General Cryptocoin Discussion

[R-T-B]

Except that no one else profits from doing that work besides you. You're not making any product, and you're not offering any service, or anything useful to society.

You are providing the payment network.

There are furthermore mining farms in the pacific northwest here that offer employment, if that's what you meant.

 

[AusWolf]

i aint gonna debate your unfair world theories but crypt isnt any different than anything else.. you do seem to be unfairly picking on it..

That's exactly my point. It won't bring us to a new world with "more free" people. It's only a transfer of wealth from one group to another.

i dont like your ebay shady character references ether.. ebay sellers are mostly just normal people..

Normal people who somehow managed to buy graphics cards at store prices, and are selling them at hugely inflated prices with no warranty. Of course there's a few honest people still who only want to sell their used stuff in hopes of buying something new - I have nothing against them.

You are providing the payment network.

Well, you don't, your computer is. Besides, banks do that too with normal currencies. I still can't see how this all benefits anyone other than the owner of mining farms.

 

[trog100]

i did say i wasnt keen on getting into ethical debate.. i have slipped a bit on this one.. he he..

trog

 

[R-T-B]

Well, you don't, your computer is.

Did the computer build and maintain itself now?

Besides, banks do that too with normal currencies.

At a much higher estimated power usage when you consider all the branches, yes.

Cryptos even better at per transaction cost if you exclude pigs like Bitcoin and such.

 

[AusWolf]

Did the computer build and maintain itself now?

I suppose building and maintaining a computer for one's self with the sole purpose of making money and providing the payment network for people who do the same is a highly useful job, just like being a shopkeeper or car mechanic... oh wait...

At a much higher estimated power usage when you consider all the branches, yes.

Cryptos even better at per transaction cost if you exclude pigs like Bitcoin and such.

Power usage is one thing. Another thing is whether we really need alternative currencies to be accumulated in the hands of alternative people through alternative payment networks. Of course these people will do everything to promote their currencies to make sure the network stays alive, but that only serves the purpose of them becoming and staying rich. No monetary system is benevolent for the masses, not even crypto.

An analogy: in the traditional system, you work for your money, and you might think you've achieved something when you get a bonus or a promotion at your job, even though your bonus is just a tiny portion of what your company makes. With crypto, your computer does the work (unless you trade), and you might think you've achieved something when your mining or trading efforts return some profit. On the large scale, your tiny profit is just as insignificant compared to the one that the world's top crypto farmers make as your bonus in your regular job is compared to what your company makes. Your little wallet is only worth something because someone has a bigger one than yours, and vice versa. If everyone profits equally, then money has no real value.

The only difference I see is the person who benefits from the system: the CEO of your workplace is probably just as unknown and alien to you as the largest crypto miners are, but he's done something to get where he is, and he's still doing a lot to maintain the reputation of the company in front of its customers through providing the products or service the company offers (through you among others of course). On the other hand, the only thing the largest crypto miners ever did was buy computer parts by masses, and the only service they ever provide is maintain the payment network that serves the only purpose of themselves getting rich. There's no product, no service, only the flow of money. Everybody can think of this what they want, but to me, it stinks big time.

 

[R-T-B]

I suppose building and maintaining a computer for one's self with the sole purpose of making money and providing the payment network for people who do the same is a highly useful job, just like being a shopkeeper or car mechanic... oh wait...

I know you were trying to be ironic, but it's not.

 

[R0H1T]

At a much higher estimated power usage when you consider all the branches, yes.

There's no evidence of that, banks opening branches have little to do with transactions in & of itself. Most do to cover retail customers over certain (major) areas or cities, are you really counting regular PC power usage in there?

 

[R-T-B]

There's no evidence of that,

There's a lot of evidence when you don't contest my main point, which was consider the branches. You can't seperate traditional banking from them, which means they are part of the figure.

There have been several studies done and the only way crypto falls short vs traditonal banking is in per transaction energy cost, and there are coins that address that too. Most aren't mainstream yet admittedly.

 

[R0H1T]

which was consider the branches.

And I said it has nothing to do with transactions per se. A lot of people still deal in cash & want physical places with real people to talk to. You can't replace that with imaginary cryptocurrencies having 99% better power efficiency.

If you could do everything online Amazon would be the most value company in the world, or Alibaba, & every retail or wholesale storefront would shut shop.

 

[authorized]

There's something I've been wondering about for some time - blockchain's size.
It doesn't seem to be a worry for crypto people, why's that? The only explanation I've seen was a claim that the growth of storage capacity outpaces the growth of blockchains. That may be true for now when crypto is niche, but if at any point cryptocurrencies actually become a popular payment system used by the masses, blockchain's size will explode.
I guess some sort of sharding could be implemented, but wouldn't that seriously compromise security?

