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What is there to stop beyond the horrible energy consumption and scams? Bitcoin doesn't do anything useful at all. It's a net negative for the earth and the pu

by cliffy 4y ago

What is there to stop beyond the horrible energy consumption and scams? Bitcoin doesn't do anything useful at all. It's a net negative for the earth and the public at large.

jbaczuk 4y ago
People will just keep using it. But you might be right that it is a net negative since it's mostly used for speculation... But, it's not completely useless (tell that to the criminals who use it regularly). Or people who own it because they don't want all their assets in a highly inflationary currency.
- hnthrow1010 4y ago
  You're playing a semantic game here. Yes, technically if criminals are using it, it's not "useless". To the rest of us, it's actually worse than useless because the criminal activity is a net negative on society. The idea that crypto is a hedge against inflation is laughable, look at any of the price activity in the last few months. Crypto tokens have no fundamentals or inherent value or anything. The price is completely random.
  - jbaczuk 4y ago
    I'm not condoning all the illegal stuff that happens with Bitcoin, to be clear, but just because a government says something is illegal, doesn't mean it should be. For example we're happy in the U.S. (well most of us I think) to be freed from oppressive rulers who taxed without representation, and something like Bitcoin would have been quite useful in that situation. There are many countries who are in a similar situation.
- dghlsakjg 4y ago
  > Or people who own it because they don't want all their assets in a highly inflationary currency. When compared to world currencies BTC currently has an inflation rate that makes it the second most inflationary currency in the world after Venezuela. As a store of value crypto is not great.
  - jbaczuk 4y ago
    What's your math on that? Current block reward is 6.25 BTC which occurs on average every 10 minutes. That's 52594 BTC per year. The max outstanding BTC is 21M (there are currently just over 19M) so that would be less than 0.25% annual inflation. Pretty sure there aren't many currencies (if any) that are at that rate, even before the current high inflation rates. If you're factoring in the price, over the last decade, it has been one of the best (if not the best) performing asset, so I think from that perspective it's actually deflationary.
    - dghlsakjg 4y ago
      You’re confusing money supply with inflation. Bitcoins supply is incredibly constrained, and yet it is inflating at an incredible rate. This is the opposite of what is happening in Zimbabwe where supply is not constrained at all and inflation is lower than what bitcoin is at YTD. Inflation is a measure of how much goods and services you can get for a given unit of currency. It is not a measure of how much currency exists, although it can be affected by that. My math is that you need three bitcoins to buy what one bitcoin got you 6 months ago. That is an inflation rate of 600% per year. The world is losing its mind right now because good currencies are inflating at 8% instead of 3%. On the whole, yes bitcoin is a high reward investment, if you bought it at the right time. It tends to inflate and deflate pretty wildly. All that means is that, according to most economic consensus, it is a very bad currency. Deflation isn’t a good trait in a currency since it incentivizes saving over using capital to create economic activity. Deflation also tends to favor those who have money, and makes borrowing money a bad idea, which also suppresses economic activity. Massive inflation is bad too, for obvious reasons. You want your currency to be predictable and stable. A slight amount of inflation is, by conventional economic standards, a good thing.
      - jbaczuk 4y ago
        Ah I see. True it's not very good currency over the short term. You picked the high from 6 months ago. Try more than 6 months ago, say >=2 years.

by cliffy 4y ago

What is there to stop beyond the horrible energy consumption and scams? Bitcoin doesn't do anything useful at all. It's a net negative for the earth and the public at large.

jbaczuk 4y ago

People will just keep using it. But you might be right that it is a net negative since it's mostly used for speculation... But, it's not completely useless (tell that to the criminals who use it regularly). Or people who own it because they don't want all their assets in a highly inflationary currency.

hnthrow1010 4y ago
You're playing a semantic game here. Yes, technically if criminals are using it, it's not "useless". To the rest of us, it's actually worse than useless because the criminal activity is a net negative on society. The idea that crypto is a hedge against inflation is laughable, look at any of the price activity in the last few months. Crypto tokens have no fundamentals or inherent value or anything. The price is completely random.
- jbaczuk 4y ago
  I'm not condoning all the illegal stuff that happens with Bitcoin, to be clear, but just because a government says something is illegal, doesn't mean it should be. For example we're happy in the U.S. (well most of us I think) to be freed from oppressive rulers who taxed without representation, and something like Bitcoin would have been quite useful in that situation. There are many countries who are in a similar situation.
dghlsakjg 4y ago
> Or people who own it because they don't want all their assets in a highly inflationary currency. When compared to world currencies BTC currently has an inflation rate that makes it the second most inflationary currency in the world after Venezuela. As a store of value crypto is not great.
- jbaczuk 4y ago
  What's your math on that? Current block reward is 6.25 BTC which occurs on average every 10 minutes. That's 52594 BTC per year. The max outstanding BTC is 21M (there are currently just over 19M) so that would be less than 0.25% annual inflation. Pretty sure there aren't many currencies (if any) that are at that rate, even before the current high inflation rates. If you're factoring in the price, over the last decade, it has been one of the best (if not the best) performing asset, so I think from that perspective it's actually deflationary.
  - dghlsakjg 4y ago
    You’re confusing money supply with inflation. Bitcoins supply is incredibly constrained, and yet it is inflating at an incredible rate. This is the opposite of what is happening in Zimbabwe where supply is not constrained at all and inflation is lower than what bitcoin is at YTD. Inflation is a measure of how much goods and services you can get for a given unit of currency. It is not a measure of how much currency exists, although it can be affected by that. My math is that you need three bitcoins to buy what one bitcoin got you 6 months ago. That is an inflation rate of 600% per year. The world is losing its mind right now because good currencies are inflating at 8% instead of 3%. On the whole, yes bitcoin is a high reward investment, if you bought it at the right time. It tends to inflate and deflate pretty wildly. All that means is that, according to most economic consensus, it is a very bad currency. Deflation isn’t a good trait in a currency since it incentivizes saving over using capital to create economic activity. Deflation also tends to favor those who have money, and makes borrowing money a bad idea, which also suppresses economic activity. Massive inflation is bad too, for obvious reasons. You want your currency to be predictable and stable. A slight amount of inflation is, by conventional economic standards, a good thing.
    - jbaczuk 4y ago
      Ah I see. True it's not very good currency over the short term. You picked the high from 6 months ago. Try more than 6 months ago, say >=2 years.