Looks like the crypto collapse has begun
- Thread starter BFG10K
- Start date
I figured it was pretty self evident. It has generated waste heat to an extreme degree, that is quite obvious. Electronic devices like GPUs and ASICs under heavy load generate heat. I don't think you need proof of that, right?
What else does Bitcoin generate? Useless math problem results no one cares about that are used only to track more useless math and foster more heat generation.
It has also generated a scarcity of the electronics used to do the mining, frustration among those who want to use those electronics for what they consider a better purpose, and those who care about the environment. Bitcoin has fostered a huge increase in cybercrime (like, seriously huge) and supported terrorism and human trafficking and illegal drugs and arm sales. Its 'gaming/gambling' style spend to win quality and cult followers also foster huge amounts of debt and loss for people who got into it not understanding that they were simply buying into the bottom floor of a pyramid scheme and only served to enrich those who were already in the game before them. It's pretty hard to point to any actual positive results that benefit any large number of people other than those who have directly profited from the initial booms it underwent in the late 201X's.
Uh, well, people don't generally leave their electric space heaters on 24/7 and buy as many as they can fit in a room and exhaust the heat out into the environment as effectively as they possibly can. They just use it to keep their environment livable as is necessary to survive in minimal comfort. Trying to make it seem like a $30 space heater is a waste compared to a $1500 mining rig is... disingenuous. Plus you can keep a space heater for decades and it will be as useful at the end of its life as it was at the beginning. Mining gear is quickly ewaste once it can no longer mine efficiently enough to be profitable or a new generation comes out that can do a better job. Again, it's a terrible wound on the environment we all need to live in, all in pursuit of imaginary money that is now being more widely recognized as a fool's pursuit.
I wasn't really talking about only the math there, I was addressing the way people see it in conjunction with the uphill battle that comes with the difficulty adjustment.
The fact that it costs a significant portion of the 'money' just to log a transaction involving the 'money' is a pain point which reinforces the 'hodl' mentality. Better to just hold on to the 'money' rather than have to give it away just to spend some, especially so when the coin value is tanking now. No one wants to be the weak hands guy who loses out just before the 'inevitable' rebound. Regardless of how the protocol adjusts difficulty, people are starting to realize that bitcoin is not a viable long term investment and has very significant costs just to use it, and a high volatility that makes it unreasonable for the average investor or someone wanting some kind of retirement oriented financial plan or similar. It's another nail in a coffin that is super heavy already. As people are understanding more of this stuff, it looks less and less like a money printing machine and more like a scam to take money from the gullible and feed it to the already rich or those who just got lucky and got in at the beginning.
Again, I was suggesting the public perception issues. It may well devolve into a hobbyist project again at the end, a curiosity that some people keep running and they may end up with millions of coins in their wallets that are altogether worthless because no one will trade them for anything of real value. I expect it will be that way eventually. It may take legal problems, taxation and regulation, or just a general downturn in public interest. NFTs have lost like 95% of their market movement in the last few months and probably a lot more in their actual sale value, for some of them, I expect the coin market will follow along over the long term.
If the slump continues as it is, I can see it happening in the next 4 years or so, especially if there are legal problems, regulation and taxes, etc. If there is a legal stranglehold on the big name coins to take more tax out of them and if exchanges continue to be robbed on a frequent basis, etc. I can't see anything else happening.
Sure, game consoles (gaming in general) has plenty of 'legit' uses. Hand-eye coordination, training, education, social benefits, and general entertainment. Games are an entertainment media and an artform (when at their best, anyway). They have tremendous value to justify their expense. Plus, I don't need rooms full of game consoles producing huge amounts of waste heat and taking up valuable resources at an insane rate to play a game and have fun. I can still use my old Sega Genesis and have a ton of fun with Sonic, Altered Beast, Mortal Kombat II, etc. That kind of hardware has serious long value, unlike mining rigs. I don't know how it is now that things are in a big downturn but a few years back, I saw miners that bought custom ASIC systems from China and before they got them off the boat to turn them on the first time, they were too obsolete to make money because new ones were out, difficulty went up and the power cost too much to make a profit. Gaming hardware certainly has cycles too, but not like that.
