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]

The banks making the loans are aware of all of that though and the interest rate for the loan, etc. take inflation into account. Granted, the length of most mortgages are long enough that it's difficult to make assumptions about the inflation rate decades from now, but unless the rates ballon out of control in one direction or another it won't cause too many problems.

A sudden, one time inflation spike may be (not necessarily though) good for anyone carrying significant debt, but the inflation rate growing beyond that would mean that the constant monthly payments go away or the initial payments are so high that it becomes effectively impossible for people to afford. The average person's costs are going to increase a lot more quickly than their own access to money, so heavy inflation actually hits the poor the hardest even though they paradoxically don't have any money that's lost value.

There's a bit of a fallacy in your reasoning. If you suspect that paying off your mortgage sooner will leave you in a better position to invest that money which would otherwise be tied up in a mortgage payment into something that gives you a better return then you should pay off the mortgage sooner. Of course being able to predict that isn't trivial, but it's certainly possible that the best thing you could be doing with any excess money right now is to pay off your mortgage. It's probably more likely that there's something with a better return right now that you should put your money towards though.

 

[aigomorla]

And here comes my favorate part in all this... the mass exodus of videocards...
BUT BUT.... the 3060 i bet have not even seen that much usage on them as they were just not released that long, hence a good buy if you can get them at below the msrp.

Thousands of Used GPUs Are Flooding China's Second-Hand Market

The fall of crypto mining in China

www.tomshardware.com

 

[Mopetar]

I wouldn't personally be too worried about picking up a second hand card used for mining. First of all most technology products follow the standard bathtub curve when it comes to failure rate, so anything that's been used for mining almost certainly would have failed if it was bad hardware. On top of that the cards that are used for mining Etherium don't benefit from being OC'd on anything but the memory (and really not much from that given pushing it too hard tanks performance due to the ECC kicking in too often) so the idea that they've been worked particularly hard is probably wrong as well.

 

[VirtualLarry]

New York Bill Could Ban Crypto Mining to Study Environmental Effects

A state senator is focusing on the environment

www.tomshardware.com

This is an older article, May 2021.

Anyone know how this turned out?

 

[solidsnake1298]

New York Bill Could Ban Crypto Mining to Study Environmental Effects

A state senator is focusing on the environment

www.tomshardware.com

This is an older article, May 2021.

Anyone know how this turned out?

Current status: "Passed Senate"

NY State Senate Bill 2021-S6486D

Establishes a moratorium on cryptocurrency mining operations that use proof-of-work authentication methods to validate blockchain transactions; provides that such operations shall be subject to a full generic environmental impact statement review.

www.nysenate.gov

 

[rommelrommel]

Everything feels more expensive because it is

Why are prices going up? Used cars, gas, and groceries seem more expensive because they are.

www.vox.com

This is what happens when you have an inflationary currency.

Do you figure that countries are just going to shrug their shoulders at losing control of their monetary policies?

 

[BFG10K]

A timely article, confirms ransomware exploded exponentially as soon as bitcoin arrived:

The Evolution of Ransomware

These days, not a month goes by that we hear about a new major ransomware attack. But how did we get to this point where our data...

www.techspot.com

And LOL @ the religious nutter arguments being presented in this thread. All hail the savior crypto, the true enlightened one, who'll show us the error of our ways and lead us to a new age(tm).

In the future people won't need cotton for clothing or metal for sewing needles because we'll all be sitting naked in front of our computers, mining.

As for those those pesky little things like silicon and gold that are used in every computer...don't you dare question the crypto messiah, you heathen disbeliever!!!

Check out the pictures of all these chivalrous honorable people working tirelessly to "improve" humanity. They have so much "concern" for our future, yo.

pictures of crypto warehouses - Google Suche

www.google.com

I mean this thing uses more power than Argentina for literally doing nothing:

Bitcoin consumes 'more electricity than Argentina'

The rising value of Bitcoin leads to ever-higher energy consumption, researchers say.

www.bbc.com

There ARE some blockchain projects out there right this instant performing various functions of which you are completely unaware.

Such as? Please list them. Thanks.

 

[BFG10K]

Crypto farm busted with 3800 PS4s / 500 GPUs illegally connected to the grid:

Ukrainian law enforcement close mining farm with 3800 PlayStation 4 consoles - VideoCardz.com

Ukrainian Security Service discovered an underground crypto farm with 3800 PlayStation 4 consoles Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) exposed a large illegal cryptocurrency farm in the city of Vinnytsia. This crypto farm had thousands of gaming consoles, graphics cards, and processors illegally...

videocardz.com

Wow, "improving humanity" absolutely oozes out of the article. I can clearly see how crypto "flips" human greed, environmental pollution, and consumerism on its head.

Just imagine if every single person on this planet operated the same monstrosity. A total utopia paradise, yo.

This is vampire parasitic cancer. It literally latches onto local resources (power grid, tech goods) and leeches them dry until it's excised. Then like plague rats scurrying off a sinking ship, it moves to another part of the world and attempts the whole thing again.

A rather poignant description of Crypto:

Spoiler

 

[VirtualLarry]

Wow, "improving humanity" absolutely oozes out of the article. I can clearly see how crypto "flips" human greed, environmental pollution, and consumerism on its head.

Just imagine if every single person on this planet operated the same monstrosity. A total utopia paradise, yo.

This is vampire parasitic cancer. It literally latches onto local resources (power grid, tech goods) and leeches them dry until it's excised. Then like plague rats scurrying off a sinking ship, it moves to another part of the world and attempts the whole thing again.

Millions of people around the world enjoy Hot Dogs, especially on July 4th, US Independence Day. Yet, you wouldn't want to go to the factories and see how they're made. I think that the same principle applies to crypto and crypto mining.

Edit: Or look into how much water is used, and how many toxic chemicals result, as a by-product of silicon chip mfg ("fab") plants. Yet, you and every other tech enthusiast happily use their end-result, and don't call them a "cancer", even though in some cases it literally causes cancer in the water supply of the local area in which the fabs are located.

 

[DrMrLordX]

PoW is old hat anyway. Not sure why anyone expects blockchain advocates to die on that hill.

 

[Mopetar]

Probably because it's a lot harder to write an angry screed about proof-of-stake being terrible for the environment.

It's a bit like trying to go from complaining about a coal plant to a solar installation. Just doesn't work as well.

 

[NTMBK]

Millions of people around the world enjoy Hot Dogs, especially on July 4th, US Independence Day. Yet, you wouldn't want to go to the factories and see how they're made. I think that the same principle applies to crypto and crypto mining.

Edit: Or look into how much water is used, and how many toxic chemicals result, as a by-product of silicon chip mfg ("fab") plants. Yet, you and every other tech enthusiast happily use their end-result, and don't call them a "cancer", even though in some cases it literally causes cancer in the water supply of the local area in which the fabs are located.

Plenty of us do care about the environmental impact of our hobby. That's a big part of why I am happy to do most of my gaming on a Haswell i5 and a GTX 1060.

Mining is a curse on the Earth.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Crypto mining unlike meat factories or slaughter houses, is unregulated (like any new invention). This problem will eventually be resolved once the politicians catch up with the times. Once we had
passwords stored in plain text 👆🏻

speaking of hot dogs, you can’t really compare food to crypto. Bad example Larry.

Food/water both essential to human survival, crypto is not.

Take greed/fear out of equation and suddenly crypto is not that great. I’d rather invest in my education and my health.

But yeah, you can believe in it, just like in about everything. Why not, this is a free world. To each their own.

NB. Climate change will be a far more serious problem to solve in the next 50 years. Climate has already changed but it might get even worse. Think about future generations and not about just yourself.

PoW is old hat anyway.

The sooner Eth moves to PoS the better.

 

[jpiniero]

Crypto farm busted with 3800 PS4s / 500 GPUs illegally connected to the grid:

Funny thing is I don't believe (unless hacked) the PS4's GPU was allowed to run at full power when running linux. I guess since they weren't paying for the electricity it didn't matter to them.

 

[Ninjak]

If you look at cryptocurrency as a giant R&D experiment then banning mining seems like really poor policy. Even if you think cryptocurrency is completely useless today, there may come a day where it enables something really useful. Humanity has spent time / energy / money on similar R&D experiments throughout history and we'll continue to do so. Look at all the effort behind synthetic meat, self-driving cars, cold fusion, etc. Some of these techs will pan out, others will end up being useless, we just don't know until we try them.

I do hope that PoS works out for Ethereum, it seems like a real advantage from the perspective of a cryptocurrency speculator. Better to earn returns on my stake (e.g., interest) than have transaction fees go to rainforest-destroying, GPU-hogging, global-warming-causing scum of the Earth.

 

[Failnaught]

Edit: Or look into how much water is used, and how many toxic chemicals result, as a by-product of silicon chip mfg ("fab") plants. Yet, you and every other tech enthusiast happily use their end-result, and don't call them a "cancer", even though in some cases it literally causes cancer in the water supply of the local area in which the fabs are located.

But doctors do MRI with those Si chips. Engineers design bridges with them. Journalists get tips with them. We can predict the weather and send probes to the outer solar system, all because of computer chips. It's not just hobby stuff and blasting aliens. And even blasting aliens is enjoyable in and of itself. If you can't sell a bitcoin, would you ever mine it?

f you look at cryptocurrency as a giant R&D experiment then banning mining seems like really poor policy. Even if you think cryptocurrency is completely useless today, there may come a day where it enables something really useful. Humanity has spent time / energy / money on similar R&D experiments throughout history and we'll continue to do so. Look at all

But it's not a R&D experiment. The technology/idea/algorithm itself is an R&D thing, which may have some use later, and it is good that somebody worked it out.

