Bitcoin

[phinix]

Do you guys invest in crypto?
What known platforms do you use?
Is it worth it, hard, easy?
Wanted to see how popular it is in our keeb circles

[yui]

Do you guys invest in crypto?
What known platforms do you use?
Is it worth it, hard, easy?
Wanted to see how popular it is in our keeb circles

i tried my hand at mining, and got at the moment 0.0005BTC out of it, and a dead pc (although it was tired from folding for a whole year before mining)
i used nicehash on one GPU while folding@home was running on the other 2 + cpu.

[Findecanor]

Bitcoin (and other "mined" cryptocurrencies such as Etherium) is in-effect a pyramid scheme. Pyramid schemes work only as long as they can attract new suckers into the scheme. This is why some prominent Wall Street investors don't touch the stuff - they saw right away that it is not sustainable in the long run.
It's growth is purely based on speculation ..  (but for what? Underpants?)
As with any such scheme, if you get in early before it has become too popular and it is successful and you cash out in time, then you could make a lot of money. However, if you get in late, and you are in there when the bubble bursts, well ... these are not Bitcoin's early days.

The value of Bitcoin also fluctuates a lot, and has a $25 (?) cost of transaction, so it is not useful for storing value or for payments.

Bitcoin is not based on any real value itself. But it does waste an ungodful amount of energy, worsening the climate crisis.
Bitcoin isn't practically "mined" on graphics cards any more. It went to special ASICs (application specific chips) years ago, in huge farms in China, running on coal power.

There are also many scams around Bitcoin, and malware and hacks stealing other people's bitcoin. Be wary.

[yui]

yeah i should have been a bit more precise, none of my hardware actually mined bitcoin, but i got paid in bitcoin, and home mining in the winter can be close to a 0 when it comes to energy, as the heat from the miner is heat that the heater does not have to produce, mining farms in an other hand... i would not mine anymore as most my heaters are now off, next winter if it still is worth something maybe.

[chyros]

Bitcoin wastes an incredible amount of energy and contributes absolutely nothing. I'm all for forbidding it.

[tp4tissue]

Bitcoin wastes an incredible amount of energy and contributes absolutely nothing. I'm all for forbidding it.

It's absolutely horrendous and unnnecessary.

[noisyturtle]

I've only ever easily made money on it. But it sure is stupid. I bought $75 in LTC years ago and the change left over from the purchase now is worth more than the original total amount I bought.

I think the idea of getting rid of paper money for a digital currency is a good one, but not through mined assets.

But this is literally the worst time to invest. Hype is high and prices are inflated. Like buying in 2017, just wait a year or two.

[absyrd]

Bitcoin wastes an incredible amount of energy and contributes absolutely nothing. I'm all for forbidding it.

Agreed.

[Shapey Fiend]

Looked into it 10 years ago thought it was dumb. Still think so today but I guess I should have bought some. A friend of mine had a small amount bought a house with it. Don't see the point in jumping in now it's so expensive. You don't want to be the last person in.

[phinix]

Yeah, thats how I feel, just too late to the party...

[psxndc]

Yeah, thats how I feel, just too late to the party...

I felt that way in October when it was $13k. But I still bought a little. I’ve been buying $26 a week since then. I’ve put in $1124 total and my wallet is at $2475. Yes, BTC is at $59k now, but some institutional folks think it could go to $100k.

To be clear, I am *not* encouraging you to buy Bitcoin. It’s totally speculative and I bought in treating it like money I’d spend at a casino. I fully expect to lose *all* of it, and I’m only putting in what I’m comfortable losing completely. I’m telling you the above just to say that I too thought “13k is so high. It peaked at 20k and will probably never get back to there,” yet I’m currently at 2x what I’ve put in.

I use Coinbase btw. Robinhood is free to transact, but doesn’t let you set up recurring purchases. With PayPal, you don’t really own/get the crypto, you sorta rent from their pool.

Edited for numbers accuracy

[iri]

Do you guys invest in crypto?

No.

Is it worth it

No.

[SBJ]

Bitcoin wastes an incredible amount of energy and contributes absolutely nothing. I'm all for forbidding it.

Agreed.

Yup, totally agree.

[Leslieann]

Bitcoin wastes an incredible amount of energy and contributes absolutely nothing. I'm all for forbidding it.

