[Discussion] Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency! Either it's going to disrupt everything and usher in a new era of artistic and consumer freedom, or it'll hasten the climate apocalypse while largely benefitting a tiny number of investors. Let's yell about it!

Well, it's true. If you want real business success in Eve, you join a large corporation. And everyone in the corp has a role, and they show up XX hours a week, with some of it required on certain tasks, and some of it "free" time, modulo emergencies with all hands on deck. It's a job.

Robear wrote:

Well, it's true. If you want real business success in Eve, you join a large corporation. And everyone in the corp has a role, and they show up XX hours a week, with some of it required on certain tasks, and some of it "free" time, modulo emergencies with all hands on deck. It's a job.

I remember you tried to get me into Eve early on telling me it was something I would be good at. I distinctly remember replying that it "look(ed) too much like work".

You would have been a *killer* corporate exec.

Robear wrote:

You would have been a *killer* corporate exec.

Sigh. So I keep hearing. Though I think it would be one of those things I could only do for a decade in my 40's before taking early retirement to become a used bookstore owner or independent bait and tackle operator while I contemplate all the lives I ruined on my way to "the top".

Paleocon wrote:
Robear wrote:

You would have been a *killer* corporate exec.

Sigh. So I keep hearing. Though I think it would be one of those things I could only do for a decade in my 40's before taking early retirement to become a used bookstore owner or independent bait and tackle operator while I contemplate all the lives I ruined on my way to "the top".

In my headcanon, you've already ruined many lives with your shivgee escapades.

Jonman wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Robear wrote:

You would have been a *killer* corporate exec.

Sigh. So I keep hearing. Though I think it would be one of those things I could only do for a decade in my 40's before taking early retirement to become a used bookstore owner or independent bait and tackle operator while I contemplate all the lives I ruined on my way to "the top".

In my headcanon, you've already ruined many livers with your shivgee escapades.

FTFY

Another good documentary/deep dive into the world of NFTs and web3.0 (which is going great).

That site's the best.
My favorite is the story of the guy who tries to exchange $5, the transaction failed 2x and both times he was refunded $5 Trillion with a T.

Because Blockchain never makes a mistake.

"Dear Hackers, I will sell you these entries for $100M USD, cash on the barrelhead. Please respond with terms to [email protected]".

Looks like Celsius is going tango uniform.

Celsius has Alabama, Texas and New Jersey suing them.

When Alabama state government is willing to challenge your Ubercapitalist scheme, you know you're doing it wrong.

Seeing a lot of salty youtube videos about the Lana Rhodes rug pull. Pretty funny sh*t.

Paleocon wrote:

Seeing a lot of salty youtube videos about the Lana Rhodes rug pull. Pretty funny sh*t.

Given that anal scenes are apparently her specialty, there's a rich, frothy irony to this. Something something aikido something.

You know. Just a hunch, backed up by NO sources, but I think crypto just *MIGHT* possibly make a huge comeback, WHEN the GOP takes completely over and the world economy inivitably crashes. I think the catalyst for this will be when the US does what Cyprus did and seizes all the safety deposit boxes it can get it's filthy hands on and tries to make holding gold and silver illegal. It will do this with zero warning to try and refloat it's ponzi scheme of a market in an attempt to make the .01 parasites whole. Or it may just blow off the market part and funnel it to the ultrarich.

I don't think bitcoin will make a comeback, it's gonna be some new kinda crypto that only the super wealthy can use untracably. Maybe with fed backing.

Juuuuust a paranoid feeling in my gut.

Ugh, like I needed another dystopian nightmare to worry about.

Mixolyde wrote:

Ugh, like I needed another dystopian nightmare to worry about.

I'm usually full of it about these things. My predictions tend to be wrong on the short and medium term. Mostly.

Gonna be honest, that sounds like the insane ramblings of the guy who lives in the highway median and yells at traffic.

Look, crypto is going nowhere because there are always fresh marks to fleece. That's how grifts operate.

Jonman wrote:

Look, crypto is going nowhere because there are always fresh marks to fleece. That's how grifts operate.

It is, in many ways, similar to multilevel marketing scams. We’ve known for over a century that pyramid schemes are grifts for the gullible, yet Dick Devos and others continue to make billions doing it.

Jonman wrote:

Gonna be honest, that sounds like the insane ramblings of the guy who lives in the highway median and yells at traffic.

Look, crypto is going nowhere because there are always fresh marks to fleece. That's how grifts operate.

Edit for:

We substantially agree on crypto's not going anywhere. It's a huge suckers game. But what if... Short term, it became the surest bet of maintaining value?

I am talking about the next three to five years here. Long term is anyone's guess.

The United States depends on stability to be the worlds reserve currency. There is no short term replacement if the US becomes too unstable to continue. Crypto will have to fill a gap between the dollar and the next currency.