But mining the bitcoins themselves is literally just solving some random math problem, that nobody would ever care about if it weren't for bitcoin. It's like if I made you factor a huge number in your head. If you can use the factors to crack some terrorist message and prevent an attack, great! But if it's just a big number to factor... then who cares? When the real message comes in that you need to decrypt, it sure won't be using this big number.

 

[Mopetar]

People use their computational resources for stuff like SETI which I personally think is kind of worthless, but it's their choice. I even know a few and they think it's cool, and what if!

Cryptocurrency is interesting, buts it's grown bigger than the little community that thought it was interesting and now there's a lot of people involved who shouldn't be and they're naturally getting take advantage of due to that ignorance.

There's plenty of other things that are computationally worthless that no one pays money for or values. Explain the difference between Bitcoin and people running Prime95 all day. Why is t anyone paying them. Surely it's just the same thing according to you.

And that's the other side of it. Another group of people who don't understand cryptocurrency and assume it's worthless. One group of fools that think it's infinite money and another that think it's nothing. To anyone caught in the middle it's being an atheist listening to two people arguing over who's god is real.

 

[UsandThem]

There's plenty of other things that are computationally worthless that no one pays money for or values. Explain the difference between Bitcoin and people running Prime95 all day.

I get the point you're making, but I'm unaware of any large scale, 24/7 Prime95 operations and that program has been around a LOT longer than Bitcoin (not to mention Prime95 never caused GPU shortages/price increases).

 

[bigboxes]

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.

You're really kind of silly trying to justify crytocurrency.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Good news for gamers.

 

[beginner99]

Everything feels more expensive because it is

Why are prices going up? Used cars, gas, and groceries seem more expensive because they are.

www.vox.com

This is what happens when you have an inflationary currency.

Some small controlled small inflation is actually the goal of any health economy. Deflation simply doesn't work as people would resort to spending as little as possible sending the economy downhill (of course this would be great for the environment as consumption goes down and hence pollution).

The real problem currently, which really started in the mid 90ties if not earlier, is the fact that salaries aren't increasing anymore together with inflation. So ultimately people have less purchasing power (=poorer). This effect is now really noticeable because inflation is bigger than normal due to the insane money printing and because the pandemic was yet another great excuse to keep wages even lower which is especially ironic in public traded companies for which you can simply see the figures yourself.

 

[maddie]

Some small controlled small inflation is actually the goal of any health economy. Deflation simply doesn't work as people would resort to spending as little as possible sending the economy downhill (of course this would be great for the environment as consumption goes down and hence pollution).

The real problem currently, which really started in the mid 90ties if not earlier, is the fact that salaries aren't increasing anymore together with inflation. So ultimately people have less purchasing power (=poorer). This effect is now really noticeable because inflation is bigger than normal due to the insane money printing and because the pandemic was yet another great excuse to keep wages even lower which is especially ironic in public traded companies for which you can simply see the figures yourself.

I've seen arguments disproving that, such as tech products over the past few decades for instance. Prices fell dramatically yearly and we still bought. TV's, computers, phones, etc, knowing it might be cheaper next year.

Falling or stagnant purchasing power is a KEY point. I sometimes wonder if the extremely wealthy are so myopic as it seems. Squeeze labor too much and then who buys your products. A sort of reverse Henry Ford situation. Maybe it's just a competition between themselves as to who can get richest the fastest and forget about everything else. Some elements of parasitism here, as when the host dies, it does also, but the parasite is blissfully unaware.

I used to think as a few of the idealistic posters on this thread seem to do, but not anymore. We will need a reboot of the system either voluntary or not. Voluntary means new ways of money, governance, etc, by all parties starting now or soon. Not, means it all falls apart and then we have a rocky restart. I'm planning for the latter.

 

[PingSpike]

Funny thing is I don't believe (unless hacked) the PS4's GPU was allowed to run at full power when running linux. I guess since they weren't paying for the electricity it didn't matter to them.

I actually didn't know you could mine crypto with a PS4. I thought the PS3 closed the other OS loophole part way through and that the PS4 never had it? I don't follow consoles very closely though.

 

[Stuka87]

I actually didn't know you could mine crypto with a PS4. I thought the PS3 closed the other OS loophole part way through and that the PS4 never had it? I don't follow consoles very closely though.

PS4 (OG, Slim, and Pro) have had linux support for years.

 

[jpiniero]

I actually didn't know you could mine crypto with a PS4. I thought the PS3 closed the other OS loophole part way through and that the PS4 never had it? I don't follow consoles very closely though.

You're right. That's what I was thinking of. But apparently they've been able to hack PS4s with older firmware, and then install Linux on it.