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They're not healing bitcoin addiction but trading addiction. You can just buy bitcoin and hold it as store of value / investment. That's a significant differen

They're not healing bitcoin addiction but trading addiction. You can just buy bitcoin and hold it as store of value / investment. That's a significant difference. And a misleading title IMO.

enlyth 5y ago
That is literally in the first sentence on the website: "Castle Craig Hospital provides treatment for people addicted to trading, spread betting and the trading of cryptocurrencies..."
- mateuszf 5y ago
  I'm talking about HN title. The real problem here is trading addiction, not bitcoin itself.
  - DonHopkins 5y ago
    Easy there big fellow. Bitcoin itself is certainly and undenyably a huge problem in and of itself, as you well know. Its horrible environmental impact is a huge problem, as are its effects on the mental health of the people who go online and shill it and rationalize it while ignoring and denying and marginalizing its environmental impact.
    - mlang23 5y ago
      This finger pointing style of saving the planet feels so extremely juvenile, its no longer funny. Yes, bitcoin uses a lot of energy. But so does artificial snow. Or gaming for that matter. What would we see if we add up all gamers on the planet? All the VR and AR nonsense that is being developed and sold? We have chips, we have electricity. You will not regulate what people are going with these chips and that electricity. And wanting to do so makes you look pretty foolish.
      - awrence 5y ago
        It also demonstrates a basic lack of understanding of how the energy markets work and how as just about the only intermittent buyer of last resort, proof of work is about to positively impact the energy infrastructure in a pretty substantial way and will probably converge on tapping into exclusively stranded / wasted energy (about 30% of energy production vs less than 0.1% of global production used by pow today). If anyone is genuinely interesting in educating themselves on the topic I'd recommend the two fairly recent episodes of What Bitcoin Did with guest Harry Sudock.
        pjc50 5y ago
        Bitcoin mining is not a buyer of last resort, it's a capital asset that the owner wants to be run continuously in order to make back the capital expense, and produces no ultimately useful output.
        awrence 5y ago
        It's a misconception to think a miner will only locate on energy sites with continuous supply. It can still make perfect sense for a miner to locate on a site with variable demand (which by the way is basically every energy production site in the world that is by design compelled to build to accommodate peak demand). What a miner will do is then negotiate energy costs (which are 80-90% of their variable costs) with the producer who is happy to sell his excess production at any cost above 0 for all excess power untapped. All it takes is enough excess production at a (much lower) price than conventional rates for this to breakeven positively vs full operation alternatives. As chips commoditize and energy trends towards 100% of all costs, miners will step into these situations exclusively. As far as your claim that bitcoin is useless that's a personal judgement. My personal judgement is that reintroducing sound fixed supply censorship resistant money to the world is of enormous benefit. But that's beyond the scope here. I don't think it's constructive to make judgements about what people value and chose to expend resources towards. If you have a problem with externalities then have a debate about that. But who are we to judge if someone wants to heat their pool? If they do so through carbon emissions then consider taxing that. The sustainability of the energy production is your issue really, not the energy use.
    - awrence 5y ago
      Easy there big fellow. The petrodollar is certainly and undenyably a huge problem in and of itself, as you well know. Its horrible environmental impact is a huge problem, as are its effects on the mental health of the people who go online and shill it and rationalize it while ignoring and denying and marginalizing its environmental impact.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - pjc50 5y ago
