What do you think of adding a low% of crypto allocation

[Telecaster]

What is your definition of a Ponzi scheme?  Crypto/NFT is the definition of a Ponzi scheme from Wiki.

A Ponzi scheme is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. The scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from legitimate business activity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

You stopped reading too soon (emphasis added):

The scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from legitimate business activity (e.g., product sales or successful investments), and they remain unaware that other investors are the source of funds. A Ponzi scheme can maintain the illusion of a sustainable business as long as new investors contribute new funds, and as long as most of the investors do not demand full repayment and still believe in the non-existent assets they are purported to own.

In the case of Bitcoin, what do investors believe is the legitimate business activity?  They don't.  Everyone knows there is no underlying business.  They just want to own Bitcoin.   

What is the source of funds?  Simply the price.  There is no claim of profits or promise of return.  If the price goes up, you win.  If the price goes down you lose.  Everyone knows that too.

The last one really illustrates why Bitcoin meets no definition of a  Ponzi scheme.  Ponzi schemes collapse when investors can't redeem their promised assets.  With Bitcoin, you own the asset.  You control it.  It is in your wallet or whenever you want it to be.  It might be valueless when you choose to sell, but you had control over it the whole time.   That is literally nothing--at all--like a Ponzi scheme. 

It is really hard to argue that selling something that goes down in value is fraud unless there is deception.

[Telecaster]

The US dollar is a centralized cross between a Ponzi scheme and a pyramid scheme. Disprove that statement.

The US dollar does not require new investors in the dollar to pay off later investors.

All currencies require a buyer and a seller to trade them. If I want to trade my USD for GBP I have to find someone that has GBP but wants USD. I'm not sure how this is different than BTC, ETH, or XMR except that the cryptocurrencies don't have central bankers. Also, I didn't buy my first cryptocurrency for it to appreciate in USD terms. I bought my first cryptocurrency to buy goods from markets that didn't accept USD, just like I might buy a foreign currency.

I don't understand what you are saying.  Once you own, BTC you own it.  It is in your control.  It does not require later investors to buy in for you to get your BTC. 

[PDXTabs]

The US dollar is a centralized cross between a Ponzi scheme and a pyramid scheme. Disprove that statement.

The US dollar does not require new investors in the dollar to pay off later investors.

All currencies require a buyer and a seller to trade them. If I want to trade my USD for GBP I have to find someone that has GBP but wants USD. I'm not sure how this is different than BTC, ETH, or XMR except that the cryptocurrencies don't have central bankers. Also, I didn't buy my first cryptocurrency for it to appreciate in USD terms. I bought my first cryptocurrency to buy goods from markets that didn't accept USD, just like I might buy a foreign currency.

I don't understand what you are saying.  Once you own, BTC you own it.  It is in your control.  It does not require later investors to buy in for you to get your BTC.

I guess that we are in agreement.

[PDXTabs]

All currencies require a buyer and a seller to trade them. If I want to trade my USD for GBP I have to find someone that has GBP but wants USD. I'm not sure how this is different than BTC, ETH, or XMR except that the cryptocurrencies don't have central bankers. Also, I didn't buy my first cryptocurrency for it to appreciate in USD terms. I bought my first cryptocurrency to buy goods from markets that didn't accept USD, just like I might buy a foreign currency.

What legal markets don't accept tender from standard fiat?

Who said that they were legal? But in all seriousness there are goods that PayPal and MasterCard don't want to be a part of even if they are legal. If you are running an international company shipping goods that MasterCard won't let you sell on their network BTC/ETH/XMR is a real option that I have actually seen used.

[dreadmoose]

I don't understand what you are saying.  Once you own, BTC you own it.  It is in your control.  It does not require later investors to buy in for you to get your BTC.

I mean, the people Madoff scammed owned the fake transaction receipts he gave them too. But when they went to redeem it and it wasn't worth what they were promised that was probably little solace to them.

For whoever above said more and more people are using it because they have to I would have expected this chart to trend upwards rather than flat or even a down year last year...

Statista BTC Transactions

[GuitarStv]

You stopped reading too soon (emphasis added):

The scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from legitimate business activity (e.g., product sales or successful investments), and they remain unaware that other investors are the source of funds. A Ponzi scheme can maintain the illusion of a sustainable business as long as new investors contribute new funds, and as long as most of the investors do not demand full repayment and still believe in the non-existent assets they are purported to own.

In the case of Bitcoin, what do investors believe is the legitimate business activity?  They don't.  Everyone knows there is no underlying business.  They just want to own Bitcoin.

   
Bitcoin victims believe that profits are coming from currency appreciation (sometimes commodity appreciation when they're smart enough to figure out it's not a currency).  That's why they want to own bitcoin.

What is the source of funds?  Simply the price.  There is no claim of profits or promise of return.  If the price goes up, you win.  If the price goes down you lose.  Everyone knows that too.

Are you arguing that most people investing in Bitcoin do in fact, know that the total value and utility of bitcoin is derived only from new investors pumping cash into the system, and that the system would completely fall apart today if this cash infusion stopped?  That doesn't seem like common knowledge from any of the bitcoin proponents I've talked with.