 

[R-T-B]

And I said it has nothing to do with transactions per se. A lot of people still deal in cash & want physical places with real people to talk to. You can't replace that with imaginary cryptocurrencies having 99% better power efficiency.

That is a fair point but that wasn't the initial claim I was responding to.

There's something I've been wondering about for some time - blockchain's size.
It doesn't seem to be a worry for crypto people, why's that? The only explanation I've seen was a claim that the growth of storage capacity outpaces the growth of blockchains. That may be true for now when crypto is niche, but if at any point cryptocurrencies actually become a popular payment system used by the masses, blockchain's size will explode.
I guess some sort of sharding could be implemented, but wouldn't that seriously compromise security?

The blockchain size isn't much more of a concern than any record keeping system. You furthermore don't need to download the full blockchain to participate in securing the network anymore. Leaving that to a few seems to function fine.

 

[R0H1T]

Yes but I'm yet to find accurate estimates of as to how crypto would be more efficient, btw the power estimates for mining are also overblown. My argument is that in some sense unless you get completely off of (physical) bank notes crypto or really any other alternative is not viable in the long run. Secondly governance & law ~ how do you deal with crypto scams & what happens when the developers just want to turn off (or ON) the switch in the hopes of making a quick buck?

 

[The red spirit]

i dont like your ebay shady character references ether.. ebay sellers are mostly just normal people..

Except that there are a lot of scammers. I have been sold 3 times hardware that was said to be functioning only to receive it dead.

ebay is a pretty good price discovery mechanism.. false promises by retailers are not...

Not at all, it's one of the worst. It's unrealistic as people can charge way more than what they could sell for locally on there. You will find similar stuff much cheaper locally. Some people in my country buy used things locally for cheap and then that stuff on ebay for 4-5 times what they paid for it. Sometimes that mark up is literally 10 times or even more. If some dude bought ATi X800 XT card for 5 Euros, he could easily sell it on ebay for 120 Euros and that's without shipping included. ATi 3870 locally sells for 10 Euros, but on ebay 90 Euros. Seriously, if you do this stuff on ebay long enough and with bigger quantities, you likely could get quite wealthy. ebay isn't a good price discovery mechanism, it's the place where people try to upsell as much as they possibly could. ebay only sometimes is reasonable with already expensive things

 

[Papahyooie]

I tried to wave the flag of truce here, and be educational. But when the argument inevitably ends up going toward "What you're doing isn't important" then there's obviously nothing I'm going to be able to do to explain it.

It's important to me. I don't particularly care if it's important to you. I guess all I can say, since nobody seems to want to just mind their own business is "try and stop me."

I didn't want to get all militant anarchist in here, but here we are lol.

The problem with these discussions is that nobody's here to understand, they're here to argue. And while I have a single stalwart position to defend, the opposition has an infinite number of goalposts to move behind.

 

[r.h.p]

hey dudes just a quicky , ive got .5 of a coin mined in Ethereum , and sent it to coin base . what the hell can i use it for ? any ideas ?

 

[R-T-B]

hey dudes just a quicky , ive got .5 of a coin mined in Ethereum , and sent it to coin base . what the hell can i use it for ? any ideas ?

Cash it out or trade it for something else? That's usually what's coinbase is good for.

 

[AusWolf]

The problem with these discussions is that nobody's here to understand, they're here to argue. And while I have a single stalwart position to defend, the opposition has an infinite number of goalposts to move behind.

I want to understand, as I don't believe anything in this world can be entirely good or bad. It's just that no argument presented to defend crypto has been strong enough to convince me that it's actually something that was either invented with the purpose of, or has the ability to make the world a better place. I've honestly learned a lot from you and other advocates of crypto here, but I'm still not convinced.

• Lower energy usage than bank offices and branches: may be true, but 1. blockchain calculations consume way more energy than bank transactions, 2. having a branch you can physically walk into and ask experts about products and general advice is really helpful and necessary in the modern monetary world. Not everyone is a financial expert or computer genius.
• Independence from central banks and governments: true, but you're dependent on other people using the same currency as you. If everyone swaps for RANDOMBScoin, your money is worthless unless you act fast and make the switch soon enough yourself. It's infinitely more volatile than any national currency, and that's not something a lot of people would want to live with.
• Promoting freedom and non-aggression: that sounds fancy, but being free from a central bank doesn't mean you're entirely free. You're still dependent on the crypto market, the security of your wallet, laws, etc. You can't buy freedom, and you can't mine it, either. You're also dependent on other people doing their daily jobs. If nobody makes food and nobody delivers it to supermarkets, then what do you eat? Expecting everybody to be a crypto miner/trader is pure arrogance. And that brings us to the next bullet point:

I didn't want to get all militant anarchist in here, but here we are lol.

