Cryptocurrency

[Sigmetnow]

Dogecoin May Be a Hustle, But It's the People's Hustle
Even if it’s a joke, Musk has tapped into a mood that makes millions of people feel like insiders. 
May 10, 2021

“Yeah, it’s a hustle.”
And with that, Elon Musk as host of Saturday Night Live brought down the value of Dogecoin by 35% and cemented it firmly in the minds of millions more retail investors, forcing us all to wait and see whether such pessimism will be their final verdict.

That’s because Doge isn’t just any financial asset, and Musk wasn’t just any host. He’s now the biggest booster of the world’s fifth-most valuable cryptocurrency, having talked up the coin over the past few months, including the announcement Sunday that it’ll be used to pay for a new moon mission launched by his SpaceX rocket company next year.
...
Musk may have previously sounded caution about investing in Dogecoin, noting that it’s highly speculative, but after less than 10 seconds of dialogue on the iconic show, the will of the people made itself felt in a big way. And that’s why there’s as much chance that the token will rebound as it may continue to fall: Dogecoin’s future is in the hands of ordinary folks who will decide its direction.

There are parallels here with the GameStop Corp. saga of just a few months ago, when incensed Redditors decided to gang up on short-sellers to bid up the stock of the American computer games retailer. That frenzy, which drove GameStop up by 20 times in a matter of months, wasn’t the product of online brokerages or the advent of day-trading, which have both been around for decades.

Instead, it was the growing feeling by a burgeoning number of people that real financial power can and should reside in their hands, rather than stay confined to the elites of Wall Street who dare drive down the stock of a beloved franchise.

It matters little that GameStop, the company, faces shrinking revenue and declining profits, making a short play entirely logical. Just as it’s largely irrelevant that very few of the people who crow loudly about the future of cryptocurrencies understand the technologies behind them, or the mechanics of payments systems.

What’s powerful is that after decades of largely being passive bit-players in global markets where the rich got richer, anyone with a smartphone and internet connection can not only take control of their financial future, but help shape and direct it. That comes after years of watching sub-prime mortgage products lead to financial crisis, invitation-only parties for the choice IPOs, and connected insiders getting the lion’s share of wealth from newly minted pandemic cash.

And now Dogecoin is having its day. While most buyers don’t actually understand the mechanics of blockchain technology, they do get that it’s a caricature and they love being in on the joke. Maybe that’s enough, a chance of being a knowing insider for once. In engineer parlance, this satirical trait isn’t a bug in Dogecoin. It’s a feature. ...

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-10/dogecoin-and-elon-musk-on-snl-it-s-a-hustle-but-it-s-the-people-s-hustle

The SNL “Weekend Update” Dogecoin segment is available here:
Weekend Update: Financial Expert Lloyd Ostertag on Cryptocurrency - SNL
➡️https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5RCfQyTDFI

And here:
https://twitter.com/nbcsnl/status/1391253461640093697

Edit:
Full disclosure:  I own no cryptocurrency, have not previously, and have no plans to own any in the foreseeable future.

[Neven]

Are all cryptocurrencies a scam, or only a few? As soon as I read the name Musk, there has to be some catch.

It's not like I trust 'material' currency systems either. Currency was decoupled from the gold standard in the 70s for the sake of wealth concentration. It's all a scam.

Is there a cryptocurrency that doesn't spew exponentially increasing amounts of CO2 in the air?

[Rodius]

Not all cryptocurrencies are scams.

There are quite a few that have real-world applications (Etherium and Cardano), work from a business model (StormX), in game money (Decentraland), and many other applications. If you do your research you will find the good ones with great teams, real world uses, great tech, and everything you need to set up and succeed in the business.
And you will find the scammers who sell dreams then run away with the money (the lastest one being Shiba Inu... but there are others.)

Dogecoin is a hustle. The moment Musk got involved it wasnt hard to see that he was doing to make money via his influence. He doesnt care about anything but increasing his own wealth and he doesnt care who he hurts along the way.

Crypto isnt going anywhere, even if Govts want to stop it, they will fail. In the end, crypto will be regulated (as it should be so scammers cant scam as often), taxes will be collected, and cryptos will become an increasingly larger factor in global economics to a point where it will be used as often as fiat money. I hope it becomes a destabilising factor that could end capitalism as we know it.