The last one really illustrates why Bitcoin meets no definition of a  Ponzi scheme.  Ponzi schemes collapse when investors can't redeem their promised assets.  With Bitcoin, you own the asset.  You control it.  It is in your wallet or whenever you want it to be.  It might be valueless when you choose to sell, but you had control over it the whole time.   That is literally nothing--at all--like a Ponzi scheme.

But here's the thing.  You can't use or control a bitcoin if nobody's mining.  You won't get the miners necessary to record the blockchain without a constant influx of real cash into the system.  That means that you won't even be able to sell when Bitcoin collapses.  You are left with literally nothing --at all-- . . . which is very like a Ponzi scheme.

Crypto and NFTs  . . . is there a better definition of 'non-existent asset'?

[PDXTabs]

You can't use or control a bitcoin if nobody's mining.

That's true, but it is also true that people were mining before anyone was buying/selling BTC for USD.

[the_gastropod]

You stopped reading too soon (emphasis added):

The scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from legitimate business activity (e.g., product sales or successful investments), and they remain unaware that other investors are the source of funds. A Ponzi scheme can maintain the illusion of a sustainable business as long as new investors contribute new funds, and as long as most of the investors do not demand full repayment and still believe in the non-existent assets they are purported to own.

Bitcoin may not strictly meet the legal definition of a Ponzi—for what it's worth, neither did Madoff's, whose Ponzi did not guarantee a return. The relevant debate, in my opinion, is whether this is meaningful. Nobody is legally going after Bitcoin miners for operation of a Ponzi scheme. The legal definition isn't particularly relevant when deciding: 1. whether it's a good investment, and 2. roughly how the investment operates. Bitcoin certainly quacks like the fraud that is a Ponzi, in layman's terms. Those rough terms, as we've outlined several times in this thread are roughly:

1. People invest into it because they expect large profits
2. That expectation is sustained by such profits being paid to those who choose to cash out—and are very vocal about this
3. However, there is no external source of revenue for those payoffs
4. Instead, the payoffs come entirely from new investment money
5. Meanwhile, the operators take away a large portion of this money

Features 3,4, and 5 mean that, in aggregate, Bitcoin is a negative-sum game. That is, an average investor can expect to lose money, much like the lottery. Features 1 and 2—while the operators (miners) know about features 3, 4, and 5, and do not warn them of the negative-sum characteristics, makes this a game of fraud. But not only do operators not warn investors, they virtually always predict massive returns, and claim that bitcoins will have very important widespread uses in the future. Just HODL.

In the case of Bitcoin, what do investors believe is the legitimate business activity?  They don't.  Everyone knows there is no underlying business.  They just want to own Bitcoin.   

Why do people want to own Bitcoin? I'd split them into roughly three camps:
1. People who are techno-gold-bugs and really believe in the ideology
2. People who need to work outside the legal realm (buy drugs, transfer money to countries where it's difficult/expensive/illegal)
3. People who are investing with an expectation of return.

I think any reasonable person would agree that the vast majority of Bitcoin holders fall squarely into bucket #3. Would you agree?

People who fall into bucket #3 probably do not have a good understanding of why the price goes up. And that's, in part, by design. There is very much technical and economic obfuscation and plenty of claims about an uncertain future. Is this "business activity" strictly speaking? No. But it is explanation enough to fleece the huge majority of Bitcoin holders.

What is the source of funds?  Simply the price.  There is no claim of profits or promise of return.  If the price goes up, you win.  If the price goes down you lose.  Everyone knows that too.

As I mentioned earlier, even Madoff's Ponzi doesn't meet this rigorous definition. He had no "promise" of returns. Bitcoin and Madoff gave the expectation of returns. That is what's important here.

The last one really illustrates why Bitcoin meets no definition of a  Ponzi scheme.  Ponzi schemes collapse when investors can't redeem their promised assets.  With Bitcoin, you own the asset.  You control it.  It is in your wallet or whenever you want it to be.  It might be valueless when you choose to sell, but you had control over it the whole time.   That is literally nothing--at all--like a Ponzi scheme. 

It is really hard to argue that selling something that goes down in value is fraud unless there is deception.

You seem very interested in debating the attributes historical Ponzis had, and less interested in the characteristics that made them fraudulent investments. Past Ponzis suddenly and permanently crashed because they depended on a (relatively) easily debunked lie. When that lie was exposed, it made the schemes impossible to continue. Bitcoin's lie hides behind lots of techno babble, fear mongering, and fomo. This has, thus far, allowed its price to crater 80%+ and recover, making it unusual among Ponzis, to be sure.

[GuitarStv]

You can't use or control a bitcoin if nobody's mining.

That's true, but it is also true that people were mining before anyone was buying/selling BTC for USD.

Yep.  Hobbyists were doing the mining for fun when you didn't even need a high powered graphics card.  But bitcoin was explicitly designed to crush all the inexpensive mining in short order.  Do you really believe that these same miners will step up to spend the energy costs of a small nation without payout when all the big companies doing it now quit?