Spoilered for idiotic long winded bulls-it explanation that prolly no one wants to read. Also I sound like the guy ranting on the freeway.

Spoiler:

Again. Ramblings of a paranoid here, based purely on my observations and with absolutely nothing to back it up that I can specifically cite. Go ahead and read (if you decide to read) my paranoid ramblings that are only somewhat on topic as fiction

Let us first ask ourselves this: Why is the Dollar the worlds reserve currency?

Perhaps because of our GDP. Either first or second highest in the world. Okay.

Based on what mostly? Is it our manufacturing base? That is disappearing pretty quickly, has been for years.
The answer is services. It's all the little things we like to get that go in the miscellaneous category of our budget. Another big part of our GDP is FIRE. Finance Insurance, Real Estate.

What are the first two things * that usually go belly up in a correction? Services, a large part because they are part of the misc budget, and FIRE because the sickness usually starts there.

Now. Why does the dollar maintain its luster despite our printing money like there's no tomorrow?

Put simply we are a beacon of stability. Our political system, was, the envy of nations, we have a population that's either cowed, or misinformed into utter subservience. We produce a lot less then our GDP** but we have this massive economy that is essentially the government and high finance working to cook the books and dope the racehorse literally as fast as it can. Other countries also do their part, by buying massive amounts of our debt, because they are terrified of what would happen if they stopped. Oh, and we are viewed as stable.

What happens when we are no longer viewed as stable?

Say for example, the United States elects a bunch of reactionary idiots who then appoint a bunch of utter dunces to the highest court in the land? What if that supreme court skips straight past the gerrymandering of years past and does a bunch of super unpopular things like remove rights enshrined in law for 50+ years? Like the minimum wage, or stripping away even the illusion of choice that voting provides? What if a party widely viewed by over 50% of the population decides to do away with the social safety net completely?

These, or something completely different could in fact cause a market crash, instability only ramps up from there. No more social safety net means a lot of people out on the street. Our number one argument for being the worlds reserve currency gone in an instant. Things like this tend to happen when utter incompetent's and idiots run the country.

Now the whole world's in trouble, where does all the money and investment go? We were the prettiest pig in the poke. China? It's got major problems of its own, primarily being it will be in a lot of trouble too. We buy their stuff.

Short term, no where... There is no backup worlds reserve currency, anywhere. There's only so much gold and silver in the world, certainly not enough to represent the entire world's GDP, with a world wide recession and the currencies of every nation in freefall as investors try to figure out what to do.

But hang on, what about the EU? Okay. So the EU has troubles of it's own now, is pretty united thanks to Russia and now it just lost it's biggest partner in the form of the US. A stronger political system and new market will be needed. What to do? What to do?

Now I'm just going to make a MASSIVE probably misinformed leap here. Some sort of crypto scheme will fill in the gap until the European Union and Britain can get together with it's former territories and launch some sort of currency of their own. Their banking and finance system tends to be a ton more stable and regulated then ours. The new replacement currency now becomes the worlds new reserve. Especially if Japan (Or maybe India) can be talked their way.

Okay. So that was long, I made a hell of a lot of assumptions. I'm kinda on the spectrum. Prone to being paranoid and long winded, based on a bunch of faulty assumptions and half thought out idiotic ideas. Long story short, crypto even if its a ponzi scheme could be here in one form or another for years.

*Barring a bailout which is really it's own thing and can only be done as long as the rest of the world trusts the currency and the market.

** Markets are supposed to work by being a gauge of supply and demand. People buying things and businesses selling them. But over the last four decades demand hasn't been able to keep up due to falling incomes. You can paper this over with credit and keeping people in debt, for so long. Reverse mortgages, guaranteed student loans, etc etc.

Feel free to delete this if it does not meet standards.

Drazzil wrote:

We substantially agree on crypto's not going anywhere. It's a huge suckers game. But what if... Short term, it became the surest bet of maintaining value?

I am talking about the next three to five years here. Long term is anyone's guess.

Simple answer - it won't.

If the entire world economy goes to sh*t, there's a bajionty smarter places to stash large amounts of cash than demonstrably volatile crypto. More to the point, if that does happen, crypto will magnify that volatility, not hedge against it. It's a speculative asset with no real-world use, exactly the opposite of the type of stable-value asset that you'd want to be investing in in a high-volatility financial environment.

You're basically saying "yes, but what if a sock full of custard becomes the surest bet of maintaining value". There's just no world in which that becomes the case.

Jonman wrote:
Drazzil wrote:

We substantially agree on crypto's not going anywhere. It's a huge suckers game. But what if... Short term, it became the surest bet of maintaining value?

I am talking about the next three to five years here. Long term is anyone's guess.

Simple answer - it won't.

