Bitcoin and other crypto-The CR thread

[Guest]

1 minute ago, wildcat09 said:

I'm personally angry about Bitcoin because we're letting bitcoin miners waste absurd amounts of energy that would be reckless even if we didn't have a shitty electric grid, we fucking pay them to stop when we need the power they're otherwise using, its markets are controlled by fraudulent actors that exploit vulnerable people, and it enables human trafficking and child exploitation on an otherwise-impossible scale. All for something that is not actually useful as a currency and has no inherent value whatsoever.

I'm angry about the first part too. I think that's dumb. I don't know what you're even alluding to with the rest of that, so I won't touch it.

But hey, I answered your question regarding buying "wildcatcoin." Answer mine. What price of BTC would make you believe it does have some sort of value? 

[wildcat09 29422]

Just now, FirstTimeCaller said:

I'm angry about the first part too. I think that's dumb. I don't know what you're even alluding to with the rest of that, so I won't touch it.

But hey, I answered your question regarding buying "wildcatcoin." Answer mine. What price of BTC would make you believe it does have some sort of value? 

There is no price that would make me believe it has any real value, because it doesn't. An entire ecosystem that relies on there always being a greater fool isn't valuable. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, wildcat09 said:

There is no price that would make me believe it has any real value, because it doesn't. An entire ecosystem that relies on there always being a greater fool isn't valuable. 

Ok, fair enough. I see the argument. I don't agree with it, but see where it comes from. 

[wildcat09 29422]

As for the human trafficking and child exploitation angle, Crypto, and Bitcoin specifically for the most part, has enabled a huge boom in that in recent years:

Quote

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a Financial Trend Analysis (FTA)  today reflecting an increase in Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) reporting associated with the use of convertible virtual currency (CVC) and online child sexual exploitation (OCSE) and human trafficking. This FTA is based on BSA reporting filed between January 2020 and December 2021.

“Human traffickers and perpetrators of related crimes despicably exploit adults and children for financial gain,” said FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki. “Financial institutions’ vigilance and timely reporting is critical to providing law enforcement agencies with the information needed to investigate potential cases of human trafficking, sexual crimes against children, and related crimes. This reporting ultimately helps law enforcement protect and save innocent lives.”

The analysis detailed in this FTA furthers Treasury efforts to combat human trafficking as well as the illicit uses of CVC. For example, Brian Nelson, Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, announced at the President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking that FinCEN has joined the Canadian financial intelligence unit’s Project Protect—a flagship public-private partnership on human trafficking. In addition, in June 2021, FinCEN identified human trafficking and cybercrime as among the “Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism National Priorities” issued pursuant to the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020. More recently, in October 2023, FinCEN issued a finding pursuant to Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act that CVC mixing is a class of transactions of primary money laundering concern and proposed reporting requirements to increase transparency in connection with CVC mixing.

FinCEN’s analysis highlights the value of BSA reporting filed by regulated financial institutions. Key findings in the FTA include:

The total number of OCSE- and human trafficking-related BSA reports involving CVC increased from 336 in 2020 to 1,975 in 2021.
BSA filers specifically reported child sexual abuse material (CSAM) or human trafficking and CSAM in 95 percent of the OCSE- and human trafficking-related BSA reports involving CVC.
BSA reports overwhelmingly identified bitcoin as the primary CVC used for purported OCSE- and human trafficking-related activity, however, this does not necessarily mean that other types of CVC are not used for such crimes.
FinCEN identified four typologies (i.e. the use of darknet marketplaces that distribute CSAM, peer-to-peer exchanges, CVC mixers, and CVC kiosks) that describe common trends within BSA reports related to OCSE and human trafficking.

When you promote bitcoin, you're helping human traffickers and child pornographers profit. 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

As for the human trafficking and child exploitation angle, Crypto, and Bitcoin specifically for the most part, has enabled a huge boom in that in recent years:

When you promote bitcoin, you're helping human traffickers and child pornographers profit. 

So as cryptocurrency has gained in adoption, it's being used more in these crimes. To the tune of roughly 2,000 cases in 2021. My response would be how many BSA reports involved the US dollar? Or Euros? I would expect it to be a multitude more than what's shown here. Does that mean I am helping them profit because the vast, vast, vast majority of my wealth is in dollars.

 

[UpperWestside 6190]

34 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

So what you're saying is that if I told enough lies to enough people to convince them that wildcatcoin was actually worth a lot, then you'd be interested.

I'm personally angry about Bitcoin because we're letting bitcoin miners waste absurd amounts of energy that would be reckless even if we didn't have a shitty electric grid, we fucking pay them to stop when we need the power they're otherwise using, its markets are controlled by fraudulent actors that exploit vulnerable people, and it enables human trafficking and child exploitation on an otherwise-impossible scale. All for something that is not actually useful as a currency and has no inherent value whatsoever.

No because it’s all blatant fraud. What is happening needs to be punishable with serious prison time. I have zero sympathy for people trying to lie about the value of fake money. They all need to be sent to Snake Island.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, UpperWestside said:

No because it’s all blatant fraud. What is happening needs to be punishable with serious prison time. I have zero sympathy for people trying to lie about the value of fake money. They all need to be sent to Snake Island.

Sorry, who specifically should be in prison? And what is the fraud they are committing? 

[wildcat09 29422]

17 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

Sorry, who specifically should be in prison? And what is the fraud they are committing? 

