3 ms·

Not saying you’re wrong, but HN comments were the thing that convinced me not to buy bitcoin at $1

loceng 7y ago
Perhaps since you didn't buy you could have a unique perspective. Imagine you bought at $1 and made $10s of millions of dollars - whether from any value or work actually being done, or whether it was just the effect of a global, decentralized Ponzi-Pyramid-like scheme. Imagine you don't sell all of it because, well, now you're set for life - or in a better position than you were before - so you're happy to promote whatever cryptocurrency you hold, in hopes it goes up further in value. Imagine then instead you bought it anywhere from $5000 to its peak $19,000+ value. Imagine how desperate and how incentivized you may be wanting or working towards increasing the positive perception and therefore demand of whatever cryptocurrency. Now imagine this army of "HODLers" that seems to mostly be tied to ideology and greed over there being any seemingly useful consumer use case that's better than non-cryptocurrency alternatives. Then understand that as this army of HODLers grows, they will influence and lobby or inject themselves further into regulatory bodies (regulatory capture) in order to try to force (even subtly) the rest of society to adopt cryptocurrencies, in order to try to legitimize them - however in reality it's in order to transfer wealth an unnecessary and unreasonable amount from late adopters weighted towards the earliest adopters, so they can realize their "gains" - to exit from the Ponzi-Pyramid scheme. Edit: The initial downvotes didn't don't convince me that the pro-Bitcoin et al holders aren't part of a Pyramid-Ponzi scheme, however they were certainly expected to happen in this thread. If you're not familiar with indoctrination - which is belief guided by others with similar bias and blind spots - even Fred Wilson, USV partner - USV who's early investor in Coinbase (etc) acknowledged the problem of ideologies/orthodoxy (yet blind to it himself it seems): https://avc.com/2019/04/orthodoxy/ https://avc.com/2019/04/orthodoxy/ -- Bitcoin/cryptocurrencies is religion with members tied together with a financial incentive.
- isoprophlex 7y ago
  All the while being driven by the bogosort of financial transaction processing, which injects massive amounts of co2 into the atmosphere. Fuck everything about bitcoin.
  - verroq 7y ago
    You're going to ignore that most of the mining happens in China using excess hydroelectric capacity?
    - loceng 7y ago
      We can keep playing this shallow-deep thinking game: are you trying to say China is using 100% renewable energy everywhere and has no need for lower energy costs for the rest of their population? And surely that energy could be used for other things, except it's not right now because getting paid for mining/processing transactions in a Ponzi-Pyramid scheme is far more profitable than other uses.
      - verroq 7y ago
        >are you trying to say China is using 100% renewable energy everywhere and has no need for lower energy costs for the rest of their population? No? I'm saying most of Bitcoin mining is done using renewable energy. Most of which is excess capacity that would have been wasted anyway. >And surely that energy could be used for other things, except it's not right now because getting paid for mining/processing transactions in a Ponzi-Pyramid scheme is far more profitable than other uses. And who are you decide how people spend their energy? How many quants do we pay to burn their brains in coming up with strats to create positive alpha because it's far more profitable than solving whatever "important issue" you care about. If you have an issue with how the free market allocates its resources maybe you're the one that is wrong, because people are paying money to show you that you are wrong.
    - isoprophlex 7y ago
      No. Im staring the facts straight in the face[] and I don't understand the implicit point you are trying to make. Approx. 75% of BTC mining is done with renewables. That leaves a carbon footprint of 207.75 kg / transaction This is so completely beyond fucked. (Older sources on google state 450+ kg/transaction but that's not really truthful given current price points) [] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

Perhaps since you didn't buy you could have a unique perspective. Imagine you bought at $1 and made $10s of millions of dollars - whether from any value or work actually being done, or whether it was just the effect of a global, decentralized Ponzi-Pyramid-like scheme. Imagine you don't sell all of it because, well, now you're set for life - or in a better position than you were before - so you're happy to promote whatever cryptocurrency you hold, in hopes it goes up further in value. Imagine then instead you bought it anywhere from $5000 to its peak $19,000+ value. Imagine how desperate and how incentivized you may be wanting or working towards increasing the positive perception and therefore demand of whatever cryptocurrency. Now imagine this army of "HODLers" that seems to mostly be tied to ideology and greed over there being any seemingly useful consumer use case that's better than non-cryptocurrency alternatives. Then understand that as this army of HODLers grows, they will influence and lobby or inject themselves further into regulatory bodies (regulatory capture) in order to try to force (even subtly) the rest of society to adopt cryptocurrencies, in order to try to legitimize them - however in reality it's in order to transfer wealth an unnecessary and unreasonable amount from late adopters weighted towards the earliest adopters, so they can realize their "gains" - to exit from the Ponzi-Pyramid scheme. Edit: The initial downvotes didn't don't convince me that the pro-Bitcoin et al holders aren't part of a Pyramid-Ponzi scheme, however they were certainly expected to happen in this thread. If you're not familiar with indoctrination - which is belief guided by others with similar bias and blind spots - even Fred Wilson, USV partner - USV who's early investor in Coinbase (etc) acknowledged the problem of ideologies/orthodoxy (yet blind to it himself it seems): https://avc.com/2019/04/orthodoxy/ https://avc.com/2019/04/orthodoxy/ -- Bitcoin/cryptocurrencies is religion with members tied together with a financial incentive.

isoprophlex 7y ago
All the while being driven by the bogosort of financial transaction processing, which injects massive amounts of co2 into the atmosphere. Fuck everything about bitcoin.
- verroq 7y ago
  You're going to ignore that most of the mining happens in China using excess hydroelectric capacity?
  - loceng 7y ago
    We can keep playing this shallow-deep thinking game: are you trying to say China is using 100% renewable energy everywhere and has no need for lower energy costs for the rest of their population? And surely that energy could be used for other things, except it's not right now because getting paid for mining/processing transactions in a Ponzi-Pyramid scheme is far more profitable than other uses.
    - verroq 7y ago
      >are you trying to say China is using 100% renewable energy everywhere and has no need for lower energy costs for the rest of their population? No? I'm saying most of Bitcoin mining is done using renewable energy. Most of which is excess capacity that would have been wasted anyway. >And surely that energy could be used for other things, except it's not right now because getting paid for mining/processing transactions in a Ponzi-Pyramid scheme is far more profitable than other uses. And who are you decide how people spend their energy? How many quants do we pay to burn their brains in coming up with strats to create positive alpha because it's far more profitable than solving whatever "important issue" you care about. If you have an issue with how the free market allocates its resources maybe you're the one that is wrong, because people are paying money to show you that you are wrong.
  - isoprophlex 7y ago
    No. Im staring the facts straight in the face[] and I don't understand the implicit point you are trying to make. Approx. 75% of BTC mining is done with renewables. That leaves a carbon footprint of 207.75 kg / transaction This is so completely beyond fucked. (Older sources on google state 450+ kg/transaction but that's not really truthful given current price points) [] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption