They will continue to be used for shady business, they will eventually consume more energy than all of Europe combined, they will never be a legit currency used for normal stuff.
They will be the only way to transact without being surveilled or without requiring the permission and approval of banks, payment providers, and governments. They will continue to displace banking systems in parts of the world where those are corrupt and do not have basic functionality. They will continue to enable people to do business and cooperate across borders. If we remain long enough without a unified world government, I believe the credible neutrality of cryptocurrency, which is higher than any fiat currency can have, will likely cause one of them to become the global reserve currency.
A few years back before Bitcoin crashed, EVERYBODY was making bullshit coins and tokens. Way too much hype. Bitcoin fell and a lot of the bullshit died off. Bitcoin, Etherium, and even little ol Dogecoin is climbing now. When the prices surge up, I sell a little, when the price dips back down, I buy it back.
I take little bits of profit at a time, and I hope the value keeps climbing so it can turn into a significant investment, but if not, it isn’t going to ruin me, it’s not my retirement plan.
As long as it’s treated as an investment rather than an actual currency, it will never be taken seriously by the general public and will never become mainstream. It’s also too volatile without regulation, so people will naturally be apprehensive with their money being at risk of completely losing value any time.
Same as their past: Get-rich-quick schemes, outright scams, massive wastes of electricity, criminal funding tools, investment instruments that aren’t backed by actual companies making anything (and are therefore 100% speculation)… and sometimes some interesting technology.
That’s the sad state of things right now, but I hope things will change for the better, and crypto will become an acceptable way to keep and spend money (rather than ponzi ICO schemes, or sorry, “investment”). I also hope that more crypto switch to proof-of-stake to avoid the huge waste of energy, though that has its own problems as well (fears of more centralization, though this didn’t happen with ETH, or at least not yet).
Awwww I wrote my essay and here I come back to your comment saying everything better in one tenth of my words.
Aside from the electricity, that sounds a lot like traditional currency.
It’s like <1% for fiat versus prob at least half of crypto tho
So no improvements, but a bigger ecological cost. So we should dump crypto, got it!
I’d actually be curious to see the comparison between the power consumption/ecological impact of physical money and digital banking systems vs crypto. I assume the latter is way worse because the proof-of-work model is painfully inefficient and literally just a waste of energy (proof-of-stake is better but still wasteful), but I’d be interested to see actual numbers for comparison. Is crypto twice as bad? Or ten times? Or even worse?
Just thinking of all the things traditional money and banks require (just for the US):
- Growing and harvesting cotton and flax for paper bills (and manufacturing linen from the flax plant)
- Physical buildings need to be constructed to hold money, so all the materials required to build a bank need to be manufactured and then constructed in many places all over the country
- Mining and then refining and forging gold and silver bars for places like Fort Knox
- Power consumption from all the banks’ servers that handle all of the digital wiring of money all over the world
- Mining copper/nickel/zinc/manganese for minting coins, and then the manufacturing process to mint them
- Fuel consumption moving physical money from place to place
Prolly more stuff I’m not thinking of. I wonder if any studies have been done to add it all up. At least a lot of the stuff traditional money requires creates jobs, too. Farmers, construction workers, miners, etc.
You can’t compare crypto with physical currency, that is like compring apples with pears, instead compare the energy use of the transactions on BTC and those made in the VISA network, that is far more accurate.
Making a direct apples to apples comparison doesn’t work because it’s too theoretical and impractical. Cash isn’t going away any time soon.
I’m not necessarily a fan of physical, paper/coin currency, and I think finding better ways to move to digital currency are worth it! I just don’t think crypto, in its current state, is that solution. Both systems have loads of room for improvement.
investment instruments that aren’t backed by actual companies making anything (and are therefore 100% speculation)
Yep, only the evil bad crypto has ever done this! Our revered financial institutions would never sanction such filt-
2008 enters the room
SHIT
Who claimed that only applies to crypto? Don’t attribute to me things I never said.
Well technically, (s)he never claimed you said that either…
Meh
It’ll make a comeback and we’ll get another wave of FOMO and scams
Get rich quick schemes, gambling (speculation), rug pull and pump and dump fraud, dodging taxes, malware ransoms and other illegal activities. Just like it has always been.
Unfortunately while it has legitimate uses, realistically it is used more often for crime and gray area activities. Which is a shame because the technology that enables it is interesting.