[PDXTabs]

Why do people want to own Bitcoin? I'd split them into roughly three camps:
1. People who are techno-gold-bugs and really believe in the ideology
2. People who need to work outside the legal realm (buy drugs, transfer money to countries where it's difficult/expensive/illegal)
3. People who are investing with an expectation of return.

I would add 2a: people who live in countries with truly shitty fiat like Venezuela.

Also, I would like to get back to a world where people buy cryptocurrency to buy drugs on the internet, like god intended. You know, a real crypto-currency with emphasis on currency.

[PDXTabs]

You can't use or control a bitcoin if nobody's mining.

That's true, but it is also true that people were mining before anyone was buying/selling BTC for USD.

Yep.  Hobbyists were doing the mining for fun when you didn't even need a high powered graphics card.  But bitcoin was explicitly designed to crush all the inexpensive mining in short order.  Do you really believe that these same miners will step up to spend the energy costs of a small nation without payout when all the big companies doing it now quit?

Technically speaking, since it is a consensus algorithm, if everyone stops mining can't it be forked to allow for cheap mining again?

[GuitarStv]

You can't use or control a bitcoin if nobody's mining.

That's true, but it is also true that people were mining before anyone was buying/selling BTC for USD.

Yep.  Hobbyists were doing the mining for fun when you didn't even need a high powered graphics card.  But bitcoin was explicitly designed to crush all the inexpensive mining in short order.  Do you really believe that these same miners will step up to spend the energy costs of a small nation without payout when all the big companies doing it now quit?

Technically speaking, since it is a consensus algorithm, if everyone stops mining can't it be forked to allow for cheap mining again?

Sure could.

But how are you going to make the mining worth their while without paying for the costs?  Once the scheme is well known, I suspect you'll have far fewer folks signing up for it.  I guess you could massively devalue bitcoin by issuing new coins to miners.  Either way, no victim will get the full amount of their 'investment' back.

I love that the solution to bitcoin's ponzi problem is a central group of . . . let's call them 'bankers' getting together to decide to devalue their 'currency'.  It's delicious.  :P

[waltworks]

Also, I would like to get back to a world where people buy cryptocurrency to buy drugs on the internet, like god intended. You know, a real crypto-currency with emphasis on currency.

Yes, this was what initially was exciting to me about crypto way back almost a decade ago. Unfortunately BTC is basically the opposite of what you'd want in a currency. I can think of a variety of nerdy ways to try to construct a currency that would keep it stable/very slowly depreciating, minimize energy use, be secure, etc, etc. There would be of course plenty of tradeoffs and room to disagree about details. But BTC doesn't do ANY of those things. It's a real shame the designers let their ideology come first (assuming they actually wanted to create a useful currency, that is).

-W

[PDXTabs]

Either way, no victim will get the full amount of their 'investment' back.

Hypothetically speaking, how is that different than Peloton stock?

[PDXTabs]

Also, I would like to get back to a world where people buy cryptocurrency to buy drugs on the internet, like god intended. You know, a real crypto-currency with emphasis on currency.

Yes, this was what initially was exciting to me about crypto way back almost a decade ago. Unfortunately BTC is basically the opposite of what you'd want in a currency. I can think of a variety of nerdy ways to try to construct a currency that would keep it stable/very slowly depreciating, minimize energy use, be secure, etc, etc. There would be of course plenty of tradeoffs and room to disagree about details. But BTC doesn't do ANY of those things. It's a real shame the designers let their ideology come first (assuming they actually wanted to create a useful currency, that is).

-W

I think that you are being a little hard on the designers of the first successful cryptocurrency. Gopher is dead and has been replaced with better protocols, that's kind of how technology works. I have $0 in BTC because I think that there are better cryptocurrencies that have replaced it.

[waltworks]

Also, I would like to get back to a world where people buy cryptocurrency to buy drugs on the internet, like god intended. You know, a real crypto-currency with emphasis on currency.

Yes, this was what initially was exciting to me about crypto way back almost a decade ago. Unfortunately BTC is basically the opposite of what you'd want in a currency. I can think of a variety of nerdy ways to try to construct a currency that would keep it stable/very slowly depreciating, minimize energy use, be secure, etc, etc. There would be of course plenty of tradeoffs and room to disagree about details. But BTC doesn't do ANY of those things. It's a real shame the designers let their ideology come first (assuming they actually wanted to create a useful currency, that is).

-W

I think that you are being a little hard on the designers of the first successful cryptocurrency. Gopher is dead and has been replaced with better protocols, that's kind of how technology works. I have $0 in BTC because I think that there are better cryptocurrencies that have replaced it.

Come on, a first year econ student could do a better job. Like a lot of engineers they focused entirely on the problems that interested them and lost sight of the forest for the trees. Or else they wanted to make digital gold and maybe wreck the environment just as much as real gold.

-W

[PDXTabs]

Come on, a first year econ student could do a better job. Like a lot of engineers they focused entirely on the problems that interested them and lost sight of the forest for the trees. Or else they wanted to make digital gold and maybe wreck the environment just as much as real gold.

-W

I don't think that they were a first year econ student. I think that they were a cryptographer.

[Telecaster]

Come on, a first year econ student could do a better job. Like a lot of engineers they focused entirely on the problems that interested them and lost sight of the forest for the trees. Or else they wanted to make digital gold and maybe wreck the environment just as much as real gold.