Did you miss the recent convictions of SBF and CZ? How about 3 guys recently charged in a $1.89 billion fraud case? Or the guy recently convicted of $300 million in a securities fraud case for running bots to manipulate a cryptocurrency's price?

Maybe this will help explain things a little better. I'm pretty sure I posted a link to this back when the crypto collapse was beginning (though can't find the post), but the ultimate problem with Bitcoin is that it is a negative-sum ecosystem:

Quote

In late 2016, we were approached by a brilliant entrepreneur with an interesting investment opportunity. We mask the full details here to protect anonymity but believe us when we say this person has a knack for being incredibly early to imminent megatrends at the bleeding edge of technical and social disruptions. His pitch involved a company he and some colleagues were starting that had something to do with “bitcoin,” which he described to us as a form of “crypto currency.” We knew precious little about bitcoin or crypto currencies back then, nor did we understand what the newly formed company intended to do, but in a classic “bet the jockey, not the horse” move, we agreed to participate in the seed round at the minimum investment level. We immediately marked this equity investment to zero on our personal balance sheets.

In the following months, we engaged in a series of philosophical conversations about crypto currencies with our friend to learn more. Concurrent with this quest for knowledge, the paper value of our modest investment began to soar, which had the understandable effect of increasing the urgency of our research. We distinctly recall drawing two circles on a piece of paper. In the circle on the left, we wrote “real economy,” while in the circle on the right we wrote “crypto universe.” We drew two pipes between the circles – one flowing into the crypto universe and the other flowing back to the real economy – and labeled both pipes with “fiat currencies.” While we understood how fiat currencies from investors could flow in, we failed to grasp what could be occurring within the crypto universe that would create more fiat currency for investors to take out at a later date. There seemed to be many brilliant people excited to be working in the space and using a technical language foreign to us, so we concluded that our inability to understand this rather pertinent issue was a fault of our own making.

Then bitcoin went bananas in late 2017.

They say we are shaped by our experiences, and as bitcoin went parabolic it certainly impacted us. Watching our modest foray into a little understood technology skyrocket in paper value several hundredfold left a jagged mark as it crashed with the rest of the crypto market back to where we had always kept it marked – zero.  Along the way, we did make a few half-hearted efforts to get the outflow pipe turned on – life-changing fortunes are worth bending over and picking up, after all – but since we could not get an answer to our foundational question, we never held out much hope of converting paper into reality. There would be no lambos for the green chicken team.

It is through this tortured lens that we read with some interest a recent article by Sohale Mortazavi, published in the socialist magazine Jacobin. Sporting the provocative title Cryptocurrency Is a Giant Ponzi Scheme, the author pulls no punches in stating what he really thinks of the entire space. What caught our eye was his observation that cryptos aren’t merely a zero-sum game – in fact, inherent in the design of the entire system is a negative-sum occurrence in which the outflow pipe of fiat currencies available to investors must always be smaller than the inflow pipe (emphasis added throughout this piece):

“The majority of cryptocurrency mining is now conducted in commercial mining farms, essentially huge warehouses running thousands of high-powered computer processors day and night. The electricity expended mining Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is rapidly approaching 1 percent of global usage, which is famously greater than the total electricity consumption of many smaller developed nations.

Given that cryptocurrencies don’t produce anything of material value, this enormous waste of resources renders the whole enterprise a negative-sum game. Investors can only cash out by selling their coins to other investors — but only after the miners and various cryptocurrency service providers take the house’s rake. In other words, investors cannot — in the aggregate — cash out for even what they put in, as cryptocurrencies are inefficient by design.”

There’s simply no arguing that if one uses fiat currencies as the determining scorecard, the crypto universe is a Ponzi scheme. The structural costs of mining – which must ultimately be paid for using fiat – aren’t the only thing that shrinks the outflow pipe for regular investors. Outright theft of fiat deposits, whether via hacks, rug pulls, or illegal front-running by lawless market “participants” are a substantial drain on the total fiat floating around in the crypto universe.

Before the bitcoin maxis fill our comments with well-worn whataboutisms, we readily concede the real economy is filled with government-backed Ponzi schemes, legal or otherwise. Take the US Social Security system. New money will forever be needed to pay off old promises and absent the US government’s ability to print unbacked fiat, the entire edifice would collapse. But those systems are blessed by the state, and – by and large – the crypto universe is not. More critically, we believe precious few crypto participants today are in it to support their belief that the final chapter for fiat currencies has been written. They’re in it as a trade and are hoping to leave the crypto universe with more fiat in their traditional banking accounts than they entered with. Most won’t. If you don’t know who the sucker is at the digital poker table, you are probably a HODLer.

Just how much fiat is sloshing around in the crypto universe? Because of the fraudulent sleight of hand of fiat clones called stablecoins, crypto investors routinely mark their books in fiat currencies like the US dollar, when in fact they should be marked in the underlying stablecoin, like tether. Bitcoin is not worth 36,000 US dollars, which is about where it is “trading” today. It is worth 36,000 tethers, the dominant underlying stablecoin in which it transacts.

On a recent appearance on the Crypto Critics’ Corner, which published yesterday, we discussed this issue at length (the hosts of the show, Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey, can be followed on Twitter here and here, respectively). If one assumes the total value of the crypto universe is marked at $2 trillion, and if the total amount of hard fiat (pun intended) in the system is the equivalent of only a few tens of billions of US dollars, then the leverage ratio of the crypto universe is enormous when measured in fiat. In a true market panic, which may or may not be unfolding as we publish this piece, we suspect many investors would be stuck holding the bag without recourse. These are largely unregulated markets where hacks, thefts, and total exchange collapses are routine.

