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Bitcoin

Bitcoin Slips Under the $40,000 Mark (techcrunch.com) 125

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
The value of bitcoin fell under the $40,000 mark in early morning trading today. From a report: The popular cryptocurrency sold off sharply this morning, while rival tokens like ether also lost value. Currently worth $39,831 per coin, bitcoin is off 4.3% and ether 5.1%, according to Coinbase data. While it is always risky to cover price changes in the crypto world, the fall in the value of bitcoin has crossed the threshold from notable to material. Yahoo Finance indicates that bitcoin's recent all-time high saw the cryptocurrency trade as high as $68,789.62 per coin. Today's price puts bitcoin's current drawdown at just over 42%. That's twice the swing required for bitcoin to have entered a technical bear market, and four times what it would need to meet the requirements of a correction.
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Bitcoin Slips Under the $40,000 Mark More

Bitcoin Slips Under the $40,000 Mark

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  • Slashdot poll... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ecuador ( 740021 ) on Monday January 10, 2022 @01:53PM (#62161127) Homepage

    Jesus, I just realised they simply changed the year in the slashdot poll and it is now: "Will Bitcoin break $100k before the end of 2022?".
    That's a new low, even for slashdot.
    And the answer is still no.

    • The only thing keeping me from investing in Bitcoin are those that are trying to peddle it so hard.

      • Re:Slashdot poll... (Score:4, Funny)

        by EvilSS ( 557649 ) on Monday January 10, 2022 @02:30PM (#62161277)
        I had a work colleague that was pushing it hard. Was really annoying. Of course this was like 8 years ago. Wish I had listened to the twerp.

        • Hindsight is always 20:20.

          At the end of the day it's just gambling. You win some, you lose some. Apple used to be worth less than $1 and everybody thought they'd be bust with six months, IBM used to be worth over $200 and everybody thought they were as unstoppable as a freight train.

          Would you go out and play roulette just because one of your buddies won some money one night?

          • Re:Slashdot poll... (Score:4, Funny)

            by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Monday January 10, 2022 @06:32PM (#62162225)

            Would you go out and play roulette just because one of your buddies won some money one night?

            I wouldn't do that if your friend is Russian.

          • You have to go a long way back to find AAPL for less than $1/share. Even when Apple was "beleaguered" they were still trading at $14/share or so. You can't see it on graphs easily found on the internet because they've retroactively applied splits to the price history, but my dad bought a few hundred shares at $14/share in that time period, which was about 2 months before the original iMac was announced.

            It's since split several times and run up almost 50x even with the split dilution.

            Yes, luck has just as

            • 1997ish it wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. Then the iMac G3 came out and it was the fashionable thing to have and the stock has been climbing since.

              • So $13 isn't worth the paper that the share is printed on? [cnn.com]

                You know that any chart you find today has the historical prices adjusted for each of the following splits, right?
                2:1 - June 21, 2000
                2:1 - February 28, 2005
                7:1 - June 9, 2014
                4:1 - August 28, 2020

                So a share bought in 1997 would be 112 shares at $173 today. But in order to not have a chart that is meaningless, they dilute historical prices by the split amounts, so the $0.12/share that you see today from July 1997 is actually 0.12 * 112 = ~$13/share.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by EvilSS ( 557649 )

            Hindsight is always 20:20.

            At the end of the day it's just gambling. You win some, you lose some. Apple used to be worth less than $1 and everybody thought they'd be bust with six months, IBM used to be worth over $200 and everybody thought they were as unstoppable as a freight train.

            Yea but it would have been such a cheap gamble... Ah well my luck I'd have lost the wallet or the recovery phrases to it and be sitting here on a fortune I'd never be able to get to.

            Would you go out and play roulette just because one of your buddies won some money one night?

            Funny thing about roulette, it's all I play when I'm in Vegas, and I've never lost money on it.

      • Yup, that should be a big warning sign. A lot of people don't see this - they think that if someone is excited in something then it must be good, and that the more people knocking on their door trying to convert them to their religion that the more true that religion must be. To me, the more people trying to sell me something the more dubious I become. You know who's really good at having a good sales pitch? A con man.

        A gigantic warning sign is if the person trying to convert you lists only the positives

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vadim_t ( 324782 )

        Bitcoin isn't investing, it's a global game of hot potato.

        Investing implies you're putting money into something that will produce value later. A worker may be investing by buying tools, expecting that the improved tools will help make a better product, or make it faster. Or one might invest money into a game development company, expecting that it'll help the company make games that are successful.

        BTC though, it has no inherent worth to it. Bitcoin is not even a "coin" anymore. Its usefulness as money has be

        • There is no "investing" with BTC. It is really gambling. There are so many parties which can easily manipulate the crypto market, which if attempted with stocks, there would be prison sentences handed out. The BTC market just has so much instability to it. One day, someone announces that it is no-sell November, and the currency booms. Another day, an exchange gets looted, and BTC hits the skids.

          If one likes throwing all their chips on "00" on the roulette table, they may win something. However, BTC ha

        • Bitcoin isn't investing, it's a global game of hot potato.

          ...

          Or musical chairs?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by vadim_t ( 324782 )

            In musical chairs, the point is to remain is to remain seated. In hot potato, the point is not to be holding the potato when the game stops. That's the metaphor, in cryptocurrency you want to sell it to somebody else, and the last person who fails to sell it to somebody else loses and is left holding a now worthless asset.

      • And, I would hope, the massive volatility.

        A currency that devalues more than 25% in a month isn't nearly as useful as some claim it to be. If I'm a business, I don't really want to accept payment that turns into a 25% discount retroactively after the sale.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by vivian ( 156520 )

        I wonder if sheep marvel a the rapid growth of their wool, and are they astonished when they get shorn?

    • If you look at the cycle over the long term and the ridiculous amount of money currently in this market, there's probably one last rally, before a potential total collapse.

      But hell, that depends on so many factors. Cryptocurrency is volatile in and of itself, when you throw in other economic factors, it's virtually unfathomable which direction it will go - you may as well read tea leaves to get a prediction.

      So, why do I say it will break $100k this year?

      Well, I know this old gypsy lady, who has the best loo

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ecuador ( 740021 )

        I mean, OK, it is quite easy to manipulate it as very few entities hold most of the bitcoin so they could easily make it have a big spike over $100k, but it is not in their interest to make it appear even more volatile and scare away more suck^H^H^H^Hinvestors, whose money they can funnel out slowly but surely... So I'd say it is just "unlikely" in general to break $100k, while it is VERY unlikely to "hold" over $100k for an extended period.

      • There's virtually no real money in the crypto market though. It's almost all a derivative of Tether printing counterfeit USD.

        • Yep. The value would be $0.01 within a day if everybody tried to sell at the same time.

          The whole thing depends on that not happening.

      • there's probably one last rally, before a potential total collapse.

        But hell, that depends on so many factors.

        No, it only depends on one factor: How many gullible people are still left out there.

        (Answer: "Infinite"?)

        • Ok here is the problem with your math: Infinite over (turn-A)time, not infinite in the moment

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by vivian ( 156520 )

          The stupidity of people may or may not be infinite (even Einstein wasn't sure) but number of people in the world is finite, as is the amount of tangible capital they have access to, so the amount of cash that can be bilked out of them is most definitely not infinite. Bitcoin and the rest must surely have already vacuumed up most of the dumb capital by now?

      • Are NFTs correlated to Bitcoin or a competing product? A lot of get-rich-quick types are pushing all their money into buying childish jpegs today it seems... the possibility to double your money on Bitcoin is fairly remote, based on the charts but this sudden bearish sentiment is common to all the coins and not just BTC

  • Uhhh... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Puls4r ( 724907 ) on Monday January 10, 2022 @01:53PM (#62161129)
    Why exactly are we trying to apply old rules of an old paradigm that represents values based on concrete asset to bitcoin?


