4 ms·

Well, there's always the possibility that this time it will be the last. Maybe the last peak is when it reaches global awareness and there's no new people to br

Well, there's always the possibility that this time it will be the last. Maybe the last peak is when it reaches global awareness and there's no new people to bring into the system. And I suspect it already reached that in the last cycle with Superbowl ads and Filipinos working in Axle Infinity. Although, I feel cryptocurrency is already too big to ever end completely.

lurker919 3y ago
The new people in the next cycle are the freshly graduated high schoolers and new grads who weren't following the news previously and have their joining bonuses and RSUs waiting in the bank.
- phatfish 3y ago
  Can they pump Crypto as high as a good proportion of the "western" population widdling their thumbs for 6 months or more during COVID? I say western because they were the people with the disposable income and living under governments that could support furlough/stimulus payments.
ogogmad 3y ago
It needs energy to be expended continuously in mining it, if it uses PoW. So it might end one day.
- cesarb 3y ago
  > So it might end one day. Only if the mining stops abruptly. Otherwise, the automatic difficulty adjustment allows it to keep working even with a reduced energy expenditure. In the extreme, a single computer running in a museum could be enough to keep the blockchain working forever.
  - ogogmad 3y ago
    A single computer in a museum would be vulnerable to 51% attacks. It would also be too illiquid to recoup costs.
    - grotorea 3y ago
      But the 51% attack would cost more than the value of the Bitcoin you could get by doing it, which is presumably ~0 since the only node is a museum computer.
- Kiro 3y ago
  The difficulty is adjusted automatically depending on how many miners there are, so it can go down.
  - ogogmad 3y ago
    That might be one of those things that works well in the short term but may also have severe tail risks. I heard a similar story about an algorithmic stablecoin called Luna (I think). The analogue of difficulty adjustments there worked fine until one day it didn't.
    - grotorea 3y ago
      They can ultimately change the code if needed. Luna also tried that IIRC.
      - kibwen 3y ago
        Indeed, one can "change the code" to do anything... including things like increasing the bitcoin supply arbitrarily. Bitcoin's scarcity is a social construct that will be changed when the people who control the nodes want to change it.
    - sebzim4500 3y ago
      Luna was a very different situation, it was nothing to do with difficulty adjustments.

lurker919 3y ago

The new people in the next cycle are the freshly graduated high schoolers and new grads who weren't following the news previously and have their joining bonuses and RSUs waiting in the bank.

phatfish 3y ago
Can they pump Crypto as high as a good proportion of the "western" population widdling their thumbs for 6 months or more during COVID? I say western because they were the people with the disposable income and living under governments that could support furlough/stimulus payments.

ogogmad 3y ago

It needs energy to be expended continuously in mining it, if it uses PoW. So it might end one day.

cesarb 3y ago
> So it might end one day. Only if the mining stops abruptly. Otherwise, the automatic difficulty adjustment allows it to keep working even with a reduced energy expenditure. In the extreme, a single computer running in a museum could be enough to keep the blockchain working forever.
- ogogmad 3y ago
  A single computer in a museum would be vulnerable to 51% attacks. It would also be too illiquid to recoup costs.
  - grotorea 3y ago
    But the 51% attack would cost more than the value of the Bitcoin you could get by doing it, which is presumably ~0 since the only node is a museum computer.
Kiro 3y ago
The difficulty is adjusted automatically depending on how many miners there are, so it can go down.
- ogogmad 3y ago
  That might be one of those things that works well in the short term but may also have severe tail risks. I heard a similar story about an algorithmic stablecoin called Luna (I think). The analogue of difficulty adjustments there worked fine until one day it didn't.
  - grotorea 3y ago
    They can ultimately change the code if needed. Luna also tried that IIRC.
    - kibwen 3y ago
      Indeed, one can "change the code" to do anything... including things like increasing the bitcoin supply arbitrarily. Bitcoin's scarcity is a social construct that will be changed when the people who control the nodes want to change it.
  - sebzim4500 3y ago
    Luna was a very different situation, it was nothing to do with difficulty adjustments.