• oakey66@lemmy.world
    10212·
    9 months ago

    This is institutional investors driving up price and then pulling out. Bitcoin is propped up by absolutely nothing other than betting. It has no use outside holding a value. Someone will be a bag holder. It’s just a matter of time.

    • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
      1957·
      9 months ago

      It has no use outside holding a value.

      So… same as fiat then, ey?

      I begrudgingly hold BTC, waiting for the halving in 38 days when all my coins double.

      At least Monero (which is actually private like cash - sender, receiver, and amount aren’t known to anyone viewing the blockchain) has a valuable function.

      • Tachikoma741@lemmy.today
        1610·
        9 months ago

        I can’t wait to see companies like Visa and Mastercard become obsolete. I think it will really help out my aunt’s family business by cutting crazy high transaction fees she has to pay as a vendor.

          • Null User Object
            912·
            9 months ago

            That’s layer 1. Read up on layer 2 options. Lightning Network is the best current example, but there are others and will be more. That’s where most of the innovation is happening now. The media never talks about it because it’s necessarily more technical and they think their readers/viewers are all idiots, so why bother.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
              137·
              9 months ago

              Or does the media never talk about it because the whole thing is confusing as fuck, there are about a bajillion different coins and no one knows which one to use, and there has yet to be an advantage (and often a big hurdle) to use any of these cyrptocurrencies to do things like buy a gallon of milk.

              We hear a lot about how it’s better than “fiat” currency, and yet if I want to go down to the gas station and get a soda, I can pay for that soda with exactly zero cryptocurrencies unless I convert them into dollars first.

              Maybe if crypto people ever get their act together, and I don’t see that happening any time soon, this will be more than people investing in digital tulips.

              But hey, the local mall here has a Bitcoin ATM. In an entrance almost no one ever uses in a corner of the food court where there are no restaurants and you wouldn’t even notice it unless you happened to walk past it and look at the front panel to see what it was (I only noticed it because my daughter is in online school and still has to do gym and we walk the perimeter of the mall in the winter). So there’s that.

              • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
                92·
                9 months ago

                Also they love to act as though fiat isn’t backed by anything despite the fact that fiat is actually backed by something extremely important: you are required by law to use fiat for interactions with some of the most powerful organizations in the world. I can’t pay taxes in crypto or gold or even rubles, my government accepts usd and if I don’t hand them usd every year I get in trouble. When they pay me for any reason it’s in usd. When they fine me it’s in usd. That is a backing. So long as I have to financially deal with the governments of the United States I have to have appropriate quantities of usd. And because of all of this everything around me accepts that currency, even drug dealers take cash. Why? Because it’s the local currency. And it’s reasonably stable.

                And on that note, I’d never spend a wildly inflationary currency. It’s not an effective currency and because of that it winds up being entirely theoretical.

              • Null User Object
                24·
                9 months ago

                I don’t disagree with anything you said. Yes, it’s confusing and there’s no shortage of scammers trying to make it more confusing in order to bamboozle people.

                My humble advice is to ignore “crypto”. Adopt, at least for now, the philosophy that, “it’s either Bitcoin, or shit coin.” That’ll simplify things immensely for those just getting started, and is true for at least 99.9% of other coins out there (100% if you want my honest opinion).

                Maybe, in the distant future, when/if you decide to dive down the rabbit hole and really get comfortable how Bitcoin functions and what gives it value, then you’ll be in a better position to judge other coins. More likely, you won’t bother because you won’t need to.

                But, mark my words, nothing is going to replace Bitcoin. Some other coins might manage to fulfill some esoteric fringe use cases that Bitcoin doesn’t, and maybe one those use cases will be beneficial to you. If so, awesome. But they’re not going to be able to replace Bitcoin.

                Layer 2 protocols are tools that operate on top of the (admittedly slow and variable) Bitcoin blockchain. Lightning Network (LN) is currently the most prominent and allows secure transactions that complete in a few seconds with extremely small fees. LN addresses the “it’s too slow/unpredictable” argument against Bitcoin.

                There are many other Layer 2 protocols running on top of Bitcoin in various stages of development and production addressing different issues and use cases. But, you don’t need to know about any of them, honestly. You don’t need to pick the winner (there will be many winners doing different things). When any of them catch on and go mainstream, then that will drive more demand for Bitcoin to help power that protocol.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                  112·
                  9 months ago

                  I didn’t miss out at something I was never interested in to begin with.

                  Also, I have no interest in helping you with your tulips.

                  Also, Bitcoin ATMs are a massive rip-off and PITA.

                  Huh. Maybe this whole “fiat currency” thing isn’t the worst idea then. I can get it out of my bank’s ATM from the U.S. dollars in my checking account, they are accepted everywhere in the U.S. And the bank doesn’t charge me anything.

          • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
            310·
            9 months ago

            Monero (which is actually private like cash - sender, receiver, and amount aren’t known to anyone viewing the blockchain) has transaction fees of a penny or two. It works by mixing every real transaction with 16 decoy transactions. Currently there are supposedly ways to track a small percentage of transactions but it’s so secretive that only approved western government organizations are allowed access, but it doesn’t work well and it only gives a statistical probability. And it’s one of the wider used currencies current at $145 per coin.

            The government hates not being able to track you.

            Also BTC fees do suck but they vary. Most days they’re around $1-$1.50 which isn’t that far off from the $.50 charged (to businesses) by credit card processors.

    • XIIIesq@lemmy.world
      2565·
      9 months ago

      That’s a paraphrase of what they said in 2010 mate.

      Thanks to people like you I’m not a bitcoin millionaire.

  • Lavitz@lemmings.world
    5010·
    9 months ago

    It’s estimated that Bitcoin uses the same amount of energy as the entire Internet. Just to put that in perspective that’s roughly 2% of all the energy generated by America every year.

    America produces roughly 14,000,000,000,000 pounds of greenhouse gases in a year and 2% of that is 280,000,000,000 pounds…

    • maynarkh@feddit.nl
      204·
      9 months ago

      I did some maths back on another thread here: https://feddit.nl/comment/6632730

      The internet is around 40 times bigger than crypto as a whole. Feel free to check it and tell me if I missed the mark.

      However, Buttcoin still eats a disgusting amount of electricity, being 2.5% of the whole internet. All the while, its only utility has so far been to create a completely unregulated commodity market that is unsurprisingly dominated by private equity doing pump and dumps.

      The interesting thing someone brought up in that discussion though is that half of all consumer internet traffic is ads. Which is scary, and I don’t know (or rather do exactly know) why we don’t talk about that.

    • capital@lemmy.world
      31·
      9 months ago

      It’s estimated that Bitcoin uses the same amount of energy as the entire Internet.

      I checked out of the bitcoin hype years ago but is there a source for this? On it’s face, it sounds outlandish.

      • calcopiritus@lemmy.world
        12·
        9 months ago

        It’s not outlandish if you know that mining Bitcoin basically means to waste electricity. The more electricity you use, the more Bitcoin you mine.

        Bitcoin mining consists one brute forcing the inverse of a function that doesn’t have an inverse. You just try every number and if you’re lucky you get paid.

        • capital@lemmy.world
          1·
          9 months ago

          I get all that but it’s that compared to all of the infrastructure, worldwide, installed over decades connecting everyone and everything.

          I’m not saying it’s wrong but I’d like to see a source on it.

      • Lavitz@lemmings.world
        9·
        9 months ago

        Without transportation and freight you could not generate the energy. You are taking the steps to create energy and somehow trying to create a disconnect. This feels very disingenuous.

      • Null User Object
        1033·
        9 months ago

        How much electricity does the world banking system use? (Answer: a whole lot more)

        How much of that electricity could be used to simultaneously run the banking system AND turn incredibly ambitious renewable energy project ideas from absurd pipe dreams into economic no brainers? (Answer: none)

        • Dr. Bluefall@toast.oooEnglish
          223·
          9 months ago

          It’s also the world banking system for several billion people, and not a few hundred thousand gamblers.

          • Null User Object
            216·
            9 months ago

            Apples to apples. One global banking system to one global Bitcoin network.

            • capital@lemmy.world
              102·
              9 months ago

              That is the opposite of apples to apples.

              Per capita measurements exist for a reason.

              • Null User Object
                18·
                9 months ago

                Per what capita? There’s only one global banking system on Earth. That’s what makes it global. There’s only one Bitcoin blockchain, and it’s globally accessible. Trying to subdivide either into arbitrary regions based on geographic or geopolitical borders is meaningless.

                • capital@lemmy.world
                  4·
                  9 months ago

                  How about per ‘people who are actually going to use this shit for day-to-day spending’?

                  I just got my mom using a password manager and still have to remote in to help her from time to time. And you wanna get her to move to digital cash that, once stolen, is unrecoverable?

                  Get real.

            • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
              4·
              9 months ago

              So does that mean that it won’t use appreciably more electricity if it quintuples in size and volume unlike the world banking system?

              • Null User Object
                15·
                9 months ago

                You don’t think that the world banking system would use more energy if it quintupled in size? The world banking system uses more energy every time your local credit union installs an ATM at another grocery store.

                • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
                  3·
                  9 months ago

                  And that’s why we say that per person or per transaction matters. For the amount of value it provides how much does it use? Bitcoin is worse by a lot even if its primary use was as a currency rather than an investment vehicle

                • calcopiritus@lemmy.world
                  11·
                  9 months ago

                  Despite having millions of ATMs and banking offices, it uses less energy.

                  There’s probably more ATMs than Bitcoin users.

                  The Bitcoin network is absolutely tiny in userbase for the amount of energy they waste.