        > The petrodollar is certainly and undenyably a huge problem in and of itself, as you well know. Its horrible environmental impact is a huge problem This isn't wrong, but this is also not an argument for bitcoin, it's an argument for Keynes' "bancor".
        awrence 5y ago
        I agree it's not an argument for bitcoin. Whether bitcoin is a net positive environmentally or not is a different debate. I was just emphasizing how people point fingers at Proof of Work without considering the immense negative environmental externalities generated by the current fiat system.
    - bluecalm 5y ago
      I think focusing on environment when it comes to cryptocurrencies is not very productive. We waste a lot of energy and if cryptocurrencies could live up to their promise maybe the energy cost is worth it. The main point against them is that the only use case they have is going around financial regulations. Buy drugs, transfer money to a gambling site, accept a ransom or go around capital flow regulations in your country. There is absolutely zero reason to use it otherwise. Some of those regulations might be unjust or bad but then we should address that. This is even before we enter more imaginative scam attempts based on popular blockchains.
    - undenyable 5y ago
      > undenyably People still own phones without spellcheck?
  - samhw 5y ago
    This is a bit like saying "The real problem is drug addiction, not heroin. Heroin just seems to be especially good at causing drug addiction." Edit: I'm not going to respond to the replies. I'm just going to add that I used to be a heroin addict, and the replies are classic addict: semi-coherent, indulging in the "ordinary people are just the same as us" trope, moving the blame to other things (with drug addicts it's very often alcohol, with bitcoin addicts it's apparently fiat money). None of them engaging with the point in the context of the argument - just warding off any perceived challenge to their addiction.
    - mang0tang00 5y ago
      This is a bit like saying "The real problem is drug addiction, not chemistry. Chemistry just seems to be especially good at causing drug addiction."
    - herbst 5y ago
      That's true tho, isn't it? Heroin also helped millions of people against pain without getting everyone addicted before we found better opiods for daily use. There are also people using heroin as party drug without high risk of addiction (even thought that may not be a lot)
    - mateuszf 5y ago
      So why don't we say the same about trading gold, currencies or stocks? Curing addiction of stocks, gold or currencies sounds as stupid as curing addiction of bitcoin.
      - brianwawok 5y ago
        I see no difference in day trading stocks, bitcoin, or forex. If you buy with the intent to "beat the market" and hold for less than a month-year, I see it as the same as going to the casino and playing a slot machine. There are people sophisticated enough to have an edge in stock trading. Same for being a professional poker player. But this is a very very small % of the market.
        5y ago
headmelted 5y ago
You mis-spelled speculative tokens.
DonHopkins 5y ago
They're also treating Bitcoin Shilling and Hyping and Rationalization and Excuse Making Addiction.
xiphias2 5y ago
I agree, and I’m a long time HODLer, but most men friends of mine can’t handle the emotional roller coaster of just holding (I’m a guy as well). What’s interesting is that my female friends are perfectly capable of doing it…..they invested less money, but their patience easily makes up for investing less money originally.
- Chris2048 5y ago
  How do you know it's higher patience rather than the lower stakes (wrt initial investment)? Also, I'm not sure I agree with the "HODL" philosophy. btc has fallen a lot too, and the assumption "it'll all work out in the end (long term)" is exactly what can't ever be demonstrated (tomorrow never comes) until it all crashes, after which it's too late.
  - xiphias2 5y ago
    I’m talking to my friends. A male friend of mine started cocaine really hard when the BTC price crashed, another quarreling with his wife so much that their marriage failed. They are getting really depressed generally, as their self worth as the provider of their family is linked to their wealth. About the HODL philosophy: I don’t understand any other. I bought for long term (10+ years) as an investment with high risk and high possible reward at $150/BTC. The 10 years haven’t passed yet (only 8), so we can come back to this thread to see if HODL works out or not.