    Bitcoin is an illusory imaginary coin whose only purpose seems to be wasting large amounts of electricity and compute power. Oh yeah - and allowing illegal transactions. It has no value, nothing backs it, and yet we try to assign rational reasons to it's fluctuations. Idiotic.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by TheMiddleRoad ( 1153113 )

      Fuck you and your truth telling, you son of a bitch!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dimko ( 1166489 )
      "whose only purpose seems to be wasting large amounts of electricity and compute power." - its not, but I see WHY you say that. "Oh yeah - and allowing illegal transactions.", like dollars for example. Or any currency for that matter. " It has no value" - yes it does, currently about 49k$. "we try to assign rational reasons to it's fluctuations." - no we don't. People who value it assign reasons for its fluctuations. I wholeheartedly want crypto currency to be used as intended, as currency. I hate idea of

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Bumbul ( 7920730 )

        I wholeheartedly want crypto currency to be used as intended, as currency. I hate idea of inflation, which does not exist in crypto world.

        Inflation does not exist? This article is all about inflation - prices of goods, as measured in Bitcoins, have just gone up about 72% since the last Bitcoin high.

        Should the price of Bitcoin keep going up forever, that would be even worse - that would be deflation. No one wants to spend anything (as keeping the currency in the pocket increases its value) which is a disaster for the economy.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by dimko ( 1166489 )
          Increase or decrease in value is unavoidable for any currency. Inflation due to money printing on the other hand is not and is more or less unique to fiat currencies, where value is based on 'goverment word'. And when government prints more money - its "word" is devalued. "No one wants to spend anything (as keeping the currency in the pocket increases its value) which is a disaster for the economy." - thats why NO ONE(sane) suggests bitcoin to replace all sorts of alternative payments. But currency that is

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Bumbul ( 7920730 )

            But currency that is not used for trade devalues itself over time, and as such can not go up forever, hence bitcoin is inherently protected against infinite growth. Think of it: so you have 100% bitcoin, but you dont use it to buy or sell. People will simply go for something else. Dodge coin, gold, beer bottle caps.

            You said it yourself - but Bitcoing is not "protected" - Bitcoin is doomed if it is not used for trade. Current valuation of Bitcoin is largely (or completely) based on speculation of the price going up. When the speculation moves to some other asset, the value of Bitcoin will plummet.

            Of course the early adopters (those getting out early) will get rich, and late adopters will lose their money, but in the end it's a zero sum game, as bitcoin doesn't have any inherent value.

            Actually, it probably is a n

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by dimko ( 1166489 )
              "You said it yourself - but Bitcoing is not "protected" - Bitcoin is doomed if it is not used for trade." - so is true for literally every tool/process out there. "Current valuation of Bitcoin is largely (or completely) based on speculation of the price going up." - unfortunately. Many technologies that disrupt the world bring inconsistency. Atomic energy for example. "When the speculation moves to some other asset, the value of Bitcoin will plummet." - which i personally have no problem with. I don't care

      • I hate idea of inflation, which does not exist in crypto world.

        You might want to study again how currencies work. Hint: being deflationary by design, Bitcoin is useless for everyday transactions.

      • I hate idea of inflation

        You hate the idea of an economic construct completely necessary in society to keep an economy functioning?

        If you're about to ask why I say then, I suggest you take even a basic economics lesson. I'm sure you can find one on the Kahn academy, or even a Youtube video if that's your thing.

        Or go old school. Libraries still have textbooks. You can learn a lot there.

    • To be fair, so is the stock market to a large extent. Company "value" used to be largely based on the factories and buildings they owned, but now it's more about IP and branding, which is quite fungible in market value.

      I hate to say it, but it's not just politics that's based on spin and bullshit, we have an eCONomy now where robots or commie slaves do the real work, and the rest of us humans manage bullshit for a living. Bitcoin is just another symptom of this trend.

    • "Why exactly are we trying to apply old rules of an old paradigm that represents values based on concrete asset to bitcoin?"

      Because that's what we have, and you can't rebuild all assumptions every time somebody varies a theme. You apply old paradigms, and drop them as they prove to be sufficiently useless.