Because Bitcoin has no actual inherent value and it is a negative-sum game, those who hold a lot of Bitcoin have to constantly lie about its value to bring in new suckers.  Basically, every normal American who thinks they're just getting into another investment similar to stock in a publicly traded company is the mark at a poker table sitting down to play with nothing but sharks and who is bound, sooner or later, to lose everything they've bought in with. If you're lucky, that shark is just some asshole who wash traded his shares to falsely inflate their value by a few thousand percent. If you're unlucky, you end up accidentally helping some asshole monetize his distribution of child sexual abuse material or his literal kidnapping and enslavement of people in places like Cambodia.  

[Captainant 27828]

1 hour ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

I'm angry about the first part too. I think that's dumb. I don't know what you're even alluding to with the rest of that, so I won't touch it.

But hey, I answered your question regarding buying "wildcatcoin." Answer mine. What price of BTC would make you believe it does have some sort of value? 

See, what I don't understand about bitcoin is that it has zero functional real world utility. Zero. Zilch. None.

It's impossible to use in a normal consumer transaction due to the (at minimum) 10 minute latency in TX confirmations, it has extremely high transaction fees, wastes an astounding amount of energy every single day just to maintain its state, and it has ZERO consumer protection to protect and mitigate against fraud and scams.

It's worse in every single measurable way than fiat currency. Cryptocurrencies are even more ethereal and faith-based than USD's, despite the common refrain of hate for fiat currencies that is espoused by every crypto enthusiast. BTC would have some sort of value if it had ANY utility aside from "hurr dee durr duh number goes up!" and hoping to sell it to someone with worse judgement than you at some point in the future. 

 

It's funny too, to see folks get all excited about the price going up so quickly - as if wash trading and artificial price inflation isn't one of the most common features of exchanged cryptocurrencies and crypto assets.

 

It's fun and easy to cheer on the number going up, because it couldn't possibly go up for any reason besides it ACKSHUALLY being worth that much, right? 

 

...

 

RIGHT???

[Neonmoon 38130]

1 hour ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

Is there value in a monetary asset that isn't tied to a government and has limited supply? You better believe it.  

Now explain WHY there is monetary value in a monetary asset that isn’t tied to a government? 

We know the reason Bern and anti-government nut jobs like it.(because the government can’t debase my money. Rabble rabble. Bring back gold standard. I’m a moron)

If the government can’t control the supply of money, let’s talk about WHY THATS BAD. Let’s forget all the transactions tied to drugs, child sex trafficking, terrorists, cartels, oligarchs, Russians paying off legislators, etc. If the government can’t control the supply of money, it can’t successfully stimulate the economy during let’s say a the collapse of the financial system, a once in a lifetime pandemic, banking deregulation that leads to bank collapses like SVB, etc. and what happens when the government can’t do that? Liquidity stops. Bank runs. Companies can’t make payroll. Can’t buy supplies. People can’t buy groceries. People use their guns to get food. 

Buy hey, at least I have Bitcoin in the apocalypse

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Did you miss the recent convictions of SBF and CZ? How about 3 guys recently charged in a $1.89 billion fraud case? Or the guy recently convicted of $300 million in a securities fraud case for running bots to manipulate a cryptocurrency's price?

And I agree. If they are committing fraud, jail them. That's not hard. But to call it all blatant fraud like UW seemed to be doing seems wrong to me. 

17 minutes ago, Captainant said:

See, what I don't understand about bitcoin is that it has zero functional real world utility. Zero. Zilch. None.

It's impossible to use in a normal consumer transaction due to the (at minimum) 10 minute latency in TX confirmations, it has extremely high transaction fees, wastes an astounding amount of energy every single day just to maintain its state, and it has ZERO consumer protection to protect and mitigate against fraud and scams.

It's worse in every single measurable way than fiat currency. Cryptocurrencies are even more ethereal and faith-based than USD's, despite the common refrain of hate for fiat currencies that is espoused by every crypto enthusiast. BTC would have some sort of value if it had ANY utility aside from "hurr dee durr duh number goes up!" and hoping to sell it to someone with worse judgement than you at some point in the future. 

 

It's funny too, to see folks get all excited about the price going up so quickly - as if wash trading and artificial price inflation isn't one of the most common features of exchanged cryptocurrencies and crypto assets.

 

It's fun and easy to cheer on the number going up, because it couldn't possibly go up for any reason besides it ACKSHUALLY being worth that much, right? 

 

...

 

RIGHT???

To me personally, the utility is that of digital gold. I don't think it will ever be an actual currency apart from perhaps some large, one-off transactions. I think there is real value in an asset that's outside of being controlled by a single government. I'm not some wild libertarian or anything. Nearly all my wealth is in USD. But I see the value in having a little stashed outside of that in a rainy day fund. If it were easy enough to buy Euros or Swiss Francs, I'd do that too. It's also why I own a little gold.

 

15 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

Now explain WHY there is monetary value in a monetary asset that isn’t tied to a government? 

We know the reason Bern and anti-government nut jobs like it.(because the government can’t debase my money. Rabble rabble. Bring back gold standard. I’m a moron)

If the government can’t control the supply of money, let’s talk about WHY THATS BAD. Let’s forget all the transactions tied to drugs, child sex trafficking, terrorists, cartels, oligarchs, Russians paying off legislators, etc. If the government can’t control the supply of money, it can’t successfully stimulate the economy during let’s say a the collapse of the financial system, a once in a lifetime pandemic, banking deregulation that leads to bank collapses like SVB, etc. and what happens when the government can’t do that? Liquidity stops. Bank runs. Companies can’t make payroll. Can’t buy supplies. People can’t buy groceries. People use their guns to get food. 

