The anti-crypto thread

[BFG10K]

Great news, crypto's collapsing across the board: https://www.techpowerup.com/282380/...ions-in-less-than-24-hours-did-the-bubble-pop

Also China's banned crypto, though individuals can still have it: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinese-financial-payment-bodies-barred-122712260.html

The sooner this cancerous parasite is wiped out, the better.

 

[Magic Carpet]

now that the ONLY use cryptocurrency has besides speculation is ransomware.

So true.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Illegal Use of Bitcoin Dropped By 50% in 2020, Citibank Reports

Illegal use of Bitcoin fell from about $20 billion in 2019 to about $10 billion in 2020, according to a report released on Monday. That total represented only a small fraction of the overall volume of Bitcoin transactions, the report said — and that percentage decreased as well.

www.newsweek.com

"In total, just over 2% of the activity in the cryptocurrency space was linked to illicit activity in 2019, and that total was down to only 0.3% in 2020," Citi Global Perspectives & Solutions (Citi GPS), a Citibank "thought product," said in a 108-page research report. "However, the extent of such activity can often seem overblown based on news headlines alone."

Bitcoin Has Lost Steam. But Criminals Still Love It. (Published 2020)

The police hoped that taking down online black markets would chase away criminals. But the amount of Bitcoin spent on illegal purposes has reached a new high.

www.nytimes.com

Bitcoin is still popular among currency speculators, and illicit activity accounts for only 1 percent of all Bitcoin transactions. But that nearly doubled from the previous year. Illegal activity appeared to be one of the few parts of the Bitcoin economy impervious to changes in price, according to Chainalysis’s new Crypto Crime Report.

The Chainalysis 2024 Crypto Crime Report

Everything you need to know about cryptocurrency and crime

blog.chainalysis.com

In 2019, criminal activity represented 2.1% of all cryptocurrency transaction volume, or roughly $21.4 billion worth of transfers. In 2020, the criminal share of all cryptocurrency activity fell to just 0.34%, or $10.0 billion in transaction volume. One reason the percentage of criminal activity fell is because overall economic activity nearly tripled between 2019 and 2020.

Stop with the bs already! Blockchain has more to offer than ransomware payments! Go grind your axe somewhere else.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

Stop with the bs already! Blockchain has more to offer than ransomware payments! Go grind your axe somewhere else.

Nah, I'll stop saying cryptocurrencies enable ransomware when they stop enabling ransomware. It might be 2% of transactions but when it makes up >90% of ransomware payments, well, that's pretty damning. We'd still have ransomware if crypto wasn't around, but not on this scale. two links from thirty seconds of googling, I can provide more if needed:

https://www.coindesk.com/ransomware-is-a-crypto-problem

“Without a doubt,” said Philip Reiner, CEO of the Institute for Security and Technology and a co-chair of the Ransomware Task Force.
“Without question,” said Michael Daniel, another task force co-chair and the CEO of the Cyber Threat Alliance.
Pamela Clegg, vice president of financial investigations at blockchain analysis firm CipherTrace, called crypto “a path of least resistance,” but said other payment methods could be used in lieu of crypto.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/ransomware-problem-bitcoin-problem

The ransomware gangs can’t use normal banking. Even the most blatantly corrupt bank would consider processing ransomware payments as an existential risk. My group and I noticed this with the Viagra spammers: The spammers’ banks had a choice to either unbank the bad guys or be cut off from the financial system. The same would apply if ransomware tried to use wire transfers.

Cash is similarly a nonstarter. A $5 million ransom is 110 pounds (50 kilograms) in $100 bills, or two full-weight suitcases. Arranging such a transfer, to an extortionist operating outside the U.S., is clearly infeasible just from a physical standpoint. The ransomware purveyors need transfers that don’t require physical presence and a hundred pounds of stuff.

I'm not saying EVERYONE who uses crypto is involved in ransomware, that would be silly. But I think you'd agree crypto has allowed ransomware to explode into the monster it is today.

