!
Once the last bitcoin is mined the "only" impact on Bitcoin is that mining blocks no longer produces coins.
Currently if you're a bitcoin miner you are motivated to mine new blocks by two things: getting a coin and getting transaction fees for all the transactions in that block. Once the pool of coins is exhausted you will only be paid for mining blocks out of the transaction fees. The amount of work required to mine a block is arbitrary and determined by the total computational power available to mine blocks, so as long as the same number of miners keep competing for those fees it will take the same amount of wasted power to generate new blocks.
Christ, it's like they were literally trying to set the planet on fire when designing the system.
I believe the computational difficulty scales up and down with the fleet, so if 90% drop out once there are no more free coins then it becomes 90% easier to mine the next block.
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
I believe the computational difficulty scales up and down with the fleet, so if 90% drop out once there are no more free coins then it becomes 90% easier to mine the next block.
The adjustment speed isn't automatic, though. So it might take 6 months at 10% capacity before the adjustment catches up.
I'm so confused. You can't mine coins, but you can mine blocks? If every coin has been produced why would you mine blocks?
So you don't get a coin reward for adding a new block when there aren't any left, but you do still get the transaction fees (or at least part of the transaction fees, I'm not sure about that). It is my understanding that the amount of bitcoin rewarded for adding a new block to the chain has been steadily decreasing since its inception and at this point the bitcoin mined for adding a block is pretty minimal. You would think that the transactions fees would grow so high as to make it economically unfeasible as a transaction method at some point, but as long as some coins are rewarded for adding a block and the "value" of each coin remains high it kind of insulates the miners from the reality that this is all just stupid.
I did look it up, it looks like each time a block is added, the miner gets 6.5 coins and this is scheduled to drop to 3.25 at some point in May 2024. So each successful block add is something like a quarter of a million dollars "worth" of bitcoin at the price I just looked up. I do not know what kind of transaction fee is added on top of that, but without that quarter of a million bucks of new bitcoins being handed out I bet the transaction fees would be significant for miners to remain profitable.
I'm so confused. You can't mine coins, but you can mine blocks? If every coin has been produced why would you mine blocks?
So you don't get a coin reward for adding a new block when there aren't any left, but you do still get the transaction fees (or at least part of the transaction fees, I'm not sure about that). It is my understanding that the amount of bitcoin rewarded for adding a new block to the chain has been steadily decreasing since its inception and at this point the bitcoin mined for adding a block is pretty minimal. You would think that the transactions fees would grow so high as to make it economically unfeasible as a transaction method at some point, but as long as some coins are rewarded for adding a block and the "value" of each coin remains high it kind of insulates the miners from the reality that this is all just stupid.
I did look it up, it looks like each time a block is added, the miner gets 6.5 coins and this is scheduled to drop to 3.25 at some point in May 2024. So each successful block add is something like a quarter of a million dollars "worth" of bitcoin at the price I just looked up. I do not know what kind of transaction fee is added on top of that, but without that quarter of a million bucks of new bitcoins being handed out I bet the transaction fees would be significant for miners to remain profitable.
Bitcoin gets increasingly stupid as a real currency the closer you look. Miners get all of the transaction fees for transactions included in the block they mine. A block in original Bitcoin is limited to 1MB in size, which means there's a finite number of transactions which can possibly be included in one block. The actual number varies but it is (apparently, based on google) about 2000 transactions per block. Transaction fees are basically arbitrary. You can increase the fee you pay in order to incentivize miners to include your transaction in their block, basically giving your transaction priority. The same site where I found a graph of transactions-per-block over time also said that the price per transaction is (currently) about $1.90 USD, so one block is worth about $3600 USD in fees, which is a pittance compared to the coin value.
But also note that the whole "you can pay more to incentivize your transaction" means that miners get to decide what transactions to include. So when BTC exhausts its coin pool and miners are paid only in fees, the degree to which it becomes necessary to bribe miners into including your transaction is almost certain to skyrocket.
Bitcoin transaction fees reached $60 at one point. That's $60 regardless of whether you're buying a mansion or a hamburger.
Right now, Bitcoin awards people 6.5 coins every 10 minutes, or about $250,000.
But here's the thing: There's a limit of 10 transactions per second. Which means that Bitcoin is basically awarding miners over $400 for every transaction completed with fake money.