While I think it's absolutely silly and I agree...

Name any industry that creates wealth or anything without wasting energy? Do we need board games? Casinos? Card decks? How about the candy industry? Do you have air conditioning or heating in your home, do you REALLY need to maintain temps with a few degrees or is that just wasting energy for your comfort? Everything we do uses energy. Sure this uses a lot, but if that's the biggest complaint there's a lot of other industries we need to attack as well. Like shutting down making all our stuff overseas and shipping it here on horribly pollulting ships.

Again, I agree with you but it's a B.S. argument by people who just hate the idea of crypto. I don't like it, but it's here to stay, at least for the time being. What's really behind the hate is teh same people behind the hate of green energy... Old money. They do not like anything that alters the status quo.

[iri]

"and contributes absolutely nothing"

[yui]

i thought the original point of the bitcoin was to spark an alternative economy, one out of the control of big banks and governments, and keep a low-ish profile, from what i have read the massive mining farms and compute needed for it was an oversight, no one imagined that it would take off like it did and that the compute requirement would climb that fast.
i still see a point in crypto though, remove the power from the hands of very powerful and very rich few that would do anything to starve the rest of the world for a bit more money, a bit like what happened with game stop, i may be wrong and it clearly went out of hand, will see how it goes in the future

[Leslieann]

"and contributes absolutely nothing"

It did the same thing many other industries did, created wealth.

Like it or not that's often the ultimate goal of most industries is it not? Do you think the CEO of General Electric really has a deep passion about the microwaves they create (in China) and has his hand in the design and manufacturing (most are white label designs)? Hell no, he's there for the money and he doesn't really care how it's made.

If a company could generate wealth from nothing you can be damn sure they would.. Oh wait, they did.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/22/tesla-has-made-1-billion-profit-on-its-bitcoin-investment-analyst.html

By the way, banks have been semi secretly developing their own crypto as well, mostly so they can hide transactions from governments but that's besides the point. Visa is also now getting in on it, with plans to allow bitcoin purchases on your Visa card at any ATM or POS terminal. Why would they do this? One reason is because unlike government issued currencies, crypto has no regulation on transaction fees so if they want to charge you $10 to pay for groceries at Walmart or use an ATM  they are free to do so, a fee that is entirely profit. Businesses usually lease the equipment and pay a monthly fee as well as charging customers. Money for nothing.

There's an old saying...
Don't hate the player, hate the game.

[iri]

Do you think the CEO of General Electric really has a deep passion about the microwaves they create (in China) and has his hand in the design and manufacturing (most are white label designs)?

I think this gives the world microwaves.

[Leslieann]

Do you think the CEO of General Electric really has a deep passion about the microwaves they create (in China) and has his hand in the design and manufacturing (most are white label designs)?

I think this gives the world microwaves.

No, it doesn't.
They slapped a G.E. logo on an already existing product (white label). I can fire off an email, punch in some credit card numbers and have Geekhack branded wireless mice on a boat next week, I could even drop ship them to resellers and customers without ever even seeing or touching the product.  Did I give the world mice?

Amazon Basics, Rosewill, Sabrent and Inland are white label brands, they don't make or design anything, they simply had the OEM change the logo which they will do for free if you order enough.  If you know where to go, this stuff is super easy to do. You can get white label keyboards, washing machines, riding lawn mowers, I'm pretty sure you can even get white labeled cars, I know you can get motorcycles.

[tp4tissue]

There are so many white label digital pianos now it's crazy. They've all been quite awful though.

[Leslieann]

There are so many white label digital pianos now it's crazy. They've all been quite awful though.

White label only needs to be good enough and cheap enough.

[tp4tissue]

There are so many white label digital pianos now it's crazy. They've all been quite awful though.

White label only needs to be good enough and cheap enough.

Alesis recital , /double face palm

[noisyturtle]

What I would highly recommend is purchasing Coinbase stock right now before it inevitably climbs (they just debuted their IP today.) It will climb, it is just a matter of how fast. CB is really the only crypto platform people use. Sure others exist, but no one really uses them.

Buy COIN now or forever hold your peace.

[iri]

Do you think the CEO of General Electric really has a deep passion about the microwaves they create (in China) and has his hand in the design and manufacturing (most are white label designs)?

