• who8mydamnoreos@lemmy.world
    1241·
    1 year ago

    I was one of the lucky ones who bought bitcoin so I could buy acid on the internet. Years later I put a down payment on a house with the change that I forgot about. DARE was wrong.

  • Veraticus@lib.lgbtEnglish
    397·
    1 year ago

    noo you don’t understand it’s going to the moon noooo hodl hodl hodl nooooooooo plz buy my crypto thank you :(

  • foggy@lemmy.world
    31·
    1 year ago

    I have invested a total of $2000 in crypto.

    I took out $2000 when I had like $12000.

    I have no idea how much what is left is now. Probably $500-$700. Definitely less than a months rent.

    Imma let it ride. I have rss feeds that’ll let me know if any of the coins I own spike for some reason. Otherwise, whatever.

    • db2@sopuli.xyz
      71·
      1 year ago

      This is the way to do it. What I’ve got is all profit too, whether that means a million dollars or just one.

    • Ataraxia@sh.itjust.works
      15·
      1 year ago

      Same. I had the money to spare and the means to mine so why not? We made more doing that than I have in working for the last few years and even if it were gone tomorrow it wouldn’t affect our livelihood. It’s just so nice thing to have when we are old.

  • anakin78z@lemmy.world
    301·
    1 year ago

    I sleep well at night knowing nobody will steal my thing I don’t care about because I don’t own any. I just wanted you all to know that.

  • Nurgle@lemmy.world
    231·
    1 year ago

    Like it was basically just digital gold… which is also a terrible currency in physical form.

    • Rambi@lemm.ee
      173·
      1 year ago

      I mean it is very very useful for specific purposes, like purchasing, uh, certain substances in certain, uh… unregulated online marketplaces.

      As far as being a currency for other purposes goes though, I think it is incredibly unfit for purpose. And as far as being an investment vehicle goes it’s essentially a ponzi scheme.

      • BartsBigBugBag@lemmy.tfEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Also the hands down best way to do remittances. No more will WorldRemit steal 15% of my remittance, nor screw me on the exchange rate.

    • SaltyIceteaMaker@lemmy.ml
      9·
      1 year ago

      Wouldn’t say terrible. Just volatile and with a specific use cas. But incaseyour currency loses value you still have some wealth wich you can use for financial interactions (assuming you still have access to it)

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
      72·
      1 year ago

      It also helps morons and crooks self-identify.

      I have a friend who bought some eth in like 2015 (or whenever) just to see if he could make money on it. Same guy told me he once bought coke on the darkweb. As far as I know, he only did each of these once to see if they were true.

      I would not associate with anyone who is an active participant in crypto. Much less anyone who owns and hypes NFTs. That’s like telling me you like cops / are pro-life / believe Jesus needs to save me. All of these are signs that we are not compatible.

          • Track_Shovel@slrpnk.netEnglish
            11·
            1 year ago

            Nothing more than it’s widely accepted and that it’s backed by yet another widely accepted from of currency (usually; gold). Some systems don’t back it up, IIRC.

            Because it’s widely accepted, there’s a degree of stability built into it. People generally agree on its value.

            This is all gross-oversimplification, I realize, and I don’t particularly want to get into the weeds on this topic, because it’s only of passing interest to me. Regardless, my points around ‘real’ money being more stable and accepted are valid.

            • Radioactrev@reddthat.com
              1·
              1 year ago

              Nothing more than it’s widely accepted

              Well, what’s wrong with Bitcoiners trying to make their currency widely accepted too?

              that it’s backed by yet another widely accepted from of currency

              So it’s turtles all the way down, is what you’re saying?

              (usually; gold)

              Not the USD, which is the worlds most widely accepted currency.

              This is all gross-oversimplification, I realize, and I don’t particularly want to get into the weeds on this topic, because it’s only of passing interest to me.

              Yes, I agree that this is gross-oversimplification. But if you don’t want to get into the weeds, why make a claim about something you don’t understand and don’t have interest in?

      • imgonnatrythis@lemm.ee
        152·
        1 year ago

        How did you buy drugs online before crypto? I think it’s made it much easier. Also for international transactions of large sums I used to pay fees for services and crypto allows for an easy universal standard with no middle men. Micropayments never caught on, but it would be a nice solution for that as well. This argument that we already have money, we don’t need different money never flew with me. Crypto has its place, it was just abused as an investment commodity way too early and this massive inflation completely suffocated any practical application.

        • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
          3·
          1 year ago

          It’s funny cause crypto can totally be traced, like the whole idea is everyone has a copy of a history of the transactions, although wallets can be effectively anonymous with certain caveats. The idea of providing my address for a shipment was the part that always put me off with darknet. Although knowing how the laws work with how police obtain warrants etc, I didn’t see a huge risk on that front. Also the things I wanted to obtain weren’t necessarily illegal, mostly Shulgin’s compounds, spores, certain species of wood bark, and we already had a huge medical grey market cannabis market. Plain old etransfers were always preferred because under $10k its not a red flag and nothing “illegal” is happening anyway in the supply chain.

        • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
          97·
          1 year ago

          So the use cases are:

          • Buying illegal shit

          • Scummy crypto exchange as middle men

          • Small payments that never got used

          • Trying to become rich by sitting on money

          The argument is more that we already have better solutions than the one crypto tries to fill. Instead of finding a solution for a problem, crypto tries to find a problem to solve.

          Blockchain may have some use case somewhere, but it is definitely not in money.

          • ObiGynKenobi@lemm.ee
            61·
            1 year ago

            Scummy crypto exchange as middle men

            And you think the companies charging exorbitant fees to remit money aren’t scummy? Crypto has its myriad issues, but remittance is one rock-solid example of it disrupting an egregiously predatory industry in a very positive way.

          • LegionEris [she/her]@feddit.nl
            62·
            1 year ago

            Buying illegal shit is important. I never would have accomplished the truama recovery I have in the care access desert we lived in without being able to buy psychedelics online. I’m thriving personally because of a few high quality darkweb dealers. I’m great at my job in part because they sent me accurately labeled and carefully grown cannabis when it was illegal, so I was gaining strain knowledge and experience when most of my coworkers were getting the best generic weed they could find in town. If the fascists succeed in making trans care illegal, I’ll use it buy my hormones. It pains me to see the intense turn against crypto, because, used for actual commerce rather than as an investment, it kinda saved me. We never used bitcoin unless we couldn’t help it. I’ve always been angry that using the least energy efficient coin as an investment became the norm. The value of crypto, in my opinion, lies entirely in its prompt and regular use as currency. Hodlers ruined things for everyone.

          • imgonnatrythis@lemm.ee
            2·
            1 year ago

            You are just putting a negative spin on things that are not necessarily negative. The last one is not at all specific to crypto.

            Let’s not forget that monitary structures are currently backed by governments, crypto offers a way out of the risks associated with that structure as well. Of course if crypto ever takes off it will end up controlled by corporations which is not inherently better, but at least it offers a choice / way out from governmental whims.

            A lot of technological changes start as things trying to find problems to solve - that’s often how discovery works.

            I don’t share your confidence. Clearly crypto isn’t going to sprout in popularity any time soon, but there aren’t nails in this coffin.

      • ⚡⚡⚡@feddit.de
        3·
        1 year ago

        Bitcoin was created shortly after some Banks almost crashed the world economy.

        It was also a reaction on centralized services like PayPal freezing the accounts of Wikileaks or similar.

        Saying that there were or are no problems is wrong. But Crypto is also not a perfect alternative.

    • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
      202·
      1 year ago

      the idea was great

      I have questioned this ever since I learned that the more adoption there is, the less efficient mining becomes, ergo more power is wasted accomplishing the exact same task for no extra benefit. Difficulty creates a back asswards system that makes adoption a con.

      • NewDark@unilem.org
        7·
        1 year ago

        Mining is only one strategy for concenous, but yes it is a pretty rudementary and inefficient version.

        • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
          42·
          1 year ago

          Well it’s been over a decade and Bitcoin is still PoW, as well as nearly 50% of the entire crypto market.

            • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
              71·
              1 year ago

              My point is how great can it be if over a decade later the terrible system for mining is still dominant? The more people participating, the worse it gets. We just had texas power companies paying crypto bros to stop mining it’s gotten so bad - and we aren’t even at .01% adoption yet.

              You’re chiming in in a way that ignores nuance and implied meaning. I feel like my intention has been pretty clear but if I need to spell it out so be it.

              • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
                2·
                1 year ago

                That’s more a question of being first on the scene and the financial impact if Bitcoin maximalists finally accepted that their blockchain is crap compared to other options, that’s what keeps Bitcoin at the top, not how good or bad it is compared to the tech’s potential…

                And no your intention wasn’t very clear otherwise I wouldn’t have had to reply how I did previously.

          • NewDark@unilem.org
            2·
            1 year ago

            Bitcoin is more religion and cult than anything. Of course they think it’s great or at least able to hand wave criticisms.

            And yeah, consensus is a hard problem to solve for. Many have taken the route of least resistance and implemented what is known to work.

      • AtHeartEngineer@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        1 year ago

        Ethereum doesn’t use mining at all anymore. It can get expensive to use though, which layer 2 chains help with

  • Beowulf@unilem.org
    103·
    1 year ago

    I can understand monero since you can actually use it as a currency on some certain websites, but that’s basically it. I do not care about crypto anymore because of the almost toxic culture it can brew.

