Anyone dipping into Crypto or is it all too good to be true....

[ioweddie]

Anyone dipping into Crypto or is it all too good to be true....interesting to look at but has anyone had a go and made any money???

 

[markjay]

Nope. But I buy lottery tickets, it's the same thing.

 

[GeeJayW]

Wouldn’t bother myself…

Crypto Is Mostly Over. Its Carbon Emissions Are Not.

The environmental toll of Bitcoin could be even higher this year than last.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

No, no, no. It's a Ponzi scheme.

Your jaw will drop when you realise how deliberately crooked it is and how inept the US regulators have been in failing to regulate it like Securities, leaving it stuck somewhere between Securities and Commodities regulation.

It's said that nearly 50% of American men aged between 20 and 40 have played with Crypto, and lost.

Crypto was constructed to be a gamified replacement to online Poker / betting when those crooks got regulated out of business. (The online poker apps were fiddling with the odds / results )

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[markjay]

Just to be clear.

There are two different issues here.

"Investing" (betting would be a better word) in Crypto is one thing, it's just a bit of lottery as per my previous post, and you can set aside a small amount of money bad have fun watching what happens to it. No harm in that, as long as you don't put into it any money that you can't afford to lose.

But the other issue, is that companies offering Crypto investment are popping up every day like mushrooms after the rain, 99.99% are crooks using 'salespeople' who phone up unsuspecting folk and offer them non-existent deals. The salespeople will be located in a different country (to demotivate local police from starting an investigation), and will be using mobile phones with changing called ID. I am familiar with how this operation works from the Cybersecurity aspect. So invest only through reputable recommended companies that have been around for a while. Otherwise you'll never see your money again, and you'll also be advised to stop any card you used to make a payment and get the bank to send you a new one, or you'll be inundated with fraudulent transactions....

 

[Darrell]

Is that like Bitcoin?

 

[190]

Given the worlds targets for net zero, it's lunacy that crypto mining is still permitted. If there are any greenies out there gambling with crypto then there are truly hypocrites.

When you have absorbed the energy statistics , then consider the the amount of energy being used to mine 1 bitcoin is rising exponentially

Bitcoin mining costs (2009 vs 2021)​

Year	Cost
2009	A few second's worth of household electricity
2021	9 years and $12,500 of household electricity

Key Bitcoin Energy Consumption Statistics:​

1. Bitcoin mining consumes roughly 0.5% of all energy consumption worldwide.
2. Bitcoin uses more than 7 times as much electricity as all of Google’s global operations.
3. One Bitcoin transaction can spend up to 1,200 kWh of energy, which is equivalent to almost 100,000 VISA transactions.
4. Bitcoin mining uses about the same amount of electricity as the state of Washington does every year.
5. Bitcoin currently consumes approximately 160 terawatt-hours of electricity annually - more than the entire country of Argentina.
6. The Bitcoin network uses about 2% of the amount of electricity used by the USA every year.
7. The process of creating Bitcoin to trade or spend consumes around 91 terawatt-hours of electricity yearly, more than is used by Finland, a country with around 5.5 million people.
8. Producing Bitcoin generates around 22-23 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year.
9. Bitcoin's energy consumption emits some 65 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually. That's comparable to the emissions of Greece, making crypto a large contributor to global air pollution and climate change.
10. The Bitcoin mining industry generates approximately $56 million on average every day.

61 Bitcoin Energy Consumption Statistics (2023).

 

[Darrell]

Is that like Bitcoin

Given the worlds targets for net zero, it's lunacy that crypto mining is still permitted. If there are any greenies out there gambling with crypto then there are truly hypocrites.

Key Bitcoin Energy Consumption Statistics:​

1. Bitcoin mining consumes roughly 0.5% of all energy consumption worldwide.
2. Bitcoin uses more than 7 times as much electricity as all of Google’s global operations.
3. One Bitcoin transaction can spend up to 1,200 kWh of energy, which is equivalent to almost 100,000 VISA transactions.
4. Bitcoin mining uses about the same amount of electricity as the state of Washington does every year.
5. Bitcoin currently consumes approximately 160 terawatt-hours of electricity annually - more than the entire country of Argentina.
6. The Bitcoin network uses about 2% of the amount of electricity used by the USA every year.
7. The process of creating Bitcoin to trade or spend consumes around 91 terawatt-hours of electricity yearly, more than is used by Finland, a country with around 5.5 million people.
8. Producing Bitcoin generates around 22-23 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year.
9. Bitcoin's energy consumption emits some 65 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually. That's comparable to the emissions of Greece, making crypto a large contributor to global air pollution and climate change.
10. The Bitcoin mining industry generates approximately $56 million on average every day.