Buy hey, at least I have Bitcoin in the apocalypse

I'm not sure where you're going with this? I don't want the U.S. on a gold standard. It would be a disaster. Countries need the ability to print, change interest rates, etc.

But that doesn't mean I don't want access to an alternative, just in case. (To be honest, if it's sudden that things go downhill, the value of BTC is going to fall too.)

 Bottom line: I think BTC has utility. I like owning a little. I see it mostly like a call option. If it goes to $0, no big deal. If it goes to $1 million, I'll have a nice little stake.

Edited March 12 by FirstTimeCaller

[Neonmoon 38130]

What utility does BTC have?

[Cum Rocket 136]

1 hour ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

I'm personally angry about Bitcoin because we're letting bitcoin miners waste absurd amounts of energy

they’re paying market price for energy. It’s not up to you to determine if it’s a “waste”. 

 

1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

no inherent value whatsoever.

This seems to be a popular refrain here.

Value is subjective. What gives diamonds or gold value? It’s amazing how mad that fact makes people. I don’t care if people put extreme value on old paintings. 
 

The value is in the fact that it’s the first time we have created digital scarcity. Verifiable, immutable. Can’t be diluted by human actors. It gives you a way to save that can’t be debased. If that doesn’t appeal to you or make sense to you nowthen it’s not for you. You’ll get it eventually. 
 

12 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

Now explain WHY there is monetary value in a monetary asset that isn’t tied to a government? 

We know the reason Bern and anti-government nut jobs like it.(because the government can’t debase my money. Rabble rabble. Bring back gold standard. I’m a moron)

If the government can’t control the supply of money, let’s talk about WHY THATS BAD. Let’s forget all the transactions tied to drugs, child sex trafficking, terrorists, cartels, oligarchs, Russians paying off legislators, etc. If the government can’t control the supply of money, it can’t successfully stimulate the economy during let’s say a the collapse of the financial system, a once in a lifetime pandemic, banking deregulation that leads to bank collapses like SVB, etc. and what happens when the government can’t do that? Liquidity stops. Bank runs. Companies can’t make payroll. Can’t buy supplies. People can’t buy groceries. People use their guns to get food. 

Buy hey, at least I have Bitcoin in the apocalypse

There were forms of money before there were any organized states. There’s no obvious reason why one has to be tied to the other. 

Also, the currency used most commonly for all those things you listed is USD cash by far, but you already knew that. You’re looking for some BS angle to justify attacking it a la Liz Warren. 
 

As for government control of the supply of money, that’s a bigger economic debate than I feel like partaking in currently. That’s been done in circles before.  
 

The wailing of nocoiners will only get louder as bitcoin continues to win. I’m honestly amazed the ETF got through. It’s going to be structural and you’re all going to own some bitcoin passively via investment funds or just index etf funds once the company called Microstrategy gets added to the S&P. Sorry in advance for all the Russian bribery child porn terrorism that you’ll be supporting. That’s a real shame. 

[Cum Rocket 136]

1 minute ago, Neonmoon said:

What utility does BTC have?

It allows you to save your wealth in a digital way that can’t debased. But you knew that already. 

[Captainant 27828]

2 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

To me personally, the utility is that of digital gold. I don't think it will ever be an actual currency apart from perhaps some large, one-off transactions. I think there is real value in an asset that's outside of being controlled by a single government. I'm not some wild libertarian or anything. Nearly all my wealth is in USD. But I see the value in having a little stashed outside of that in a rainy day fund. If it were easy enough to buy Euros or Swiss Francs, I'd do that too. It's also why I own a little gold.

Gold has actual, REAL value. It can be used in electronics, or sold as jewelry, and easily exchanged for goods or services or currency. 

Bitcoin has no actual real use nor intrinsic value. Its sole """value""" is the hope to sell it for more in the future than you bought it for in the past. But there's no consumptive demand or actual place of business where you can use it as a currency. Even the countries that have been pushing it as a national currency have not been able to get people to adopt and use it. It's too complex and slow, lacks guardrails and safety measures to protect people who aren't cyberninjas, and consumes far more value in electricity every day than it generates in economic activity.

[Captainant 27828]

2 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

they’re paying market price for energy. It’s not up to you to determine if it’s a “waste”. 

TIL that receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidy is "market price"

Edited March 12 by Captainant

[wildcat09 29422]

1 minute ago, Cum Rocket said:

they’re paying market price for energy. It’s not up to you to determine if it’s a “waste”. 

 

This seems to be a popular refrain here.

Value is subjective. What gives diamonds or gold value? It’s amazing how mad that fact makes people. I don’t care if people put extreme value on old paintings. 
 

The value is in the fact that it’s the first time we have created digital scarcity. Verifiable, immutable. Can’t be diluted by human actors. It gives you a way to save that can’t be debased. If that doesn’t appeal to you or make sense to you nowthen it’s not for you. You’ll get it eventually. 
 

There were forms of money before there were any organized states. There’s no obvious reason why one has to be tied to the other. 

Also, the currency used most commonly for all those things you listed is USD cash by far, but you already knew that. You’re looking for some BS angle to justify attacking it a la Liz Warren. 
 

As for government control of the supply of money, that’s a bigger economic debate than I feel like partaking in currently. That’s been done in circles before.  
 