    Back when reddit was a thing, I asked how to even start with crypto (what type of wallet, general set up general use etc) and just didn’t even talk about the actual mining (I remember saying something around the lines of “I’m looking to mine because it’s supposed to get extra cold this winter, I do not care about actually getting any crypto” and those dense mfers kept linking a website that calculates how much I would make with the cost of electricity and the efficiently of it all… like… I didn’t even care about making anything, I just didn’t want it going into the ether)

    Anyways that’s my rant

    • infernalaudit@kbin.social
      31·
      1 year ago

      I ran a very small mining operation at home back in the day and it definitely was all about trying to optimize everything.
      Today, I don’t think mining is economically viable without running a data center, but I still mine in the winter and turn my computer into a space heater for my home office. It definitely doesn’t cover the power cost but it does offset a small portion of it.

      Not affiliated in any way but Nicehash is what I use now since it (mostly) runs out of the box with minimal configuration.

      As a side note, don’t mine on laptops - you won’t get enough heat to keep a room warm and you might end up with something failing from overheating.

      • Beowulf@unilem.org
        2·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, I knew it wouldn’t be cost effective since my old rig had an AMD RX580 8gb, but if I could play games and already have a space heater, I may as well mine crypto to heat up the whole house. Nowadays I’m just using Folding@Home during the winter

  • TootSweet@lemmy.worldEnglish
    71·
    1 year ago

    Way back when Bitcoin was first being talked about on Slashdot, I mined for a while. On my processor. For like a month. I got about 1/20 of a Bitcoin out of it.

    And then I lost interest for a long time. And then it became clear blockchain is an infinite self-similar fractal of scams and ponsis.

    I haven’t done anything with my 1/20 of a Bitcoin. I don’t have any expectation it will go up or down. If the bubble takes back off and inflates so much 1/20 of a Bitcoin becomes life-changing money, I might try to sell it. Maybe if a bunch of crypto-owning crypto-skeptics organize a mass sell event to drive it to zero, I’ll take part. Otherwise, it’ll stay where it is for the forseeable future.

    Ironic that someone like me who believes wholeheartedly that blockchain is snake oil is such a model hodler.

    • Custoslibera@lemmy.worldOP
      123·
      1 year ago

      You’ve basically explained why crypto can’t work.

      Deflationary currencies don’t make sense to spend because their future value will be higher.

      The outcome is people hold onto them in the hopes they gain value. The exact opposite of what you want for a currency.

      • rastilin@kbin.social
        73·
        1 year ago

        This makes perfect sense in theory, but after multiple years of 8% to 10% inflation I’m not so keen on the “inflation always” line of thinking. Some kind of “generally stable” currency that alternates unpredictably would be best.

      • Gigan@lemmy.world
        73·
        1 year ago

        A deflationary currency would simply cause people to be more careful with their spending. You still need food, shelter, transportation, entertainment, etc. An inflinflationary currency encourages overconsumption, because material things hold value better than money.

        • Custoslibera@lemmy.worldOP
          7·
          1 year ago

          If you’d like a world with zero discretionary spending then yeah, deflationary currency is for you.

          I don’t think that’s an economy you want to live in though.

      • infernalaudit@kbin.social
        31·
        1 year ago

        As a counterpoint: From the perspective of the Bitcoin network, Bitcoin is not inherently deflationary as long as mining continues to introduce new coins. Mining rewards do drop over time, but new Bitcoin will continue to be generated until the year ~2140.

        I think the view of Bitcoin being deflationary now is based on its increasing/volatile value against other currencies which does encourage people to hold with the expectation that they can sell for more in the future. I’d argue that this is price discovery and not deflation. If it remains where it is now, then I agree that it will just be another casino. If the value stabilizes eventually, then it does offer some benefits, especially in countries where the local currency is a less reliable way to hold money.

        Disclosure: I do hold some crypto and obviously would prefer it to go up but it won’t change my life. I just think it’s an interesting experiment at the end of the day.

      • ⚡⚡⚡@feddit.de
        1·
        1 year ago

        Does it matter here? If we’d talk about making BTC the federal currency, I’d agree. But the average person has < 1% of the total welth in Bitcoin and it’s more like a side-by-side thing… The block size is also limiting how much it can be used anyway. So, inflation would highlight that problem… I think, at this point, no one behind Bitcoin is actually aiming to make Bitcoin the single world currency everyone uses exclusively. So, let it be deflational for those who want to put a fraction of their money in a non-inflational currency…

      • TootSweet@lemmy.worldEnglish
        24·
        1 year ago

        For sure. Also, the inherent unscalability of blockchain as a technology makes for a payment system far too slow for your typical payment scenarios, which makes transferring Bitcoin a pain in the ass, further incentivising hodling.

        (Just to address some of the "akshully"s I’m probably going to get for the above, you can make blockchain fast if you centralize it like Solana does, but if you’re going to centralize it, you’re better off using Postgres than blockchain.)

        I think largely the argument that convinces some people that cryptocurrency is worth “investing in” is that it’s going to revolutionize the way we pay for things. In which case the fact that it doesn’t work as a currency completely robs it of any legitimacy as a security.

        If you want something that does have potential to improve the way we go about buying groceries, look into GNU Taler.