Impact on the Flow of Legitimate Business use of Hardware
Cryptos have completely screwed up the market for many computer components. Beyond gaming, GPUs are used in numerous industries and academic fields for all kinds of beneficial activities - video rendering, geo modeling, AI, etc etc. All kinds of things. And cryptos have increased the cost for everyone in the entire world. Bitcoin has entirely moved to ASIC, which is many times more efficient. Yet, many of the more minor cryptos are purposefully making it impossible to do so. Think about that - they are actively making it HARDER to mine, and thus are screwing up the markets for no good reason.
Environmental Impact
The amount of energy spent mining these things is absolutely insane. They provide no public benefit and are a black hole for all the resources that go into mining. The hardware is run at 100% all day, every day and has little residual value afterwards so the environmental impact of manufacturing should be included as well. All of the hardware, energy, and programming resources would be much better spent on basically anything else. Also, see above statement about the new cryptos purposely preventing the use of ASIC, which significantly increase the resource cost of mining.
No Price Analyst
There is no fundamental way to do a price analyst for cryptos. What exactly are they worth? Your best bet is to do a relative comparison to other currencies, but that is a never ending loop. The only reasonable analyst out this is technical, and that ends up being “they were up during XXXX time period, so they will be up over XXXXXX time period as well.” In fragiledeal’s defense, fatwallet was also hostile to investing in gold, which would be the closest sibling to bitcoin et. al. But at least gold had the SHTF thing going for it.
No Legal Business Market
Essential no legal business has taken part in the exchange of cryptos for payment for services/goods. Yes, I know there are examples of people saying they take them, but the value of currencies used for payment, for LEGAL businesses, isn’t material. The cost of payments is simply much too high.
No regulation
There is little regulation of the crypto markets. It’s an environment ripe for scams and theft. It had gone so far as to have banks opening “accounts” for holders - yet crytpo accounts don’t hold the same protection as true bank accounts. Governments have a legitimate reason to protect their citizens from fraud through the regulation of financial markets. It’s funny, now that governments are catching up to the game and adding regulations, the market is crashing, which leads to…
No Tracking of Stakeholders
No one that follows cryptos will deny that the only ACTIVE USE for them is to enable anonymous payments. Pretty much the only people who have a need for this are those involved in criminal activity. Ransom, sex trade, tax evasion, drugs, black market…cryptos are complicit enablers. Don’t deny that this is the sole payment use for crytos.
Jealously
Without a doubt this plays a part as well. Some people made money. Some people made lots of money. Jealously of those who have profited from cryptos certainly plays a part in the hate.
I’ll also add that miners take advantage of the GPU manufactures as well. Miner abuse of warranty and RMAs is legendary. Everything thinks the card suppliers are thrilled with this environment, but they aren’t. They are as concerned as everyone else.
The only reason I can see warning someone, in the context of doing so on the Internet, is the comic… to prove something. I understand warning friends, family, etc., but not a complete stranger on the Internet. I feel like it would be similar to jumping on people online because they smoke and you’re afraid they’ll get cancer. I agree with the motive, but I wouldn’t do it. If the person is an adult, they can make their own decision and they can live with the consequences too.
Its established common knowledge that smoking is bad for you. If people still smoke in this day then its a given they know what they’re doing and taking the risks.
There is plenty of confusion, misinformation, ignorance about bitcoin and its not a given that people investing in it really know what they’re doing or that they’re beyond help. In financial matters many people simply lack knowledge and understanding of issues and can benefit from having things explained.
Plus of course theres varying opinions on topics that people like to debate.
For example, why are you bothering to ask this question. Why do you care? Why would you care what other people do on the internet? You seem to claim you don’t care what strangers on the internet do so why are you asking about the actions of strangers on the internet??
No government has ever operated under that principle and it would be terrible for them to try. I’m hardcore right wing but I don’t think for a second that governments don’t have an obligation to regulate financial markets - which cryptos have absolutely become.
All it takes is for the government to classify cryptos as a security. Then all the exchanges would have to register as dealers - and be require to “know their customers” - and the game is over for ever having an exchange in the States.
I ask the question because I’m trying to understand the motivation. When it comes to a lot of the warnings about crypto from one person to another, they are unsolicited, and a lot of them come across as more of a personal attack than solid financial advice.
And, to your p.s., I’ve only got 2.5 days left at my job, so… I’m not doing actual work!