But that is just my opinion.
If you have money to invest, it is worth doing it if you stick with the good ones for a five year period, forget the short term stuff.

[Jim Hunt]

The moment Musk got involved it wasnt hard to see that he was doing to make money via his influence. He doesnt care about anything but increasing his own wealth and he doesnt care who he hurts along the way.

I allowed myself to get "scammed" on the back of Elon's early involvement. I swiftly discovered that "the crypto industry" was no help whatsoever to innocent noobs:

https://v2g.co.uk/2018/08/v2g-uk-fall-victim-to-open-source-cryptocurrency-scam/

Coinbase at least had "procedures" in place to prevent me losing my hard earned GBP too quickly

[blu_ice]

Let’s say I had 78 billion dollars in my pocket and I spent it and bought all the Dogecoin there is, what would I own?

Just sayin...

[Rodius]

Dogecoin isnt something to invest it. It was made as a joke, it has no use outside just existing.

But that doesnt mean all cryptos are scams.
In saying that, investing in them is a good idea but do the research.

I have done mine. I invest in crypto and only the ones that have a reason to exist. This year alone I have doubled my investment. It is in a bull run though, so it will drop again at some point, but on average the expectation is I will at least double my money every year if I stick to the principles of investment.

There are real cryptos that have purpose and value. The value is determined by how much money is invested into crypto, which is no different to something like gold or diamonds, in fact, the good cryptos have more reason for value than gold or diamonds.
But in the end, the value will only improve if the crypto has a purpose. It isnt mainstream at this point, but over the coming five years it will. And the reason it will is because the good ones are uselful in so many ways.

Research the purpose of something like Cardano and smart contracts and how it is developing investments in Africa with deals with businesses and countries there. That is just a drop in the ocean compared to what is happening with others.
Of all the top cryptos, the irony is Bitcoin is the one with the least reason to exist, I am not sure if Bitcoin will stick around for the long haul, but there are several others that will.

[SimonF92]

Neven, Ethereum's move to PoS from PoW will reduce energy consumption per transaction by 99.9% but by my calculation it will still be magnitudes of order more energy intensive than a Visa transaction.

There is an alt-coin called Chia which works on PoST which again requires magnitudes of order less energy than PoW, but is again magnitudes of order greater still than a Visa transaction.

The only viable solution I can see is green electricity, because crypto isnt going anywhere, the market cap of Bitcoin and Ethereum are both above Visa

[kassy]

Neven, Ethereum's move to PoS from PoW will reduce energy consumption per transaction by 99.9% but by my calculation it will still be magnitudes of order more energy intensive than a Visa transaction.

So some simple questions:
What would happen if everyone on earth had a bitcoin of some form and was using it?

Also there is some thing about responsible investment. It offers interesting profits and a nice dose of FOMO so i get why people jump on it but it is just not compatible with what we should do really soon.

[SimonF92]

It is absolutely not sustainable in its current form, in direct response to your question, I dont think any power grid in the world could handle that, nor could the mining infrastructure.

In response to your second point. Investing should only really be done by the financially secure- as with ethical investing. The currency i generate from mining ethereum (verifying transactions) is 60-90% of my monthly phd stipend- it goes a long way for me and required little initial capital. I changed my electricity tariff to a 100% green one last year (Scotland). By participating in the network using only renewable energy, am I part of the problem? I support an environmentally destructive process but I also take away transaction rewards from non "green" miners. In many developed countries you can pay a premium to get a green energy tariff- I have been saying for a long time that part of the transaction reward should automatically toward green energy initiatives. Crypto could easily be a force for good if people weren't so inherently greedy

[kinbote]

This is, perhaps, an extreme example of how ridiculous some cryptocurrency enterprises can become, but hey, if and when they convert to fully renewable it'll all be great, no doubt. Just think of all that profit for the shareholders!

Private-equity firm revives zombie fossil-fuel power plant to mine bitcoin
Power plant was left for dead until the cryptocurrency boom came along.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/private-equity-firm-revives-zombie-fossil-fuel-power-plant-to-mine-bitcoin/

Few bitcoin projects illustrate the cryptocurrency’s enormous climate impact better than the Greenidge power plant in upstate New York. The once-abandoned power plant was bought by private equity firm Atlas Holdings and retasked. A significant portion of Greenidge's electricity no longer powers nearby homes or businesses; rather, the plant's smokestacks are increasingly pouring pollutants into the atmosphere in the service of mining bitcoin.