Again, this is about the people running it, not just the software.
And again, not about the software. The people running it. If you take away the glamor of the chance to make a ton of money overnight as they all thought they could a few years ago, it changes from 'get rich doing bitcoin' to 'make a measly income if you buy enough hardware to keep it going'. Of course, as I said, it's academic since that is not happening *now*, the coin is not at its limit now and people can keep minting, I was talking about 'what if someone discovered a way to reach that limit in 6 months or a year?' An overnight revolution in processing, etc. Aside from that fantasy though, the actual reality is that people have soured on crypto coins and the general market is tanking right now. If that doesn't stop, it doesn't matter how soon the bitcoin will be mined out, it will probably never happen because no one will care to do it anymore if the value of the coin is gone.
I suppose if you look at it as simply shutting down their rigs and waiting for the coin to do *something* despite no one actually doing anything with it, then yeah, it costs nothing. But if a lot of people do that, then there is no more transaction processing, no cult marketing, no new blood for the pyramid and the value of the coin keeps going down and down. So that would definitely 'cost' a lot of loss in perceived value. People who spent thousands, or even millions on hardware would be left with a worthless digital wallet full of digital coins they can't spend on anything and the world will be worse off for the wasted energy and hardware resources that could be much better put to use.
Well since you didn't mention any ways to profit, I suppose I can't really reply to that. Given the market situation right now it seems like the profit is going to be scarce for a while. I'm hoping that this is if not the end of crypto currency, a big crunch on it that will result in a *highly* refined market that excises all the waste as much as possible to narrow things down to maybe 2 or 3 coins at most and no more stupid NFTs etc. We have such huge problems as a species that this is the kind of distraction and waste that we really can't afford, especially since it mostly serves to make things worse for people in general.
A good videofrom Patrick Boyle on youtube about how algorithmic stable coins are pretty much doomed if things start to go sideways at all. He points out that they are basically fixed value convertible bonds otherwise known as Death Spiral Debt.
Ahhh, more sweet sweet schadenfreude for me this afternoon as the Canadian trading market Celsius halts withdrawls as part of a larger sell-off. I am a bit concerned that Quebec's provincial pension plan has invested so heavily in Celsius, as it looks like they're likely to lose it all if they don't withdraw soon.
Also, aren't we approaching the Bitcoin value where a lot of large, high-profile speculators bought into it? Like, a certain CEO of a car company and a rocket company with a legion of perplexingly loyal fans who rush to their defense at the slightest hint of offense to their intelligence?
Also, aren't we approaching the Bitcoin value where a lot of large, high-profile speculators bought into it? Like, a certain CEO of a car company and a rocket company with a legion of perplexingly loyal fans who rush to their defense at the slightest hint of offense to their intelligence?
SuinusLatinus
Ars Tribunus Militum
Good! The lower it gets (and stays there), the better!
But why would a pension plan invest in the most speculative, volatile thing possible? :facepalm:
It's this kind of stupid decisions that ends with governments intervening to save the investors, making everyone pay for the gambling of a few.
Idiosyncratic risk - something that is uncorrleted to market moves. That said, bitcoin is not proving particularly valuable on that front. Best idiosyncratic risk I know of is catastrophe bonds (earthquake).
SuinusLatinus
Ars Tribunus Militum
It's not uncorrelated to market moves as it's a speculative asset that is basically dependent on (retail) investor's appetite for risk built solely on the average citizen's total ignorance about anything even remotely related to economics.
It's a decadent luxuryinvestment gamble.
It's a decadent luxury
Crypto markets lead equity markets. I would expect the stock market to capitulate soon too. Fed is threatening to raise rates to 3.75% by end of 2023. This is at a time when Q1 2022 GDP is already negative and the Fed’s Q2 GDP forecast is trending negative, so we will probably be officially in a technical recession by the July fed meeting.
Whether they actually plan to go all the way to getting inflation down to 2% with this insane plan to bring rates back to 1990s levels will probably start another 2008 financial crisis. So most likely its bluster and the Fed will capitulate first. After all Powell claims the 2013 taper tantrum to be a major event in formulating his current worldview.