    • I don't care about crypto one way or the other, but the problem is about using green energy ( you can argue there is no such thing as green energy, but that's another discussion ). Using green energy would just be consumption, and consumption makes for strong economies. As far as compute power, it's going to increase probably forever and who cares? why is that bad?

  • Looking forward to seeing it below $1 again (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Flentil ( 765056 ) on Monday January 10, 2022 @01:54PM (#62161135)

    I still wouldn't buy it. Cryptocurrency is a cancer on our planet. I'm not even an environmentalist. I just hate seeing electricity being wasted on nothing, and on such a grand scale! I would feel differently if it was actually doing something with all that processing power, like Seti@home or something better, but instead it's just a giant waste of electricity.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )
      This. x1000. I could not have worded it any clearer.

      • I still wouldn't buy it. Cryptocurrency is a cancer on our planet. I'm not even an environmentalist. I just hate seeing electricity being wasted on nothing, and on such a grand scale! I would feel differently if it was actually doing something with all that processing power, like Seti@home or something better, but instead it's just a giant waste of electricity.

        The Slashdot Crypto Experts are at it again. *sigh*

        Crypto is not just Bitcoin. Cardano for example, is a top 10 proof-of-stake crypto that does not "waste electricity". But you probably don't even know what proof-of-work vs. proof-of-stake even mean.
        And as far as "wasted on nothing", take a gander on the Cardano ecosystem. Hit some links. Dare to learn something new.
        https://www.cardanocube.io/car... [cardanocube.io]

    • Perhaps you would prefer the chia cryptocurrency as it uses disk space instead of asics or gpus?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rei ( 128717 )

        Great, manufacturing SSDs to trash them, while still burning power (just not as much), and still accomplishing no useful work, is so much better :P

        I once thought that maybe I could find a cryptocurrency I could support in Filecoin, in that the whole point of it is that the proof of storage is doing useful storage work. The notion that you just use your spare disk space for something useful and get paid for it sounded appealing. But then when I started digging into it, even though it's not a "proof of work

        • Chia does not trash SSDs. It's a myth

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Targon ( 17348 )
            That isn't correct. The problem with MOST SSDs is that you can only write to any given location a certain number of times before that location is now dead. Once that happens, the drive really becomes problematic. TRIM doing a randomization of where to write helps extend the life of a SSD(so one spot isn't written to over and over again), but it isn't the final solution. The SSD technology needs to eliminate the limit on how many times you can write to any given location before it isn't a problem.

    • Cryptocurrency is a cancer on our planet. I'm not even an environmentalist. I just hate seeing electricity being wasted on nothing, and on such a grand scale!

      "Cryptocurrency" as a category is not an energy drain. Ex:

      A big advantage of Cardano is that it's an eco-friendly crypto. For an easy comparison, here's how much energy Cardano, Bitcoin, and Ethereum are estimated to use per year:

      Cardano: Six gigawatt hours
      Bitcoin: 130 terawatt hours
      Ethereum: 50 terawatt hours
      Keep in mind that one terawatt is equal to

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cfalcon ( 779563 )

        > given how many 4/5 "Insightful" posts I see here that would get you laughed off of Twitter/Gab/Reddit

        I don't keep up with the microblogs, but I can assure you that 100% uninformed bullshit gets upvoted on reddit all the time, and the corrections, which there are sometimes dozens, are all downvoted and autohidden. Sure, maybe a subreddit that is informed on a video game or something will get it right, but everything else is a popular circlejerk that actively destroys and hides correct answers.

      • "Cryptocurrency" as a category is not an energy drain. Ex:

        A big advantage of Cardano is that it's an eco-friendly crypto. For an easy comparison, here's how much energy Cardano, Bitcoin, and Ethereum are estimated to use per year:

        Cardano: Six gigawatt hours
        Bitcoin: 130 terawatt hours
        Ethereum: 50 terawatt hours

        Yeah. Add up all of these, and lots more, and that is the energy usage of "crypto" as a category.