It's not you. It's the general attitude of crypto as I see it: "F* the government, F* central banks, F* the economy, I quit, and let my computer do all the money earning from now on". If you say crypto is the future, you're basically expecting other people to be stuck in the current economy with their minimum wage jobs and deliver the goods that you order with your virtual money that you earned by building a PC entirely for yourself. Because you give them no other choice. Someone has to do it. Then when they get interested in crypto mining themselves, or just want to play games after a hard day at work, and go out to buy a PC with their hard-earned money, they can't, because all the graphics cards have already been bought up by large-scale farmers just because they can. Or should I say: they have the freedom to do so? Non-aggression my arse!

 

[Vayra86]

You did say that you are looking at the short term... So which is it?

You know me well enough to know if I were being condescending you would have no doubts of it. So let's let that go..

Ok, so I'm looking at this;

Bitcoin (BTC) - Price & Chart | Coinranking

Track the live price of Bitcoin (BTC) and explore charts, rankings, and stats. Easily compare the BTC price across all major currencies.

coinranking.com

Looking at the 30day, 3 month, 1 year and 5 year numbers and seeing that the trend is still nose down. It might be leveling off, as you suggest, or it might be a slight pause before another dip, which has happened before, recently.

Then we look at this;

Ethereum (ETH) - Price & Chart | Coinranking

Track the live price of Ethereum (ETH) and explore charts, rankings, and stats. Easily compare the ETH price across all major currencies.

coinranking.com

And the decline trend stands out a bit more.

The 1 year and 5 year trends are still upward, if you draw a line from the brginning to the end you can inly draw one going upward.

The huge peak in value we had recently is a one off, and if you discount that for obvious reasons such as the pandemic (trust issues in existing systems etc) and now the correction as vaccination is happening and regular economy reopened, there is still a trend going up or becoming neutral at best.

There is no long term decline neither in BTC or ETH. At best it is short term correction to the ongoing trend.

 

[Papahyooie]

I want to understand, as I don't believe anything in this world can be entirely good or bad. It's just that no argument presented to defend crypto has been strong enough to convince me that it's actually something that was either invented with the purpose of, or has the ability to make the world a better place. I've honestly learned a lot from you and other advocates of crypto here, but I'm still not convinced.

• Lower energy usage than bank offices and branches: may be true, but 1. blockchain calculations consume way more energy than bank transactions, 2. having a branch you can physically walk into and ask experts about products and general advice is really helpful and necessary in the modern monetary world. Not everyone is a financial expert or computer genius.
• Independence from central banks and governments: true, but you're dependent on other people using the same currency as you. If everyone swaps for RANDOMBScoin, your money is worthless unless you act fast and make the switch soon enough yourself. It's infinitely more volatile than any national currency, and that's not something a lot of people would want to live with.
• Promoting freedom and non-aggression: that sounds fancy, but being free from a central bank doesn't mean you're entirely free. You're still dependent on the crypto market, the security of your wallet, laws, etc. You can't buy freedom, and you can't mine it, either. You're also dependent on other people doing their daily jobs. If nobody makes food and nobody delivers it to supermarkets, then what do you eat? Expecting everybody to be a crypto miner/trader is pure arrogance. And that brings us to the next bullet point:

It's not you. It's the general attitude of crypto as I see it: "F* the government, F* central banks, F* the economy, I quit, and let my computer do all the money earning from now on". If you say crypto is the future, you're basically expecting other people to be stuck in the current economy with their minimum wage jobs and deliver the goods that you order with your virtual money that you earned by building a PC entirely for yourself. Because you give them no other choice. Someone has to do it. Then when they get interested in crypto mining themselves, or just want to play games after a hard day at work, and go out to buy a PC with their hard-earned money, they can't, because all the graphics cards have already been bought up by large-scale farmers just because they can. Or should I say: they have the freedom to do so? Non-aggression my arse!

Obviously nothing in this world can be entirely good or bad. I don't think anybody would make that claim about crypto.

You seem to be under the impression that you have to be a computer genius or a financial expert to use crypto... You don't have to mine crypto to use crypto. USING crypto is just as easy as any payment system on your phone (apple pay, android pay, etc.) And there are services that you can actually use crypto on a debit card, both using crypto directly and transferring seamlessly to fiat for places that don't accept crypto. These things are not mainstream yet. Hopefully they eventually will be. But there is no technological barrier to entry. You do not need to mine crypto in order to use crypto.