Posts
no, because I have a fucking soul.
(which is one reason I'm not rich, though not being born rich is a much bigger one.)
If only we had some kind of regulatory body that existed to prevent exactly this kind of chicanery.
These are bitcoin buyers though. Fleecing them doesn't count.
We have one, and they have tutted and tittered and vigorously waggled fingers at Elon Musk and even asked other people to tell him to please stop. I don't know why it hasn't been working.
Like so many Federal agencies, they're not adequately equipped to go after the serious violators and instead prey on relatively minor offenders.
One of my brothers has gotten into crypto at, like, the penny stock level (more like a couple of hundred, I guess).
I love him, and I don't want it to be something that comes between us. But when he told me, I was just oh dude, no.
Has he ever seen Wolf of Wall Street?
He's the guy the wolves were milking.
My roommate is like this. His wife has basically shut him down from even talking about it and I don't think he's put much money into it, but he really got hooked by it. I don't think I've ever had so many one-sided conversations in my life.
There are videos and e-mail newsletters and everything to make it a whole vibrant ecosystem of people really jazzed to think that they'll be able to successfully make a lot of money by daytrading the right crypto.
I'm just thankful he's not mining...I think.
This is a mistake. 50% of the people are dumber than average. Saying its OK to steal from 10% of the people because they're dumb is a recipe for disaster
I struggle with the idea that it could even remotely could be called theft. Crypto currencies were created from libertarian nonsense of "true scarcity" generating value and shit like that, all of it is just one huge scam with people racing each other to not be the one left holding the bag at the end. It's not an actual currency. It has no legal protections. Generating it is literally trading environmental damage for theoretical (not even actual, just theoretical) financial gain. If somebody with lots of actual money takes a run on Bitcoin and other people manage to lose money on it, then that's part of playing the crypto game. They should never have put money in the nonsense in the first place.
The fact they don't see the game isn't Musk's problem, he isn't tricking them into playing it. The real issue is that the ongoing existence of crypto currencies is even allowed given the energy costs, inherent environmental damage for zero product, and the near-total lack of meaningful regulation. This shit should've been banned five years ago and it should be just as banned now, expressly so the likes of Musk can't exploit idiots to rake in extra cash for himself.
WoW
Dear Satan.....
The problem is they don't understand the purpose of money.
This is most people. Average people have never been challenged to think about money - they don't have to. Money is a thing you want more of to get more things.
A scary number of people do not comprehend interest despite almost all of them paying it.
I don't think most people have the interest.
No, 50% of people are dumber than the median, a small population of very dumb or very smart people could skew the average.
Sorry, pet peeve of mine.
Definitely agree that our collective governments have failed to take necessary action, but I'm not going to excuse someone like Musk doing something obviously manipulative to increase his own wealth, power, and influence. He is doing real damage, it's not ok, and it doesn't matter that someone else would be doing it if he weren't.
And it often has very little to do with being "dumb" and more to do with not being properly informed. Most people don't have the background in economics to know why the model of cryptocurrencies is bad. Most people don't have the background in CS to know all the flaws. And there is a lot of hype about them, especially around how it's basically easy money. So, you have an esoteric thing that is hyped to all hell with promises of easy money. Who do you think that is going to affect? The desperate and poor. That's who cryptocurrencies and other pyramid schemes tend to steal from.
I'm feeling the urge to link to the Silver Circles trailer again. When was the last time that came up?
IQ is based on a curve that assumes both are statistically the same.
Of course,, measuring intelligence is kind of bullshit in general, so attempting to apply a technical definition of average here is meaningless.
Oh yeah these predatory schemes almost exclusively target the poor, partly because the poor are so much less likely to be able to do anything about it. When you think about it, Bernie Madoff was scum but in the end the amount of money lost in his scheme wasn't anything near what most people think it was. I believe something like 80% of the money was recovered (obviously that only counts the money actually put in, not the supposed ridiculous returns he was promising or the opportunity cost of not being able to invest that money in a real investment vehicle), but since he stole from rich people they had to make an example of him and sentenced him to 150 years in prison.
Meanwhile you have tons of scams that take far more money (in aggregate, I doubt any single scheme to steal from the poor is measured in billions) from poor people that are even considered to be technically legal, like multi level marketing firms and prosperity doctrine sermons. From a criminal's point of view it is pretty much always better to steal from people that don't have the power to do anything about it, even if the potential returns you could get by stealing from the rich are higher so is the associated risk.
