cryptocurrencies

Discussion in 'Business & Economics' started by mathman, Feb 9, 2021.

  1. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,447
    thats like saying the same about hedgers & short sellers & all that wall st gambling on losses stuff

    imagine how much plastic & oil & electricity they consume
    none of it making profit
    all of it exploiting fake profit off the losses of productivity.

    so in which camp is this sitting ?
    the environmentalists camp
    or
    the conspiracy alt-right camp

    or more likely
    is this specifically designed by the alt-right to try & blur the boundary's between environmentalism & efficiency to falsely align it against capitalism in a war that cant be won by either side on pre existing ideologies of the duelist both-sides-ism culture of amerika

    how much does fake media storys & scammers use of electricity ?

    should they be defunded like amerika police departments ?

    you drinking the cool-aid or selling it , or just swimming in it & splashing it about ?

    equally we could simply sack around90% of wall st employees who are a waste of resources specifically electricity, renewables plastic & fossil fuels.
     
    Last edited: Feb 26, 2021
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  3. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    RainbowSingularity:

    No. It's not really like that.

    I'm no expert in the workings of the stock market. Perhaps you are.

    Its consumption of electricity is probably a relatively minor issue, compared to other problems with it, I'd venture. But you don't have its electricity consumption figures, do you? In fact, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to definitely assign certain consumption to stock market activity. With Bitcoin mining, it is easy, because there is more or less a fixed amount of energy that is required to "mine" each Bitcoin.

    Nothing I have said mentions any conspiracy.

    What on earth are you on about?

    It sounds like it is you who is inventing conspiracies here, not me. That would be consistent behaviour for you. From reading your recent posts, I see that a lot of the time you concentrate on supposedly hidden motives that you think people and organisations have, which only you can discern. That's typical conspiracy theorist paranoia.

    If you're serious and you actually think you have a point about "the boundary between environmentalist & efficiency", you should make whatever your point is.

    Also, I might point out that nobody mentioned America, except you.

    It's hard, or impossible, to allocate the energy usage that way. If you're really interested, you might like to investigate how much energy is consumed by the massive server farms that power social media giants like Facebook and Google. You might be surprised at how much energy those consume, just on their own.

    Who? Fake media producers and scammers? Yes, I think they should be "defunded". Sounds like an excellent idea.

    Have American police departments been defunded? Maybe a topic for a different thread, if you want to start it. Are you concerned about law and order?

    I have no idea what you're talking about. I just provided some facts about the electricity used in Bitcoin mining.

    You are free to dispute my facts, if you have access to information that refutes them.

    Why do you spend all your time inventing conspiracy theories?
     
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  5. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,447
    subtlety can be a strange & elusive beast

    note im referring to the total usage of all those working in the wall st
    and specifically how they wil be using massively huge amounts of fossil fuels plastic & creating massive amounts of pollution & waste
    many times more
    their carbon footprints will be HUGE.
    greedy selfish people

    total electricity being used by crypto miners
    versus
    total amount of wasted fossil fuels on crypto miners ?

    what is producing ?
    versus what is greedy selfish undermining society ?

    because "undermining society" is the theme and then trolling that ideology to play both-sides-isms with it
    lol
    i get that lot
    it doesnt bother me
    you will need to be intelligently specific if you wish to have something explained
     
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  7. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,447
    i was going to buy dog coins
    i would have tippled my money in 2 days if i had bought them
    not that i would have had much only maybe 2k
    but the buying part is difficult
    you need to buy a usb stick with custom software on it
    then join some online club thing & register & then buy through them etc etc etc

    then assume it cant be traced & targeted & hacked & stolen
    and it probably takes a month to receive it in the post
    assuming it ever makes it

    meanwhile by the time i finally get ready to buy
    seattles mates have probably gone to war against it & wiped out the market with some type of regulation & monopolisation
     
  8. Seattle Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,849
    I'm not sure what you need to receive in the post that takes a month or what you need to receive in the post period. You do have a computer that is online or we wouldn't be reading your posts.

    You don't need a thumb drive.

    I thought you were on a higher plane of thought than the mere mortals here in this thread? It's not looking like it at the moment.

    I don't own any Bitcoin or "dog" as you refer to Dogecoin but all the 18 year olds manage to do it on their phones. Have at it.
     
  9. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,353
    All you need is access to the internet, a bank account, and some suitable ID.
    You then register with an exchange (e.g. Binance. I'm not sure Coinbase yet allow trades in Dogecoin), for which you'd likely be required to go through a "know your customer" process (e.g. ID), and then you can have your fun. In some places you can buy direct with a credit/debit card purchase (for a fee), and in others you need to deposit funds into a fiat wallet, which you then use to purchase your crypto coins.
    The coins then sit in the wallet assigned to you by the exchange. Some exchanges claim to store 90-100% of customer crypto in off-line cold storage. Alternatively you are free to take your coins from the exchange's wallet and put them in your own. Your own PC or mobile could suffice as such a wallet, but if you want to be truly secure then that is the only part you need your "USB stick with custom software on it" - but it is not essential.
    My usb device arrived in 3 days - and I don't even have Prime.
    Once you have it, the addresses generated by your device are unique to you. So if you store currency at any address your device spits out, it is yours, and unhackable unless someone steals both your device and all the security that goes with it (e.g. a 20-24 word seed phrase).
    Timing the market is always difficult. But if you have money you're willing to lose for the chance of a significant upside... it's not a bad bit of speculation.
     