Independence from central banks and governments IS the point. Right now, you are dependent on everyone using the same currency as you. If the US dollar or whatever other currency collapses (and it absolutely can) then your money is worthless unless you act fast and make the switch soon enough yourself. See how that works? Fiat currencies are based on trust just as much as crypto, it's just WHO you trust that changes. Fiat, the trust is in governments. Crypto, trust is in the masses. I get it if you choose to trust governments more, but do not pretend that it's somehow different. It's exactly the same. Yes, crypto is generally far more volatile NOW. The hope is that that is not the case in the future, and it is changing. BTC has been pretty much as stable as the stock market in general for a couple of years now. Hopefully that track record can continue, and eventually reach stability parity with a fiat currency.

Freedom from central banks aids in freedom from other things. It's not a silver bullet, no. Nobody said it was. But considering EVERYTHING is about money, including politics, it makes sense that wresting control of the money supply away from centralized government creates a more free environment. You are INHERENTLY more free by using crypto, because the money you are using is not controlled by a centralized government. I realize this sort of thing isn't on many peoples' minds... for some of us, it's very important. Continue to live in your cage if you wish, I say, but don't hinder me in my quest to break free.

I don't understand your bizarre idea that crypto will make nobody bake bread and deliver it to supermarkets. The only thing I can guess here is that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what we're doing here. You do not have to mine crypto in order to use crypto, and if crypto replaced the world's currencies, there would still be people who bake bread and deliver it to supermarkets... they'd just get paid in crypto instead of dollar and pounds. Nobody is expecting everybody to be a crypto miner. That's silly, and I'm not sure why you'd even bring it up.

I'm not going to continue to argue the gamer vs miner thing after this point. Buying a graphics card that I have a right to buy is not aggression. You may THINK it harms you, but it doesn't, because you don't have a right to the card in the first place. When I buy a graphics card to mine with, I have made a consensual transaction with the graphics card seller to purchase it for my own purposes. YOU do not have a right to intervene in that transaction, no matter what you think. You may not like it, but there are lots of things you probably don't like. In fact, there are lots of things I don't like. I don't like being forced under threat of violence to pay taxes that go to building bombs to murder children in Afghanistan, for instance. But here we are. It is my prerogative to say F* the government , and crypto doesn't depend on your liking that. Again, I'm trying to be educational here, but if you reject the base assumption, there's nothing I can do about that, and I'm wasting my time.

 

[arczi19]

BTC has been pretty much as stable as the stock market in general for a couple of years now. Hopefully that track record can continue, and eventually reach stability parity with a fiat currency.

I would be curious to know what are you comparing BTC against here, as far as my knowledge goes, this statement could not be more inaccurate.

 

[Papahyooie]

I would be curious to know what are you comparing BTC against here, as far as my knowledge goes, this statement could not be more inaccurate.

The price history of BTC vs various indexes (S&P500, etc), as a percentage of total value from January 2018 to December 2020. Granted, there are a few outliers that belie my claim. Hence "pretty much."

2021, not so much.

 

[arczi19]

The price history of BTC vs various indexes (S&P500, etc), as a percentage of total value from January 2018 to December 2020. Granted, there are a few outliers that belie my claim. Hence "pretty much."

2021, not so much.

Hmm, seems a bit disingenuous to be that selective when talking about stability of BTC. We should be looking at the whole thing, not just a couple of years that fit our premise.

 

[Papahyooie]

Hmm, seems a bit disingenuous to be that selective when talking about stability of BTC. We should be looking at the whole thing, not just a couple of years that fit our premise.

First off, "we" shouldn't do anything, as there is no "we." I'll look at what I please.

Second, I did say "for a couple of years" which is arguably 2018-2020. Moreover, I was talking about the possibility of establishing a track record of comparative stability versus known quantities in the future, not making a claim that BTC is or is not stable. After all, the American stock market hasn't exactly been relatively stable in the same time period either.

Lastly, I do absolutely admit that 2021 does not fit that pattern. So perhaps I should amend my statement to "hopefully BTC can regain that relative stability, and THEN establish a track record."

 

[arczi19]

First off, "we" shouldn't do anything, as there is no "we." I'll look at what I please.

You can indeed, but I do not feel comfortable pointing fingers at random people on the internet and tried to make my point in a more polite manner.

Lastly, I do absolutely admit that 2021 does not fit that pattern. So perhaps I should amend my statement to "hopefully BTC can regain that relative stability, and THEN establish a track record."

Now that's a statement I can agree with.

 

[64K]

Well, Nvidia thinks the gaming GPUs are meant for gaming. Have a look at their site. There is no mention of mining at all. Just saying........

NVIDIA GeForce

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