Anyone big in Crypto?

[Foz]

A few mates are getting seriously involved in this, I have spent a few nights researching, it’s interring, zero intrinsic value as such yet look how many, and the Bitcoin March.

The book chain element I suppose is the value.

Certainly interesting!!

[DeskJockey]

Friends of mine are into it, I don't understand the point, so have not bothered. There is a further issue with the environmental impact IMO. It seems a pointless waste of resources, but with the values as they are that's unlikely to change, only worsen.

[mik]

I have placed 37 mockdiamonds into your ewallet as recognition for this post.

Shares n stuff was baffling already without this crypto shizzle

[Foz]

Friends of mine are into it, I don't understand the point, so have not bothered. There is a further issue with the environmental impact IMO. It seems a pointless waste of resources, but with the values as they are that's unlikely to change, only worsen.

Yeah the power consumption involved in mining was astounding!

The concept of peer to peer banking is great but it’s a very very grey area, it’s not going away and now the big investment company’s are in as well.

[duncs500]

I've thought about it, but it just seems too volatile to be a sensible investment. If you're not worried about losing your stake then why not? But it is essentially a complete gamble.

I bought some ethereum just for fun ages ago and didn't check for a long time so I'm happy to see that's gone up, but I'm just going up let it ride out of curiosity.

[Mito Man]

I bought some Litecoin and Etherium during the first boom 4 years ago. Litecoin didn’t do much and I sold it all and put it into Etherium last year. Haven’t done anything with it though, just sitting in my account waiting for my few coins to be worth a F40

All the coins that can be purchased are already mined so no real environmental impact now besides the usual server costs.

[DeskJockey]

All the coins that can be purchased are already mined so no real environmental impact now besides the usual server costs.

Presumably only until the next version/product comes along, and buoyed by the success of previous currencies you'll get people piling in to make money and the resource usage goes up again.

[Mito Man]

Yep but there’s no stopping that.
However trading existing coins is no different than buying a used car

[ZedLeg]

That’s not true, Bitcoin still has around 3 mil to be mined on it’s own.

The energy consumption of crypto miners has rocketed over the last year.

[Rich B]

I'm amazed it's even allowed these days - using a shit tonne of resources for nothing more than proving you've used a shot tonne of resources. Pretty disgusting really.

[ZedLeg]

The problem is that it's decentralised online nature makes it incredibly hard to police. You'd have to rely on the conscience of the people doing it to stop it

[mik]

I'm amazed it's even allowed these days - using a shit tonne of resources for nothing more than proving you've used a shot tonne of resources. Pretty disgusting really.

Monetisation of climate change.

[Matty]

I know a few who are into it, nothing big, just for a few quid. Most have done OK out of it, but nothing life changing.

Talk of £300k+ Bitcoin by the end of the year seems fanciful, but who knows. I still struggle to see it being widely accepted due to its association with crime.

[Beany]

I'm amazed it's even allowed these days - using a shit tonne of resources for nothing more than proving you've used a shot tonne of resources. Pretty disgusting really.

That, and it's fucked the PC graphics card markets. That's been the case for a while, but the pandemic, and supply chain shortages, and then miners scalping entire local stocks of GPUs has utterly fucked that market.

For example, Nvidia GTX 1060 release price back in 2016 was about ~£230-280 depending on exact spec

Ebay today:

Screenshot_2021-03-24_14-05-22.jpg (87.77 KiB) Viewed 2568 times

Bear in mind this wasn't a flagship or particularly special card when it launched - but people are so desperate for any GPU that those prices are pretty representative.

Miners can get fucked.

[Beany]

Oh, and if you want to know about that 'lots of power' used. It's Argentina.

Mining worldwide in a year uses as much power as the entirety of Argentina in a year.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56012952

From the article

BitCoinPower.jpg (88.77 KiB) Viewed 2553 times

[Broccers]

It makes me laugh when you think about all the people who bought a bag of weed off silk road for the equivalent of 150,000 dollars in todays bitcoin

[Mito Man]

That’s not true, Bitcoin still has around 3 mil to be mined on it’s own.

The energy consumption of crypto miners has rocketed over the last year.

Yes but once they’re mined then it’s pretty negligible. Can’t remember but someone big on Twitter recently said that to pay via Bitcoin at a local coffee shop is the equivalent of driving a V8 to Paris and back in terms of CO2 emissions. Which it is if it’s a newly mined Bitcoin but that doesn’t apply each time that segment of an existing coin is then used over and over again.

[Rich B]

That’s not true, Bitcoin still has around 3 mil to be mined on it’s own.

The energy consumption of crypto miners has rocketed over the last year.

Yes but once they’re mined then it’s pretty negligible. Can’t remember but someone big on Twitter recently said that to pay via Bitcoin at a local coffee shop is the equivalent of driving a V8 to Paris and back in terms of CO2 emissions. Which it is if it’s a newly mined Bitcoin but that doesn’t apply each time that segment of an existing coin is then used over and over again.

so using a countries worth of power for x years doesn't matter once it's all done?

Why don't you transfer £1000 to me every day for a few weeks, then stop. It doesn't cost you anything once you've stopped.

[ZedLeg]

That’s not true, Bitcoin still has around 3 mil to be mined on it’s own.

The energy consumption of crypto miners has rocketed over the last year.

Yes but once they’re mined then it’s pretty negligible. Can’t remember but someone big on Twitter recently said that to pay via Bitcoin at a local coffee shop is the equivalent of driving a V8 to Paris and back in terms of CO2 emissions. Which it is if it’s a newly mined Bitcoin but that doesn’t apply each time that segment of an existing coin is then used over and over again.

Well yes, but the vast majority of the energy used is from non renewables so the damage has already been done.

This is the equivalent of the NFT argument that as people work on them the technology will become more efficient. So it's fine to waste large amounts of energy now on something that's essentially completely useless.

[Mito Man]

It's not great but its going to happen regardless, I'm just saying that I'm okay with owning crypto from an environmental aspect.

Also it's not necessarily a failure of crypto that it takes how ever many tonnes of CO2 to mine per coin but rather a failure of our electrical infrastructure worldwide - much like people who bitch that EVs aren't green because they're being charged via a coal power station.