If the entire world economy goes to sh*t, there's a bajionty smarter places to stash large amounts of cash than demonstrably volatile crypto. More to the point, if that does happen, crypto will magnify that volatility, not hedge against it. It's a speculative asset with no real-world use, exactly the opposite of the type of stable-value asset that you'd want to be investing in in a high-volatility financial environment.

You're basically saying "yes, but what if a sock full of custard becomes the surest bet of maintaining value". There's just no world in which that becomes the case.

Hmmm.

Good point.

The only way a crypto becomes valuable is if a large enough government suddenly demands taxes be paid with it, and only issues it to pay for stuff. Once it's "I have to use this dumb thing or I go to jail" it will have value for the people that don't want their houses burned down, and people trying to screw those people. I suppose that's possible, but unlikely.

In a massive crisis like the one you foresee, the economy will start to move towards barter at the low end. Look at places like the end-state Soviet Union/Eastern Bloc, or Zimbabwe, any place with dire circumstances. When currency's value disappears, people simply trade goods and services for other goods and services. Want long-term value? Real estate, precious metals, stuff like will hold their value in a crisis. Problem is, in normal times, they don't appreciate all that much (unless your land is sitting on undiscovered resources, or becomes a hot property for a one-time sale to a hungry developer).

As Jonman says, when currencies get wacky people look to stable value *things*. Even sacks of flour in your basement would do better than crypto-currency in a crashed market. At least you can eat your flour at need...

Put another way, do you see anyone in Donetsk/Luhansk industriously mining crypto to feed a village? Or are the working the black market, growing food in gardens, buying stuff off of soldiers? Hmmmm....I wonder why?

You’d be a lot better off with handles of cheap hooch.

Jonman wrote:
Drazzil wrote:

We substantially agree on crypto's not going anywhere. It's a huge suckers game. But what if... Short term, it became the surest bet of maintaining value?

I am talking about the next three to five years here. Long term is anyone's guess.

You're basically saying "yes, but what if a sock full of custard becomes the surest bet of maintaining value". There's just no world in which that becomes the case.

Such a cynical, cynical pessimist.

Robear wrote:

In a massive crisis like the one you foresee, the economy will start to move towards barter at the low end. Look at places like the end-state Soviet Union/Eastern Bloc, or Zimbabwe, any place with dire circumstances. When currency's value disappears, people simply trade goods and services for other goods and services. Want long-term value? Real estate, precious metals, stuff like will hold their value in a crisis. Problem is, in normal times, they don't appreciate all that much (unless your land is sitting on undiscovered resources, or becomes a hot property for a one-time sale to a hungry developer).

As Jonman says, when currencies get wacky people look to stable value *things*. Even sacks of flour in your basement would do better than crypto-currency in a crashed market. At least you can eat your flour at need...

Put another way, do you see anyone in Donetsk/Luhansk industriously mining crypto to feed a village? Or are the working the black market, growing food in gardens, buying stuff off of soldiers? Hmmmm....I wonder why? :-)

I've been lurking this forum for a long... LONG time. By chance do you work in finance? You're one of the sharpest people I've had the pleasure to lurk-read. What would you think if SHTF the US government would loot the safe boxes of her citizens to make good the ultra wealthy or refloat the dollar or the stonk market?

Pretending the US dollar lost its reserve currency status? If that would even be possible, given its current status of prettiest pig in the poke?

If America fails as a reserve currency, one billion Chinese will have already eaten one another, 100million Russians would have either died prematurely or left the country as refugees, all of Africa would be a starving killing field, and India and Pakistan would be radioactive glass.

In short, you’d have bigger fish to fry than your net worth.

Paleocon wrote:

If America fails as a reserve currency, one billion Chinese will have already eaten one another, 100million Russians would have either died prematurely or left the country as refugees, all of Africa would be a starving killing field, and India and Pakistan would be radioactive glass.

In short, you’d have bigger fish to fry than your net worth.

Is cannibalistic Chinese a new stereotype I didn't know about?

Mixolyde wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

If America fails as a reserve currency, one billion Chinese will have already eaten one another, 100million Russians would have either died prematurely or left the country as refugees, all of Africa would be a starving killing field, and India and Pakistan would be radioactive glass.

In short, you’d have bigger fish to fry than your net worth.

Is cannibalistic Chinese a new stereotype I didn't know about?

Haha there’s a few ways to read that and I admit that “literally” was the last one I thought of.

Also you could probably put this in the predictions thread and have decent odds.

Mixolyde wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

If America fails as a reserve currency, one billion Chinese will have already eaten one another, 100million Russians would have either died prematurely or left the country as refugees, all of Africa would be a starving killing field, and India and Pakistan would be radioactive glass.

In short, you’d have bigger fish to fry than your net worth.

Is cannibalistic Chinese a new stereotype I didn't know about?

Great Leap Forward was an Era of Cannibalism.