61 Bitcoin Energy Consumption Statistics (2023).

We know one guy who is always banging on about Bitcoin. English that got lost on his way to India in the late 60’s.


He’s an old boy, rich parents, ex hippy, owns a massive gaff out in Skiathos where he grows a bit of weed. Hates the oil companies, always banging on about his solar and how his house is off grid, tells people that they should buy an EV hates tourists but made his money by acting as an estate agent on a tiny Greek island.
Proper Lefty!!

You get the idea.

 

[Dryce]

Anyone dipping into Crypto or is it all too good to be true....interesting to look at but has anyone had a go and made any money???

A friend's son was into it. Seemed to be splashing quite a bit of real money about a couple of years ago.

Now back to living with his parents.

It's not a case of it being too good to be true. It simply is what it is. An invention which is overhyped and misunderstood..

If I minted 1,000,000 coins each with a unique embossed fingerprint that cannot be forged and with a value of Num and then put them in circulation then if you transact using them then they are worth 1 Num each and you exchange them maybe at the equivalent of 1 Num to £1.

Now suppose a bunch of investors come along and decide that the coins are worth more than 1 Num - then the price goes up. A Num maybe becomes £5. A whole load of the coins are now held in vaults - not being transacted. More people come along thinking that the price will go up so start buying from the every smaller number of coins in actual circulation. So the price goes up more. And more people pile in because they see the price going up. And the cycle contimues. It's also helped because these are coins and not shares - so no capital gains tax.

Thing is that nobody can do sensible pricing or transactions in Nums because there are so few Nums left in circulation and the price is shifting up all the time.

As long as people believe then the Num will stay high. But it has no underlying value other than that belief. So the value of a Num can go 'pop!'.

Other people watching what I've done mint their own coins - CatNum, SafeNum. And investors buy those in the same way as my original Num.

Along the way I realise that I can use the Num embossing scheme to mark goods. So I create NumToken. I mark a Ford Focus with a NumToken and it uniquely marks that car so that specific car can't be exactly duplicated. People think this is wonderful and start marking other colours of Ford Focus with the NumToken. And these individual cars sell for huge amounts of money to collectors. Forget the cars have a unique VIN number visible at the bottom left of the windscreen that makes them unique - the NumToken somehow is perceived to increase that uniqueness and make the NumToken marked cars super special and valuable as investments.

 

[PXW]

As long as people believe then the Num will stay high. But it has no underlying value other than that belief.

Exactly. As a device for secure blockchain transactions, then I can maybe see it. But as a real world currency? Currencies in essence are tokens with little intrinsic value, but they do represent the value of the state (or whatever) lies behind them. Think “promise to pay the bearer the sum of £5 on demand”, as used to be on our banknotes.

But as far as I can see, there is no intrinsic value to a Bitcoin and no underlying value that it can represent. The huge manufacturing costs are sunk costs and give no support to the currency, any more than the printing or minting cost does for conventional currency.

I may be wrong and I’m sure a proper economist can make an argument. But meanwhile, last year my sister in law (who lives in Canada) was on about a friend who had put his entire pension pot into Bitcoin and was talking about how much money he’d made. She was genuinely considering therefore whether she should do the same. I told her it was gambling, and no harm in that as long as you can afford to lose what you stake, but it might be more fun (and likelier to win) if she went to a casino and dropped it on red or black…

 

[Red C220]

I know a couple of people who made life changing sums of money (8 figures +) that were in the right place at the right time (early) rather than being clever or understanding it. They cashed in and effectively retired.

It's all too late now for us normal folk. I never understood it from the start, and I've never been comfortable with putting money into something I didn't understand.