Now, Greenidge is on the verge of ramping up its bitcoin ambitions. By the end of this year, it plans to have 18,000 specialized machines mining bitcoin, and with the recent approval of its data center expansion plans, it will add 10,500 more. When the project is complete, the miners will be using 79 percent of the power plant’s capacity, or 85 MW.

...

The plant’s shift to bitcoin-only operation comes at a time when New York state is fighting to keep cryptocurrency miners from taking advantage of the state’s cheap power. In 2018, the Public Service Commission gave municipal power companies the ability to raise rates on cryptocurrency customers.

Greenidge’s operations aren’t affected by PSC decisions, though. Their mining happens “behind the meter,” meaning it's not affected by grid-level prices. And those operations appear to be fantastically profitable. Between February 2020 and February 2021, the company mined nearly 1,186 bitcoin at a cost of $2,869 per bitcoin. Today, one bitcoin is trading at $57,475.

In the company’s SEC filings, Greenidge says it will use expertise developed at its current power plant to expand to at least 500 MW of mining capacity by 2025.

[Jim Hunt]

According to Elon Musk's Twitter feed:

Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin.

[BeeKnees]

Concerned because they've been called out on it or genuinely concerned about it's impact?

I suspect the former as they would not have got involved if it was the latter.

Musk is a technophile and a thrill seeker, excited by anything that is shiny and new.

[SimonF92]

According to Elon Musk's Twitter feed:

Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin.

This irritated me a lot, he participated in a pump by leveraging his position. They made $>200million from that play, it was something like 29% of their yearly earnings. Now it's no longer profiting, he pulls a 180 whilst virtue signalling for the company. If btc was still pumping he wouldnt be doing this

[Sigmetnow]

Cryptocurrency’s use of dirty energy mirrors that of any other energy-intensive industry.  But it may be the easiest one to transform to clean energy. 

The analysts at ARK Invest specialize in the financial aspects of disruptive technology.

Cathie Wood @CathieDWood
In a research collaboration with $SQ, @yassineARK, @wintonARK, and @skorusARK debunk the myth that #Bitcoin mining is damaging the environment. Instead, as crypto mining, energy storage, and AI technologies converge, the adoption of renewable energy is likely to accelerate!

https://twitter.com/cathiedwood/status/1385082685111087104
4/22/21, 12:07 AM

Square Crypto @sqcrypto
If bitcoin needs anything, it’s more white papers. In this one, @Square and @ARKInvest team up to argue for bitcoin as a key driver of renewable energy’s future: squ.re/BCEI-whitepaper

Hate reading? Here’s the nutshell version:

Solar and wind produce cheaper energy than fossil fuels. This should make them ubiquitous, but they’re held back by an obvious flaw: they produce too much energy when demand is low and not enough when it’s high. Batteries could fix this, but alone aren’t economical enough.
  —
What can fix this problem is an ecosystem where solar/wind, batteries, and bitcoin mining co-exist to form a green grid that runs almost exclusively on renewable energy. Not only is this doable, it is doable without jeopardizing the sector’s profitability.
  —
For much more info about how this would work, check out the white paper link and ARK’s comprehensive open-source model and assumptions:

GitHub - ARKInvest/SolarBatteryBitcoin
https://github.com/ARKInvest/SolarBatteryBitcoin

https://twitter.com/sqcrypto/status/1384901045134974978
4/21/21

[Neven]

Why does the creation of cryptocurrencies have to be done by solving mathematical puzzles? It sounds so completely useless, unless perhaps those solved puzzles actually contribute to something (probably not).

Can't cryptocurrency creation be tied to something positive, like planting trees, building energy-efficient homes or sequestering CO2 in depleted soils?

It would make the whole enterprise somewhat less parasitic, although 'letting your money work for you' will always be morally dodgy.

Imagine psychopaths planting trees to get more bitcoins. Now that would be beautiful. 

---

Edit: After reading up on this (as utterly boring as I find it), I see now that Bitcoin creation is tied to verification of transactions, so my ideas would never work. It looks like this can only be done on a digital/virtual scale, with zero connection to the material world or real economy (except for the greenhouse gas emissions). A bit like traditional currencies have become over the decades, to enable faster wealth concentration.

