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.

 

[Glo.]

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

Its not that you disagree. Its just that you are ill-informed, like here:

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).

First thing. Speculation. Its not speculation, when BTC's price rises in cycles, every 4 years. Maybe there is a valid, technical-economical reason why it rises, specifically every 4 years? Have you educated yourself on this topic to say that its speculation?

Why is speculation? Because you cannot quantify the value of the network, work that has been done on the network, that you cannot quantify the value of a object of value?

What value Internet has, in this context? Can we use the Internet ITSELF for economic purposes, and as a store of value?

Its not speculation when it only rises in grand scheme of things in its price. Not in value, because Value is not quantifiable for BTC. But it does not mean its value is 0. It means that its value is priceless.

Secondly. Its purely used for crime, as you said? Michael Saylor is a criminal, everybody. Elon Musk is a criminal, everybody!

The Belarusian opposition are criminals, because they get donations through bitcoin network, because the government got their bank accounts banned.

Whole Salvador will become criminals. And everyone who has Bitcoin on BTC network and payed for their groceries is a criminal!

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

Yeah, the world begins and ends in the United States.
Have you ever considered there are other countries in the world, that have different economies?

Have you even thought that there are countries in europe where there are no Nuclear Power Plants, and almost 100% of their power comes from coal? What about African continent, what about South America?

What even about China?

Global Warming started precisely when industrialization started. Or otherwords Eccessive Manufacturing/Production. The ONLY way we can limit the global warming is to limit the eccessive manufacturing/production.

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

Yes. You guys are a cult, of Bitcoin haters. You do not want to look at wider picture, to understand what it is, how it works, and what it means, not only for now, but also future. You have made your minds, and any form of disagreement is end up in you calling those people a Cult.

What does it tell?

 

[maddie]

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.

It's not a new plant.

Article quotes:
"Greenidge has a permit to dump 135 million gallons of water per day into the Keuka Lake Outlet as hot as 108˚ F in the summer and 86˚ F in the winter. New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation reports that over the last four years, the plant’s daily maximum discharge temperatures have averaged 98˚ in summer and 70˚ in winter.

"Rainbow trout are highly sensitive to fluctuations in water temperature, with the fish happiest in the mid-50s. Because cold water holds more oxygen, as temps rise, fish become stressed. Above 70˚ F, rainbow trout stop growing and stressed individuals start dying. Experienced anglers don’t bother fishing when water temps get to that point."

"The 12,000-year-old Seneca Lake is a sparkling specimen of the Finger Lakes region. It still boasts high water quality, clean enough to drink with just limited treatment. Its waters are home to a sizable lake trout population that’s large enough to maintain the National Lake Trout Derby for 57 years running. The prized fish spawn in the rivers that feed the lake, and it’s into one of those rivers—the Keuka Lake Outlet, known to locals for its rainbow trout fishing—that Greenidge dumps its heated water. "

This is an example of the extremely poor writing.

We have a very old plant by your admission, probably built many decades ago using the same lake for the cooling sump and heating the water so much now, even though running at reduced capacity, that it will disrupt these Trout from thriving.
When it was running at much higher capacity in the past, with associated much higher thermal discharge rates, this same lake produced fish that won national prizes for 57 years straight.

This is just one example.

Tell me now about the other utter BS arguments in that article and you can see why I say it's 1) a dumb writer, 2) a totally ignorant writer (excusable to some degree), or 3) a deliberately malicious writer deceiving the technologically ignorant.

Edit:
If the writer had any sense, they would at least wonder if it was in fact the heated water discharge that allowed this lake to win national prizes for 57 years straight when competing with completely natural lakes.

 

[repoman0]

Its not that you disagree. Its just that you are ill-informed, like here:


First thing. Speculation. Its not speculation, when BTC's price rises in cycles, every 4 years. Maybe there is a valid, technical-economical reason why it rises, specifically every 4 years? Have you educated yourself on this topic to say that its speculation?

Why is speculation? Because you cannot quantify the value of the network, work that has been done on the network, that you cannot quantify the value of a object of value?

What value Internet has, in this context? Can we use the Internet ITSELF for economic purposes, and as a store of value?

Its not speculation when it only rises in grand scheme of things in its price. Not in value, because Value is not quantifiable for BTC. But it does not mean its value is 0. It means that its value is priceless.