However, the real time technology used to undertake the transactions (transfers) is something that will eventually permeate into all our lives as governments do their best to create as close to a cashless society as they can. Covid was a big step towards this. How many places no longer take cash that used to?

So the powers that be are interested in the structure and framework of how it all operates, just not the "currency" itself. As already said it's now effectively a ponzi scheme*

*The comes with a caveat that technically our own currency (GBP) is not much better as it's a FIAT currency that has no intrinsic value other than being issued and backed by a government. It's unlikely, but governemts can be overthrown......Ultimately it's a system created to control flows of capital. Not sure what I'm waffling on about? Read this:-

Fiat Money: What It Is, How It Works, Example, Pros & Cons

 

[ss201]

I put a few quid into buying tulip bulbs. At least I see a small return every spring.......

 

[Petrol Pete]

The Real Story Behind the 17th-Century ‘Tulip Mania’ Financial Crash | HISTORY

The speculative frenzy over tulips in 17th century Holland spawned outrageous prices for exotic flower bulbs. But accounts of the subsequent crash may be more fiction than fact.

www.history.com

Tip - toe through the Tulips ...."

 

[Petrol Pete]

An aquaintance of mine started going on about Bitcoin 5 , maybe 7 years ago. I see him from time to time and he still goes on about all the Crypto he is involved in and the money that's involved.

He drives a 10 year old Audi , lives in a 2 bedroom house (one room is rented out to a mate of mine) and his only income seems to be from the weed and edibles he sell's.

No one can figure out if one day he is just going to climb into a private jet and disappear into the sunset or if my mate will become homeless when evicted by the bailiffs after his bedroom is part of a repossession order ?

I know which scenario my money is on.

The answer to the OP's question . NO , I know a few people who go on about how great crypto is but show no (outward) signs of the massive wealth it has brought to them .

 

[markjay]

Who Dares Wins works well for the SAS, but not so much for financial investments.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

But meanwhile, last year my sister in law (who lives in Canada) was on about a friend who had put his entire pension pot into Bitcoin and was talking about how much money he’d made.

What happened to him? Did he find work to rebuild his pension? Or is he living the life of Riley?

I suspect I know the answer...

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

The answer to the OP's question . NO , I know a few people who go on about how great crypto is but show no (outward) signs of the massive wealth it has brought to them .

The scary thing about crypto is that, like gambling, online or not, it's easy to make and hide the losses.

People will talk up their wins but forget to talk about their losses, or even disclose their addiction.

 

[m80]

Not written with any qualification whatsoever.

And really It's probably repeating Dyce.

Someone somewhere says they have 100 Gottahaves.
A few other bods want the Gottahaves, and buy some.
Others hear, and want them. So with increasing demand they go up in 'perceived' value, which is actually a real value increase as long as demand is maintained.

I could never understand where they are kept.
I reckoned I could never hold one, or see one.

Then these Gottahaves became so valuable that they were divided in smaller Wannahaves.

I used to dabble in shares years ago and companies did this to my gambling chips, usually before the company and the chips became worthless. Outside of my control, or understanding of why, my chips value was demonstrated to be artificial once I had my name on them.

I see nothing, aside from hunger, that gives a crypto unit anything at all, never mind value.

I have never been able to comprehend the term crypto mining, it seems to be a term designed to give something not tangible, the impression of being tangible. Another expression could be fraud.

Where the hell all the energy goes to not mine these things is well beyond my comprehension.
It seems it will stay that way.

NOW, you want something that will be the want of everyone with the ambition to be someone worthwhile.
If you want to be one of a fast growing elite, a very limited number of individuals, that are already languishing in their fast appreciating investment.
I have what you have dreamt of all these years.
The opportunity isn't to be here for much longer, as subscriptions will be full very soon.
Invest now and look forward to sharing a new, thriving life, in the Darien Gap.

It's nice there at this time of year.

 

[DrNick]

The scary thing about crypto is that, like gambling, online or not, it's easy to make and hide the losses.

People will talk up their wins but forget to talk about their losses, or even disclose their addiction.

Like penny shares.

 

[markjay]

NFTs, BTW, are different, they use the Blockchain infrastructure but it's an actual investment. Of course it's still a risky investment in an unregulated area, but at least there's some logic to it, as opposed to investing directly in Cryptocurrency.