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.

 

[ultimatebob]

ASRock sells mining rig based on salvaged PS5 APU boards.

That seems ballsy... if you order that now, it's probably not going to arrive until mid-April. Are you even going to be able to recoup your investment before Ethereum POW gets shut off in June?

 

[beginner99]

Ethereum is glacial. Been hearing about sharding since 2016/2017.

It's not glacial, that just how software development works when there is zero room for severe bugs. It's not like with new windows versions or even worse games were the end-user is the beta or in game nowadays rather alpha-tester and it takes years to be good enough to replace the old version or in case of games never really gets fixed.

And even Vitalik himself has admitted by now that ETH main chain will never scale or have low fees. But with rollups which are new tech, this won't even be needed as L2 can have the exact same security as L1 at a fraction of the costs and "instant" speeds. You can see that now already with loopring for example. Polygon is not an L2 but a side-chain and suffers from similar issues as this hacked chain. Only really a matter of time...

 

[Shmee]

Anyone here also curious about ETC lately, and what may come of that?

 

[DrMrLordX]

It's not glacial, that just how software development works when there is zero room for severe bugs.

Sorry, but I'm not buying it. There has been software running much of the financial world for decades, with bugs being capable of threatening billions of dollars (or more!), and yet somehow things get done. Admittedly many legacy systems have been in place in financial institutions for years, but when new features are needed, they find a way.

There are testnets for a reason.

Anyone here also curious about ETC lately, and what may come of that?

It faded into obscurity. Ethereum Classic has never attracted much investor attention, even during upswings.

 

[Shmee]

Hmm, interesting. Though, not what I have heard/seen recently. Right now it is up reasonably well, and it is like 28th rank in market cap. I guess time will tell how it continues to do, especially once ETH 2 happens.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Right now it is up reasonably well, and it is like 28th rank in market cap.

Eh. I guess some of the old guard still care about it, but in terms of the chain itself, it's not heavily utilized, which admittedly keeps txn fees rather low.

Ethereum / Ether (ETH) statistics - Price, Blocks Count, Difficulty, Hashrate, Value

Ethereum / Ether (ETH) Stats. Transactions count, value, Ethereums sent, difficulty, blocks count, network hashrate, market capitalization...

bitinfocharts.com

Ethereum Classic (ETC) statistics - Price, Blocks Count, Difficulty, Hashrate, Value

Ethereum Classic (ETC) Stats. Transactions count, value, Ethereum Classics sent, difficulty, blocks count, network hashrate, market capitalization...

bitinfocharts.com

There's really no comparison.

 

[beginner99]

Sorry, but I'm not buying it. There has been software running much of the financial world for decades, with bugs being capable of threatening billions of dollars (or more!), and yet somehow things get done. Admittedly many legacy systems have been in place in financial institutions for years, but when new features are needed, they find a way.

There are testnets for a reason.

These system exist and have been optimized since the 70ties. That is like 40 decades of head-start over crypto. And banks don't touch their core system. Mostly they are still in cobol. Everything else including the security!!! is on layers upon layers on top. The reason they don't touch it? Because it has proven to work and a rewrite risk bankruptcy of the bank.

On top of that which might be even more relevant is that crypto is implementing complete new technologies from research. This si true for PoS but also the different forms of rollups (eg zero knowledge proofs). This is leading edge research. And it is needed because of the decentralized nature of Ethereum. A centralized system will always be orders of magnitudes less complex (eg banks). And then crypto does not have parent organizations that make trillions. So the amount of developers you can throw at the problem is limited and it's probably also OK to not have too many at the cost of speed.

 

[DrMrLordX]

That is like 40 decades of head-start over crypto.

The banks didn't roll out their core systems yesterday. Honestly I don't know how long it took them to switch to computerized banking systems, but then I doubt they ran ads in every bank branch across the country touting future advancements and then experiencing delays over what was promised.

Now when it comes to centralized vs decentralized, yes, there's a greater degree of complexity involved. It would have been nice if the EF had been willing to say six years ago, "you know what, we don't know how long this will take and we don't know which hard fork will bring about sharding or Proof of Stake" instead of what actually happened.

 

[beginner99]

Now when it comes to centralized vs decentralized, yes, there's a greater degree of complexity involved. It would have been nice if the EF had been willing to say six years ago, "you know what, we don't know how long this will take and we don't know which hard fork will bring about sharding or Proof of Stake" instead of what actually happened.

True but hindsight 20/20. they greatly underestimated the complexity which is very common in IT projects anyway and even more so when you are more or less doing bleeding edge research at the same time. The issue here is decentralized and Proof of Stake. many chains which claim to have PoS (or similar) are not really decentralized.

 

[BFG10K]

Another day, another illegal crypto bust:

German authorities shut down world's largest darknet marketplace, seize $25 million in Bitcoin

Like other similar marketplaces, the Russian-language Hydra Market was a hotbed of drug trafficking and money laundering. The Frankfurt prosecutors' anti-cybercrime unit said it generated sales of...

www.techspot.com

According to Chainalysis, Hydra Market offered cash-out services designed to let users move large volumes of illicit cryptocurrency covertly, which allowed it to act as a money-laundering service for Russian entities.

 

[beginner99]

You know where even more money laundering happens? Right with cash. And with Art. Why do people pay several 100k for some shitty jpg? Art is the proven method to launder and move money for the rich and there is no way anyone can proof anything because value of art is simply subjective.

