China reportedly said it will act "resolutely" to prevent what it considers social risks stemming from bitcoin activities.
        • AgreeableLandscapeOP
          131·
          3 years ago

          Bitcoin mining is a massive energy sink, especially since it uses the proof of work system, meaning that every transaction necessitates a ton of computation spent just calculating essentially pointless hashes (proof of work also allows mining). And because it’s so easy to speculate with, its value is massively unstable, so very little actual purchases are being made with it compared to speculators, and no one in their right minds would put their actual savings in it. For these reasons, it’s kind of useless as a currency and because of mining, it has an enormous carbon footprint which is fuelling what is essentially the world’s largest casino. IMO, it’s time for Bitcoin and similar proof of work cryptocurrencies to die and be replaced by cryptcorrencies that are designed not to take massive amounts of computing power to work, and isn’t mineable.

            • uthredii
              2·
              3 years ago

              Bitcoin is given to miners at a constant rate. This means that the incentive to mine and consume energy is directly related to the price of bitcoin.

            • AgreeableLandscapeOP
              4·
              3 years ago

              Actually, proof of stake (non-mineable, doesn’t require large amounts of computation) is still a blockchain currency. Like how Ethereum is planning to launch their proof of stake system.

  • Jeffrey
    6·
    3 years ago

    It’s about time all this wild speculation crashes to a halt. The bubble bursting will devastate a lot of people who put their money into crypto, but every day those prices keep soaring higher makes the eventual collapse that much worse.

    There are a few really interesting projects that have come about because of cryptocurrency innovations, but the vast majority of crypto assets see no real-world use. Most cryptocurrencies are predominately speculative assets, and I believe most cryptocurrencies today are a genuine danger to the public.

  • Dragon
    3·
    3 years ago

    Is there any way to have a crypto that is resistant to speculation, and doesn’t have insane inflation/deflation on the daily?

    • lorabe
      4·
      3 years ago

      Yes, the historical government owned currency system is the equivalent of that.

        • lorabe
          1·
          3 years ago

          Keep in mind that a descentealized option tends to rely on market dinamics, which means that it will be another piramid scheme like bitcoin.

          • Dragon
            1·
            3 years ago

            I guess I was including bitcoin as decentralized. I’m just wondering if there’s a way to accomplish what bitcoin and other blockchain cryptos are doing without the insane volatility.

    • AgreeableLandscapeOP
      2·
      3 years ago

      Or hard drives, or power supplies. Seriously, it’s the stupidest reason for a supply and demand problem.