Don’t be fooled by the 20000th round of “crypto is dead” articles.
I agree that BTC is trash but it’s still up 100% from last year.
The people who write these articles have no clue.
edit: The Brookings Institute lmao. Right-wing boomer nonsense.
What does it mean for bitcoin to double in value?
Has bitcon’s utility or usefulness doubled?
Or has bitcoin behaved as a highly volatile speculative asset?
It means that despite being fifteen years old, it still takes more electricity for a single bitcoin transaction than to drive an electric SUV from Florida to California, cost per single transaction has still spiked over 50 USD twice in the last six months, and it remains too prone to wild inflation and deflation for any serious business to actually price anything in.
In other words, it has the same inherent value it always has, none at all.
Wasn’t fooled by crypto in the first place.
Other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, which are far more energy efficient than Bitcoin
Calling those that don’t depend on proof-of-work “more energy efficient” is understating it to the point of being dishonest. The difference is not that they’re more efficient in any conventional way. It’s that they don’t have the amazing bitcoin feature of relying for their operation on the practice of deliberately wasting enormous amounts of energy for the purpose of being able to prove that you’ve wasted enormous amounts of energy.
All the way through the cryptocurrency crash which the average reader of headlines might’ve thought had put an end to it by now, the bitcoin network has kept on burning up absurd amounts of power.
What asset would you consider a good value reserve?
A small plot of land with good soil and a steady supply of fresh water, a good education, and a sturdy pair of boots.
I don’t think you got it. So everything you get extra from this work would be used to multiply the same work? Also, you got me curious: why a small plot, not more?
If you can afford more than a small plot of land in this economy, you’ve probably been hoarding too much wealth. I know it’s a very popular hobby, but it’s quite bad for you if taken to excess. But this is getting somewhat off-topic.
Some kind of technology that resembles today’s cryptocurrencies may or may not have a future. As they exist right now none of them are anything like a good investment opportunity or a safe store of value.
the practice of deliberately wasting enormous amounts of energy for the purpose of being able to prove that you’ve wasted enormous amounts of energy.
C’mon, that’s being disingenuous. Back when Bitcoin was released, nobody was giving a thought to computer energy use. A consequence of proof-of-work is wasted energy, but a focus on low-power modalities and throttling have been developed in the intervening years. The prevailing paradigm at the time was, “your C/GPU is going to be burning energy anyway, you may as well do something with it.”
It was a poor design decision, but it wasn’t a malicious one like you make it sound. You may as well accuse the inventors of the internal combustion engine of designing it for the express purpose of creating pollution.
Back when Bitcoin was released, nobody was giving a thought to computer energy use.
It didn’t take long before people saw that energy was a major factor in cost of operations of the network.
It was a poor design decision
One that is fiercely defended by people who invested into the implementation. So it may not have started with it being anticipated, but not it is and people are actively choosing to perpetuate this use of energy.
Most people who got fooled once will get fooled twice. Thats just what fools do.
This is 100% why it’s good to have a small chunk of your portfolio in crypto. It’s hit all-time-highs four times in the last ten years, and now that you can buy into Bitcoin ETF’s, you can get dividends as well.
It’s hard to argue that it won’t again after that, but I wouldn’t put any more than 10% of your investment capital into it.