I'm also hard-pressed to come up with use-cases besides speculation and ransomware. Blockchain's twelve years old and the two main examples (Bitcoin and Eth) have failed as currencies with high fees and frightfully low throughput.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Nah, I'll stop saying cryptocurrencies enable ransomware when they stop enabling ransomware. It might be 2% of transactions but when it makes up >90% of ransomware payments, well, that's pretty damning.

At this point all I can say is "cry me a river". Ransomware doesn't work when you have offline backups. Of all the things to blame on ransomware . . . hey let's blame the money used in the transaction! OKAY

I'm not saying EVERYONE who uses crypto is involved in ransomware

You just claimed that cryptocurrency only has two uses: speculation and ransomware:

The anti-crypto thread

Great news, crypto's collapsing across the board: https://www.techpowerup.com/282380/cryptocurrency-market-bleeds-trillions-in-less-than-24-hours-did-the-bubble-pop Also China's banned crypto, though individuals can still have it...

forums.anandtech.com

I'm also hard-pressed to come up with use-cases besides speculation and ransomware.

Maybe if you had read the Ethereum mining thread since 2016 or so, you might understand some of the potential use cases, as well as which projects embrace them and which do not (BTC). Ethereum itself is struggling to improve throughput which is really disappointing and which is why competitors have risen to challenge Ethereum. Take a look at Cardano and Polygon, among others (though Polygon needs to write better smart contracts, lol).

 

[DisarmedDespot]

At this point all I can say is "cry me a river". Ransomware doesn't work when you have offline backups. Of all the things to blame on ransomware . . . hey let's blame the money used in the transaction! OKAY

You just claimed that cryptocurrency only has two uses: speculation and ransomware:

The anti-crypto thread

Great news, crypto's collapsing across the board: https://www.techpowerup.com/282380/cryptocurrency-market-bleeds-trillions-in-less-than-24-hours-did-the-bubble-pop Also China's banned crypto, though individuals can still have it...

forums.anandtech.com

Maybe if you had read the Ethereum mining thread since 2016 or so, you might understand some of the potential use cases, as well as which projects embrace them and which do not (BTC). Ethereum itself is struggling to improve throughput which is really disappointing which is why competitors have risen to challenge Ethereum. Take a look at Cardano and Polygon, among others (though Polygon needs to write better smart contracts, lol).

Nah, I'm not blaming the money, I'm blaming the method that makes it possible on such a large scale.

I did claim it only has two uses, and I think I'm right. If I need to sift through a thread from 2016 for a list of potential uses, I think it's failed. It's twelve years on and this tech still hasn't produced anything meaningful besides a number that goes up (in dollars) due to hype. How long do I need to wait for blockchain to be useful? Twelve more? The problem with potential is that it might never actually be realized.

 

[DrMrLordX]

It's twelve years on

Most serious blockchain research started with Ethereum. Bitcoin and its various copycats are low-throughput proofs-of-concept that sadly won't go away. Or jokes like Dogecoin.

There ARE some blockchain projects out there right this instant performing various functions of which you are completely unaware. Thanks to ransomware attack reporting, though, you only seem to notice one thing . . .

 

[Stuka87]

At this point all I can say is "cry me a river". Ransomware doesn't work when you have offline backups. Of all the things to blame on ransomware . . . hey let's blame the money used in the transaction! OKAY

Even if a company has offline backups, the cost to the company to come back from such an attack can easily be in the millions for actual cost to repair, and lost revenue and potentially lost customers.

The fact is that crypto's lack of oversight and intractability enables these attacks.

Also, 2% of all transactions is a GIANT amount. There was an estimated 400,000 bitcoin transfers in January of this year. The fact that 8,000 of those are estimated to be for these attacks is crazy.

 

[BudAshes]

Even if a company has offline backups, the cost to the company to come back from such an attack can easily be in the millions for actual cost to repair, and lost revenue and potentially lost customers.

The fact is that crypto's lack of oversight and intractability enables these attacks.

Also, 2% of all transactions is a GIANT amount. There was an estimated 400,000 bitcoin transfers in January of this year. The fact that 8,000 of those are estimated to be for these attacks is crazy.

Yeah 2% is an absolutely insane number if accurate.