Secondly. Its purely used for crime, as you said? Michael Saylor is a criminal, everybody. Elon Musk is a criminal, everybody!

The Belarusian opposition are criminals, because they get donations through bitcoin network, because the government got their bank accounts banned.

Whole Salvador will become criminals. And everyone who has Bitcoin on BTC network and payed for their groceries is a criminal!


Yeah, the world begins and ends in the United States.
Have you ever considered there are other countries in the world, that have different economies?

Have you even thought that there are countries in europe where there are no Nuclear Power Plants, and almost 100% of their power comes from coal? What about African continent, what about South America?

What even about China?

Global Warming started precisely when industrialization started. Or otherwords Eccessive Manufacturing/Production. The ONLY way we can limit the global warming is to limit the eccessive manufacturing/production.

Yes. You guys are a cult, of Bitcoin haters. You do not want to look at wider picture, to understand what it is, how it works, and what it means, not only for now, but also future. You have made your minds, and any form of disagreement is end up in you calling those people a Cult.

What does it tell?

This is a meaningless word salad all to justify massive pollution for the sake of greed and speculation. Not even worth a response. Even crypto believers know that Bitcoin is a dead end. Just lol at the BS about Bitcoin randomly rising in price twice and that being your justification that it isn’t speculation … that’s pretty much the definition of speculation.

Also yes, Elon Musk is indeed a criminal who has been fined by the SEC already and probably needs to be investigated further for his price manipulating tweets.

 

[Glo.]

This is a meaningless word salad all to justify massive pollution for the sake of greed and speculation. Not even worth a response. Even crypto believers know that Bitcoin is a dead end. Just lol at the BS about Bitcoin randomly rising in price twice and that being your justification that it isn’t speculation … that’s pretty much the definition of speculation.

Also yes, Elon Musk is indeed a criminal who has been fined by the SEC already and probably needs to be investigated further for his price manipulating tweets.

The price rise simply tries to catch up with increasing value of the Bitcoin token and network. Period.

Catch up is very purposely used. Value of BTC only increases, and it increases faster than BTC's price. The value of Bitcoin is directly related to the number of users of the network, and to the supply of BTC after halvings. The price is only a reflection of that factor, and a reflection of constantly inflating price of Dollar because it printed out of thin air.

And no its not the best argument FOR Bitcoin.

The best argument what one can use FOR Bitcoin, is the ability of society to finally make properly democratic, decentralised economy.

How come? Since Bitcoin is the first socio-economical project in the history of humankind that is completely independent from Banks, Financial Institutions, Interest Rates, and most importantly - Governments. It gives society a safety, that in attmept of power grab in government, be it official, or economical government, Society has the means and technology to keep away from any imposed, harmful economic laws.


Everything else has to grow up from this. Bitcoin is the biggest opportunity humanking had to create truly democratic economy. Decentralised, fair, and Open-Source. Hey, we may even be able to stop fighting over natural resources, and stop killing each other them, thanks to Bitcoin.

 

[maddie]

The price rise simply tries to catch up with increasing value of the Bitcoin token and network. Period.

Catch up is very purposely used. Value of BTC only increases, and it increases faster than BTC's price. The value of Bitcoin is directly related to the number of users of the network, and to the supply of BTC after halvings. The price is only a reflection of that factor, and a reflection of constantly inflating price of Dollar because it printed out of thin air.

And no its not the best argument FOR Bitcoin.

The best argument what one can use FOR Bitcoin, is the ability of society to finally make properly democratic, decentralised economy.

How come? Since Bitcoin is the first socio-economical project in the history of humankind that is completely independent from Banks, Financial Institutions, Interest Rates, and most importantly - Governments. It gives society a safety, that in attmept of power grab in government, be it official, or economical government, Society has the means and technology to keep away from any imposed, harmful economic laws.


Everything else has to grow up from this. Bitcoin is the biggest opportunity humanking had to create truly democratic economy. Decentralised, fair, and Open-Source. Hey, we may even be able to stop fighting over natural resources, and stop killing each other them, thanks to Bitcoin.

Since Bitcoin is the first socio-economical project in the history of humankind that is completely independent from Banks, Financial Institutions, Interest Rates, and most importantly - Governments.

A bit over the top, don't you think? I'm not sure, but people in early societies really didn't have a banking system, if I'm not mistaken. They still went ahead with development.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

Everything else has to grow up from this. Bitcoin is the biggest opportunity humanking had to create truly democratic economy. Decentralised, fair, and Open-Source. Hey, we may even be able to stop fighting over natural resources, and stop killing each other them, thanks to Bitcoin.

