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.

 

[Mopetar]

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.

First you'll never likely have an economy based solely around Bitcoin. Unless every government on the planet started requiring tax payments in Bitcoin there's no reason for the global economy to adopt it solely or exclusively over any number of other currencies, be they more traditional or cryptographic in nature.

To some degree the value of Bitcoin always will go up or at least the notion of a continual upward trend isn't ridiculous. It's by its very definition a finite quantity whereas the economy will continue to expand more rapidly relative to the quantity of Bitcoin. If you increase the quantity of one thing relative to another, does it seem at all odd in a general sense (as in don't think of it like a product like horse-drawn carriages that can be largely obsoleted and replaced by the automobile) that the more limited quantity gains value?

Of course this assumes that the economy itself doesn't go to hell on a global scale. If everyone is barely scraping by trying to grow food to survive, Bitcoin doesn't have a lot of value anymore. In that regard it's not any different than other currencies. They're just a commodity whose ultimate value is derived from the underlying economy that they facilitate exchange for. Really there's nothing stopping a fiat currency from being deflationary, but good luck finding a government that doesn't want to print more and more money.

However, there's no good reason for Bitcoin to ever become a sole or universal currency. There's no one that can really force it to act as one and for reasons that exist outside of Bitcoin itself (on top of the ones inherent to Bitcoin itself) there's always going to be a market for competing currencies.

 

[biostud]

What I meant to write in fact. Instead it immediately gave me a strange impression, as if they wanted to make it more similar to the other systems I mentioned. If I decide that I prefer to use Windows it is also because it is different than iOS / "Linux" / Android. But probably everything tends to converge towards a" user experience " more or less similar regardless of the operating system chosen, too bad.

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.



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.

But any rule that felt threatened by bitcoin would make it illegal. One man's freedom fighter another's terrorist. Bitcoin is not going to solve the weakness in human culture and power abuse that are ever present.

 

[Mopetar]

But any rule that felt threatened by bitcoin would make it illegal. One man's freedom fighter another's terrorist. Bitcoin is not going to solve the weakness in human culture and power abuse that are ever present.

Not with endorsement from would-be tyrants, and how is that different from anything else that makes tyrants feel threatened? They don't like free speech, a free press, or a number of other things. Also not all freedom fighters are terrorists, just like not all terrorists are freedom fighters. I wouldn't conflate the two. It's probably more fair to say a protagonist is just an antagonist from another different point of view.

I suspect that for as much scorn has been heaped upon it for all the supposed illegal or immoral activities it has been used for it's done just as much good, but no one will really talk about that because if you're trying to get out from underneath someone's boot you don't go extolling the virtues of your means of escape that others may still rely upon.

It really isn't any different than TOR in this regard. People are going to use it for some truly awful things, but others are going to use it so that they can get around censorship or other authoritarian acts by tyrannical rulers. Both are just tools and capable of neither good or evil without human use and human intent. Similarly, removing either would do nothing to stop the evil intent that leads to their use for evil. I can't think of any act or crime that Bitcoin has made possible that did not exist before. I'm sure someone will make a lazy argument about it making something awful a whole lot easier. I'll apply that same foolish logic to something you probably don't want to agree with though, so don't bother.

 

[maddie]

From the artical:


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.

As a ranking of heat being dumped into the cooling water.

1st place - water cooled steam turbine generators, irrespective of the heat source, coal, oil, natural gas, fission.
2nd place -far behind is the gas turbine/steam combined cycle
3rd place - by far the least is the pure gas turbine.

The old plant produced rejected heat in the same ballpark as the new one, of this I'm certain. All they have done is replace the old coal boilers with natural gas ones. Cheaper to operate and you can claim CO2 reduction at the same time.

Even if you cooled the blades with water (allowing higher temps and thus efficiencies) in a pure gas turbine (experimental AFAIK), this would be a few % of the total heat. Most is in the hot exhaust gases, vented to the atmosphere. You are only cooling the blades to prevent the materials from being damaged.

Anyhow, the article was written as a hit piece on crypto using false and very misleading arguments, intended in my opinion, to tug on the emotions of readers who didn't know better. Think of the Trout.

It's too bad we can't split the world into several pieces and run these competing ideologies out to see which ones work. We all think we're correct, but some believe in using forceful means, such as legislation backed by fines and force to compel compliance. So depressing.

 

[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.

Yes, it will go up.