The wailing of nocoiners will only get louder as bitcoin continues to win. I’m honestly amazed the ETF got through. It’s going to be structural and you’re all going to own some bitcoin passively via investment funds or just index etf funds once the company called Microstrategy gets added to the S&P. Sorry in advance for all the Russian bribery child porn terrorism that you’ll be supporting. That’s a real shame. 

Propagandists for frauds, human traffickers, and CSAM distributors should consider doing what Imperial Japanese officers used to do when they would dishonor themselves. 

[Cum Rocket 136]

2 minutes ago, Captainant said:

and easily exchanged for goods or services or currency. 

I can exchange my bitcoin easily for currency. Can also find goods and services if I want. 

[Captainant 27828]

Just now, Cum Rocket said:

I can exchange my bitcoin easily for currency. Can also find goods and services if I want. 

No. You can't. When was the last time you actually used your bitcoin to purchase goods or services? Have you actually gone through the end user experience of buying something, sitting with your thumb up your ass for 10 minutes waiting for TX confirmations, and then fighting with their support to prove that it did confirm and that they have your money now? 

 

And fucking MEGALULZ for claiming that cryptocurrencies "can't be debased". Wow. That's shot straight past aggy on the delusion-meter

[wildcat09 29422]

A lot of Bitcoin transactions take over 30 fucking minutes to clear, not to mention the transaction fees. There's nothing easy about it.

[jimmyjazz 46230]

13 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

It allows you to save your wealth in a digital way that can’t debased. But you knew that already. 

"Save".

LMAO

[Brisketexan 105445]

5 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

This seems to be a popular refrain here.

Value is subjective. What gives diamonds or gold value? It’s amazing how mad that fact makes people. I don’t care if people put extreme value on old paintings. 

Yes, value is subjective...but that doesn't mean that it's not an intrinsic value just the same.  AESTHETICS is a basis for value.  Diamonds and gold are pretty.  Old paintings are pretty.  Do their values get skewed beyond their basic inherent value?  Sure.  There are plenty of paintings out there that are "prettier" than a Van Gogh.  But Van Gogh paintings generally ARE pretty, and powerful...and scarce...and tied to a story and history, which is its own aesthetic value.

For the same reason that a movie featuring Brad Pitt's pretty face will do better than a movie featuring Brisketexan's plain face: pretty is more valuable than ugly.

4 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Gold has actual, REAL value. It can be used in electronics, or sold as jewelry, and easily exchanged for goods or services or currency. 

Bitcoin has no actual real use nor intrinsic value. Its sole """value""" is the hope to sell it for more in the future than you bought it for in the past. 

It's the bolded for me.  I hear and read all the arguments about the value of Bitcoin.  And I concede that there is always some minimal baseline value any item that a large enough group of people agree is a store of value (if a million people believed that Stanley Nickels had value, so that they traded in Stanley Nickels, then they would have some value).  But the real pitch for Bitcoin etc. always comes back to "buy now, better get in on it now!"  And as to watching its value soar again, the argument of "the subject of our Ponzi scheme is still shooting up in value!" doesn't make it not a Ponzi scheme.  What it makes it is a SUCCESSFUL Ponzi scheme. 

Look, do I wish that I had gotten in on Bitcoin early, and could then dump my holdings today for a kabillion dollars?  Fuck yes I do, because I'm greedy and like money.  But I'd have said the same thing about any number of other Ponzi schemes over time as well.  Would have loved to be one of the early Bernie Madoff investors, getting a big return on my money.  Wouldn't have changed the fact that it was a Ponzi scheme.

If your point is "I'm in on it, and think I can time it right to make some money here," then so be it.  It's morally ambiguous, but then so is capitalism in general.  Just don't try to sell me on the idea that it's more than it is: something you buy hoping it goes up in value and you make money, NOT something that has any other intrinsic value.

[Neonmoon 38130]

11 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

Also, the currency used most commonly for all those things you listed is USD cash by far, but you already knew that. You’re looking for some BS angle to justify attacking it a la Liz Warren. 

Are BTC programs required to send SAR reports to the government in order to stop money laundering, terrorism, sex trafficking, etc? Can the FED government freeze accounts of known terrorists and sex traffickers? No, they can’t, but you already knew that you disingenuous piece of shit. 

Guess what? The USD is the commonly used form of money for ANYTHING considering its the worlds reserve currency you disingenuous piece of shit. 

But like I said, the Federal government having control helps stop bad people doing bad things. Does it stop all of them? Of course not, we don’t live in a perfect world, but if it stops one child from getting raped, or one terrorist plot from being funded, that’s a good thing, but anti-government shit fucks like you want to whine about currency debasement and live in magical world without government where money is independent and bad actors don’t exist. 

Get fucked. I hope your 88th username is funnier you cunt 

 

[Guest]

For the life of me, I cannot understand how this gets people so worked up. 

[Captainant 27828]

3 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

For the life of me, I cannot understand how this gets people so worked up. 

Because my goddamn state is paying hundreds of millions of dollars to fucking imported mining operations from China, rather than using that money to invest in energy storage and transmission capacity upgrades.

Ya know, so we don't have over a MILLION GODDAMN ACRES OF TEXAS get burned down by a poorly maintained power line.

But they can pay bitcoin miners to consume less, while charging familes an ever higher rate in a captured monopoly?

Get the fucking fuck out of here. We are being robbed by oligarchs. 

[wildcat09 29422]

6 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

For the life of me, I cannot understand how this gets people so worked up. 