But never mind. It is like talking god with a priest. A waste of time as you will never convince someone that is entrenched in his ideolgogy on such a personal level that changing course becomes nearly impossible regardless the facts and truth available.

 

[DrMrLordX]

You know where even more money laundering happens?

HSBC

 

[androshud]

Are you calling cryptocurrencies a cancer parasite because you failed in this area, or because you are just dumb? I have always wondered why some people speak so badly about this area, although they are actually a minority, if there is even an opportunity to earn some money without any investment. Well, for example, you can get free crypto instantly in many different ways. All you need is to go to some resource and get some free amount. I personally do this, without spending a dime I get some money from it.

Insulting others is not a particularly auspicious way to start your membership here. Please dial it back. If you have something to say that is actually contributive, we're all ears.

Administrator allisolm

 

[DrMrLordX]

Are you calling cryptocurrencies a cancer parasite because you failed in this area, or because you are just dumb?

Most of the anti-blockchain sentiment stems from people being unable to buy dGPUs @ retail. It just sort of goes on from there.

 

[sdifox]

Most of the anti-blockchain sentiment stems from people being unable to buy dGPUs @ retail. It just sort of goes on from there.

And environmental impact.

 

[VirtualLarry]

And environmental impact.

One armchair-length study that I saw done on YouTube, showed that PC Gaming uses 50 times the amount of electricity than GPU miners.

And there's all this hubbub going on about the new PCI 5.0 12/16-pin power connector, and "gaming cards" taking 400-600W. (Some cards up to DOUBLE that.)

Whereas, most miners prefer highest power-efficiency.

The writing's on the wall, really. If GPU mining were to be banned purely on environmental-impact, then PC Gaming, MUST be banned likewise. Or some aximum power limit imposed on GPU power consumption, such as 110W per card.

So be careful what you wish for, PC Gamers, because a boomerang of un-intended effects CAN happen to you.

 

[ponyo]

And environmental impact.

and salty because they missed once in a generation transfer of massive wealth. It's one thing for average Joe who didn't know about bitcoin, ethereum, doge, etc to miss the boat. But people here had easy and numerous chances to get in from the ground floor and knew about cryptos and even had the computers and video cards to easily mine it in the early days for free! Some probably did mine it for free but sold it way too early and are still angry they missed the massive price appreciation.

 

[IronWing]

and salty because they missed once in a generation transfer of massive wealth. It's one thing for average Joe who didn't know about bitcoin, ethereum, doge, etc to miss the boat. But people here had easy and numerous chances to get in from the ground floor and knew about cryptos and even had the computers and video cards to easily mine it in the early days for free! Some probably did mine it for free but sold it way too early and are still angry they missed the massive price appreciation.

Nah, there are a whole heap of previous last fool schemes I didn’t get in on and I’m not angry about. Crypto is just one more last fool scheme I’m not angry about. For the same reason I don’t have a closet full of beany babies, I don’t have a wallet full of crypto.

 

[Viper GTS]

Nah, there are a whole heap of previous last fool schemes I didn’t get in on and I’m not angry about. Crypto is just one more last fool scheme I’m not angry about. For the same reason I don’t have a closet full of beany babies, I don’t have a wallet full of crypto.

What makes this particularly egregious is it's a massive transfer of wealth from those who don't have it to lose to those who already had plenty.

All the poor fools (who will likely be the last fools) sending all their free cash into the wealth lottery of crypto are just giving it to a bunch of tech bros and people who already had high incomes prior to this. There is some truth to the 'everyone on these forums makes $100k+' as we have a high concentration of people with decades in technology. All those GPUs and CPUs we had access to 'for free' were paid for via high technology salaries.

It's a transfer of wealth all right, in the wrong fucking direction.

Viper GTS

 

[VirtualLarry]

It's a transfer of wealth all right, in the wrong fucking direction.

Gov't GPU subsidies for crypto-mining for the people! Bernie get on it!

Bonus point if the gov't buys bitcoin-mining ASICs from Intel and distributes those. "Bitcoin for America!"

 

[sdifox]

One armchair-length study that I saw done on YouTube, showed that PC Gaming uses 50 times the amount of electricity than GPU miners.

And there's all this hubbub going on about the new PCI 5.0 12/16-pin power connector, and "gaming cards" taking 400-600W. (Some cards up to DOUBLE that.)

Whereas, most miners prefer highest power-efficiency.

The writing's on the wall, really. If GPU mining were to be banned purely on environmental-impact, then PC Gaming, MUST be banned likewise. Or some aximum power limit imposed on GPU power consumption, such as 110W per card.

So be careful what you wish for, PC Gamers, because a boomerang of un-intended effects CAN happen to you.

LoL how do gamers use 50 times more energy than miners? Very few people play games 24/7.

 

[Train]

LoL how do gamers use 50 times more energy than miners?

Add up all the PC and Console gamers. How many GPU-hours per day do you think that is?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Add up all the PC and Console gamers. How many GPU-hours per day do you think that is?

still not a one to one comparison.

 

[Train]

Another day, another illegal crypto bust:

LOL at "illegal crypto"

If crypto was squeaky clean and never used for something illegal, all the haters would be saying "It's not a real currency until you can buy drugs or launder money with it!"

 

[Train]

still not a one to one comparison.

So don't move the goalposts. His assertion was "PC Gaming uses 50 times the amount of electricity than GPU miners. "

I added in console gamers, which is probably quite a bit of power worldwide. Now add in mobile. Gaming absolutely dwarfs mining in power usage.