-W

Exactly.  I mentioned up thread the designers never really thought about how money is or how it works.  So it BTC works like a collectable because the designers thought that's how money works. 

And for the record, producing a collectable is not a Ponzi scheme. 

[GuitarStv]

Come on, a first year econ student could do a better job. Like a lot of engineers they focused entirely on the problems that interested them and lost sight of the forest for the trees. Or else they wanted to make digital gold and maybe wreck the environment just as much as real gold.

-W

Exactly.  I mentioned up thread the designers never really thought about how money is or how it works.  So it BTC works like a collectable because the designers thought that's how money works. 

And for the record, producing a collectable is not a Ponzi scheme. 

There aren't many collectibles I'm aware of where you lose ownership (ability to sell/trade) if you stop paying people to 'mine' it.

[Telecaster]

The possibility of a collectible's value going to zero by itself does not meet any definition of a Ponzi scheme.  A Ponzi scheme requires fraud, by definition. 

It would be extremely hard to argue that the knowledge that mining is a component of Bitcoin transactions has been hidden from future buyers.   It is right there in the white paper.   

Question:  If this is a Ponzi scheme, specifically who would you arrest in this case and what would you charge them with? 

[the_gastropod]

Well, this seems potentially significant: https://www.barrons.com/articles/white-house-executive-action-regulate-cryptos-national-security-51643312454

This comes just days after Putin effectively did the same thing in Russia.

[davisgang90]

I've got 0.27% of my portfolio in BTC and I'm comfortable with that level of exposure. I view it as pure speculation at this point.

To be clear, I've "invested" only my personal allowance in BTC, none of our investment dollars. I keep all our investments purely in index funds.

[DaKini]

For me (as 20 years experienced IT guy in it security and programmer), this looks really fishy and that’s the reason why i dont hold any crypto.

While the first years it looked pretty nice to me and i wanted to see the vision getting real - at some point i realized that this is a fundamental part of the issue.
That very vision was long time part if the „marketing scheme“, a sellable end-state that has a low probability of ever getting real, while juicy enough to get people on board.
All that blockchain-crypto-fluff is just there to hide the scam. Its an illusion, the perfect fraud - long time it was not clear if it is illegal, and now i come to believe *that* was intentional. It is the perfect robbery where it is designed to be pyramid-like, getting people to freely bring you their money, while legally its hard to fight because obviously its not illegal to sell those tokens.

Cryptos are mocking our free world values and are gaming our system for personal gain. The technological wrapping is just there to disguise the pyramid.

[PDXTabs]

Either way, no victim will get the full amount of their 'investment' back.

Hypothetically speaking, how is that different than Peloton stock?

And overly hyped stock still has some assets and revenue. BTC has neither.

That is no guarantee that as a shareholder you will ever see a dime of the assets or revenue. When a company goes bankrupt (eg, GM) shareholders get nothing. But yea, you technically own a share of a potentially worthless company, just like owning a fraction of a potentially worthless cryptocurrency.

[dandarc]

Either way, no victim will get the full amount of their 'investment' back.

Hypothetically speaking, how is that different than Peloton stock?

And overly hyped stock still has some assets and revenue. BTC has neither.

That is no guarantee that as a shareholder you will ever see a dime of the assets or revenue. When a company goes bankrupt (eg, GM) shareholders get nothing. But yea, you technically own a share of a potentially worthless company, just like owning a fraction of a potentially worthless cryptocurrency.

Significantly different levels of "potentially" with regards to "worthless" there. So not "just like".

[PDXTabs]

It's why we don't recommend buying individual stocks in these parts make the same fucking argument for apple or Google.

Me too! I'm 99% VT. I just don't buy the ponzi-scheme-fraud argument.

Why don't you go play poker every night? You could easily be a billionaire.

Poker is actually really easy to win at against average opponents, but I don't like the ambiance of the places where it is played.

[PDXTabs]

So have fun using your collectibles to buy illegal shit. Clearly proving it doesn't actually have a purpose in society.

Last time you needed to send money to a family member in Vietnam how did you do it? Because I sent ETH.

EDITed to add - I usually just buy my drugs with cash money US dollars.

[PDXTabs]

Going to be a fun convo when it's hey I just sent you 10k in USD. Well I only got 5usd

Do you actually believe that? Because I'd take that bet. I bet you that in the next 10 years that won't happen. That is, there will not be a single point in time where if I transferred ETH worth $10K USD that after two gas fees and market volatility that $10,000 USD would be reduced to $5 USD within a 24 hour time-frame. If you win I'll give you $240. If I win you can give me 1 ETH.

I almost forgot to add that the very coolest "illegal shit" that you can buy with these "collectibles" is anonymous online internet hosting. In the USA this might not seem like a big deal to you, but if you are a dissident in Myanmar, China, or Iran it opens up opportunities to get information out. Of course, it might be illegal. If liking that is wrong then I don't want to be right.