        Most people learn how to add numbers before 10 years of age. How old are you ?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cfalcon ( 779563 )

      So you like cryptocurrency that isn't about electricity use? That's your only complaint, right? You are in favor of, say, Tezos, but not Bitcoin. And you don't like Ethereum, but you will should it ever become proof of stake. And you probably also like proof of commitment and proof of capacity, as those don't spend energy either.

    • I've maintained that crypto mining is the most efficient way to use computing hardware to turn electricity into heat while minimizing the unfortunate byproduct of useful computation. I'm not seeing anything that changes my mind on that, especially when it devalues 25% inside of a month across the board.

  • Explains all the celebrity commercials (Score:3)

    by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Monday January 10, 2022 @02:01PM (#62161167)
    Seeing a rash of celebrities like Matt Daemon and others start pushing app commercials and crypto exchanges. They are likely taking a beating and want all the schmucks to invest, temporarily recovering prices, so they can cash back out without losing their ass in the process. So what if everyday little people get hurt, at least they get their money back. At least thats my take on whats going through their heads.

    • they need to go to an PMITA prison

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by e3m4n ( 947977 )
        And now the sentence for these heinous crimes committed against Initech. I hereby sentence you, Michael Bolton and Samir Na...Ananajibad...to a term of no less than four years in federal-pound-me-in-the-ass-prison. Peter Gibbons, you've lead a trite and meaningless life. And you're a very bad person.

      • Punch Me In The Arm prison sounds annoying, but not much worse than gym at junior high school.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      Probably the most insightful comment I have read on this subject in a long time.

    • There is this actor guy who starred in the Jason Bourne movies.

      Then there is Matt Daemon, the dude who invented background processes on Unix systems?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by e3m4n ( 947977 )
        if your a unix guy its always second nature to spell it Daemon without even thinking... my fingers just bang it out. I would have called him Good Will Hunting before Jason Bourne though :-) .. looks kinda like the 'king of the world' dude now anyway.

  • This makes sense (Score:4, Informative)

    by ip_freely_2000 ( 577249 ) on Monday January 10, 2022 @02:01PM (#62161169)
    The run up in price was based on nothing, so is the decline in price. I expect this will also happen to NFTs in short order.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rei ( 128717 )

      While this is largely true, there's a more immediate catalyst, which is the rising treasury yield curve. I went into it here [slashdot.org].

      People tend to think, whenever they see an asset sharply change in value, that the change must be due to factors specific to that asset. But macro factors, even ones that may seem tangential, can strongly skew inflows into and outflows from the asset.

    • The run up in price was based on nothing, so is the decline in price. I expect this will also happen to NFTs in short order.

      I used to think cryptocurrency would spectacularly crash at some point, I no longer think that's true since despite all the issues there's too many powerful wealthy people with a vested interest in its success, not to mention the lottery ticket aspect that will kick in and slow any decline.

      But more than anything the fact that the value of cryptocurrency is based on nothing means that there's no foundation that can give out. It's not like Bitcoin can publish a terrible Q4 earnings report or have a factory bu

  • Crypto is Web 1.0 (Score:3)

    by nealric ( 3647765 ) on Monday January 10, 2022 @02:07PM (#62161193)

    I feel like the whole crypto space is sort of where the internet was back in the late 1990s. Everyone was getting crazy valuations based off nothing but hopes and dreams that one day they could actually turn those dreams into a tangible enterprise. That didn't mean the web wouldn't be transformative (of course it was), but most of those early players never really figured out how to become useful. I think most cryptocurrencies and NFTs will go that way.

    Bitcoin itself has an enormous first mover advantage, so I doubt it's ever going to zero (or anything approaching it). But it's not something I'm willing to put my hard earned money into. Some of the newer crypto projects are more compelling, but it's still too early to tell which ones will have staying power, and it's still too early to tell how crypto will fit into the financial (and non-financial) landscape.

  • Not trying to troll here. I honestly don't understand the point of Cryptocurrency beyond it being rather neat from a technological perspective. It seems that basically one is buying a number. If it were supposed to be the foundation of a new class of online transactions, and was essentially a proxy for "real money," I think I would understand. However, I only see it being talked about in terms of investments, and that seems very odd to me.

