Bitcoins and Other Crypto-currencies

I totally agree, but I would say fiat currency is also something we have just decided has value and that's just cloth/paper or electronic data. Cryptocurrency value will ultimately be driven by adoption by retailers and financial institutions and will be volatile unless national authorities embrace it.

You make it should that that's a reason they should embrace it, but just because some people are pushing cryptocurrency doesn't mean it's a good currency for global trade.

People didn't 'just' decide flat currency has value - it wasn't a quick nor simple thing. There's a lot more to a currency to getting some people wanting to use it. It has to be used for a multitude of uses and cryptocurrency just can't handle being used for large scale, instant transactions, in a regulated, accountable and inclusive way.

I don't see them going away any time soon, but I do believe they're essentially Ponzi schemes that will be regulated into obscurity before they take over flat currency.

jiggles wrote:Or to put it another way, it takes about 20GWh of juice to make one Bitcoin. That’s more energy than I would use in my household in over 10,000 years.

One Bitcoin is made every 10 minutes

And that’s just bitcoin!

Is that true? Wouldn't that cost £3,000,000 assuming a cost of 15p/kWh? Even if they get their power at rock bottom prices, surely that's more in costs than the value of the mined crypto?

The problem with bitcoin is that the power consumption grows with every transaction.

I think bitcoin might fail soon after all 21 million are mined which might have a knock on effect in all crypto currencies.

Then there's the looming prospect of quantum computing...

That's not a growth wrote:You make it should that that's a reason they should embrace it, but just because some people are pushing cryptocurrency doesn't mean it's a good currency for global trade.

People didn't 'just' decide flat currency has value - it wasn't a quick nor simple thing. There's a lot more to a currency to getting some people wanting to use it. It has to be used for a multitude of uses and cryptocurrency just can't handle being used for large scale, instant transactions, in a regulated, accountable and inclusive way.

I don't see them going away any time soon, but I do believe they're essentially Ponzi schemes that will be regulated into obscurity before they take over flat currency.

I agree that crypto is nowhere close to being a viable main stream mechanism yet and is a long way off, if ever. I also think decentralised systems are being pushed as an ideological goal rather than a true alternative and is a security nightmare. There's interesting underlying technology that I think will enable some big advances in the near future though.

Ultimately I'm not deeply invested in crypto enough to go to bat for it and we have years, if not decades, ahead where we collectively figure it out.

I'm studying for a masters degree and have to say that the block chain tech will probably be revolutionary although maybe not in the ways we think now. It can be used to track spending and cut down of fraud. I think a lot of governments will end up with systems to track spending and get tax in near real time. They're looking at what EY is doing on boat insurance.

It's quite ironic that this more was started by anti government types might end up strengthing the governments ability to tax gooseberry fool.

BonalityMatrix wrote:

jiggles wrote:Or to put it another way, it takes about 20GWh of juice to make one Bitcoin. That’s more energy than I would use in my household in over 10,000 years.

One Bitcoin is made every 10 minutes

And that’s just bitcoin!

Is that true? Wouldn't that cost £3,000,000 assuming a cost of 15p/kWh? Even if they get their power at rock bottom prices, surely that's more in costs than the value of the mined crypto?

Ah, my calculations are a little off, that’s the power it currently takes per *block*, and each block is currently 6.25 Bitcoin, so the energy per coin is just under a sixth of that. The design though is such that the number of coins per block halves every 4 years until all 21 million are mined in just over 100 years. So they’re only going to get rarer and rarer, which is why you might see someone, say, making a huge loss on the cost of mining today, knowing the cost of mining in future is going to grow exponentially and therefore drive the price way up.

Like, I could spend £200k today to mine a £45k Bitcoin to sell in 10 years for £10m.

jiggles wrote:Like, I could spend £200k today to mine a £45k Bitcoin to sell in 10 years for £10m.

Wouldn't you just buy it instead if mining was more expensive?

satriales wrote:

jiggles wrote:Like, I could spend £200k today to mine a £45k Bitcoin to sell in 10 years for £10m.

Wouldn't you just buy it instead if mining was more expensive?

Well, yes. I’ve probably massively oversimplified this by treating it as a single-person operation. The fact is that the amount of power needed to mine a coin scales based on how many people/groups are trying to do it. The 6.25 coins get mined every 10 minutes regardless of how many miners there are. A larger group or warehouse is more likely to get a coin, and all that energy and cost from the losing participants is just 100% lost.