 

[Stuka87]

Things like this is one of the reasons mining and crypto should be illegal. 75% of the plants rated capacity is going to mining.

Bitcoin power plant making part of glacial lake ‘feel like a hot tub,’ residents say [Updated]

Private equity's cryptocurrency experiment pushes more costs on the public.

arstechnica.com

 

[zir_blazer]

Things like this is one of the reasons mining and crypto should be illegal. 75% of the plants rated capacity is going to mining.

Bitcoin power plant making part of glacial lake ‘feel like a hot tub,’ residents say [Updated]

Private equity's cryptocurrency experiment pushes more costs on the public.

arstechnica.com

It amazes me that people likes to blame crypto and want to make it illegal instead of going for the obvious which is setting up new fossil fuel plants illegal so that people gets pushed to renewable fuels, heh. After all, that same mediocre way of thinking gave us crypto in the first place. Something that has ZERO useful material value and isn't even a real thing has a ridiculous worth due to allowing free markets regulating themselves and assign value to arbitrary things. Crypto is literally the prodigy child of that way of thinking.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

Things like this is one of the reasons mining and crypto should be illegal. 75% of the plants rated capacity is going to mining.

Bitcoin power plant making part of glacial lake ‘feel like a hot tub,’ residents say [Updated]

Private equity's cryptocurrency experiment pushes more costs on the public.

arstechnica.com

Man, that's like something out of a Captain Planet episode. It's a machine that makes money by polluting. Doesn't do anything useful (besides confirming a handful of transactions, only 2% of which are illegal), it just pollutes and makes money.

Banning mining is probably not viable. The problem isn't mining itself (if it was a small enthusiast thing being worked on in lab or small-scale environments, I wouldn't have complaints), it's the fact it's grown into this massive monstrosity that uses more power than entire damn countries purely because there's money to be made. It'd be easiest to just smash the crypto market with a regulatory hammer. People like to claim crypto being decentralized makes it resilient, but it's not. The crypto market is more fragile than a teenager's self-esteem. It tanks by 50% when Elon tweets something mean about it. Go after large conversions between USD and crypto and the whole thing crumples.

 

[maddie]

Things like this is one of the reasons mining and crypto should be illegal. 75% of the plants rated capacity is going to mining.

Bitcoin power plant making part of glacial lake ‘feel like a hot tub,’ residents say [Updated]

Private equity's cryptocurrency experiment pushes more costs on the public.

arstechnica.com

Not defending crypto here, but that article is surely written by a truly ignorant or just plain dumb writer. Alas, so many are these days. Anyone else finds that humanity, in general are appearing to be getting less intelligent on all issues?

 

[Stuka87]

It amazes me that people likes to blame crypto and want to make it illegal instead of going for the obvious which is setting up new fossil fuel plants illegal so that people gets pushed to renewable fuels, heh. After all, that same mediocre way of thinking gave us crypto in the first place. Something that has ZERO useful material value and isn't even a real thing has a ridiculous worth due to allowing free markets regulating themselves and assign value to arbitrary things. Crypto is literally the prodigy child of that way of thinking.

Its not a new plant. Its a very old coal plant that was converted to natural gas by the private equity company that bought it. They bought it to act as a peak fill plant according to documents back when they purchased it in 2014. Meaning when power demands were super high, they could start it up and sell power. However, that's not what they did with it. Instead they are building a crypto farm with 18K machines that will consume 105MW of power.

Not defending crypto here, but that article is surely written by a truly ignorant or just plain dumb writer. Alas, so many are these days. Anyone else finds that humanity, in general are appearing to be getting less intelligent on all issues?

How so? You really should not just call something/somebody dumb without some sort of reasoning behind it.

 

[Glo.]

Illegal Use of Bitcoin Dropped By 50% in 2020, Citibank Reports

Illegal use of Bitcoin fell from about $20 billion in 2019 to about $10 billion in 2020, according to a report released on Monday. That total represented only a small fraction of the overall volume of Bitcoin transactions, the report said — and that percentage decreased as well.

www.newsweek.com

Bitcoin Has Lost Steam. But Criminals Still Love It. (Published 2020)

The police hoped that taking down online black markets would chase away criminals. But the amount of Bitcoin spent on illegal purposes has reached a new high.

www.nytimes.com

The Chainalysis 2024 Crypto Crime Report

Everything you need to know about cryptocurrency and crime

blog.chainalysis.com

Stop with the bs already! Blockchain has more to offer than ransomware payments! Go grind your axe somewhere else.