Have you ever wondered why the "currency" that is sold to you as a tool for liberation seems to be most fervently championed by frauds and billionaires like Marc Andreessen? That's because it's literally the exact opposite of what they sell it as.  It's not a tool of liberation for normal people, It's a tool for criminals and the wealthy (who are also criminals) to take even more money from normal people. 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Because my goddamn state is paying hundreds of millions of dollars to fucking imported mining operations from China, rather than using that money to invest in energy storage and transmission capacity upgrades.

Ya know, so we don't have over a MILLION GODDAMN ACRES OF TEXAS get burned down by a poorly maintained power line.

But they can pay bitcoin miners to consume less, while charging familes an ever higher rate in a captured monopoly?

Get the fucking fuck out of here. We are being robbed by oligarchs. 

Have you read this thread? I specifically say that I don't like that shit either. But why are you railing on BTC instead of our state's leadership? 

[Brisketexan 105445]

5 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Have you ever wondered why the "currency" that is sold to you as a tool for liberation seems to be most fervently championed by frauds and billionaires like Marc Andreessen? That's because it's literally the exact opposite of what they sell it as.  It's not a tool of liberation for normal people, It's a tool for criminals and the wealthy (who are also criminals) to take even more money from normal people. 

No....see...the thing is, THIS time, the billionaire oligarchs TOTALLY have our interest in mind!

[Captainant 27828]

6 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

Have you read this thread? I specifically say that I don't like that shit either. But why are you railing on BTC instead of our state's leadership? 

Bitcoin IS the network. It's scarcity is derived from the fact that electricity and computational cycles spent throwing away 15 quadrillion hashes per block confirmed can never be spent anywhere else. Per your russian peer GRUhorn, that digital scarcity is the most important thing about BTC. 

Do you really lack the inductive logic to understand how our state and taxpayers are directly subsidizing bitcoin? Or are you just choosing to not see it?

Edited March 12 by Captainant

[Neonmoon 38130]

11 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

For the life of me, I cannot understand how this gets people so worked up. 

People are tired of being gaslighted in today’s world. We feel like we’re taking crazy pills.  “I’m only trying to de-nazify Ukraine. NATO made us do it”. “I created the best economy ever. No collusion. It was a perfect phone call”. BTC is just another example. Every argument for use/value/utility for BTC has been roundly rejected by factual arguments. It serves zero fucking purpose. Yet we keep going round and round because people like making money. No shit. Everyone does. That doesn’t mean investing in a Ponzi scheme is a good idea. 
 

 

 

[Brisketexan 105445]

22 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

That doesn’t mean investing in a Ponzi scheme is a good idea. 

Actually, it's a fucking BRILLIANT idea.....so long as you're on the front half of the scheme.  Lots of people have made LOTS of money in Ponzi schemes.  They are great at making a good number of folks rich.  

Now, staying in the Ponzi scheme until the music stops and it all falls down?  THAT'S a bad idea.  But no worries.  All you have to know is the exact moment the music will stop.  Easy peasy.

"Investing" in bitcoin should be about like investing in a restaurant: do it because you think it's interesting and fun, do it on the bet that maybe, long term, it DOES turn out to be brilliant, and you make lots of money.  But don't invest anything you aren't prepared to lose completely, because there is a much higher probability of that happening than if you invested in Coca Cola or Microsoft or somesuch.

[UpperWestside 6190]

36 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Actually, it's a fucking BRILLIANT idea.....so long as you're on the front half of the scheme.  Lots of people have made LOTS of money in Ponzi schemes.  They are great at making a good number of folks rich.  

Now, staying in the Ponzi scheme until the music stops and it all falls down?  THAT'S a bad idea.  But no worries.  All you have to know is the exact moment the music will stop.  Easy peasy.

"Investing" in bitcoin should be about like investing in a restaurant: do it because you think it's interesting and fun, do it on the bet that maybe, long term, it DOES turn out to be brilliant, and you make lots of money.  But don't invest anything you aren't prepared to lose completely, because there is a much higher probability of that happening than if you invested in Coca Cola or Microsoft or somesuch.

So you’re telling me that that Brisketbucks idea you wanted me to invest in might be bad idea jeans?

[Fudge Nuggets 19227]

3 hours ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

Ok, fair enough. I see the argument. I don't agree with it, but see where it comes from. 

He's just saying there is a big difference between price and value.

[Cum Rocket 136]

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

Have you actually gone through the end user experience of buying something, sitting with your thumb up your ass for 10 minutes waiting for TX confirmations, and then fighting with their support to prove that it did confirm and that they have your money now? 

Lightning network. We’ve gone over all these arguments in 6SJ but I guess it’s good for newbies to hear them. 
 

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

And fucking MEGALULZ for claiming that cryptocurrencies "can't be debased". Wow. That's shot straight past aggy on the delusion-meter

As you probably remember I only really care about or discuss bitcoin. No it cannot be debased. 
 

1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

"Save".

LMAO

Yep. You can save your excess dollars in bitcoin. When I started my last truck would’ve cost ~25 bitcoin. Now it’s worth ~1. The cost of everything in bitcoin trends down over time. 
 

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

If your point is "I'm in on it, and think I can time it right to make some money here," then so be it.  It's morally ambiguous, but then so is capitalism in general.  Just don't try to sell me on the idea that it's more than it is: something you buy hoping it goes up in value and you make money, NOT something that has any other intrinsic value.