I think this gives the world microwaves.

No, it doesn't.
They slapped a G.E. logo on an already existing product (white label). I can fire off an email, punch in some credit card numbers and have Geekhack branded wireless mice on a boat next week, I could even drop ship them to resellers and customers without ever even seeing or touching the product.  Did I give the world mice?

Yes. Because if your actions, someone gets mice. Bitcoin mining only gives CO2.

[psxndc]

Yes. Because if your actions, someone gets mice. Bitcoin mining only gives CO2.

CO2? Is what plants crave!

[Leslieann]

Do you think the CEO of General Electric really has a deep passion about the microwaves they create (in China) and has his hand in the design and manufacturing (most are white label designs)?

I think this gives the world microwaves.

No, it doesn't.
They slapped a G.E. logo on an already existing product (white label). I can fire off an email, punch in some credit card numbers and have Geekhack branded wireless mice on a boat next week, I could even drop ship them to resellers and customers without ever even seeing or touching the product.  Did I give the world mice?

Yes. Because if your actions, someone gets mice. Bitcoin mining only gives CO2.

I buy 500 mice at $3.50 each, sell them at $20 each.
You can go to the same place and buy a single mouse for $4.

Did I really help anyone? If I didn't drop ship them it means I had them all shipped overseas, re-boxed, then shipped out again, possibly to a distributor who again re-boxes and ships them. And if none of them actually sell and end up in a dump, how much carbon and CO2 did I create in this whole endeavour? Don't get me wrong, I get what you're saying but I think you put entirely too much faith in traditional business.

BTW, the stock market doesn't really create anything either, unfortunately I can't find a number for that but I think how much it generates would be shockingly high.

[Sintpinty]

funny yellow dog

[tp4tissue]

I buy 500 mice at $3.50 each, sell them at $20 each.
You can go to the same place and buy a single mouse for $4.

Did I really help anyone? If I didn't drop ship them it means I had them all shipped overseas, re-boxed, then shipped out again, possibly to a distributor who again re-boxes and ships them. And if none of them actually sell and end up in a dump, how much carbon and CO2 did I create in this whole endeavour? Don't get me wrong, I get what you're saying but I think you put entirely too much faith in traditional business.

BTW, the stock market doesn't really create anything either, unfortunately I can't find a number for that but I think how much it generates would be shockingly high.

The stock market functions like thoughts. It is tabulation, the labor on resources is done by a separate set of people.

While it is the case that everyone uses money, and some have ALOT more of it, it wouldn't be correct to say a billionaire has made more progress at the personal level.

My point is, it's not always productive to get hung up on on the simpler side of the tabulation, because as applied to the real world it's not a blanket up and down.

For example, You take billions invested in wind and solar,  all that wallstreet does is the paper work, the money is part of the paper work.  Society then has to physically eat food, convert it to labor, operate on the raw resources, to make wind and solar.

If you take the same billions and put it in nooqular power,  Society would eat the same amount food, but convert it mainly into toxic waste, and end up eating yet more food to look after the waste until everyone is dead.


Bit coin, for the moment is a driver of a distributive datacenter task. The end product is useless, but the PROCESS could be thought of as a useful learning experience, as it flows the (Money)(Paperwork) towards Semiconductor companies. So, it's something like a learning expense that will pay out (Maybe) in the future. I don't think this is an efficient way to learn, but it does clean up loose money that would otherwise be invested in something even more stupid like Nooqular energy which is neither clean nor economically sustainable.

[chyros]

"and contributes absolutely nothing"

It did the same thing many other industries did, created wealth.

It doesn't. It's a zero-sum pyramid scheme except it also wastes an absurd amount of energy in the process.

There is no reason whatever not to ban it.

[noisyturtle]

crypto banned in Turkey lol

[Sintpinty]

crypto banned in Turkey lol

Link to article? people should be able to use unofficial currency as a means of payment

[noisyturtle]

crypto banned in Turkey lol

Link to article? people should be able to use unofficial currency as a means of payment

https://www.reuters.com/technology/turkey-bans-use-cryptocurrencies-payments-sends-bitcoin-down-2021-04-16/

[Sintpinty]

crypto banned in Turkey lol

Link to article? people should be able to use unofficial currency as a means of payment

https://www.reuters.com/technology/turkey-bans-use-cryptocurrencies-payments-sends-bitcoin-down-2021-04-16/

thanks

[Shapey Fiend]

You can say it should be your indelible right to have crypto but ultimately governments are all going to try crack down on it eventually because they're trying to prevent capital flight in a recession. There's loads of money laundering occurring as well.