        • Opafi@feddit.de
          102·
          9 months ago

          a whole lot more

          You have a source on that? Proof of work is notoriously energy hungry… That’s the “work” part.

            • Opafi@feddit.de
              51·
              9 months ago

              A crypto mining company is your source for claims that crypto mining companies operate ethically?

              • Null User Object
                16·
                9 months ago

                Can you refute their math? You asked for a source. That’s the most comprehensive data I could find. I’m happy to look at any better if you’ve got it.

                • Opafi@feddit.de
                  4·
                  9 months ago

                  Their math is nonsense because that document compares total energy consumption instead of consumption per transaction. That’s like saying Lamborghinis are the most efficient cars on the road because their summed up fuel consumption is lower than that of all VWs or all Toyotas (or probably even all bicycles).

                  There.

                  /edit I just needed to come back to this comment because that document really makes me irrationally angry. It’s not just that it doesn’t compare energy consumption per transaction, it’s also that especially btc is pretty much the worst offender when it comes to energy per transaction. It’s not just that it consumes more energy if more transactions are scheduled… Once the blocks are full, the users spend horrendous fees to get their transactions through in time, meaning that suddenly it becomes economically viable to spend a lot more on mining to be the one to find the next block with all those precious transaction fees. Btc’s energy footprint literally explodes once the blocks are at capacity - and at that point btc is still orders of magnitude away from visa or banks and their transaction volume. That problem is so bad that other cryptos have written their protocols to automatically increase block size once the volume increases or simply forked away from btc to allow bigger blocks (which was necessary because the miners have absolutely no incentive to increase the block size as it’s obviously in their best interest to earn money with transaction fees). Proof of work crypto is literally the worst offender when it comes to energy efficiency, with high performance computing centres spending incomprehensible amounts of energy to solve the mathematical equivalent of Sudokus, just to be eligible to retrieve the next prize as the first solver of that puzzle with no gain for humanity from all that spent energy whatsoever. It’s as if banks insisted on all transfers being brought to the next bank using a pick up truck that is only allowed to drive in first gear and at max rpm, just because.

                  And for what? Power to the people? Instead of a handful of banks, the important cryptos are now in the hands of a handful of miners, but without the consumer protection laws that banks have to follow. Great job.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
        262·
        9 months ago

        Weird, my landlord only takes fiat. So does my grocer. And in a funny coincidence I had to pay fiat to my government this year or face legal consequences. But at no point has anything I’ve wanted required me to use a highly volatile or deflationary cryptocurrency such as bitcoin. Oh well I guess I might get in trouble tonight when I go out with my wife and get told they don’t take fiat because it’s dead.

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
            71·
            9 months ago

            In my country they aren’t. They’re foreign currency. I get mad if someone slips me them instead of using our currency.

            And yes it’s irrelevant how much a bitcoin is worth to its use as a currency. Currency and investment vehicles are actually conflicting concepts. I don’t want to use my mutual fund to pay taxes. It’s supposed to get added to consistently for a long time then removed from. Currency is for transactions. Bitcoin is bad at transactions.

    • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
      191·
      9 months ago

      People not selling since before the crash. There will be a fall of about 10% from people wanting to get out after being scared by the last crash, then it will rebound and climb as FOMO sets in with the confidence climb after the dip.

      • Today@lemmy.world
        86·
        9 months ago

        I bought $276 on the cash app for fun. It’s now worth $1200. Should i cash it out or wait? I really have no idea. I feel bad that I’m part of a super weird system of fake money, but I’m also happy to see an extra $k.

        • honey_im_meat_grinding@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          233·
          9 months ago

          Ask yourself this: has Bitcoin had - or is it trending towards - a net positive impact on our world? In other words, is it worth investing in long term? If it isn’t you should treat it as a short term investment and get out as soon as you’ve made a profit - and you’ve literally 4x’d your investment. The fact that we’re talking about the price in c/News is already a bad bubble sign and reminiscent of all the other times we’ve had crypto bubbles.

        • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
          54·
          9 months ago

          You have made back your investment plus some. Also you don’t actually own any Bitcoin through CashApp, they sell fictitious potential value based on nothing. Take the cash minus the tax and invest your initial investment via actual ownership via a private wallet if you want to see what Bitcoin can be. Then, you are in profit and the worst case you lose money that doesn’t matter.

          Crypto is no different than stock investment, only invest what you are willing to lose and cash out when you are satisfied.

          I can’t give you legal financial advice, but my personal opinion is that Bitcoin still has value to gain and investing money of no consequence has a potential to be worthwhile beyond what investment in the S&P offers, and likey what realestate offers.

        • Xhieron@lemmy.worldEnglish
          21·
          9 months ago

          Similar boat here, and I literally just cashed mine out after seeing this headline. Could I have made more? Probably, but there’s no universe in which my few hundred dollars is going to turn into a million. What’s much more likely is that I would forget about it for another year.