Because at least Musk is mainly targeting overconfident tech bros who think they know better than everyone else and who have heard all the counter arguments but refuse to listen.
Spike is specifically targeting underprivileged communities with a scam that they're largely unaware of.
Why is it ok for Musk, someone worth like a hundred billion dollars, to fleece people? It's not like he needs the money.
Why is it ok for people to get fleeced? Just because they should have known better? That's not a good enough reason, people should know better than to smoke or gamble their lively hood away, but they do because for many it's an addiction and not a rational choice. Treating everyone involved in bitcoin as someone that deserved to be scammed is no better than treating every smoker as someone who deserved to die of lung cancer.
And I say that as someone who smoked for 15 years, quit 10 years ago, and would fucking kill for a cigarette right now. It's an addiction because you can't help yourself, and it's a constant struggle. People get involved in crypto or wallstreetbets or whatever because they are chasing the high of being a winner, despite that fact that most end up as losers. Musk should be vilified for his naked abuses.
Every question you have is answered in that post.
...
*grabs popcorn*
There’s a rumor going around that Amazon plans to accept some crypto and is considering issuing a cryptocurrency of their own. Pure rumor, mind you, from what limited info I’ve seen.
Crypto turning out to be a long road to re-introducing company scrip makes a certain kind of horrible sense to me, though.
Nope!
Once the last bitcoin is mined the "only" impact on Bitcoin is that mining blocks no longer produces coins.
Currently if you're a bitcoin miner you are motivated to mine new blocks by two things: getting a coin and getting transaction fees for all the transactions in that block. Once the pool of coins is exhausted you will only be paid for mining blocks out of the transaction fees. The amount of work required to mine a block is arbitrary and determined by the total computational power available to mine blocks, so as long as the same number of miners keep competing for those fees it will take the same amount of wasted power to generate new blocks.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
Christ, it's like they were literally trying to set the planet on fire when designing the system.
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
The adjustment speed isn't automatic, though. So it might take 6 months at 10% capacity before the adjustment catches up.
So you don't get a coin reward for adding a new block when there aren't any left, but you do still get the transaction fees (or at least part of the transaction fees, I'm not sure about that). It is my understanding that the amount of bitcoin rewarded for adding a new block to the chain has been steadily decreasing since its inception and at this point the bitcoin mined for adding a block is pretty minimal. You would think that the transactions fees would grow so high as to make it economically unfeasible as a transaction method at some point, but as long as some coins are rewarded for adding a block and the "value" of each coin remains high it kind of insulates the miners from the reality that this is all just stupid.
I did look it up, it looks like each time a block is added, the miner gets 6.5 coins and this is scheduled to drop to 3.25 at some point in May 2024. So each successful block add is something like a quarter of a million dollars "worth" of bitcoin at the price I just looked up. I do not know what kind of transaction fee is added on top of that, but without that quarter of a million bucks of new bitcoins being handed out I bet the transaction fees would be significant for miners to remain profitable.
Bitcoin gets increasingly stupid as a real currency the closer you look. Miners get all of the transaction fees for transactions included in the block they mine. A block in original Bitcoin is limited to 1MB in size, which means there's a finite number of transactions which can possibly be included in one block. The actual number varies but it is (apparently, based on google) about 2000 transactions per block. Transaction fees are basically arbitrary. You can increase the fee you pay in order to incentivize miners to include your transaction in their block, basically giving your transaction priority. The same site where I found a graph of transactions-per-block over time also said that the price per transaction is (currently) about $1.90 USD, so one block is worth about $3600 USD in fees, which is a pittance compared to the coin value.
But also note that the whole "you can pay more to incentivize your transaction" means that miners get to decide what transactions to include. So when BTC exhausts its coin pool and miners are paid only in fees, the degree to which it becomes necessary to bribe miners into including your transaction is almost certain to skyrocket.
Right now, Bitcoin awards people 6.5 coins every 10 minutes, or about $250,000.
But here's the thing: There's a limit of 10 transactions per second. Which means that Bitcoin is basically awarding miners over $400 for every transaction completed with fake money.
This obviously is not sustainable.