Bitcoin is a savings vehicle. 
 

it is one that will only become more adopted over time and therefore will appreciate in value. 
 

1 hour ago, Neonmoon said:

if it stops one child from getting raped, or one terrorist plot from being funded

You post a lot of nonsense, but this is one philosophical point of yours that is just foolhardy. There’s no limit to government encroachment on your life if you abide by this framework. Hard pass for me. 
 

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

Because my goddamn state is paying hundreds of millions of dollars to fucking imported mining operations from China, rather than using that money to invest in energy storage and transmission capacity upgrades.

Demand response programs have a use. I could be wrong but I don’t think bitcoin miners created the idea. And if you didn’t live in Texas where Bitcoin mining happens you would still get hot and bothered about bitcoin so whatever. 
 

 

[RDCanecutter 26476]

2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

For the same reason that a movie featuring Brad Pitt's pretty face will do better than a movie featuring Brisketexan's plain face: pretty is more valuable than ugly.

Don't sell yourself short. I'm doing a remake of a classic film-- can you sing, or at least chant?

 

[jimmyjazz 46230]

10 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

Yep. You can save your excess dollars in bitcoin. When I started my last truck would’ve cost ~25 bitcoin. Now it’s worth ~1.

Well, the historical BTC plunges of ~ 75% might indicate a certain amount of volatility that one might want to factor in.

[Captainant 27828]

11 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

Lightning network. We’ve gone over all these arguments in 6SJ but I guess it’s good for newbies to hear them. 

That's moonshine. It doesn't exist and does not have any degree of genuine market adoption. I have addressed the technical faults with lightning in the past - namely that it's just a side-book with a single vendor at a time where you still have to incur a transaction fee and long confirmation time delay to close the equivalent to an escrow account. 

You just keep repeating your fucking lies over and over again in the most trumpian way. 

Repeating it doesn't make it true. It just makes gullible people believe you. 

[Cum Rocket 136]

1 hour ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

For the life of me, I cannot understand how this gets people so worked up. 

This deserves a full response. There’s a few reasons. 
 

First of all you just have straight up envy. The average IQ of people that get mad about bitcoin is higher than the general population. They’re mad that they’re seemingly smart but missed it. They had friends that told them about it. Or they read an article or two and dismissed and here they are 8 years later and some poster named Cum Rocket is telling them they’ve been wrong the whole time.

 

I’ve come to realize that either people get it or they don’t. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them buy Bitcoin. I’ve tried over the years with friends and family and most have blown me off. It happens. I have one good friend that went in big the same cycle as me and is thrilled about it. But the last couple years I’ve just stopped even though this is the most obvious thing in the world to me. 
 

Secondly, there are people here that know why Bitcoin came to be and maybe are at the higher levels of the pyramid and benefit from the current money printing effects or the financialization of the economy and are wary of Bitcoin effects long term.  

 

Thirdly, it’s known to come from let’s say a libertarian mindset. Especially in CR that brings with it a lot of preconceived notions and emotions. It kind of ties into my last point. 
 

If you think about it, Bitcoin challenges a lot of things at once that are assumed today. Government and issuance of money are interlinked. Inflation is good. Centralized planning is ideal. The existence of a massive network of trusted third parties is essential to transactions of value. These are all things that people here hold as dogma. That’s very upsetting.
 

There’s a lot more you could go into there but the thing that always stuck with me was when you save money or value you’re saving essentially the time it took to secure that value. When governments or central banks arbitrarily print trillions of dollars to bail out banks or other connected big business and oligarchs they are essentially stealing your time here. Again, arbitrarily and to benefit the real oligarchs. Not the ones @Neonmoon is claiming. He simps for the real ones. The money printers and bankers. Slayyy queen 
 

If your money is maintaining its value you don’t have to speculate or chase yield or become a mini hedge fund to beat inflation. You can trust that what you saved will be there. Then you can in a sense, “Lower your time preference”. And think about how the best decisions and moves are made when you can delay gratification. A more philosophical tangent, but I digress. 
 

Tl;Dr 

They missed it. The status quo benefits them. Or they hate it politically.

[Cum Rocket 136]

34 minutes ago, Captainant said:

That's moonshine. It doesn't exist and does not have any degree of genuine market adoption. I have addressed the technical faults with lightning in the past - namely that it's just a side-book with a single vendor at a time where you still have to incur a transaction fee and long confirmation time delay to close the equivalent to an escrow account. 

You just keep repeating your fucking lies over and over again in the most trumpian way. 

Repeating it doesn't make it true. It just makes gullible people believe you. 

I’ve bought things or paid over lightning using iOS wallets. I’ve actually used apps where you stream bitcoin to podcasters you enjoy. Lessens the needs for advertisers. These apps all handle channel management. You don’t get slammed with fees or confirmation delays. You’re full of shit. You should stop lying. You aren’t running your own lightning node or anything. 
 

Quit gaslighting people following this conversation. 

Edited March 13 by Cum Rocket

[Captainant 27828]

12 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

I’ve bought things or paid over lightning using iOS wallets. I’ve actually used apps where you stream bitcoin to podcasters you enjoy. Lessens the needs for advertisers. These apps all handle channel management. You don’t get slammed with fees or confirmation delays. You’re full of shit. You should stop lying. You aren’t running your own lightning node or anything. 

Lol so a highly inefficient patreon, very cool. But that is specifically not goods or services. You're donating to other Bitcoin maxis that are in the clubhouse already. You can't buy an actual thing from a normal person with Bitcoin or lightning. 