[PDXTabs]

Going to be a fun convo when it's hey I just sent you 10k in USD. Well I only got 5usd

Do you actually believe that? Because I'd take that bet. I bet you that in the next 10 years that won't happen. That is, there will not be a single point in time where if I transferred ETH worth $10K USD that after two gas fees and market volatility that $10,000 USD would be reduced to $5 USD within a 24 hour time-frame. If you win I'll give you $240. If I win you can give me 1 ETH.

I almost forgot to add that the very coolest "illegal shit" that you can buy with these "collectibles" is anonymous online internet hosting. In the USA this might not seem like a big deal to you, but if you are a dissident in Myanmar, China, or Iran it opens up opportunities to get information out. Of course, it might be illegal. If liking that is wrong then I don't want to be right.

You mean this entirely open source everyone can see every transaction decentralized Blockchain is actually the latest est in espionage tech.

Fuck I'm impressed.

XMR whitepaper.

[PDXTabs]

You mean this entirely open source everyone can see every transaction decentralized Blockchain is actually the latest est in espionage tech.

Fuck I'm impressed.

XMR whitepaper.

Oh yay a white paper

These are great here's a bunch of shit we might do or say we're doing but aren't legally obligated to do but trust us we're doing it.

I have a white paper for ya.

Send boarder42 11million dollars and four sketches of unicorn farts and you can be the first investor and nft creator of unicorn farts. Once we sell a billion unicorn farts you might be rich but if you're not you'll at least he one of the first investors and creators in this new revolutionary idea that makes everyone rich with unicorns farts. If you miss out today. I'll find someone tomorrow this is too good to pass up.

Oh yay sarcasm.

As you just wrote, the implementation is open source and it is a decentralized consensus based algorithm. The whitepaper has been out for eight years. The big risk is that cryptography is hard and sometimes it takes a lot of smart people a long time to notice a flaw. But that algorithms and techniques that they are using aren't new. Just the way that they have chosen to combine them.

Hard pass on the unicorn fart investment until you have a similar whitepaper and open source implementation with a proven track-record.

[Blender Bender]

Bc the entire thing is bullshit topped with bullshit. You can push as much of it as you want. Everyone pushing crypto owns crypto so congrats on you part in the MLM portion of the enterprise best of luck in your accelerated destruction of earth.

Those crypto bros are such losers that they likely do/will not have children. Thus they don't give a fuck that they contribute to the planet distraction.
Otherwise the grand kids would say: "Grampa, why the planet is destroyed? Grampa did you take part in the biggest scam ever? Why did you do that!"
Grampa : "I was just a greedy bustard, the $ was meant for the family future". "Fuck you grampa!"

[PDXTabs]

Everyone pushing crypto owns crypto so congrats on you part in the MLM portion of the enterprise best of luck in your accelerated destruction of earth.

You think the tiny number of XMR that I own are hurting the earth more than all the VT? If you are worried about emissions from cryptocurrency mining I strongly suggest that you advocate for a carbon tax. I do.

PS - I mined them to keep my house warm in the winter when I had resistance baseboard heaters. As soon as I moved to a house with gas heat I stopped mining, although come to think of it my 100% green power is cleaner than my natural gas.

[PDXTabs]

Cool you're still a pro crypto person who owns crypto. Which benefits you personally to support crypto since it's a negative sum game. Which makes it part ponzi part MLM. So again I don't give a fuck where you're from who you're sending it to. You are just proving my point so thanks.

What I fail to understand is how that is any different from any other currency? If I have US dollars I want them to be good by some metric of goodness. Same for Turkish Lira. Everyone that owns any currency doesn't want it to go to $0 tomorrow. Or commodities, or oil company stock.

[PDXTabs]

Cool you're still a pro crypto person who owns crypto. Which benefits you personally to support crypto since it's a negative sum game. Which makes it part ponzi part MLM. So again I don't give a fuck where you're from who you're sending it to. You are just proving my point so thanks.

What I fail to understand is how that is any different from any other currency? If I have US dollars I want them to be good by some metric of goodness. Same for Turkish Lira. Everyone that owns any currency doesn't want it to go to $0 tomorrow. Or commodities, or oil company stock.

You need a better understanding of global economics and investing with a statement like this.

Please enlighten me. I extra want to know how oil company stock isn't a negative sum game for the planet. Also maybe while you are at it you can explain to me why trading forex is inherently different than trading crypto.

[PDXTabs]

Negative sum was in regards to the fact that crypto miners take a cut.

Indeed, just like the MasterCard network or a wire transfer.

Forex and crypto are both not ways to build wealth so thanks for that connection.

So this thread could be titled why not hold a small bit of euros

Uh bc it's fucking dumb unless your in Europe.

I'm not advocating to trade forex or crypto. I'm just questioning all of the extra assertions that you are making. I never claimed that cryptocurrency was the new gold. I'd still like it to be a functional currency.

[erjkism]

Everyone pushing crypto owns crypto so congrats on you part in the MLM portion of the enterprise best of luck in your accelerated destruction of earth.

You think the tiny number of XMR that I own are hurting the earth more than all the VT? If you are worried about emissions from cryptocurrency mining I strongly suggest that you advocate for a carbon tax. I do.