I hope that more services will accept crypto as payments. For now they’re either used to gamble/invest or to funnel illegal money with a small percentage being used legitimately like maybe $5 for Mullvad or something.
I expect that Elon or some other rich person is going to use Dogecoin to make a quick buck in the near future.
I like that Ethereum’s system changed to use far less energy and thus emit less carbon.
I guess Monero can be useful if you want to buy drugs online or whatever.
I know that some people feel really strongly about crypto, either positively or negatively, but I’m mostly disinterested. It’s not going to become a particularly useful currency any time soon and it’s way too volatile, so if I ever decide to invest in something I’d picks normal stocks instead.
It’s sad to see XMR being perceived as a currency to buy drugs online.
Because it is
Partly, but there are people like me out there that don’t use XMR to do illegal things. It’s like saying only criminals benefit from privacy.
Ethereum’s new solution makes it more centralized, which makes it less adherent to crypto’s general principles.
Ethereum has always been centralized and has never adhered to general principles of crypto. It’s premined, ico,…
I think that frankly, we need them around but solely for transactions. treating them as anything else or positively promoting them under some pump and dump scheme is a big NO. But for example, using something like monero over TOR to buy a VPN to avoid censorship under a dictatorship? yes, we begrudgingly need it around for stuff like that.
What a lot of people forgot is that this was the whole point of cryptocurrency to begin with.
It’s really frustrating watching the furry community flip out every few months or so when a credit card company pulls the rug from under thousands of artists. All the problems that people complain about like power usage are solved by currencies that aren’t bitcoin. But nobody wants that to be true, because being right is the most important thing in the world.
It’s all a scam and the people who buy into it are idiots. Crypto is basically on par with the stock market, horse racing, and scratchy lottery tickets.
Fuck banks and fuck the banking system.
Paying for shit through my browser via an almost-immediately settled transaction is great and I wish it was more commonly accepted. Lots of growing pains ahead but the concept isn’t going anywhere. There’s also plenty of valid criticism of current implementations but writing off the entire idea is just foolish.
Fuck banks and fuck the banking system.
I’m sorry to be so blunt about this, but you’re kind of being a willing sucker. Inviting people to hate the banks has been the most underrated, under-the-radar, flawlessly effective political smoke-and-mirrors distraction, for generations. And here you go, just buying right into it.
As a distraction, it’s absolutely perfect, because it works from every possible political angle. If you’re a liberal/progressive/socialist, the banks can be a stand-in for capitalism. You can scream about the evils of the banking system, without actually using the word “capitalism,” and maybe get some people onto your side.
If you’re a libertarian/fiscal-conservative/anti-globalist-right-winger, you can accuse the banks of being covertly or overtly controlled by <insert group that you hate> and you can feature them in all kinds of conspiracy theories about The Libs™ weakening your native nation by coupling it to the monetary systems of other nations that you dislike, etc.
If you’re in the political middle (or claim to be), you can pick and choose from any of the above.
In reality, the banking system is going to be necessary for the next couple of centuries. Period. That’s a fact. Nothing can change that, even if it was a good idea to change it. Which I’m not really sure of, because of all the political distraction that always surrounds the whole thing.
The fact remains: people getting all riled up about “the bankers” is music to the ears of every politician who doesn’t actually have any intention of passing good laws, to help people’s lives. Or repealing shitty laws that are fucking up people’s lives.
If you think getting rid of the banking system would instantly solve all our problems, I’ve got an apparently very low-interest loan I can give you, to buy a bridge in Brooklyn.
I’m sorry to be so blunt about this, but you’re kind of being a willing sucker.
Not really a way to start a discussion so I’ll just assume you aren’t interested.
Fuck X
Not really the way either. You said this like it’s a slogan.
It has its fans and niche uses, but I think it has too many problems to be viable as a real currently. It’s volatile, is prone to hacks, lacks consumer protection, doesn’t scale well, and has a huge carbon footprint. If the global banking system had things like gas wars and a “possession is ownership” philosophy then society would collapse.
Yeah like isn’t there a guy sitting on millions and millions of dollars but he forgot his password and only has one attempt left before his account is wiped? Or another that lost his HDD with the details etc. I think it’s pretty stupid to invest in something with such little security or recovery.
What are gas wars here?
Periods of high transaction volume cause transaction fees to skyrocket. If there’s a rush to buy something, then transaction fees will easily go 10x for an hour or so. It’s like if Taylor Swift tickets went on sale, then the entire global economy stopped until they were sold out.