Some people may dislike bitcoin and the whole pyramid shaped bubble fad scam enough that when they talk about bitcoin it comes across as a negative personal attack against bitcoin supporters or investers. Also unless you explicitly say you’er gambling in bitcoin for fun, it may be assumed you’re a sincere investor / supporter in bitcoin as an asset.
I’ve had random strangers scold me in person for smoking in a way that I felt was a condescending arrogant personal attack.
The internet also makes people behave differently. Tone and emotion are lost and theres a layer of buffer between individuals. This lets / compells people to behave much differently. For example some might get in a stupid facebook political argument and call some random friend of a friend of a friend dipshit which they’d never do in person face to face.
Yeah because we all know in financial markets because if something happened in the past it will always continue to happen in the future.
I fully believe many in the bitcoin community are greedy and won’t take profits. The liquidity here is small and the exit is narrow. They will all go down with the sinking ship. Those that were smart enough to sell into the frenzy will profit at their expense.
I disagree with this. The more any government (especially the US government) looks at cryptos, the more it “legitimizes” the space. Take a look at Coinbase. Their service has made a point of being as compliant with US regulations as possible and they’ve grown astronomically - there are more people with an active Coinbase acct than an active Charles Schwab acct. Bittrex is another good example. I recently had to change my 2FA there because I had to change the device where my authenticator was stored. They required me to send a picture of me holding my photo ID with the current date on it as well as a number of other identifying information. They announced that there will be no more new registrations until 2019 which is when they expect to work through their backlog. I have to go through more KYC with them than my bank.
There is tremendous innovation going on within different projects and if the government comes in and starts regulating it, I’m sure certain currencies will suffer but others will flourish. Yes, we will be moving away from some of the techno-anarchist roots that built it but that’s part of growing up. Yes, the exchanges will have to change the way they do business a bit, but it’ll also help define better how they should be doing business. It’ll also help take away some of that cloud of cryptos being used for illegitimate activities.
People like me who believe in the future of blockchain technology not for speculative purposes but the implications for how it can change the way we do business and society in general are excited about being part of something that is changing the world. Sure the price of what we’re holding/mining is exciting but I’ve always said that the “currency” aspect of cryptos is the one of the least interesting applications of the technology for me.
As for OP, my encounter with those who are hostile to the concept of blockchain tech/crypto don’t fully understand it. I see the same arguments over and over again about bubbles, prices, regulation, and other issues. They focus so much on those specific issues that they ignore the benefits or don’t listen to the other side - not much different from getting involved in a political argument. I just do my best to educate and have a civilized discussion and will identify pretty quickly who is willing to have a true discussion on the topic vs those who are yelling as loudly as possible.
That’s because those are problems that should be focused on. I’ll preface by saying I have some background in cryptography. I understand that blockchain is clever and may have some use, but it’s nothing amazing, it’s just a ledger with signatures. I don’t see it changing business or society. Cryptocurrency is just a demonstration of blockchain usage, and I don’t understand why any currencies have any value at all, given that there is no limits on them of any kind – a new one is created every minute. In the long run I only see cryptocurrency being used as an intermediary – you convert real money into some bank-issued (or ABA-issued, SWIFT-issued, etc) crypto, make a transfer (to another bank or person), then convert it back immediately. My understanding was that all legitimate businesses that accepted bitcoin were instantly converting it to real money. For this purpose, the exchange rate could be fixed, and we’d avoid all the problems.
I have no problem with blockchain. The thread is called “Why hate crytpocurrency” FYI. While I think bitcoin is a bubble and will collapse but I think useful blockchain technologies will emerge from its failure.
The problem is that buying bitcoin is not the same as investing in block chain. Just like buying a Ford pickup truck is not an investment in the Ford Motor Company.
I haven’t seen anyone advocating investing in block chain technologies or starting a business that could actually generate value for society.
Everything discussed is all about buying some “limited supply” digital fiat tokens that can be traded using block chain as part of a get rich quick scheme.
Cryptocurrency is just a demonstration of blockchain usage, and I don’t understand why any currencies have any value at all, given that there is no limits on them of any kind – a new one is created every minute.
That is exactly my thought about this stuff.
It amazes me that the cryptocurrency fanatics think that companies using similar technology for their existing business would have ANY bearing at all on the underlying value of fundamentals of some cryptocurrency using a similar technology.
There’s a misunderstanding that blockchain is the only innovation in cryptocurrencies. Blockchain is only half of it. The other half is the bootstrapped, self-reinforcing, incentive structure of cryptocurrencies themselves. This is an innovation that is leading to many interesting applications, and will not easily be replaced by a traditional company using blockchain without a related cryptocurrency.