Decentralized*!

*If you ignore the massive mining cartels

 

[Glo.]

Since Bitcoin is the first socio-economical project in the history of humankind that is completely independent from Banks, Financial Institutions, Interest Rates, and most importantly - Governments.

A bit over the top, don't you think? I'm not sure, but people in early societies really didn't have a banking system, if I'm not mistaken. They still went ahead with development.

But they were not independent from Government. Their leaders were the government.

 

[maddie]

But they were not independent from Government. Their leaders were the government.

Well ......., I disagree.

Most people never even interacted with their government. Representative government was developed for a reason. Before that , you could live your entire life in certain countries without meeting a central authority figure. Within 500 miles from where I live, there are still native tribes pretty cut off from all organised government. The village elder/council is certainly not a hierarchical government in any way comparable to your argument.

End of the day, some love crypto and some hate it. Personally, I believe in freedom of choice.

 

[biostud]

In a functional democracy the government is representing the people and thus the rules regarding financial institutions are based on peoples will. Bitcoin is anarchy, and thus the strongest dictates the rules.

 

[Magic Carpet]

I spent a week using China’s digital yuan, here’s how it went | KrASIA

I spent a week using China’s digital yuan. Many merchants were unable to process transactions, and exchanging it from cash takes some work.

kr-asia.com

I expect the US to follow suit and create their own digital currency. The future is bright, folks.

The recent CBDC hearings on Capitol Hill, most notably that of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s subcommittee and the committee of Rep. Maxine Walter of California, both Democrats, have demonstrated a dual-pronged approach to protect the dollar’s hegemony. The committees proposed task forces to study a digital dollar and restrictive crypto regulation aligned with national security and crime concerns.

It’s the politicians that make the decisions, not the computer geeks 👆🏻

 

[Glo.]

Bitcoin is anarchy, and thus the strongest dictates the rules.

And Anarchy is the most sophisticated form of Democracy.

 

[DrMrLordX]

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.

Maybe, but if you pay the ransom it just gets worse. And worse. And worse. Face it, it's IT departments skimping on security costs most of the time. The vast majority of ransomware infections to date have been phising/spear phishing. Restoring from backups oughtn't cost you millions of dollars.

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

It's lax security and unpatched 0-day exploits that enable these attacks. Get a grip.

Also, 2% of all transactions is a GIANT amount.

Goalpost moved. First it was the only thing crypto was good for, then it was maybe half of what crypto was used for (the other being currency speculation). Now it's 2%, or actually .34% if you believe ChainAnalysis. One wonders if anyone here has looked to see how many cash transactions are linked to illegal activity. But hey gotta blame crypto because video cards cost a lot woowoo. Feh.

 

[Glo.]

One wonders if anyone here has looked to see how many cash transactions are linked to illegal activity. But hey gotta blame crypto because video cards cost a lot woowoo. Feh.

The funny thing is that Miners bought LAPTOPS for mining on GPUs.

And it didn't even made a dent in laptop supplies.

Why? because companies have simply said: Screw desktop DIY, we focus on highest margin parts, with highest possible volume - laptops, and OEM clients.

Desktop DIY market got 10% of world supply of wafers and chips.

And the worst part for the argument "against BTC" is that GPU mining accounted for ONLY 20% of the demand.

Blaming BTC and other cryptos for what has been caused by unprecended demand from CONSUMERS on sillicon chips and devices is short sighted.

 

[Stuka87]

Everything else has to grow up from this. Bitcoin is the biggest opportunity humanking had to create truly democratic economy. Decentralised, fair, and Open-Source. Hey, we may even be able to stop fighting over natural resources, and stop killing each other them, thanks to Bitcoin.

You can't be serious with this?

There is nothing fair or democratic about crypto currency.

And it can be argued that crypto uses more natural resources to create than any other type of currency. When entire power plants are being consumed just to mine crypto currency, it can definitely not be considered "more green".

And I fail to see how crypto currency will end the need for natural resources? To quote a wise man, "Life needs things to live". And that typically involves natural resources.

 

[Glo.]

You can't be serious with this?

There is nothing fair or democratic about crypto currency.

And it can be argued that crypto uses more natural resources to create than any other type of currency. When entire power plants are being consumed just to mine crypto currency, it can definitely not be considered "more green".