I always have one question to anybody who points to the illicit use of BTC and other cryptos.

"How many people have been murdered during Oil and Gold Rushes? How many people have been killed in the wars over Oil in the middle east just recently?

And how many people have been murdered while MIning Bitcoins?"

Before people will say that BTC is in any way "dirty" lets look at history of conflict and how many people have been murdered, killed, and for what has been natural resources used, historically.

THEN we can discuss what should be banned.

 

[repoman0]

I always have one question to anybody who points to the illicit use of BTC and other cryptos.

"How many people have been murdered during Oil and Gold Rushes? How many people have been killed in the wars over Oil in the middle east just recently?

And how many people have been murdered while MIning Bitcoins?"

Before people will say that BTC is in any way "dirty" lets look at history of conflict and how many people have been murdered, killed, and for what has been natural resources used, historically.

THEN we can discuss what should be banned.

Yes, killing over gold and oil is obviously bad too, same as wasting finite natural resources and pumping large amounts of CO2 and other pollution into the atmosphere for an instrument purely used for speculation/greed and crime. At least oil drives economies, progress and prosperity, so it’s really not remotely the same, because so far crypto hasn’t changed anything and seems to be a pretty dead end tech that even in contrived use case examples only solves non-problems at incredible energy cost.

Spoken as someone who’s been mining it since like 2012 and still wishes it would die (currently a single 3080 driven by solar panels on my roof).

 

[DisarmedDespot]

I always have one question to anybody who points to the illicit use of BTC and other cryptos.

"How many people have been murdered during Oil and Gold Rushes? How many people have been killed in the wars over Oil in the middle east just recently?

And how many people have been murdered while MIning Bitcoins?"

Before people will say that BTC is in any way "dirty" lets look at history of conflict and how many people have been murdered, killed, and for what has been natural resources used, historically.

THEN we can discuss what should be banned.

I don't even know where to start. This argument is absurd. First off, why on earth are you comparing bitcoin to natural resources? It's not LITERALLY mining, it's confirming transactions. There's dozens of more-efficient methods that have far-wider use and aren't as useful for criminal activity since they're either non anonymous or require transporting physical money.

Sheesh, your argument is 'if it hasn't killed more people than the war on terror, you can't criticize it!' That's just nuts. How's anyone suppose to discuss anything with that standard?

 

[pj-]

Its not a new plant. Its a very old coal plant that was converted to natural gas by the private equity company that bought it. They bought it to act as a peak fill plant according to documents back when they purchased it in 2014. Meaning when power demands were super high, they could start it up and sell power. However, that's not what they did with it. Instead they are building a crypto farm with 18K machines that will consume 105MW of power.



How so? You really should not just call something/somebody dumb without some sort of reasoning behind it.

I'm not the person you quoted but the article is dumb because it does basically nothing to quantify the impact. I have family who have owned a cottage on Seneca near that plant (< 1 mile) for over 20 years. I go there about once a year including several days last month.

Those family members are all up in every minor thing going on in town and won't hesitate to tell you about it, multiple times. No one mentioned this situation once. Water was ice cold as usual. There was actually an unusual amount of adult and baby fish visible from the dock.

Also, years ago when the plant was running more, there would regularly be dozens of boats at the outlet specifically because the water in that immediate area was pleasantly warm. I think crypto is mostly dumb but the headline of that article is clickbait nonsense.

 

[Glo.]

Yes, killing over gold and oil is obviously bad too, same as wasting finite natural resources and pumping large amounts of CO2 and other pollution into the atmosphere for an instrument purely used for speculation/greed and crime. At least oil drives economies, progress and prosperity, so it’s really not remotely the same, because so far crypto hasn’t changed anything and seems to be a pretty dead end tech that even in contrived use case examples only solves non-problems at incredible energy cost.

Spoken as someone who’s been mining it since like 2012 and still wishes it would die (currently a single 3080 driven by solar panels on my roof).

BS.

True pollution comes from eccessive manufacturing. The ONLY way we can stop Global Warming is if we will limit the manufacturing, but that is a no-no for plenty of people. Mainly for financial reasons. Economy only wants to increase manufacturing/production so they can earn more money. And this is the ONLY reason why companies like Apple are investing in their ecological initiatives. To fit in the legislative limits and for marketing reasons.

BTC's mining can add to this carbon pollution. HOWEVER, looking at where things are going, this will be the cleanest branch of energy usage, especially since BTC can be mined using PV installation, and other renewable energy resources.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

HOWEVER, looking at where things are going, this will be the cleanest branch of energy usage, especially since BTC can be mined using PV installation, and other renewable energy resources.

Please show your work. How on earth is bitcoin, which consumes more power than entire countries to do less than seven transactions a second, going to become 'the cleanest branch of energy usage' when Visa does 1700 a second on average?

 

[Glo.]

I don't even know where to start. This argument is absurd. First off, why on earth are you comparing bitcoin to natural resources? It's not LITERALLY mining, it's confirming transactions. There's dozens of more-efficient methods that have far-wider use and aren't as useful for criminal activity since they're either non anonymous or require transporting physical money.

Sheesh, your argument is 'if it hasn't killed more people than the war on terror, you can't criticize it!' That's just nuts. How's anyone suppose to discuss anything with that standard?

Natural reasources, you say?

Money is not wealth. Money is a measure of wealth. Current forms of currencies, are just money. They are abstract layer over wealth, that we quantify true Wealth: Natural resources, Energy, and intellect.

Bitcoin uses Energy, and Intellect(work) to create a tokens, that are validation of transactions on a network. Does it fit the definition of currency? No it doesn't Does it fit definition of store of value? Yes. Does it fit the definition of property? Yes, it does. Does it fit the definition of Money? Yes, it does. Does it fit definition of resource? Yes, it does.

Secondly. There is nothing comparable to Bitcoin in terms of transorming energy into value. Nothing. The calculation is that Bitcoin is millions times more valueable per energy bit used than Gold. Not million. Millions(plural), times more valuable per energy bit used than gold. And it will only grow.

its not that you cannot criticise it.

Its just any argument that criticises BTC is dumb in its nature.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

Secondly. There is nothing comparable to Bitcoin in terms of transorming energy into value. Nothing. The calculation is that Bitcoin is millions times more valueable per energy bit used than Gold. Not million. Millions(plural), times more valuable per energy bit used than gold. And it will only grow.

No offense, but this is cultlike thinking.

 

[Glo.]

Please show your work. How on earth is bitcoin, which consumes more power than entire countries to do less than seven transactions a second, going to become 'the cleanest branch of energy usage' when Visa does 1700 a second on average and doesn't need Denmark's worth of power to do so?

And how much value can you transfer with each transaction, comparatively?

How much value each transaction on BTC network will move when BTC's price will cost 1-2 mln USD?

You are using this argument WITHOUT CONTEXT.

 

[Glo.]

No offense, but this is cultlike thinking.

Nope. Do the maths. For now, and for when BTC will be in future.

 

[repoman0]

BS.

True pollution comes from eccessive manufacturing. The ONLY way we can stop Global Warming is if we will limit the manufacturing, but that is a no-no for plenty of people. Mainly for financial reasons. Economy only wants to increase manufacturing/production so they can earn more money. And this is the ONLY reason why companies like Apple are investing in their ecological initiatives. To fit in the legislative limits and for marketing reasons.

BTC's mining can add to this carbon pollution. HOWEVER, looking at where things are going, this will be the cleanest branch of energy usage, especially since BTC can be mined using PV installation, and other renewable energy resources.

I mean … this is just provably false. Enjoy the read. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions

 

[repoman0]

Its just any argument that criticises BTC is dumb in its nature.

Speaking of cult-like 😂 No discussion allowed! All who disagree are dumb in nature! 😂