[grixm]

Neven, Ethereum's move to PoS from PoW will reduce energy consumption per transaction by 99.9% but by my calculation it will still be magnitudes of order more energy intensive than a Visa transaction.

Mind sharing that calculation? I don't see an inherent reason why PoS coins would have to use more energy than f.ex. Visa.

In fact, the net effect on energy use actually be negative. This is because participating in the staking process requires people to lock away their coins, in other words preventing that wealth from being used while they are locked. And any wealth that is not being used, doesn't contribute to energy or resource use through consumerism/consumption of goods.

[kassy]

Simon thanks for your answer.

I still think it is problematic. Theoretically the new green energy should replace the fossil fuel sources so any energy wasted in essentially useless processes is just wasted. If the transaction reward has the FF users opening up zombie power plants that is obviously not helpful (did not read that article but lets use it as a wcs example).

And realistically it is meant to get away from banks which will only be tolerated in some extent.
Just curious but how do you pay tax on bit coins?

[Sigmetnow]

...
Just curious but how do you pay tax on bit coins?

In the U.S., cryptocurrency gains or losses are reportable, and taxable, as income or loss:

A transaction involving virtual currency does not include the holding of virtual currency in a wallet or account, or the transfer of virtual currency from one wallet or account you own or control to another that you own or control.

If you disposed of any virtual currency that was held as a capital asset through a sale, exchange, or transfer, use Form 8949 to figure your capital gain or loss and report it on Schedule D (Form 1040).

If you received any virtual currency as compensation for services or disposed of any virtual currency that you held for sale to customers in a trade or business, you must report the income as you would report other income of the same type (for example, W-2 wages on Form 1040 or 1040-SR, line 1, or inventory or services from Schedule C on Schedule 1).

[Sigmetnow]

New eco-friendly cryptocurrencies on the horizon
New cryptocurrencies continue to emerge, but there’s one trend that’s starting to cause a shift in the creation of digital assets: sustainability.

With concern growing over the ecological impact of blockchain-based currencies, developers are turning their attention to new ways of offering all the benefits of digital currencies, without the hefty carbon footprint.

Look out for a new wave of eco-friendly cryptocurrencies which use sustainable energy sources to limit the impact of transactions. A prime example of this new focus on sustainability is Nano, a digital currency network which shuns traditional mining practices in favour of a more eco-friendly solution.

Nano seeks to eliminate the waste that’s usually associated with cryptocurrency transactions, using a more lightweight consensus protocol. Known as Open Representative Voting (ORV), the protocol promises minimal energy consumption and maximum efficiency.

As awareness of the power-hungry nature of many of the world’s best known cryptocurrencies improves, we can expect to see some big changes in both the practices of existing currency providers, and the development and creation of new blockchain-based currencies. Keep an eye out for more eco-friendly digital currencies on the horizon – created with sustainability in mind.

https://www.trgdatacenters.com/most-environment-friendly-cryptocurrencies/

Currency      Kilowatt hour (KWh) consumed per transaction
XRP            0.0079
Dogecoin       0.12
Cardano        0.5479
Litecoin      18.522
Bitcoin Cash  18.957
Ethereum      62.56
Bitcoin      707.

[SimonF92]

As Sigmetnow mentioned, its basic capital gains for trading.

In the uk you accrue capital gains when you exchange the crypto for fiat only.

In terms of mining you pay capital gains only when you exchange mined currency for fiat only.

In America its much stricter, you pay 12% basic income tax on all mining, at the value of the crypto on the day you mine it- must be a nightmare to keep track of.

In interest of not derailing thread- University of Cambridge published this study on green energy contributions to crypto mining, i consider it quite optimistic:

75% renewable energy mining in Europe

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-power-consumption-of-bitcoin-mining/

[Sigmetnow]

Shame? or Cost-savings?  Bitcoin is going green.
The Bitcoin mining firm Argo Blockchain announced it has purchased two data centers, both are almost entirely powered by hydroelectricity.  20 megawatts of renewable energy, mining Bitcoin

Argo Blockchain Buys Hydro Data Centers To Realize Green Bitcoin Mining Vision
May 13, 2021

Cryptocurrency mining firm Argo Blockchain has continued its move toward environmentally-friendly bitcoin mining by purchasing two hydroelectric-powered data centers in Quebec, Canada, according to a press release on the London Stock Exchange, on which Argo is listed.