They're not healing bitcoin addiction but trading addiction. You can just buy bitcoin and hold it as store of value / investment. That's a significant difference. And a misleading title IMO.

enlyth 5y ago

That is literally in the first sentence on the website: "Castle Craig Hospital provides treatment for people addicted to trading, spread betting and the trading of cryptocurrencies..."

mateuszf 5y ago
I'm talking about HN title. The real problem here is trading addiction, not bitcoin itself.
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  Easy there big fellow. Bitcoin itself is certainly and undenyably a huge problem in and of itself, as you well know. Its horrible environmental impact is a huge problem, as are its effects on the mental health of the people who go online and shill it and rationalize it while ignoring and denying and marginalizing its environmental impact.
  - mlang23 5y ago
    This finger pointing style of saving the planet feels so extremely juvenile, its no longer funny. Yes, bitcoin uses a lot of energy. But so does artificial snow. Or gaming for that matter. What would we see if we add up all gamers on the planet? All the VR and AR nonsense that is being developed and sold? We have chips, we have electricity. You will not regulate what people are going with these chips and that electricity. And wanting to do so makes you look pretty foolish.
    - awrence 5y ago
      It also demonstrates a basic lack of understanding of how the energy markets work and how as just about the only intermittent buyer of last resort, proof of work is about to positively impact the energy infrastructure in a pretty substantial way and will probably converge on tapping into exclusively stranded / wasted energy (about 30% of energy production vs less than 0.1% of global production used by pow today). If anyone is genuinely interesting in educating themselves on the topic I'd recommend the two fairly recent episodes of What Bitcoin Did with guest Harry Sudock.
      - pjc50 5y ago
        Bitcoin mining is not a buyer of last resort, it's a capital asset that the owner wants to be run continuously in order to make back the capital expense, and produces no ultimately useful output.
        awrence 5y ago
        It's a misconception to think a miner will only locate on energy sites with continuous supply. It can still make perfect sense for a miner to locate on a site with variable demand (which by the way is basically every energy production site in the world that is by design compelled to build to accommodate peak demand). What a miner will do is then negotiate energy costs (which are 80-90% of their variable costs) with the producer who is happy to sell his excess production at any cost above 0 for all excess power untapped. All it takes is enough excess production at a (much lower) price than conventional rates for this to breakeven positively vs full operation alternatives. As chips commoditize and energy trends towards 100% of all costs, miners will step into these situations exclusively. As far as your claim that bitcoin is useless that's a personal judgement. My personal judgement is that reintroducing sound fixed supply censorship resistant money to the world is of enormous benefit. But that's beyond the scope here. I don't think it's constructive to make judgements about what people value and chose to expend resources towards. If you have a problem with externalities then have a debate about that. But who are we to judge if someone wants to heat their pool? If they do so through carbon emissions then consider taxing that. The sustainability of the energy production is your issue really, not the energy use.
  - awrence 5y ago
    Easy there big fellow. The petrodollar is certainly and undenyably a huge problem in and of itself, as you well know. Its horrible environmental impact is a huge problem, as are its effects on the mental health of the people who go online and shill it and rationalize it while ignoring and denying and marginalizing its environmental impact.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - pjc50 5y ago
      > The petrodollar is certainly and undenyably a huge problem in and of itself, as you well know. Its horrible environmental impact is a huge problem This isn't wrong, but this is also not an argument for bitcoin, it's an argument for Keynes' "bancor".
      - awrence 5y ago
        I agree it's not an argument for bitcoin. Whether bitcoin is a net positive environmentally or not is a different debate. I was just emphasizing how people point fingers at Proof of Work without considering the immense negative environmental externalities generated by the current fiat system.
  - bluecalm 5y ago
    I think focusing on environment when it comes to cryptocurrencies is not very productive. We waste a lot of energy and if cryptocurrencies could live up to their promise maybe the energy cost is worth it. The main point against them is that the only use case they have is going around financial regulations. Buy drugs, transfer money to a gambling site, accept a ransom or go around capital flow regulations in your country. There is absolutely zero reason to use it otherwise. Some of those regulations might be unjust or bad but then we should address that. This is even before we enter more imaginative scam attempts based on popular blockchains.
  - undenyable 5y ago
    > undenyably People still own phones without spellcheck?
- samhw 5y ago
  This is a bit like saying "The real problem is drug addiction, not heroin. Heroin just seems to be especially good at causing drug addiction." Edit: I'm not going to respond to the replies. I'm just going to add that I used to be a heroin addict, and the replies are classic addict: semi-coherent, indulging in the "ordinary people are just the same as us" trope, moving the blame to other things (with drug addicts it's very often alcohol, with bitcoin addicts it's apparently fiat money). None of them engaging with the point in the context of the argument - just warding off any perceived challenge to their addiction.
  - mang0tang00 5y ago
    This is a bit like saying "The real problem is drug addiction, not chemistry. Chemistry just seems to be especially good at causing drug addiction."
  - herbst 5y ago
    That's true tho, isn't it? Heroin also helped millions of people against pain without getting everyone addicted before we found better opiods for daily use. There are also people using heroin as party drug without high risk of addiction (even thought that may not be a lot)
  - mateuszf 5y ago
    So why don't we say the same about trading gold, currencies or stocks? Curing addiction of stocks, gold or currencies sounds as stupid as curing addiction of bitcoin.
    - brianwawok 5y ago
      I see no difference in day trading stocks, bitcoin, or forex. If you buy with the intent to "beat the market" and hold for less than a month-year, I see it as the same as going to the casino and playing a slot machine. There are people sophisticated enough to have an edge in stock trading. Same for being a professional poker player. But this is a very very small % of the market.
      - 5y ago

headmelted 5y ago

You mis-spelled speculative tokens.

DonHopkins 5y ago

They're also treating Bitcoin Shilling and Hyping and Rationalization and Excuse Making Addiction.

xiphias2 5y ago

I agree, and I’m a long time HODLer, but most men friends of mine can’t handle the emotional roller coaster of just holding (I’m a guy as well). What’s interesting is that my female friends are perfectly capable of doing it…..they invested less money, but their patience easily makes up for investing less money originally.

Chris2048 5y ago
How do you know it's higher patience rather than the lower stakes (wrt initial investment)? Also, I'm not sure I agree with the "HODL" philosophy. btc has fallen a lot too, and the assumption "it'll all work out in the end (long term)" is exactly what can't ever be demonstrated (tomorrow never comes) until it all crashes, after which it's too late.
- xiphias2 5y ago
  I’m talking to my friends. A male friend of mine started cocaine really hard when the BTC price crashed, another quarreling with his wife so much that their marriage failed. They are getting really depressed generally, as their self worth as the provider of their family is linked to their wealth. About the HODL philosophy: I don’t understand any other. I bought for long term (10+ years) as an investment with high risk and high possible reward at $150/BTC. The 10 years haven’t passed yet (only 8), so we can come back to this thread to see if HODL works out or not.