PS - I mined them to keep my house warm in the winter when I had resistance baseboard heaters. As soon as I moved to a house with gas heat I stopped mining, although come to think of it my 100% green power is cleaner than my natural gas.

Cool you're still a pro crypto person who owns crypto. Which benefits you personally to support crypto since it's a negative sum game. Which makes it part ponzi part MLM. So again I don't give a fuck where you're from who you're sending it to. You are just proving my point so thanks.

If someone believes cryptocurrency is a good thing of course they are going to add some to their portfolio.

[lifeanon269]

For whoever above said more and more people are using it because they have to I would have expected this chart to trend upwards rather than flat or even a down year last year...

Statista BTC Transactions

This chart is not at all an indication of usage. It is just a chart of the total number of on-chain transactions that have taken place. Bitcoin transactions are settlement. Most exchanges over the last year or two have transitioned to batch transactions for their withdrawal activity. This means that when you withdraw from an exchange, they wait until there are many transactions from their customers to then broadcast a transaction on the network. So a single transaction from these institutions is usually the activity of many hundreds or even thousands of people. One bitcoin transaction does not equal one individual's activity, it is a settlement of many.

So because many exchanges have moved to batching over the last year or so, it has made the bitcoin blockchain much more efficient when it comes to block space utilization. Therefore you can't draw conclusions about bitcoin usage using the chart you presented. A much better indication of usage comes from charts like the UTXO set or total value of transactions being posted. Both of these charts shows a continuous rise in number over the years.

https://www.blockchain.com/charts/utxo-count
https://www.blockchain.com/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd

Furthermore is the usage of the lightning network where all transactions take place off-chain. Due to the privacy features of the network, there is no way to tell how many transactions are currently taking place on the network. However, we do have a few indicators such as the growth in the overall size of the network which has seen tremendous growth over the last couple years. Combined with the fact that anecdotal information from my personal lightning node as well as others have seen a ton of transaction forwarding taking place lately.

https://bitcoinvisuals.com/lightning

So yes, more and more activity is taking place with bitcoin and it continues to go up year over year, regardless of what the exchange value is.

Bitcoin victims believe that profits are coming from currency appreciation (sometimes commodity appreciation when they're smart enough to figure out it's not a currency).  That's why they want to own bitcoin.

Are you arguing that most people investing in Bitcoin do in fact, know that the total value and utility of bitcoin is derived only from new investors pumping cash into the system, and that the system would completely fall apart today if this cash infusion stopped?  That doesn't seem like common knowledge from any of the bitcoin proponents I've talked with.

But here's the thing.  You can't use or control a bitcoin if nobody's mining.  You won't get the miners necessary to record the blockchain without a constant influx of real cash into the system.  That means that you won't even be able to sell when Bitcoin collapses.  You are left with literally nothing --at all-- . . . which is very like a Ponzi scheme.

Crypto and NFTs  . . . is there a better definition of 'non-existent asset'?

Again, the system would not completely fall apart today if cash infusion stopped. That is a complete fallacy devoid of any reality. Money has come and gone in bitcoin many times throughout many cycles and the system has not "collapsed" at all. The bitcoin network continues to churn out blocks like it always has despite the many calls of its demise. A ponzi scheme has a specific fraudser(s) involved that is defrauding the many in order to steal their money at their expense. Bitcoin is a completely open and honest system where anyone is free to come and go. Contrary to what you keep claiming, there is no sole beneficiary of said fraud.

Even the early investors have come and gone throughout bitcoin's life. There are countless people who were invested in the early days when it was worth just a few cents or dollars and have since sold their bitcoin to others. One thing that seems lost on you is that for every seller there is a buyer. For every seller in the early days, there must have been a new buyer in the early days. This open and free market just doesn't exist for a ponzi scheme. The idea of an "early investor" in your mind is such a transitory term in reality. For every "early" investor that bought in the early days there was someone who got out early on. That holds true every single day. People have been calling bitcoin a ponzi scheme for years and yet somehow the idea that there is a continuous stream of buyers and sellers together in an open market completely contradicts their claims every single day which makes their ponzi claims all the more ridiculous. What is "early" exactly? A couple years ago people were still calling bitcoin a ponzi scheme and yet every day since then there were buyers coupled with sellers all coming to agreement on the value they see in bitcoin. Every day that those buyers and sellers meet in the open and free marketplace and agree upon a value, they prove the ponzi claimers wrong.

You're also completely wrong on the mining. Bitcoin mining isn't what decides ownership of bitcoin. The blockchain is just a ledger of transactions. I host a bitcoin node that stores this blockchain ledger on it. This ledger database is what determines who owns what. Mining does not do that. Digital signatures is what determines ownership. Mining is transient. In general a block is produced every 10 minutes, but there are periods that go by much longer than 10 minutes and during that time that doesn't mean ownership of bitcoin has ceased. My bitcoin node has no idea who is mining, how many people are mining, how much hashpower is being used, etc. It only knows when a new block is broadcast on the network. We calculate approximately how many miners are mining and the appropriate difficulty level based on how frequently new blocks are seen being broadcast. Theoretically an undetermined amount of time could go by without seeing a new block produced, but that doesn't mean that people suddenly "stop owning bitcoin" as you insinuate because as I said, digital signatures are what determines ownership.

