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This is an incarnation of big costs of the crypto/blockchain obsession: Some individuals put all their savings (or more) into crypto. Those early enough might

by FabHK 4y ago

This is an incarnation of big costs of the crypto/blockchain obsession: Some individuals put all their savings (or more) into crypto. Those early enough might have fared well, some of them extremely well. But it is not a miraculous value creating machine, but only a redistribution machine. For everyone that has done well, others have lost. The other cost is the massive amount of time and effort so many people sink into this that could have been spent on more productive things.

twirlock 4y ago
deltree7 4y ago
If cryptoland is an island of it's own, it produces nothing that an outside consumer or corporation would pay money for. So, Revenue is $0 (sure there are intra-island transfers where some crypto-corp buys services from some other crypto-corp). However, crytpoland has plenty of costs. Electricity, exorbitant salaries, lambos, parties, marketing, compute, capital (servers, gpus). I'd even say to the tune of Billions of $$$. Now they have an additional cost, Interest So, someone has to fund cryptoland of these $Billion expense, Where does the money come from? Investors, Big and Small.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  With crypto it is good to sometimes do the calculation. How much are we paying to miners again? And I mean as aggregate spend hardware and electricity? And what services we are actually offering that someone pay for? Outside speculation? It doesn't look very pretty. Compare to credit cards and payment providers, each transaction takes a cut. And this comes from consumers.
  - FabHK 4y ago
    Yeah, BTC and ETH together burn around 1% of world electricity consumption (though that might go down now). A single BTC transaction pays the miners over $100 in seignorage/mining reward (increasing the money supply, around 1.7% p.a. until the next halving), of which around up to half, AFAIK, goes into electricity and mining equipment. Would love to see a good breakdown on that.
sizzle 4y ago
It’s always good until you’re left holding the bag

by FabHK 4y ago

twirlock 4y ago

deltree7 4y ago

If cryptoland is an island of it's own, it produces nothing that an outside consumer or corporation would pay money for. So, Revenue is $0 (sure there are intra-island transfers where some crypto-corp buys services from some other crypto-corp). However, crytpoland has plenty of costs. Electricity, exorbitant salaries, lambos, parties, marketing, compute, capital (servers, gpus). I'd even say to the tune of Billions of $$$. Now they have an additional cost, Interest So, someone has to fund cryptoland of these $Billion expense, Where does the money come from? Investors, Big and Small.

Ekaros 4y ago
With crypto it is good to sometimes do the calculation. How much are we paying to miners again? And I mean as aggregate spend hardware and electricity? And what services we are actually offering that someone pay for? Outside speculation? It doesn't look very pretty. Compare to credit cards and payment providers, each transaction takes a cut. And this comes from consumers.
- FabHK 4y ago
  Yeah, BTC and ETH together burn around 1% of world electricity consumption (though that might go down now). A single BTC transaction pays the miners over $100 in seignorage/mining reward (increasing the money supply, around 1.7% p.a. until the next halving), of which around up to half, AFAIK, goes into electricity and mining equipment. Would love to see a good breakdown on that.

sizzle 4y ago

It’s always good until you’re left holding the bag