“Crypto” is full of scams, you’re right about that. Bitcoin has been around for 15 years. You can use it to send money to anybody on planet earth in under a second (with lightning) for pennies in fees. It has a transparent, auditable supply. It has done this function without a single bank holiday, hack, or hour of downtime since the 2008 financial crisis, through a pandemic, wars, and attempted bans by nation states. It has a market cap bigger than Sweden’s GDP. Every year it grows no matter whether you are measuring market cap, number of nodes, number of transactions, volume of money moved, whatever. It processes millions of transactions a year. On nostr alone it has processed 2.9 million transactions over the past two months.
Bitcoin works. It’s been working. People all over the globe use it as a currency, as an asset, and as a payment method.
Gotta love to use a currency with that fluctuating value. /s
When I pay for a coffee and the shop says that I paid the equivalent of 5 cents. Then, I pay the rest and all of a sudden: I paid the equivalent of 100€.
Bitcoin uses <1% of global electrical usage, mostly from renewables since miners must chase the cheapest electricity and renewables at off-peak times are it. They turn off during times of peak demand since they can’t afford higher-priced electricity. How do you think that compares to banks? Remittance services? All the infrastructure used to move money from point A to point B? It takes energy and even more valuable: human capital to move value around.
For reasons why Bitcoin isn’t a huge waste of energy and why it actually helps stabilize grids, increase efficiency, decrease electrical costs, and subsidizes the provision of new renewable infrastructure, see https://endthefud.org/
Let’s talk about all the vaults and their maintenance, the security guards, the Brinks armored cars, all the tellers, wire transaction-handling, and so on and so on.
No, gee, hmm, they’ve never calculated how much a vast, global expense all of this is per second.
Maybe they want you to keep believing that it’s more efficient.
Bitcoin’s annualized footprint in electricity consumption reached an all-time high in early 2022, then believed to be higher than the power consumption of Finland.
Gotta love to use a currency with that fluctuating value. /s
When I pay for a coffee and the shop says that I paid the equivalent of 5 cents. Then, I pay the rest and all of a sudden: I paid the equivalent of 100€.
How has your USD or EUR held up the last 5 years? Buys fewer eggs than it used to huh? Bitcoin has held up pretty damned well. Its price has gotten more stable with time, it is more stable than most national currencies already. Stability is a reflection of scale. Need perfect stability? You can use Bitcoin for payments while receiving and sending in USD or your currency of choice, just use Bitcoin as the settlement layer. Strike already does this in like 20+ countries with instant settlement times thanks to lightning. And no fees.
Fiat currency is guaranteed to lose value over time. Central banks set a target inflation rate of 2-3% per year. Bitcoin may gain or lose value over time. Choosing between a guaranteed loss of value or a potential loss/gain in value, the choice is clear for me. For 15 years in a row, holding BTC has been a better investment than holding USD.
“Crypto” is full of scams, you’re right about that. Bitcoin has been around for 15 years. You can use it to send money to anybody on planet earth in under a second (with lightning) for pennies in fees. It has a transparent, auditable supply. It has done this function without a single bank holiday, hack, or hour of downtime since the 2008 financial crisis, through a pandemic, wars, and attempted bans by nation states. It has a market cap bigger than Sweden’s GDP. Every year it grows no matter whether you are measuring market cap, number of nodes, number of transactions, volume of money moved, whatever. It processes millions of transactions a year. On nostr alone it has processed 2.9 million transactions over the past two months.
Bitcoin works. It’s been working. People all over the globe use it as a currency, as an asset, and as a payment method.
Gotta love to use a currency with that fluctuating value. /s
When I pay for a coffee and the shop says that I paid the equivalent of 5 cents. Then, I pay the rest and all of a sudden: I paid the equivalent of 100€.
Don’t forget the dire environmental impact of pretty much every cryptocurrency!
Bitcoin uses <1% of global electrical usage, mostly from renewables since miners must chase the cheapest electricity and renewables at off-peak times are it. They turn off during times of peak demand since they can’t afford higher-priced electricity. How do you think that compares to banks? Remittance services? All the infrastructure used to move money from point A to point B? It takes energy and even more valuable: human capital to move value around.
For reasons why Bitcoin isn’t a huge waste of energy and why it actually helps stabilize grids, increase efficiency, decrease electrical costs, and subsidizes the provision of new renewable infrastructure, see https://endthefud.org/
Considering how much of a nieche Bitcoin still is: 0.5% of global energy usage is one hell of a lot of energy!
In what universe is proof-of-work more efficient than conventional banking systems?
Let’s talk about banks.
Let’s talk about all the vaults and their maintenance, the security guards, the Brinks armored cars, all the tellers, wire transaction-handling, and so on and so on.
No, gee, hmm, they’ve never calculated how much a vast, global expense all of this is per second.
Maybe they want you to keep believing that it’s more efficient.
Thats not true.
Sauce
Bitcoin != most cryptocurrencies
So your “argument” is purely semantic. Good to know.
How has your USD or EUR held up the last 5 years? Buys fewer eggs than it used to huh? Bitcoin has held up pretty damned well. Its price has gotten more stable with time, it is more stable than most national currencies already. Stability is a reflection of scale. Need perfect stability? You can use Bitcoin for payments while receiving and sending in USD or your currency of choice, just use Bitcoin as the settlement layer. Strike already does this in like 20+ countries with instant settlement times thanks to lightning. And no fees.
Fiat currency is guaranteed to lose value over time. Central banks set a target inflation rate of 2-3% per year. Bitcoin may gain or lose value over time. Choosing between a guaranteed loss of value or a potential loss/gain in value, the choice is clear for me. For 15 years in a row, holding BTC has been a better investment than holding USD.
Yeah. But it has been way more stable in the timespan of a few minutes.
Please read up a bit on economics. Yop’re embarrassing yourself with your austrian brainworm.