Whether they actually plan to go all the way to getting inflation down to 2% with this insane plan to bring rates back to 1990s levels will probably start another 2008 financial crisis. So most likely its bluster and the Fed will capitulate first. After all Powell claims the 2013 taper tantrum to be a major event in formulating his current worldview.
Indeed, I don't know what to call 'crypto' if we are going to speak generally but my verbs/nouns/adjectives would be 'speculative' 'gamble' 'greater fool' 'bubble'. It is very very very somewhat idiosyncratic risk much as roulette would be I guess in Vegas. But to me, its not an asset or asset class or 'investment'. Its pure speculation. Quite literally, to me, it seems like Vegas roulette.
As mentioned and speaking for myself, a pure(r) example of it would be earthquake catastrophe bonds. You get paid whether markets are up down flat. BUT, if an earthquake hits which is certain but uncertain on timing, well, then you are getting whacked on a completely random day.....but the markets are likely going to be utterly indifferent and move indpendent of that. The only reason I went with pure(r) rather than pure is that if a massive earthquake hit Tokyo or LA, well, markets would move lower (likely) as well but for more bog quakes its idiosyncratic. Typhoons and floods and fires (different catastrophe bond flavors) seem vastly more likely now so I don't think they are nearly as idiosyncratic as quake.
Vaporware company stock driven by speculation. An unsecured commodity that isn't actually anything other than pollution and parts shortages.
Modern crypto is basically pump-and-dump. They trade solely on FOMO, with everybody buying them believing they're going to the moon when where they're really going is to zero when the person issuing the coins/apes/whatever does a rug pull and sells everything they're holding.
The only argument that remains for these pumpers is that gold isn’t worth anything either
I mean… if your argument for something’s worth is it’s intrinsic worthlessness than maybe, just maybe you just admitted it’s nothing more than a game with a chance to win. At least gold has historical value however worthless you might think that is, it’s still more than crypto.
It will all go to close to zero once everyone needs to liquidate to cover other losses in this mathematically inevitable GFC redux.
These tiny rate hikes will do nothing but the Volcker approach will make servicing the interest on debt impossible & the Fed will immediately go back to easing. It’s that or a decade of high interest rates which will destroy the economy & democracy either way. This is a pickle. And pickles, in that scenario will be worth more than crypto.
I mean… if your argument for something’s worth is it’s intrinsic worthlessness than maybe, just maybe you just admitted it’s nothing more than a game with a chance to win. At least gold has historical value however worthless you might think that is, it’s still more than crypto.
It will all go to close to zero once everyone needs to liquidate to cover other losses in this mathematically inevitable GFC redux.
These tiny rate hikes will do nothing but the Volcker approach will make servicing the interest on debt impossible & the Fed will immediately go back to easing. It’s that or a decade of high interest rates which will destroy the economy & democracy either way. This is a pickle. And pickles, in that scenario will be worth more than crypto.
The only argument that remains for these pumpers is that gold isn’t worth anything either
I mean… if your argument for something’s worth is it’s intrinsic worthlessness than maybe, just maybe you just admitted it’s nothing more than a game with a chance to win. At least gold has historical value however worthless you might think that is, it’s still more than crypto.
It will all go to close to zero once everyone needs to liquidate to cover other losses in this mathematically inevitable GFC redux.
These tiny rate hikes will do nothing but the Volcker approach will make servicing the interest on debt impossible & the Fed will immediately go back to easing. It’s that or a decade of high interest rates which will destroy the economy & democracy either way. This is a pickle. And pickles, in that scenario will be worth more than crypto.
Like all physical resources, gold has a soft value: how much effort it takes to mine and refine it. If there's any use at all that consumes a resource, and gold has a bunch of them, then existing stocks will be depleted until the price rises enough to make producing more of it worthwhile.
In other words, if it costs, say, $300/oz to mine gold, and if gold is consumed and destroyed by the larger economy, then the price can't stay under $300 for an extended period, or miners will stop digging it up, forcing prices higher again.
With crypto, there's no soft bottom, because it's not physically real. The minimum cost to mint new crypto is zero dollars, so the long term minimum price is also zero dollars.