    • I think it does have a valuable use case for persons who live in places without a stable currency, are subject to oppressive regimes that might try to prevent their global mobility, and (for one reason or another) don't have access to the global financial markets. I'd probably hold crypto if I lived in Iran, Venezuela, or Russia right now.

      • How so? Bitcoin is first off, highly unstable. Just because it's going up doesn't mean it's stable. Going up in value rapidly is just as much a sign of instability as it going down rapidly. Stable means that the value is relatively constant. Second, bitcoin is highly difficult to use as an actual currency. You can't buy a loaf of bread with it, and that's going to be your primary interest if you live in a failing state with an unstable currency. How do you pay your rent with bitcoin in Venezuela or I

        • Going up in value rapidly is just as much a sign of...

          Going up in value rapidly could also mean your local currency is going down in value rapidly. Not everyone lives in a first world country with a relatively stable currency.

        • Compared to the Venezuelan Bolivar (multiple years in a row of 1000%+ inflation), Bitcoin is extremely stable. If bitcoin has fallen by 40% this year, that's nothing compared to a local currency that has fallen by several hundred percent in the same period. I'm guessing most landlords in Caracas would much rather receive Bitcoin than your Bolivares. And it's not like you can't exchange bitcoin for local currency if you need to.

          But the main reason is not to buy a loaf of bread so much as flee the country and

          • If you're stuck and can't leave, which is most people, not rich ones who have leftover money that they can invest in cryptocurrencies, then when the national currency crumbles you're sort of left using the barter system. If your cash is in an exchange, or an online bank, or paypal, etc, you also likely have no access to that in a corrupt or failing state, and wouldn't have anything similar to it as a poor person who can't escape.

            Cryptocurrency may be one possibly solution here, but it's a bad solution. If

            • Good analysis, I just have a small nitpick.

              Other solutions might be to trade underground using paper bills of some of the many many stable currencies out there; the euro, the dollar, whatever your neighboring country is, etc.

              One more problem with using foreign currency is, that it is difficult to be sure of its authenticity. In the US, if there is any scent of a fake dollar printing press, distributor, someone trading in it : multiple law enforcement agencies will get behind it quickly, and apply lots of energy to stop it. But in Venezuela, not so much. Likelihood of getting stuck with fake US dollars in higher outside the US.

              Some people have resources, experience to deal with it, e.g.

          • Sorry I know I am being pedantic, but a currency can't fall more than 100%, unless you are paying people to take it of your hands.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        The question though is it really of much help to people in some of these situations?

        There is always the risk of said oppressive regimes spotting their activity one way or anything and executing them for tax-evasion or some similar crime. Its not as if oppressive regimes have ever needed help finding excuses to criminalize or otherwise take punitive actions against persons and activities they don't like. Lots of Tor users get unmasked etc, the operational security angle here makes the exchange medium the lea

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tizan ( 925212 )

      It is just another currency...like gold or stone...or whatever
      For e.g
      https://www.npr.org/sections/m... [npr.org]

      Sadly because of technobabble people are trading these "modern stones" with other currencies like $ or gold ...and it is not even used to do trade much...that is the purpose of currency...
      Right now it is just a form of gambling using dollars or euros.

    • Well the first arguments for cyrpto were:
      - It's anonymous
      - It's fast
      - No transaction costs
      - Governments can't regulate it.

      Today none of these things are true, now they keep saying whatever they can to keep the value up, like it's a hedge for inflation (this week especially show's that it isn't.), it's better than cash, cash is going to zero, better than gold, ect.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday January 10, 2022 @02:54PM (#62161439)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cfalcon ( 779563 )

        I mean, you can make the case that if the government had not unethically and immorally shut down E*Gold, that the need for distributed censorship-proof blockchains would not have been as obvious.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Kaenneth ( 82978 )

        Bringing up Craig Wright proves your ignorance about the creation of Bitcoin.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Darinbob ( 1142669 )

      It's like using dollars to buy gold, then later you want to buy something and so you convert that gold into dollars and make your purchase. Bitcoin is a bit like that except that it's amazingly volatile. The fans like the volatility because they see it as going up fast (wow, people are buying my pet rocks, I need to quickly buy 100 more pet rock factories!). Also gold is inconvenient, it's heavy, you can't easily do transactions with it, it's impractical at a large scale with a growing economy. Bitcoin i

    • However, I only see it being talked about in terms of investments, and that seems very odd to me.