  10. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,353
    Any coin that is Proof of Work (PoW) will increase its energy consumption almost exponentially, not withstanding new technology that reduces it. Proof of Stake (PoS), however, is far less energy wasteful, and Bitcoin could well follow the likes of Ethereum (the second largest crypto by market value) in going to a PoS validation system, possibly cutting energy requirement by 100-fold. Still quite a bit.
    But it's not "essentially a useless process" as it is required to validate the transaction. Without such efforts (PoW or PoS, or another type if one exists) you wouldn't have a decentralised system that was in any way secure.
     
  11. Saint Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,752
    you can buy BTC or ETH and keep in the hot wallet, keep you seed number safely.
    this is future investment.
    can you imagine back in 2013 when BTC hit 700, everyone said it is crazy.
    but what is 700 compared to 40-50k now?
     
  12. Saint Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,752
    I use Electrum wallet boot from Tail USB, only connect to internet when I want to send or receive coins, it is safe.
     
  13. sculptor Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,466
    21 years ago i read about the "greater fool" theory of investing.
    One would buy an overpriced stock with the assumption that a greater fool would buy it from them at a higher price.
    and
    It worked
    Until it didn't
     
  14. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    Interesting. I've done a little more reading on this. PoS sounds a lot better than PoW, although, like PoW, it isn't without its problems.

    To help put the electricity usage issue into perspective, Bitcoin mining now uses more electricity per year than the total annual electricity usage of 159 individual countries, apparently. Just four mining pools currently control more than 50% of all Bitcoin mining; 3 out of 4 of those are located in China, which has cheap electricity (and lots of fossil fuel generation).
     
  15. Saint Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,752
    Cardano is 3rd largest crypto now.
    Buy cardano.
     
  16. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,077
  17. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,353
    Ultimately the issue isn't the energy consumption per se, but the source of that energy. If (and it is indeed a rather big IF) all the energy supply was from renewables, noone would really be concerned, and it would in fact be keeping people in work creating the wind turbines, solar panels, etc. But because, as you say, it is primarily located in China - where coal is a big factor - the green credentials of Bitcoin are of course a concern.

    If we assume (I have no idea if it's reasonable or not) that price correlates to how widespread its use, and that in turn correlates to the number of transactions, then as BTC goes up in price the consumption will likely increase similarly. And if BTC reaches USD1 million - that's a x20 increase in power consumption to today - putting it, I believe, on a par with the consumption of the USA.

    Let's hope that fusion power is not always 30 years away!
     
  18. Saint Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,752
    Still believe BTC will hit 100k this year?
     
  19. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    12,451
    Who cares? Bitcoin is "rat poison squared", in the words of the Sage of Omaha. If you get into that you deserve to lose your shirt.
     
  20. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,353
    No, you merely have to be prepared to lose what you gamble with. Otherwise, at present, it's certainly an interesting ride, from which people can... and do... get very wealthy indeed. And good luck to those that do. If you go in with your eyes open to the risk, then it's no different from any other form of high-risk game. But if you go in expecting wealth, and as such invest more than you can afford to lose to try and chase it, that's when you could get rather unstuck.
    Noone knows for sure, and anyone who says they know for sure is lying. It could stay relatively flat, it could climb to 100k+, or it could come crashing down. Or end up somewhere inbetween those options. That's why it's a speculation, a gamble, a bit of fun to those that can afford to lose their "investment".
     
  21. Saint Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,752
    Same as no one knows for sure the price of Gold.
    Trading of Gold and BTC are similar in nature.
     
  22. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,353
    That's like saying that blowing a piece of paper across your desk is similar in nature to a hurricane that destroys towns... both are just a shift of the air etc. The difference between trading Gold and BTC is a small matter of volatility, and to an extent the predictability. Gold doesn't shift up and down 30% in a matter of days.
     
  23. exchemist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,451
    Nouriel Roubini has an article referring to what he calls "shitcoin" in the Grauniad: https://www.theguardian.com/busines...l-end-badly-for-those-who-can-least-afford-it

    He sees both Bitcoin and the recent Gamestop/Robinhood saga as a route to further lightening the wallets of already poor people:

    "Many have been convinced that financial success lies not in good jobs, hard work, and patient saving and investment, but in get-rich-quick schemes and wagers on inherently worthless assets such as cryptocurrencies (or “shitcoins” as I prefer to call them)."
     

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