I'm glad that you've found a way to simp and evangelize at the same time. You're really channeling elmo quite effectively 

[Cum Rocket 136]

3 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Lol so a highly inefficient patreon, very cool. But that is specifically not goods or services. You're donating to other Bitcoin maxis that are in the clubhouse already. You can't buy an actual thing from a normal person with Bitcoin or lightning. 

I'm glad that you've found a way to simp and evangelize at the same time. You're really channeling elmo quite effectively 

How would that be inefficient? I would argue that it’s more efficient since you’re streaming every minute you watch or listen. You aren’t paying for a subscription you forgot or don’t utilize. It’s a new framework for sure. All by using a couple apps on your phone. Still waiting on those transactions confs tho! Actually, no
 

For those curious. The idea is called podcasting 2.0. I use the fountain app. 
 

 

[Captainant 27828]

30 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

How would that be inefficient? I would argue that it’s more efficient since you’re streaming every minute you watch or listen. You aren’t paying for a subscription you forgot or don’t utilize. It’s a new framework for sure. All by using a couple apps on your phone. Still waiting on those transactions confs tho! Actually, no

To close out your lightning tab, you have to commit a transaction to the blockchain to ACTUALLY send your buttcoins. It's a running tab that you keep open with merchants. It's not revolutionary, it's just choosing to trust a specific entity with not draining the escrow funds you put in the lightning ledger. 

It really demonstrates the capabilities of a trustless system, by implementing a trusted layer on top! What GENIUS!!!!

 

Edit: the inefficiency referred to the quadrillions of thrown away calculations required to spend a nickel that underpins the fundamental basis of all proof of work cryptos

Edited March 13 by Captainant

[jimmyjazz 46230]

2 hours ago, Cum Rocket said:

When I started my last truck would’ve cost ~25 bitcoin. Now it’s worth ~1.

Explain this in detail.  Just looking at the BTC-USD chart, the last time it was worth 4% of the current value was winter 2018 (at best).  I'm not sure that's how you're calculating "worth", though.  If so, did you hold through massive drops between spring and summer 2021 along with fall 2021 and fall 2022?  If so, what kind of "savings" has that volatility?  50%-75% drops and you just sit and hold?

Is there some other measure of Bitcoin "worth" besides that metric?

[Captainant 27828]

2 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Is there some other measure of Bitcoin "worth" besides that metric?

Bro, that's what BTC is worth because people are willing to pay that price. And people are willing to pay that price because it'll OBVIOUSLY go up in the future. 

Don't you know anything about Number Go Up economics??

[jimmyjazz 46230]

5 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Bro, that's what BTC is worth because people are willing to pay that price. And people are willing to pay that price because it'll OBVIOUSLY go up in the future. 

Don't you know anything about Number Go Up economics??

I get the bro-bertarian mythology, I just want to know if he's assigning some value other than price.  In my world, suffering 75% drawdowns does not a "savings" vehicle make.

[Cum Rocket 136]

2 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Explain this in detail.  Just looking at the BTC-USD chart, the last time it was worth 4% of the current value was winter 2018 (at best).  I'm not sure that's how you're calculating "worth", though.  If so, did you hold through massive drops between spring and summer 2021 along with fall 2021 and fall 2022?  If so, what kind of "savings" has that volatility?  50%-75% drops and you just sit and hold?

Is there some other measure of Bitcoin "worth" besides that metric?

 I joined the fun in 2017 at $2,000. 
 

Truck was $50,000 so 25 BTC. 
 

same truck now is probably about $70,000. 
 

1 BTC

[jimmyjazz 46230]

3 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

 I joined the fun in 2017 at $2,000. 
 

Truck was $50,000 so 25 BTC. 
 

same truck now is probably about $70,000. 
 

1 BTC

So your $2K investment saw these peaks and valleys (all data approximate):

$2K -> $19K

$19K -> $3K

$3K -> $60K

$60K -> $32K

$32K -> $65K

$65K -> $16K

$16K -> $72K

 

You think this is a way to "save your excess dollars"?  Seems to me it's an extraordinarily risky and volatile instrument, which can lead to massive losses if you don't "time" it right.

Higher rewards require higher risk.  It's kind of a thing.

[PRONG HORN 3158]

 

[Cum Rocket 136]

9 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

So your $2K investment saw these peaks and valleys (all data approximate):

$2K -> $19K

$19K -> $3K

$3K -> $60K

$60K -> $32K

$32K -> $65K

$65K -> $16K

$16K -> $72K

 

You think this is a way to "save your excess dollars"?  Seems to me it's an extraordinarily risky and volatile instrument, which can lead to massive losses if you don't "time" it right.

Higher rewards require higher risk.  It's kind of a thing.

Again if you lower your time preference and hold it, you’ll benefit. Expect volatility though.  As explained below. Not by me. 
 

“Due to group psychology, these newcomers arrive in waves. The waves have a destabilizing effect on the exchange rate: speculators are unsure of the amplitude or wavelength of adoption, and amateurish punters let their excitement as well as subsequent fear overwhelm them. Regardless, once the tide has pulled back and the weak hands have folded, the price is a few times higher than before the wave.”

it appears people here still don’t appreciate my musings. Shocker. I’ll limit the CR thread to political happenings. 

[Pam Cummings 9684]

It really doesn't help the credibility of crypto people when every time I see someone pushing it or defending it they have some stupid ass username like cum rocket. Like what the hell man. Nobody is gonna take you seriously.

 

"To the moon, baby! Cum rocket told me so!"