And besides the value of extraction, gold has the qualities that mean it's consumed by the market; it's an element with certain characteristics that can't be simply substituted by other materials in all applications. Chemically, industrial, and in scientific research there are many roles for gold that can't be met by grabbing some mud from the sidewalk and slipping that in instead. For the purposes of this comparison I'm omitting all the "because it's pretty" uses which actually make up a majority of gold consumption, just to make the point that gold has a unique usefulness.
Bitcoin has no such applications, by design.
Bitcoin has no such applications, by design.
For the record, I am not a buyer of cryto. I'd buy physical bars of gold to bury in my yard before going into crypto.
GPU pricing continues to fall: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/graph ... te-june-15
"Crypto has no effect on GPU prices!" - Internet Cryptobros
"Crypto has no effect on GPU prices!" - Internet Cryptobros
BTC is down nearly another 10% today dropping it bellow the 19k mark.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/18/investing/bitcoin-ether-cyrpto-drop/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/18/investing/bitcoin-ether-cyrpto-drop/index.html
https://www.techspot.com/news/94994-eth ... -last.html
Parasitic scum, a cancerous blight on this Earth.
Parasitic scum, a cancerous blight on this Earth.
They should just use their phony-money to buy an ARM license and a struggling semiconductor company to make a dodeca-Mali based miner factory so they won't lock up global supply of things used by everyone else.
On the other hand, that $15 billion should help support advancements in GPUs?
Some people would also say us gamers are parasitic scum and wasting cpu cycles and time
I don't know why, but your post made me think of thisSome people would also say us gamers are parasitic scum and wasting cpu cycles and time
The argument that gaming is also a waste of energy to jusitify mining is so stupid. As a gamer I happen to think this field too, should have a good look at itself and maybe not use inordinate amounts of energy.
I mean...sign me up for the literal warehouse full of active GPUs to support my gaming habit.
I mean, think of how many resources it takes for board games given the energy requirements to raise multiple humans from birth and keep them fed, housed, and healthy?
This makes my MMO habit in my 20s seem much more sane. It certainly kept me from over-procreation.
I don't know why, but your post made me think of thisSome people would also say us gamers are parasitic scum and wasting cpu cycles and time
Technically true.
We are into some semantics here but we are on the same page. I think there are certainly scammers involved. I think the underlying 'product' is to a certain (large) degree valueless even if it isn't a 'scam' in and of itself. Its not a store of value, its not a medium of exchange; heck, is it even an asset? I'd say BC is more likely to hit 5k than it is to hit 100k. Regardless, I don't give a shit what it does, I own land, a house, a few vehicles, bonds and stocks. To the extent I need to ask here how to even buy it tells me all I really need to know - I don't need to and I am relatively technically savvy and apparently a 'sophisticated investor' according to my banker. That means 99%+ of the rest of the planet doesn't need it either. ymmv.
Showing their trademark impeccable timing Intel has announced they are now shipping crypto mining ASICs:
https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/30/intel_ships_cryptomining_asic_at/
https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/30/intel_ships_cryptomining_asic_at/
Crypto isn't giving up.
https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1544 ... EysuvArlJw
Most of the people who can give millions to lobbying are presumably at the top of the pyramids but they want to keep the party going?
https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1544 ... EysuvArlJw
Most of the people who can give millions to lobbying are presumably at the top of the pyramids but they want to keep the party going?
It's not *just* a pyramid scheme, because there are now public companies based on crypto. It's *also* a pump-and-dump scheme based on the stocks of those companies. The people at the top of the pyramid have both crypto to sell and stock to sell, but the stock has trading restrictions.
Somehow bitcoin’s biggest critic Peter Schiff lost his bank to insolvency before bitcoin collapsed. The world is definitely getting weirder.
Yes, but it explains why the people at the top are trying to keep it limping along, despite the potential collapse of the pyramid. They want to keep the *other* side of the pyramid scheme, the stock price, going until they can sell.
I think it's obvious. Its value was propped up by the availability of nearly free money (near zero interest rates), and it has no utility so it's the first thing for people to cut back spending on when the money supply shrinks. Interestingly, there was a support shelf for Bitcoin at $30k and another at $20k. Is there another at $10k or will it lose all value in the next downturn?
Your bitcoin is as good as mine.
Your bitcoin is as good as mine.