And I fail to see how crypto currency will end the need for natural resources? To quote a wise man, "Life needs things to live". And that typically involves natural resources.

How is it that when I wrote that "BTC may end our fight for Natural Resources" have been transformed into: "Ending the need for natural resources"?

 

[Stuka87]

It's not a new plant.

This is an example of the extremely poor writing.

We have a very old plant by your admission, probably built many decades ago using the same lake for the cooling sump and heating the water so much now, even though running at reduced capacity, that it will disrupt these Trout from thriving.
When it was running at much higher capacity in the past, with associated much higher thermal discharge rates, this same lake produced fish that won national prizes for 57 years straight.

This is just one example.

Tell me now about the other utter BS arguments in that article and you can see why I say it's 1) a dumb writer, 2) a totally ignorant writer (excusable to some degree), or 3) a deliberately malicious writer deceiving the technologically ignorant.

Edit:
If the writer had any sense, they would at least wonder if it was in fact the heated water discharge that allowed this lake to win national prizes for 57 years straight when competing with completely natural lakes.

Its an old plant was that converted from coal to natural gas by this company. Natural Gas turbines require significantly more cooling than coal powered plants (which don't require much of any cooling as they work off steam). Gas Turbine's however have to be cooled, and they are using the lake to do this. So the previous 50+ years of fishing competitions did not have this issue.

 

[Stuka87]

How is it that when I wrote that "BTC may end our fight for Natural Resources" have been transformed into: "Ending the need for natural resources"?

Because natural resources are worth money (regardless of currency). Unless you are suggesting that somehow crypto currencies will remove the monetary values of physical goods.

 

[Glo.]

Because natural resources are worth money (regardless of currency). Unless you are suggesting that somehow crypto currencies will remove the monetary values of physical goods.

Natural Resources are used for profit.

What BTC allows us to do is to stop using natural resources as a means for profit, and use the ever exploding value of BTC as profit. Its just flipping the typical economical axioms by 180 degrees. We would cover only the costs of obtaining natural resources.

Stopping using natural resources for profit, especially water, would stop us from fighting over them.

 

[repoman0]

Natural Resources are used for profit.

What BTC allows us to do is to stop using natural resources as a means for profit, and use the ever exploding value of BTC as profit. Its just flipping the typical economical axioms by 180 degrees. We would cover only the costs of obtaining natural resources.

Stopping using natural resources for profit, especially water, would stop us from fighting over them.

This is just … no understanding whatsoever about what actually drives economies here. This honestly couldn’t make any less sense.

 

[maddie]

Its an old plant was that converted from coal to natural gas by this company. Natural Gas turbines require significantly more cooling than coal powered plants (which don't require much of any cooling as they work off steam). Gas Turbine's however have to be cooled, and they are using the lake to do this. So the previous 50+ years of fishing competitions did not have this issue.

Sorry to say, but this is all wrong.

1) Natural Gas turbines are mainly modified aero engines that do not use water cooling, so they have zero hotwater discharge. They have hot air exhaust.

2) Natural Gas turbines with combined cycle use a steam loop after the gas turbine. In this case, the heat rejected to water is a small fraction of an all steam plant as the steam loop is a fraction of the total output.

3) In this case I would bet however that the plant simply converted the boilers to natural gas from coal. By far the cheapest conversion. In this case the rejected heat will be the same as the previous coal operation. It does not matter from a thermodynamic consideration how the heat was generated. By the way, nuclear plants are just another way of heating the water in the boilers.


Natural Gas turbines do not require significantly more cooling than coal powered plants. It's actually the opposite, they require less.

Read some thermodynamics texts and see for yourself. Check out the Carnot and Brayton cycles. What percentage of the heat is actually converted to useful work, electricity in this case, and what percentage has to be rejected to the sink (the lake in this case).

 

[Glo.]

This is just … no understanding whatsoever about what actually drives economies here. This honestly couldn’t make any less sense.

I actually do understand what drives economies. Its just making the economical growth ethical and fair, when you do not not need to compete for the resources.

You will not be able to ever make Decentralised Finance work if you will have centralised economies. They also have to become decentralised. And the main difference: Cooperation, not Competition.

What I have written in the quoted post by you is oversimplification of the idea. And it was enough for you to make up your mind.