      That's because you're probably sticking to tech sources that only scratch the surface. If you deep dive into the subject, you'll find that a ton of crypto out there has genuine application utility as a sort of asset to be spent on functionality.

      A few examples:

      * StorJ is the native currency of an experimental, but really cool, Amazon S3 competitor.
      * Basic Attention Token is the crypto that powers the entire rewar

    • There are 3 different sorts of stories that are told beyond bitcoin always goes up:
      1. A method for people with terrible currencies (Think the Lira today) to escape with their currency in a way that the authorities cannot easily detect. As such the investment is holding onto those coins until a refugee needs them.
      2. Pristine collateral. A house is collateral for a mortgage. You don't pay, they take the house. First let's say bank A sells the rights to bank B while bank A continues to run the loan. Then i

    • effectively, the argument is that cryptocurrency has the same value as carbon lattices (diamonds).

      e.g. None.

  • The GPU market is insane right now, and it's because of crypto miners. Is it selfish to hope that the whole crypto world implodes? Yeah, I guess it is. I do appreciate at least the idea of crypto and theoretical freedom from government surveillance and interference, even if I don't trust it enough to get personally involved.

    But man. GPU's right now...

    • Considering that most of those GPU's are wasting more power than most nations to mine crypto, yeah a whole lot of wasted resources only to move money around. I would be happy for an implosion.

  • So many folks seem to forget all the other stores of value and the worse hell they have put our environment through, not to mention the poor folk who have to dig them up or harvest them, sometimes at gunpoint. The same people in Africa who were at a poverty level to be forced to mine diamonds can now obtain their own asset without a corrupt bank or agency involved. And how much electricity does our current banking system use? Quite a bit more.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tekram ( 8023518 )
      Cryptos energy usage is directed towards machines, fiat currency energy usage is directed mostly towards people. There are more than 200 million bank transactions a day while there are less than 0.25 million bitcoin transcations a day. 99% of the world's population don't require cryptos at all, it is the 1% few that want to profit from it.

    • When you 'mine' btc most of the computation is thrown away, this would be like mining ten diamonds and then smashing all but one and then giving that diamond to someone who can solve a math problem the fastest.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by GlennC ( 96879 )

      If one cannot trade an asset without using a computer or electricity, is it really an asset?

      That African miner who is able to smuggle out a diamond or two can exchange it for food, livestock, or anything else. What can they get for a long sequence of bits on a computer somewhere?

  • BS (Score:1, Interesting)

    by b1ffster ( 628989 )
    I decided to dip my toes into Bitcoin.
    I have a 24C/48T CPU with dual GTX1050Ti's running NiceHash and guess what...
    I'm probably going to make a loss when electricity bill time comes around.
    Particularly as when I started BTX was worth £8000 more than it is now.
    What a lot of BS

  • All of this is because:

    1. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value, other than for piracy and theft.

    2. The primary reason it exists is to fuel Russian and North Korean piracy and theft.

    3. It depends substantially on Kazakhstan to mine it.

    Oh, and also, it's worthless.

  • until it become unprofitable to mine any more bitcoin ? OK: I do realise that this depends on what you pay for your electricity.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      No 'normal' person can mine bitcoin anymore. They're all done by very specialized ASICs.

      The time you could mine some bitcoins in your spare time with your GPU is long long gone.

      Some other crypto currencies might still work, but most will be a net negative unless you invest in specialized gear.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sebby ( 238625 )

      until it become unprofitable to mine any more bitcoin ?

      At this point, actual mining can only be profitable if it goes/stays *up* - it going further down is only beneficial for speculating (buying low to sell high).

  • Does anyone remember the steps?
    Step 1. Pump.
    Step 2. ???

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