As an average joe, I don't see the purpose of Bitcoin. It feels like something that could have maybe made me a millionaire had I took part in mining from the very beginning, but now it's an...
As an average joe, I don't see the purpose of Bitcoin. It feels like something that could have maybe made me a millionaire had I took part in mining from the very beginning, but now it's an incredibly resource intensive and risky undertaking.
The volatility of its value and the transaction fees associated with BTC transactions ensure that you can't really use it to buy and sell stuff as a normal company. A lot of businesses like Steam actually dropped support for it. What Bitcoin is good for is criminal transactions and money laundering and that should be a major cause for concern.
In my eyes, Bitcoin's 'success' has done a lot more harm than good to the world. It's causing higher power consumption from the rise of crypto farms. It's resulted in gamers being priced out of the GPU market because crypto miners have been buying up high end graphics cards to mine Ethereum and similar cryptocurrencies that can't be farmed with ASICs. It's led to the rise of imitation cryptocurrencies and ICOs that have been flooding the market. It's also given ransomware creators a way to extort money out of their victims that leaves very few audit trails.
I would not be surprised if BTC gets criminalised in the next decade.
I'm a proponent of crypto in general, but your last point about ransomware extortionists has me second-guessing the whole thing. 60 minutes did a story on it last week, which seems to be freely...
I'm a proponent of crypto in general, but your last point about ransomware extortionists has me second-guessing the whole thing. 60 minutes did a story on it last week, which seems to be freely available here. Starts at 2:00. Though, surprisingly, they kind of just gloss over the crypto part.
I'll just address a couple points because I've been following bitcoin from early on. First is that bitcoins energy consumption is likely overhyped. The article brings up that the focus should be...
I'll just address a couple points because I've been following bitcoin from early on.
First is that bitcoins energy consumption is likely overhyped. The article brings up that the focus should be more on how countries are still not moving to renewable energy sources but that bitcoin's true carbon footprint isn't even known. It also mentions that it could grow 100 times its size and still only use 2% of global energy. Considering that bitcoin is a global currency. It can be argued as reasonable and with countries moving to sustainable energy it can have minimal carbon impact.
The argument that bitcoin is used for money laundering and criminal activity can be said for any currency and and financial institution. How about Danske banks $234B money laundering scandal for starters. My point is this isn't something that bitcoin is doing. It's a problem related to the industry.
The value volatility has been expected and well known. As bitcoin scales it was going to have a volatile price but as the supply becomes consistent and it's found its niche globally (however that ends up looking) its price will likely stabilize. And while you're references businesses who have stopped taking bitcoin the fact is that current trading volume of bitcoin at the current price of $7000 is at about the same level of trading volume as it was at $20,000 (roughly $100B 24 hr volume). The fees you talk about are actually incredibly low most of the time. Certainly lower than wire transfers. During high volume fees can go over $10 per transaction or more. That is a legitimate criticism which the lightning network is attempting to address. Bitcoin cash followers believe a larger transaction block is the answer. But the point is that this can be solved.
Finally, the entire point of bitcoin is that it's an immutable ledger and it doesn't have the ability to be manipulated by an outside source. Sans quantum computing bitcoin's blockchain can't be hacked or changed. It's a global currency in a world still operating on national currency that works through an industry that has been proven unreliable (ie. 2008 financial crisis).
It's not perfect. But it's far from "purposeless." And that's why it's still gaining traction even after everything it's been through.
As an average joe, I don't see the purpose of Bitcoin. It feels like something that could have maybe made me a millionaire had I took part in mining from the very beginning, but now it's an incredibly resource intensive and risky undertaking.
The volatility of its value and the transaction fees associated with BTC transactions ensure that you can't really use it to buy and sell stuff as a normal company. A lot of businesses like Steam actually dropped support for it. What Bitcoin is good for is criminal transactions and money laundering and that should be a major cause for concern.
In my eyes, Bitcoin's 'success' has done a lot more harm than good to the world. It's causing higher power consumption from the rise of crypto farms. It's resulted in gamers being priced out of the GPU market because crypto miners have been buying up high end graphics cards to mine Ethereum and similar cryptocurrencies that can't be farmed with ASICs. It's led to the rise of imitation cryptocurrencies and ICOs that have been flooding the market. It's also given ransomware creators a way to extort money out of their victims that leaves very few audit trails.
I would not be surprised if BTC gets criminalised in the next decade.
I'm a proponent of crypto in general, but your last point about ransomware extortionists has me second-guessing the whole thing. 60 minutes did a story on it last week, which seems to be freely available here. Starts at 2:00. Though, surprisingly, they kind of just gloss over the crypto part.
I'll just address a couple points because I've been following bitcoin from early on.
First is that bitcoins energy consumption is likely overhyped. The article brings up that the focus should be more on how countries are still not moving to renewable energy sources but that bitcoin's true carbon footprint isn't even known. It also mentions that it could grow 100 times its size and still only use 2% of global energy. Considering that bitcoin is a global currency. It can be argued as reasonable and with countries moving to sustainable energy it can have minimal carbon impact.
The argument that bitcoin is used for money laundering and criminal activity can be said for any currency and and financial institution. How about Danske banks $234B money laundering scandal for starters. My point is this isn't something that bitcoin is doing. It's a problem related to the industry.
The value volatility has been expected and well known. As bitcoin scales it was going to have a volatile price but as the supply becomes consistent and it's found its niche globally (however that ends up looking) its price will likely stabilize. And while you're references businesses who have stopped taking bitcoin the fact is that current trading volume of bitcoin at the current price of $7000 is at about the same level of trading volume as it was at $20,000 (roughly $100B 24 hr volume). The fees you talk about are actually incredibly low most of the time. Certainly lower than wire transfers. During high volume fees can go over $10 per transaction or more. That is a legitimate criticism which the lightning network is attempting to address. Bitcoin cash followers believe a larger transaction block is the answer. But the point is that this can be solved.
Finally, the entire point of bitcoin is that it's an immutable ledger and it doesn't have the ability to be manipulated by an outside source. Sans quantum computing bitcoin's blockchain can't be hacked or changed. It's a global currency in a world still operating on national currency that works through an industry that has been proven unreliable (ie. 2008 financial crisis).
It's not perfect. But it's far from "purposeless." And that's why it's still gaining traction even after everything it's been through.
Oh, is it pump and dump time again already?
Yes, but much higher lows/highs on every cycle.
$1 to $30
$2 to $270
$70 to $1150
$180 to $19891 (ATH)
Now $3600 to $7200 currently