Bitcoin

[IdleRich]

More on Bitcoin in The Guardian today

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...rypto-currency

And Atlantis might be the place to spend them (and Litecoin whatever that is)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=154138.0

[sufi]

not bitcoin
https://www.alicemaz.com/writing/minecraft.html

[Mr. Tea]

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/01/1...?smid=tw-share

“The worse regular civilization does and the less you trust, the better crypto does,” Mr. Hummer said. "It’s almost like the ultimate short trade.”

Mr. Hummer went out to meet Joe Buttram, 27, for drinks. As a mixed martial arts fighter, Mr. Buttram said he would fight for a couple hundred bucks, sometimes a few thousand, and worked security at a start-up, but his main hobbies were reading 4chan and buying vintage pornography, passions that exposed him to cryptocurrency.

He said his holdings are into double-digit millions but wouldn’t give specifics other than to say he’d quit his job and is starting a hedge fund.

[Matthew]

warren buffet on bitcoin

"You're just hoping the next guy pays more. And you only feel you'll find the next guy to pay more if he thinks he's going to find someone that's going to pay more."

"You aren't investing when you do that, you're speculating."

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/01/warr...nvestment.html

also says elsewhere (?) that it aint going to end nicely.

actually i believe him - i don't think this is self interest - frankly it's obvious.

[luka]

as well as eating nothing but steak and sausages our very own hmg has gone
big on bitcoin. suprised hes not on this thread.

[john eden]

Surprised nobody has mentioned the environmental impact of Bitcoin:
https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...cryptocurrency

Grim.

I always work on the basis that by the time I have heard of these things, there is no sensible way of making money out of them.

This text (by the group who organised the meeting a few pages back on this thread) is good:
https://gegen-kapital-und-nation.org...ly-fair-money/

[firefinga]

I am superbly oldfashioned, I actually consider paying cash these days almost an act of resistance. When exchanging coins for goods of several kinds I always pay hommage to the lydian king croesus.

[luka]

cash is taking its last breath and im terrified. the scope for control goes through the roof in a cashless society.

[firefinga]

cash is taking its last breath and im terrified. the scope for control goes through the roof in a cashless society.

It's definitely a few sinister figures' wet dream to see a time - not so distant in the future - when you can't buy a fuckin ice-cream-cone anymore without using your damn smartphone. Actually an act of blatant absurdism - something so easy-to-do-in-the-past will need a hyper-complicated tech-infrastructure to work in the future. Or maybe not.

[vimothy]

dont know about the rest of the world, but in the uk cash is actually rising in absolute terms but declining in relative terms (eg as a share of gdp)

[HMGovt]

cash is taking its last breath and im terrified. the scope for control goes through the roof in a cashless society.

This is a strong argument for Bitcoin, money independent of central authority, money they cannot stop you spending or receiving or moving around, and recent developments make it money that isn't dependent on the Internet.

https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018...hout-internet/

The apocalyptic energy consumption of Bitcoin is a red herring. It's not electricity going to waste or being used to create something without lasting value. Besides

Annual energy consumption for various tasks:
Bitcoin Mining — 9 Terrawatt-Hours
Global Production of Fiat Currencies — 11 Terrawatt-Hours
Operating Data Centers in the US — 16 Terrawatt-Hours
Gold Mining — 130 Terrawatt-Hours

[Mr. Tea]

My brother made a fair amount of money from mining bitcoin - I don't know how much, but he said it'll be enough to help him set up a home (he and his girlfriend are moving to Tasmania and he wants to buy land and build a house there). This was back when it was worthwhile doing it using a dongle that drew power off a USB port, unlike the industrial-scale mining that goes on now. If I'd thought about it at the time I'm sure he'd have been happy to show me how it was done and help me get started, if I'd asked him. But then I appear to have been born without much of an instinct for these things.

[john eden]

This is a strong argument for Bitcoin, money independent of central authority, money they cannot stop you spending or receiving or moving around, and recent developments make it money that isn't dependent on the Internet.

https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018...hout-internet/

The apocalyptic energy consumption of Bitcoin is a red herring. It's not electricity going to waste or being used to create something without lasting value. Besides

Annual energy consumption for various tasks:
Bitcoin Mining — 9 Terrawatt-Hours
Global Production of Fiat Currencies — 11 Terrawatt-Hours
Operating Data Centers in the US — 16 Terrawatt-Hours
Gold Mining — 130 Terrawatt-Hours

That's interesting - isn't the point about electricity use that it impacts on things like global warming, so you are creating personal wealth at the expense of the planet?

Whereas traditional uses of electricity (heat and light especially) might be a "waste" in that they use up resources but they do immediately fulfill a basic human need?

Also the figures you quote are based on current usage? Which is apparently 30 million users globally. That's a pretty tiny number compared to the global users of data centres and Fiat currencies.

(I'm fine with keeping the gold in the ground and getting energy use down generally)

[Matthew]

My brother made a fair amount of money from mining bitcoin - I don't know how much, but he said it'll be enough to help him set up a home (he and his girlfriend are moving to Tasmania and he wants to buy land and build a house there). This was back when it was worthwhile doing it using a dongle that drew power off a USB port, unlike the industrial-scale mining that goes on now. If I'd thought about it at the time I'm sure he'd have been happy to show me how it was done and help me get started, if I'd asked him. But then I appear to have been born without much of an instinct for these things.

i think the ship has probably sailed now. i wonder if idlerich (who started this thread) made a lot of money? rich?

[Mr. Tea]

i think the ship has probably sailed now. i wonder if idlerich (who started this thread) made a lot of money? rich?

Oh, as far as bitcoin itself is concerned, sure. Wasn't contesting that. There's a ton of other cryptocurrencies out there, though I dunno if any of them can be mined in quite the same way as bitcoin can (or could, a few years ago, using fairly ordinary computing hardware) or if you just have to buy them for cash like any other commodity.

This one seems to be symbolic of, oh I dunno, something about the age we live in:

rothscoin.jpg