 

[Mopetar]

A bit over the top, don't you think? I'm not sure, but people in early societies really didn't have a banking system, if I'm not mistaken. They still went ahead with development.

You can't really compare the systems used by early societies to anything used in the modern world. Most groups had little contact with members outside of their own tribal groups. Trade outside of groups would have been done as barter (in-group trade is believed to have operated more on a system of people keeping track of exchanges of goods/services without a need for direct barter in most cases) and the inefficiencies of this is what lead to modern systems of money and banking that we have now. The ancient systems had to go because they simply couldn't scale well beyond tribal groups of a few hundred individuals or for exchanging value across a broader grouping of people as things like countries or empires started to emerge.

Banking systems really only became necessary as people actually started to amass wealth. For most of human history the average person owned no more than the possessions they had on them or if they were wealthy in their property. A lot of people were themselves the property of someone else as well.

In a functional democracy the government is representing the people and thus the rules regarding financial institutions are based on peoples will. Bitcoin is anarchy, and thus the strongest dictates the rules.

You're imagining this ideal democracy that always gets it right instead of devolving into mob rule. The only functional difference in this example is that the strongest mob dictates the rules. There are sufficient real world examples of democratic governments becoming utterly tyrannical that it should give you a great deal of pause before you dismiss something else entirely. Bitcoin at least has some benefit of being a system that is defined by the rules of mathematics and ultimately has limits placed on it due to its design. That doesn't mean it's not susceptible to bad actors doing any number of things with it or trying to find ways to abuse the system itself or other people participating in it, but it's hardly the anarchy that you suggest it to be.

 

[Stuka87]

Sorry to say, but this is all wrong.

1) Natural Gas turbines are mainly modified aero engines that do not use water cooling, so they have zero hotwater discharge. They have hot air exhaust.

2) Natural Gas turbines with combined cycle use a steam loop after the gas turbine. In this case, the heat rejected to water is a small fraction of an all steam plant as the steam loop is a fraction of the total output.

3) In this case I would bet however that the plant simply converted the boilers to natural gas from coal. By far the cheapest conversion. In this case the rejected heat will be the same as the previous coal operation. It does not matter from a thermodynamic consideration how the heat was generated. By the way, nuclear plants are just another way of heating the water in the boilers.


Natural Gas turbines do not require significantly more cooling than coal powered plants. It's actually the opposite, they require less.

Read some thermodynamics texts and see for yourself. Check out the Carnot and Brayton cycles. What percentage of the heat is actually converted to useful work, electricity in this case, and what percentage has to be rejected to the sink (the lake in this case).

From the artical:

Though Atlas spent $60 million retrofitting the old coal plant to run on gas, it didn’t spring for the more advanced combined cycle technology, which would have helped it operate profitably as a peaker.

So the heat going into the water is much higher than it could be if they were using combined cycle.

And perhaps I am wrong, but I was under the impression that gas turbine power plants used turbines with water cooled blades, as opposed to air cooled blades like aircraft turbines use.

 

[Stuka87]

Natural Resources are used for profit.

What BTC allows us to do is to stop using natural resources as a means for profit, and use the ever exploding value of BTC as profit. Its just flipping the typical economical axioms by 180 degrees. We would cover only the costs of obtaining natural resources.

Stopping using natural resources for profit, especially water, would stop us from fighting over them.

So you seriously think that BTC values will just always go up? I honestly have no clue how you expect an economy based on permanent deflation can ever actually work.

Natural resources employ millions of people. What will these people do for jobs? Unless you are suggesting everything on earth somehow becomes a non-profit organization. Which is a bit laughable.

 

[Glo.]

So you seriously think that BTC values will just always go up? I honestly have no clue how you expect an economy based on permanent deflation can ever actually work.

Natural resources employ millions of people. What will these people do for jobs? Unless you are suggesting everything on earth somehow becomes a non-profit organization. Which is a bit laughable.

In a deflationary economy prices would go down, not up.

In a deflationary economy increasing value makes you earn simply from the ability to pay less. Today you pay 1000 satoshis for iPhone, "next time" you pay 500 satoshis for the same, brand new, newest generation phone.

You can become non-profit, if you have a deflationary tool, which only increases in value. This causes cascade effect. As I have said, deflationary economy requires flipping the economical axioms by 180 degrees.

Flipping Profit-Chasing by 180 degrees means that what you want to focus on creating is value. Because you will be able to do more, with less resources, including your economical resources.