[Signature]

bitcoin sucks dong, blockchain is aight

[sefixmm]

Bitcoin wastes an incredible amount of energy and contributes absolutely nothing. I'm all for forbidding it.

I agree, this is probably the biggest bull**** ever invented! Wasting incredible amounts of resources and energy just to validate transactions for currencies that are useless at all other than playing whoever pisses the furthest!

[tp4tissue]

Bitcoin wastes an incredible amount of energy and contributes absolutely nothing. I'm all for forbidding it.

I agree, this is probably the biggest bull**** ever invented! Wasting incredible amounts of resources and energy just to validate transactions for currencies that are useless at all other than playing whoever pisses the furthest!

The proposed purpose of crytocurrency is decentralization, getting rid of banks, making transactions more efficient.

The problem is, well, the central banks control everything including most of the general resources that would go into mining. Down the line,  even if we have the computing system decentralized, resource control is still operating on the Human-oligarchic-scale,  you end up with the same damn problems and inefficiencies.

I agree it is an improvement on banking, but the bottleneck is always the humans.

Crypto is a good system, but it does not reset wealth distribution, it just AT BEST replicates the existing broken ledger which operate on the human network.


At the end of the day, if we don't cycle out of this stupid hedonic loop tally system. we're all screwed.

What something is worth should NOT be decided by humans, it should be decided by AI

As crypto DOES further the power of Machines,  I'd say there EXISTS the possibility that this could work out for the best, even if not by the upfront intention of the wobbling humans.

[noisyturtle]

Everything is super down right now. Just gets worse and worse, but the same is happening to my stock portfolio so I don't see any difference between Crypto investments and buying more ETFs
In a year or two things will go back up and reach a new cap. Hopefully I haven't killed myself by that point.

[Leslieann]

Depends on how you look at it.

Bitcoin hit a low back in June, went back up to 25K in Aug. but fell back again in Sept. It's actually up a little compared to June.
Eth followed the same pattern however it's actually up quite a bit compared to the low June (almost 20%).
I have a bit of both.


I agree though, it's not really much different.
My stock is actually way up compared to when I bought it, though down from it's peak and it's not enough to be life changing anyhow. All my crypto and stock could double or catch fire tomorrow and nothing would change for me.

[noisyturtle]

My stock is actually way up compared to when I bought it, though down from it's peak and it's not enough to be life changing anyhow. All my crypto and stock could double or catch fire tomorrow and nothing would change for me.

Yeah, I was talking about this with one of my financially stable friends the other day. I was saying how $10k would absolutely change my entire life, if not just for a few months, and he was like, "$10k would do literally nothing for me, that's less than a month of work."
I have been poor my entire life, and despite trying everything and working my ass off, continue to live paycheck to paycheck. $10k is nearly half my annual income, I am embarrassed to say.

[Leslieann]

My stock is actually way up compared to when I bought it, though down from it's peak and it's not enough to be life changing anyhow. All my crypto and stock could double or catch fire tomorrow and nothing would change for me.

Yeah, I was talking about this with one of my financially stable friends the other day. I was saying how $10k would absolutely change my entire life, if not just for a few months, and he was like, "$10k would do literally nothing for me, that's less than a month of work."
I have been poor my entire life, and despite trying everything and working my ass off, continue to live paycheck to paycheck. $10k is nearly half my annual income, I am embarrassed to say.

Shouldn't be, there's TONS of people just like you.

While money can buy an interesting life you don't need money to have an interesting life. I doubt anyone dies wishing they worked more or made more money.

[noisyturtle]

My stock is actually way up compared to when I bought it, though down from it's peak and it's not enough to be life changing anyhow. All my crypto and stock could double or catch fire tomorrow and nothing would change for me.

Yeah, I was talking about this with one of my financially stable friends the other day. I was saying how $10k would absolutely change my entire life, if not just for a few months, and he was like, "$10k would do literally nothing for me, that's less than a month of work."
I have been poor my entire life, and despite trying everything and working my ass off, continue to live paycheck to paycheck. $10k is nearly half my annual income, I am embarrassed to say.

Shouldn't be, there's TONS of people just like you.

While money can buy an interesting life you don't need money to have an interesting life. I doubt anyone dies wishing they worked more or made more money.

But being super poor prohibits you from living a normal life. I don't think a lot of people understand the depth of paralyzation a consistent lack of funds puts on a person. When people are going out for drinks I have to decline, when people are meeting up to do an activity I have to decline, I have a lot of trouble dating due to being poor, and have even lost out on potential jobs due to being carless, most of the time even if it is a free thing I simply cannot even get there due to not having a car. You are basically relegated to being meta-imprisoned in your home. Go to work, make barely enough for food and rent, and repeat that same cycle every 2 weeks. There is no wriggle room really.
Even being blessed with a small influx, you know it will not last and soon you will be back to being subhuman again.

[Leslieann]

But being super poor prohibits you from living a normal life. I don't think a lot of people understand the depth of paralyzation a consistent lack of funds puts on a person. When people are going out for drinks I have to decline, when people are meeting up to do an activity I have to decline, I have a lot of trouble dating due to being poor, and have even lost out on potential jobs due to being carless, most of the time even if it is a free thing I simply cannot even get there due to not having a car. You are basically relegated to being meta-imprisoned in your home. Go to work, make barely enough for food and rent, and repeat that same cycle every 2 weeks. There is no wriggle room really.
Even being blessed with a small influx, you know it will not last and soon you will be back to being subhuman again.

Been there.
Just try not to focus too much on what you don't have is all I'm saying.

[noisyturtle]

I have a 'feeling' this Summer will be a good one. Strong market now, people are buying in, almost everything I have is climbing steadily this past month, and this follows the past trends of the last 8 years or so.
Currently up over 400%, and I believe everything will peak around June/July.

[iri]

Ah so that's why you have no money, you spent it on ****coin.

[noisyturtle]

Ah so that's why you have no money, you spent it on ****coin.

Honestly, crypto has done nothing but make me money. I put a lot in when I was making good money in tech, and there has been times selling off a bit has gotten me through literal months of no income. But my main purse only contains 4 cryptos, mostly in ETH and Jasmy for long holds. Hoping to liquidate this year or next, depending on trends. Should've bought much more AVAX last year, but oh well.

[Leslieann]

Ah so that's why you have no money, you spent it on ****coin.

Not everyone lost money on crypto.
Crypto is no different than stocks. Yes, there is/was a lot of scam coins (Doge) but if you did even the tiniest bit of research it isn't/wasn't too hard to figure out which had absolutely zero future and which were at least not a joke. "Meme stocks" showed the stock market operates in the same way, in fact Bernie Madoff, the guy who created the largest ponzi scheme also created the current US stock trading system (he was also the chairman of NASDAQ).

I highly recommend people go watch "The Big Short" and "Apes Together Strong".

I made money on both crypto and meme stocks, but I also did a lot of research before I did it and I don't recommend anyone invest at all (including 401ks) without researching because none of it is nearly as safe as people think, especially 401Ks (tons of problems with these). Big money wants your money invested in the stock market (including every American's Social Security) because they can't take it if it's not in play. When it crashes, which they can orchestrate, they get to take it all for pennies on the dollar. This is real reason for all the crypto hate, the big stock trading houses and investors can't control it and use it for a "safe" investment. What Gamestop/AMC Apes (traders) did was turn the system against them and it nearly crashed the entire system, it also unfortunately wiped out a bunch of 401Ks, retirements and hedge funds. It didn't actually nearly crash the stock market, only the corporations who facilitated the trades. Did we investigate the systemic problems? Nope, we blamed those pesky Redditors.

[iri]

This is so hilarious to read for someone who works in """Big Money""".

[Rhienfo]

crypto seems like pure gambling mixed in with lots of fraud, so much of it. It's system ripe for scams because there barely is any consequences for people who do scam, the system is like so well designed for scamming as well, because there are no safeguards so if you **** up and get tricked, it's over and you lose your money.