> Don’t people who play video games screw over anyone who wants a graphics card to render 3D graphics for movies by your logic? To some extent, yes. In those

> Don’t people who play video games screw over anyone who wants a graphics card to render 3D graphics for movies by your logic? To some extent, yes. In those cases, there is optimization between different types of value being found, and different tradeoffs being made. There is intrinsic value in entertainment, both from video games and movies. There is instrumental value in, for example, machine learning model training. The difference I see with cryptocurrencies is that they provide no significant value, either intrinsic or instrumental. It isn't a matter of tradeoffs, but a choice between producing some value at all, or producing practically none. I will concede that there is some amount of entertainment value that people may get from watching cryptocurrencies rise and fall, but that same entertainment could be found in any other form of gambling. > Have you looked into how strike.me is using Bitcoin? Honestly, I try to avoid the new cryptocurrency product developments in the same way that I avoid reading about new homeopathic "remedies". In both cases, while there are variations, the foundation on which they are built is so fundamentally flawed that the end-product will be flawed as well. This is the first I'm heard about strike.me. Looking into it, their website is incredibly sparse on details, and your comment gives more information than their FAQ. The main piece is that transactions are resolved using the Lightning network. That's the type I had been referring to as actually being a bank with the off-chain transactions, but skirting all banking regulations. With that, I wouldn't trust any money that's held in a strike.me account, because either strike.me or their Lightning provider is functionally a bank but without any regulations.