Bitcoin mining is simply to secure the network and confirm transactions. It is an economically incentivized process. So you're going against economic theory if you're claiming that there won't be anyone available to mine and secure the network while there are still participants, regardless of whether there is still new influx of participants. If there are no blocks being produced, but there are people who really want bitcoin transactions to be confirmed, then they'll be willing to pay for it through transaction fees. What you're claiming is that miners will be willing to leave money on the table when it is presented to them and that is an absolutely silly thing to say. Over the next several years as more block reward halvings take place, the price of bitcoin becomes less and less important to these mining incentizes. At some point in the next several years, the majority of the block reward for miners will come from transaction fees which means the price of bitcoin becomes a negligible aspect for these mining incentives and these economics are even truer. At the end of the day, if there are people who want to transact with bitcoin, there will be miners willing to confirm those transactions and the mechanisms built within the bitcoin protocol ensure that (difficulty adjustment, reward halving, block size limits, etc).

That doesn't even touch about the countless ways with which you can now transact with bitcoin without the need for a miner's confirmation (Lightning network, Liquid network, physical bitcoin, off-chain processors, sidechains, etc).

[waltworks]

I run a business that sells stuff almost exclusively to white 30-50 year olds with college (or graduate) degrees, many of whom are engineers. The stereotype of a BTC person.

I am retired at this point so last year I only processed 240 transactions (2+ years ago it was closer to 500 a year). Exactly zero of those people has EVER so much as offered to pay with BTC. Zero. When casually discussing this with other business owners, their story is the same.

I'm a small sample but I have a hard time believing anyone is doing any actual commerce with BTC. The transactions are presumably 100% exchanging BTC for dollars/fiat or other cryptos, or vise versa. Digital gold.

-W

[BeanCounter]

I'm a small sample but I have a hard time believing anyone is doing any actual commerce with BTC. The transactions are presumably 100% exchanging BTC for dollars/fiat or other cryptos, or vise versa. Digital gold.

-W

How or why would you even use it for commerce? With BTC being so volatile wouldn’t the business owner be taking a huge risk that when they go to exchange it into dollars for more product or to pay bills that it would be suddenly worth 30% less?

[Blender Bender]

I'm a small sample but I have a hard time believing anyone is doing any actual commerce with BTC. The transactions are presumably 100% exchanging BTC for dollars/fiat or other cryptos, or vise versa. Digital gold.

-W

How or why would you even use it for commerce? With BTC being so volatile wouldn’t the business owner be taking a huge risk that when they go to exchange it into dollars for more product or to pay bills that it would be suddenly worth 30% less?

Crypto bros are like a broken record. It has been proven by many, even crypto supporters, that BTC can’t be used widely as a currency. Simple like that.

[Blender Bender]

OK. Crypto bros. These are the current facts. Please stop repeating false statements.
I do realize that you believe that propaganda would work. Nope, not here in MMM forum.
Do not play Putin's game. A lie repeated 100 times does not make it true.

Cryptos/blockchain values:

1. As a currency (superior to fiat USD).
Aka utility. There is i think already a wide consensus that this not happening. Almost no-one claims (anymore) in the last year that crypto's feature is utility.

2. As an inflation hedge (against legacy fiat).
Proven recently that it is not true.

3. As AA not correlated to the market.
Proven recently that it is not true.

4. As a store of value?
This item is often mentioned. If something has (intrinsic) value, then why in the last few weeks the value halfed? Is any logical reason why? Nope, just a sentiment. What kind of value it is?
So, this cannot be considered as stored value.

5. As an amazing tech changing our lives.
Blockchain/crypto is already over 10y old, and no (really) useful application was born. Give it another 10y? 

6. Killing the planet for absolutely nothing back.
If e.g. someone invents effective food production that is not killing the planet, but uses a lot if electricity that would be fine with me.

[onecoolcat]

Bitcoin is a terrible investment because this one time it went from $1,000 to $19,000 and crashed all the way down to $3,800.  And another time, it went from $8,000 to $69,000 and crashed all the way down to $35,000.  Moral of the story, don't buy Bitcoin because you know it will crash.

[PDXTabs]

Bitcoin is a terrible investment because this one time it went from $1,000 to $19,000 and crashed all the way down to $3,800.  And another time, it went from $8,000 to $69,000 and crashed all the way down to $35,000.  Moral of the story, don't buy Bitcoin because you know it will crash.

I can't tell if you are being serious or not, but I bought in at $450.

[Telecaster]

Bitcoin is a terrible investment because this one time it went from $1,000 to $19,000 and crashed all the way down to $3,800.  And another time, it went from $8,000 to $69,000 and crashed all the way down to $35,000.  Moral of the story, don't buy Bitcoin because you know it will crash.

I can't tell if you are being serious or not, but I bought in at $450.

Pretty sure the previous poster is serious, but it illustrates a problem:  Bitcoin is touted as being better than gold. But it has wild price fluctuations.  If the value isn't there when you need it, then it doesn't have much utility in that regard.

If you buy it with the expectation it will always trend up, that's a different thing.

[PDXTabs]

OK. Crypto bros. These are the current facts. Please stop repeating false statements.
I do realize that you believe that propaganda would work. Nope, not here in MMM forum.
Do not play Putin's game. A lie repeated 100 times does not make it true.

Cryptos/blockchain values:

1. As a currency (superior to fiat USD).
Aka utility. There is i think already a wide consensus that this not happening. Almost no-one claims (anymore) in the last year that crypto's feature is utility.

2. As an inflation hedge (against legacy fiat).
Proven recently that it is not true.

3. As AA not correlated to the market.
Proven recently that it is not true.

4. As a store of value?
This item is often mentioned. If something has (intrinsic) value, then why in the last few weeks the value halfed? Is any logical reason why? Nope, just a sentiment. What kind of value it is?
So, this cannot be considered as stored value.

5. As an amazing tech changing our lives.
Blockchain/crypto is already over 10y old, and no (really) useful application was born. Give it another 10y? 

6. Killing the planet for absolutely nothing back.
If e.g. someone invents effective food production that is not killing the planet, but uses a lot if electricity that would be fine with me.

Can I intuit from your post that you are not a believer in the efficient market hypothesis?

[PDXTabs]

Pretty sure the previous poster is serious, but it illustrates a problem:  Bitcoin is touted as being better than gold. But it has wild price fluctuations.  If the value isn't there when you need it, then it doesn't have much utility in that regard.

If you buy it with the expectation it will always trend up, that's a different thing.

I might be in the minority, but I just think of it as a shitty currency. Better than venezuelan bolívar but worse than the US dollar.

[ChpBstrd]

Pretty sure the previous poster is serious, but it illustrates a problem:  Bitcoin is touted as being better than gold. But it has wild price fluctuations.  If the value isn't there when you need it, then it doesn't have much utility in that regard.

If you buy it with the expectation it will always trend up, that's a different thing.

I might be in the minority, but I just think of it as a shitty currency. Better than venezuelan bolívar but worse than the US dollar.

IDK, with the Venezuelan bolivar, there is at least some intrinsic value in the gag gift market:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/384703155545?hash=item5992184d59:g:NNEAAOSwPfBhU6PO

Plus, Venezuela is getting to be too poor to print any more banknotes, and they are routinely destroyed as a way to build campfires, so it's actually deflationary from a collectibles perspective. I have a feeling there is a deeper truth about crypto buried here, but I just can't quite grasp it.

[LateStarter]

OK. Crypto bros. These are the current facts. Please stop repeating false statements.
I do realize that you believe that propaganda would work. Nope, not here in MMM forum.
Do not play Putin's game. A lie repeated 100 times does not make it true.

Cryptos/blockchain values:

1. As a currency (superior to fiat USD).
Aka utility. There is i think already a wide consensus that this not happening. Almost no-one claims (anymore) in the last year that crypto's feature is utility.

2. As an inflation hedge (against legacy fiat).
Proven recently that it is not true.

3. As AA not correlated to the market.
Proven recently that it is not true.

4. As a store of value?
This item is often mentioned. If something has (intrinsic) value, then why in the last few weeks the value halfed? Is any logical reason why? Nope, just a sentiment. What kind of value it is?
So, this cannot be considered as stored value.

5. As an amazing tech changing our lives.
Blockchain/crypto is already over 10y old, and no (really) useful application was born. Give it another 10y? 

6. Killing the planet for absolutely nothing back.
If e.g. someone invents effective food production that is not killing the planet, but uses a lot if electricity that would be fine with me.

"A lie repeated 100 times does not make it true" says ArnoldK - repeating his own opinions as if that made them true . . .

[LateStarter]

I get it that the Bitcoin energy issue is a topic worthy of examination and discussion, but the reporting in the general media is pretty shabby. Supposedly reliable sources are randomly conflating "electricity" comparisons with "energy" comparisons.

"The cryptocurrency consumes more energy than Norway." - not true
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/30/how-do-we-solve-bitcoins-carbon-problem

"Bitcoin uses more energy than Argentina - if Bitcoin was a country, it would be in the top 30 energy users worldwide" -  not true
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56012952

and there's plenty of similar examples out there  . . .

Simple careless errors ? Intentional scaremongering ? Either way, it's nonsense.

[windytrail]

I get it that the Bitcoin energy issue is a topic worthy of examination and discussion, but the reporting in the general media is pretty shabby. Supposedly reliable sources are randomly conflating "electricity" comparisons with "energy" comparisons.

"The cryptocurrency consumes more energy than Norway." - not true
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/30/how-do-we-solve-bitcoins-carbon-problem

"Bitcoin uses more energy than Argentina - if Bitcoin was a country, it would be in the top 30 energy users worldwide" -  not true
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56012952

and there's plenty of similar examples out there  . . .

Simple careless errors ? Intentional scaremongering ? Either way, it's nonsense.

This source (https://www.moneysupermarket.com/gas-and-electricity/features/crypto-energy-consumption/) states that a single Bitcoin transaction uses an average of 1,173 Kilowatt Hours (kWh), enough to power a typical UK home for more than three months. Are you saying this is incorrect? If so, where are your sources?