So we have this sort of mining arms race from these data centres to be one of the biggest fish in the pond to increase their chances, which makes smaller warehouses and smaller distributed groups less likely, turning a once-profitable venture into a loss. But if you pull out, it actually gets easier for others, so some will stay in (even at a loss) because they’re betting that even if they do lose, the coin earned will turn profitable down the road, or even better, you ride out the storm longer than other groups who can’t sustain the losses, the hashes get easier again and you’re back to making bank.

The point is, it’s a woefully inefficient nonsense. A speculative get-rich-quick gamble where everyone is praying they’re one of the lucky ones

Put 20 quid on Dogecoin at 23p a coin.

Wish I had done i t on 5p a coin

4/20 onwards

Chocolate-Milk wrote:Thought I'd dip my toe in with Crypto.com and bought about £45 of Dogecoin, but I think I might have jumped the gun. I can't seem to sell crypto back for cash...

You can do, you have to transfer it to your fiat wallet first, and then send to bank. its a bit complex but you get used to it. Also, why not ask me for recommendation hey hey hey chocolate vampire.

Curls wrote:

Chocolate-Milk wrote:Thought I'd dip my toe in with Crypto.com and bought about £45 of Dogecoin, but I think I might have jumped the gun. I can't seem to sell crypto back for cash...

You can do, you have to transfer it to your fiat wallet first, and then send to bank. its a bit complex but you get used to it. Also, why not ask me for recommendation hey hey hey chocolate vampire.

Yeah, I figured it out this morning, thanks. I had to make a deposit to my fiat wallet directly from my bank in order to link them, now I have the option to transfer to it and withdraw from it.

Is it too late to put in a referral code?

Probably. Oh well! Can try if you like. I like the app though, the cashback is fun.

EVERYTHING plummeted this morning though. Hope it recovers.

Curls wrote:Probably. Oh well! Can try if you like. I like the app though, the cashback is fun.

EVERYTHING plummeted this morning though. Hope it recovers.

My measly portfolio has not fair off recovered.

I bought 30 quid eth and 30 link a week or so back it was worth 68 the other day dropped to 58 this morning and is now 62 so getting there.

Curls wrote:Probably. Oh well! Can try if you like. I like the app though, the cashback is fun.

EVERYTHING plummeted this morning though. Hope it recovers.

I haven't signed up for the Exchange website yet, so I think I can still put a code in when I register if you wanna shoot one over.

Chocolate-Milk wrote:

Curls wrote:Probably. Oh well! Can try if you like. I like the app though, the cashback is fun.

EVERYTHING plummeted this morning though. Hope it recovers.

I haven't signed up for the Exchange website yet, so I think I can still put a code in when I register if you wanna shoot one over.

I'm not sure what you mean sorry?

But here is the link.
Use my referral link https://crypto.com/app/66u7armcsx to sign up for Crypto.com and we both get $25 USD

Curls wrote:

Chocolate-Milk wrote:

Curls wrote:Probably. Oh well! Can try if you like. I like the app though, the cashback is fun.

EVERYTHING plummeted this morning though. Hope it recovers.

I haven't signed up for the Exchange website yet, so I think I can still put a code in when I register if you wanna shoot one over.

I'm not sure what you mean sorry?

But here is the link.
Use my referral link https://crypto.com/app/66u7armcsx to sign up for Crypto.com and we both get $25 USD

Ah, I think I've misunderstood. I was reading a guide to referrals on the Crypto.com Exchange, which is apparently different to the app.

I've entered it in the app and it worked just fine.

Might be a while before I've got 300 snoops to drop on a fancy metal card to unlock the reward, though!

BonalityMatrix wrote:

Skarjo wrote:Bitcoins are incredibly unstable, and they've crashed a few times. For some reason there's a lot of people who think that they're a long term investment which keeps fuelling these bubbles, but soon enough they'll crash again.

With the benefit of hindsight, this is hilarious! I bet you wish you'd spent £500 on them back then. I bloody know I do!

Hindsight is always 20/20 but nothing has convinced me that they're still a viable long term investment. They've certainly stuck around longer than your average dutch tulip, but it's not like they're less volatile these days.

Doge is up to £0.30, and my trigger finger is getting mighty itchy...