Three reasons for this.
1) Supply lowering with each and every 4 years, Halving. Halving lowers supply by 50%, every 4 years(depending on hashrate).
2) Increasing number of people using this network/blockchain, which naturally increases the value of any network.
3) insane amount of FIAT currencies printed every day by the governments, which is making the FIAT currencies pretty much valueless.

And we are talking only about exchanging it to FIAT. Even if we will get rid of FIAT currencies and will make payments on any bitcoin blockchain the first two still maintain as a main reason for the value growth drive.

 

[repoman0]

3) insane amount of FIAT currencies printed every day by the governments, which is making the FIAT currencies pretty much valueless.

Someone should tell the grocery stores, restaurants, utility companies and banks! Can’t believe they’ve been taking my valueless fiat USD and giving me food, electricity, running clean water and shelter. All for about the same amount of valueless fiat USD as last year and every year before

 

[mohit9206]

I don't follow any other crypto other than bitcoin but I believe the collpase is temporary as has always been in the past. Bitcoin has a long way way to go. In any case bitcoin mining doesnt really affect gpu prices anyway.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I don't follow any other crypto other than bitcoin but I believe the collpase is temporary as has always been in the past. Bitcoin has a long way way to go. In any case bitcoin mining doesnt really affect gpu prices anyway.

Miners have bought 25-35% of the cards sold either last quarter or last year, I forgot the time frame.
How could that not impact the price of gpu's?

 

[mohit9206]

Miners have bought 25-35% of the cards sold either last quarter or last year, I forgot the time frame.
How could that not impact the price of gpu's?

Doesn't bitcoin no longer require gpu or something? Most of the gpu bought by miners are for etherium mining

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Doesn't bitcoin no longer require gpu or something? Most of the gpu bought by miners are for etherium mining

Regardless miners bought 1/4th to 1/3rd the cards how can that not impact pricing?

 

[mohit9206]

Regardless miners bought 1/4th to 1/3rd the cards how can that not impact pricing?

Assuming you are correct, that should have increased the prices by 33%. Then why did prices increase 300%?

 

[blckgrffn]

Regardless miners bought 1/4th to 1/3rd the cards how can that not impact pricing?

That's like saying gamers buy video cards but disregarding that many gamers only by consoles.

Crypto mining is an overly broad term used for convenience.

@mohit9206 is speaking specifically of BTC mining, which is also what the Ars (whom I love and read daily) hit piece for clickbait was referencing.

While BTC might be a backbone for the "value" of crypto as a whole BTC directly is not mineable via GPUs and I doubt any GPUs were sold to miners en masse in the last two to three GPU generations.

Ethereum and most of the others are what directly use GPUs.

Crypto Mining doesn't necessarily equate to BTC mining which is all done via specialized ASICs.

If you wanted to complain that some mining ASIC companies were eating up wafers (this is true) and a nock on effect was more constrained supply for all other chips then that would be a different and more nuanced complaint.

 

[DrMrLordX]

However, there's no good reason for Bitcoin to ever become a sole or universal currency. There's no one that can really force it to act as one and for reasons that exist outside of Bitcoin itself (on top of the ones inherent to Bitcoin itself) there's always going to be a market for competing currencies.

BTC is a good proof-of-concept, but a bad final product. Honestly we need something better than Bitcoin, and we have a lot of potential options with more coming online every year.

Doesn't bitcoin no longer require gpu or something? Most of the gpu bought by miners are for etherium mining

Basically, yes. Though some people mine other tokens with NiceHash and automatically convert their tokens to BTC.

 

[Stuka87]

Assuming you are correct, that should have increased the prices by 33%. Then why did prices increase 300%?

Where did you get this "increase by 33%" amount?

Once demand outpaces supply, the sky is the limit on pricing. Retailers will charge whatever the market can handle. And many of these big mining operations are skipping the middle man retailers, and buying straight from AIBs. So their prices are hardly changed.

 

[blckgrffn]

Basically, yes. Though some people mine other tokens with NiceHash and automatically convert their tokens to BTC.

lol, when "crap" coins (not the real name but one this forum will allow) are only really worth anything because you can trade for Sats it's pretty sad.

I'd agree that the "crypto of the day" cycle we are on could end any second and that would be awesome.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Assuming you are correct, that should have increased the prices by 33%. Then why did prices increase 300%?

