I'm genuinely amazed at how you're able to take such an in-depth, thoughtfully written article, and reduce it into a mere "bitcoin is a waste of time, people are gamblers".
Here we are, a decade later, still sure it's a stupid idea and increasingly frustrated that the public doesn't understand that.
At least reconsider the proof of stake crypto chains. Not an energy waste.
BUT I checked the current gas prices, and it's really not bad. You're looking at $3-4 for 5-10 minutes on a transaction. Too pricey for splitting restaurant bills, but not too bad for sending $100 around
I guess that when you get to $100+ though you have to deal with too much volatility, and there's no good way to hedge against it as a US citizen (at least, I can't find any reputable brokerage/exchange that will let me short small amounts of crypto)
On the other hand, a government-issued cryptocurrency that is entirely under government's control with no anonymity, is not stupid at all. And I think this will be the future of crypto. Not saying it is good, just saying it is inevitable.
Prejudice gets amplified because it often seems insightful, and online, barraged by information all day, people click, read these blurbs and one liners, then pass them on.
Prejudice is also emotionally satisfying because typically people believe what is already inline with their beliefs. So taking the time to research and understand topics is not as pleasurable as passing along prejudice.
It’s all around us online, from simple celebrity gossip, to political analysis, on and on.
We’ve somehow as a society got to get our heads around the fact that this form of communication online is brand new to the human experience, and we have to understand it’s impacting us in new ways.
I fear all the ways Prejudice is pushing us apart, and away from fact, understanding, and compassion.
>I fear all the ways Prejudice is pushing us apart, and away from fact, understanding, and compassion.
As said, it's absolutely defying expectations. It's driving people toward fact, understanding and compassion.
What's concerning is its the top comment on this HN thread.
We've seen the exact same cycles over and over and yet no one seems to "get it". When the block reward halved from 50 to 25, the price skyrocketed, then crashed. When the block reward halved from 25 to 12.5, the price skyrocketed, then crashed. And after every crash, there was a recovery.
Guess what's gonna happen the block reward halves from 12.5 to 6.25?
Go on... take a wild guess.
Worldwide central banks are printing money nonstop, literally by the trillions, which is great if you're in a shitload of debt, but not so hot if you're holding a lot of cash assets. Well you can't "print" another 21,000,000 Bitcoins. And BTC is just the first of the cryptocurrencies. It won't be the last, and it probably won't even be the one the world eventually settles on, but make no mistake, this'll be where humanity goes.
I wonder why no one bothers to ask how much power all the payment processors in the world like VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Stripe, QuickPay, etc. and so forth use... oh yeah, that's because in their mind they're "legitimate", whatever the fuck that means. This illusion that seems to grasp everyone's mind and never let go utterly boggles me. Its a bunch of made-up bullshit, including Bitcoin, yet for some reason people hang onto it like its a loaf of bread they could eat to stay alive.
All these currencies have as much value as a bunch of people think they have. Period. I've never seen someone eat Renminbi and stay alive. Never seen someone build a house out of British Pounds.
This is the wrong assumption to start from. You should think of the opposite assumption. These people fully understand Bitcoin and other stupid investments.
I thought long and hard about all of this and there is nothing to "get".
>Worldwide central banks are printing money nonstop, literally by the trillions, which is great if you're in a shitload of debt, but not so hot if you're holding a lot of cash assets. Well you can't "print" another 21,000,000 Bitcoins. And BTC is just the first of the cryptocurrencies. It won't be the last, and it probably won't even be the one the world eventually settles on, but make no mistake, this'll be where humanity goes.
Here is the short story. Everything is up. What makes cryptocurrencies special? That they are entirely fictional? So ultimately, since cryptocurrencies aren't used as currencies and instead treated as assets with 0 return like gold the expectation is that it merely catches up with inflation. If it goes up faster than inflation then it is a bubble purely driven by human irrationality. In other words, Bitcoin is a bubble/speculation sentiment index. You can benchmark any other asset against Bitcoin to mostly "cancel" out the speculation part of the market.
>All these currencies have as much value as a bunch of people think they have. Period. I've never seen someone eat Renminbi and stay alive. Never seen someone build a house out of British Pounds.
I can believe that the value of 1€ is high enough to buy a house and then get smacked in the face by house construction companies who build houses for 200k€.
Meanwhile with Bitcoin that is fair game since there is no company that accepts 4 Bitcoin to buy a house no matter what the current value of Bitcoin is. There is no economy that is making the price sticky by making people consider what you can actually do with the currency. Since you can barely do anything with Bitcoin its value isn't based on the existence of an economy that exchanges it, it is merely based on random thoughts of random people who want a self fulfilling prophecy aka a bubble.
If you start off with the stupid explanations of Bitcoin HODLers then it requires a lot of deep thinking to debunk all of it and ultimately reach the same conclusion as those snarky people.