I hate to sound like a turd so I am going to apologize in advance.
Markets/Supply & demand don’t work linear like that. There is an unmet demand, those who need a card are willing to pay more that figure could be greater than the missing supply it could be less.
There are tons of psychological things that happen when you want something you can’t have or a perceived shortage of something you want/need. Look at what happened to TP last year. Nobody needs a 6 month supply of TP but at one point nearly everyone wanted a 6-12 month supply.
Add to it that 1/3 or 1/4th your market is buying to earn money that totally changes the pricing matrix as opposed to a bunch of dudes want to play Cyberpunk.

 

[maddie]

Where did you get this "increase by 33%" amount?

Once demand outpaces supply, the sky is the limit on pricing. Retailers will charge whatever the market can handle. And many of these big mining operations are skipping the middle man retailers, and buying straight from AIBs. So their prices are hardly changed.

Agreed.

The opposite, thankfully for us, is also true. A small oversupply can lead to a huge drop in prices. Prices are very sensitive to deviations in supply, in fact you can be suspicious a cartel is operating if prices are too stable for too long.

 

[mohit9206]

Agreed.

The opposite, thankfully for us, is also true. A small oversupply can lead to a huge drop in prices. Prices are very sensitive to deviations in supply, in fact you can be suspicious a cartel is operating if prices are too stable for too long.

We already have a cartel here in India, the retailers. They are holding the same inflated 3-4X msrp prices despite almost everyone having decent amount of stock. They're trying to milk as much as possible but I don't they should be able to keep this up for too long.

 

[maddie]

We already have a cartel here in India, the retailers. They are holding the same inflated 3-4X msrp prices despite almost everyone having decent amount of stock. They're trying to milk as much as possible but I don't they should be able to keep this up for too long.

If that's the case they should break soon. It only takes one to start the collapse.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

We already have a cartel here in India, the retailers. They are holding the same inflated 3-4X msrp prices despite almost everyone having decent amount of stock. They're trying to milk as much as possible but I don't they should be able to keep this up for too long.

Admittedly I think you all have some odd business practices there, I do want to float what is possible vendors with inflated price cards probably bought them at an inflated price, thus they need to sell them at an inflated price or man up and take the loss. Businesses typically don’t like taking losses they do their best to avoid them.

I could be totally wrong about the above just a guess.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

Y'know, when I said crypto only had speculation and ransomware as use-cases, I was expecting to get more counter-examples like 'look at this startup which has a whitepaper and nothing else' or 'I saw a taco truck that took bitcoin about two years ago.'

I did not expect 'bitcoin will end all wars.'

 

[BudAshes]

Y'know, when I said crypto only had speculation and ransomware as use-cases, I was expecting to get more counter-examples like 'look at this startup which has a whitepaper and nothing else' or 'I saw a taco truck that took bitcoin about two years ago.'

I did not expect 'bitcoin will end all wars.'

redacted Cause then we really have solved all our problems.






This is an inappropriate post for the tech forums.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[insertcarehere]

Y'know, when I said crypto only had speculation and ransomware as use-cases, I was expecting to get more counter-examples like 'look at this startup which has a whitepaper and nothing else' or 'I saw a taco truck that took bitcoin about two years ago.'

I did not expect 'bitcoin will end all wars.'

To play devil's advocate, most posters here are living in North America and other developed economies where the currency is a passable store of value. This is not the case for many countries with high inflation, awful currency devaluation, and capital controls limiting access to USD.

BTC/Ethereum is a very flawed asset, but it sure beats Turkish Lira and Argentine Peso if those are the only other choices that ordinary people have to store savings.

 

[bigboxes]

The sooner we make cryptocurrency illegal the better. Write your representatives. Regulate it out of existence.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

To play devil's advocate, most posters here are living in North America and other developed economies where the currency is a passable store of value. This is not the case for many countries with high inflation, awful currency devaluation, and capital controls limiting access to USD.

BTC/Ethereum is a very flawed asset, but it sure beats Turkish Lira and Argentine Peso if those are the only other choices that ordinary people have to store savings.

I dunno, I've been hearing that since bitcoin first became big and I've yet to see any evidence of serious adoption outside the first world, outside of random crypto blogs pumping it up. Last time I looked into it, a lot that were using crypto were just using it as a jumping point to get the money into USD or some other foreign currency. Crypto's so damn volatile I can't see someone trying to avoid major inflation going for it unless they had no other choice at all. And even then, we still have the problem of it being difficult to use without converting it back to another currency.