"Argo's purchase of data [centers] in Canada represents another milestone for the Company as we seek to take greater control over our mining production and mining cost base, while also laying solid foundations for long-term growth," shared Argo's CEO Peter Wall in the release.

The two data centers amount to 20 megawatts of power capacity, currently housing a significant portion of Argo's bitcoin mining equipment. In addition, the acquisition seeks to provide the company with long-term stability by increasing its control over the facilities which house its mining machines.

"The data [centers] are powered almost entirely by electricity generated from hydro power, which is a key part of [Argo's] green mining vision," per the release.

Argo Blockchain is taking action to shift its bitcoin mining operations to "green" alternatives and solutions on a number of fronts. With a focus on renewable energy sources, the company purchased a 320-acre plot in Texas last month, which gives it access to 800 megawatts of electrical power. Wall shared at the time that it chose that site in particular because it offers "some of the lowest electricity rates in the world and the majority is from renewable sources, namely wind and solar."

The low-cost aspect is essential because bitcoin mining is a free market, meaning miners will always gravitate toward the cheapest energy sources available. In this case, Texas resolving to provide renewable energy sources for little cost is what attracted and allowed Argo Blockchain to apply its "green mining vision."

With the correct incentives, nation-states can proactively empower bitcoin mining pools to shift even more to energy sources that are less detrimental to our planet, accelerating the entire world's energy transition to renewables with clean energy production and storage.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/argo-blockchain-buys-hydro-data-centers

—-
Exclusive: Dogecoin Developers Say They've Been Working with Elon Musk Since 2019
They are working with him to make the cryptocurrency a cheaper, greener alternative to Bitcoin.

Musk has also offered to fund Dogecoin development, but the team politely turned down the offer, said Nicoll, who added that they also refused other offers from wealthy would-be investors.

Musk had tweeted on Thursday that he was working with Dogecoin’s developers to “improve system transaction efficiency.” The day before, Musk turned his back on Bitcoin, tweeting that Tesla would no longer accept it as payment and that he was looking “at other cryptocurrencies that use [less than] 1% of Bitcoin’s energy/transaction.” ...

https://decrypt.co/70945/exclusive-dogecoin-developers-say-theyve-been-working-with-elon-musk-since-2019

[Rodius]

A good article that digs deep into the energy usage of Bitcoin.

Today, Bitcoin consumes as much energy as a small country. This certainly sounds alarming — but the reality is a little more complicated. The author discusses several common misconceptions surrounding the Bitcoin sustainability debate, and ultimately argues that it’s up to the crypto community to acknowledge and address environmental concerns, work in good faith to reduce Bitcoin’s carbon footprint, and ultimately demonstrate that the societal value that Bitcoin provides is worth the resources needed to sustain it.

https://hbr.org/2021/05/how-much-energy-does-bitcoin-actually-consume

[kassy]

On the face of it, the question about energy use is a fair one. According to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance (CCAF), Bitcoin currently consumes around 110 Terawatt Hours per year — 0.55% of global electricity production, or roughly equivalent to the annual energy draw of small countries like Malaysia or Sweden. This certainly sounds like a lot of energy. But how much energy should a monetary system consume?

Well if you think about it it is a lot of energy use which we are stacking on top of all the other things we are using energy for.

And it does not solve anything. So if you can get a computer and run an operation which the most vulnerable billions can´t do because they do not have the technology then you can make some money over time. If you make enough money then you probably want to do something with that so ultimately that will lead to some consumer investment.

I can only think of this as a toy with a rather wasteful energy use (10 million people in Sweden).
I do get the appeal but the current margins on our carbon budget are so thin:

The Breakthough Briefing Note on “Carbon budgets for 1.5 & 2°C”,  released March 2, explores some of the myths and realities about the Paris Agreement targets and the associated carbon budgets, and what it would really take to achieve them.

 The main findings are:

IPCC carbon budgets underestimate current and future warming, omit important climate system feedback mechanisms, and make dangerous assumptions about risk-management.

1.5°C of warming is likely by 2030 or earlier, a product of past emissions.

There is no carbon budget for the 1.5°C goal; such “budgets” rely on overshoot, with unrealistic reliance on speculative technologies.

The current level of greenhouse gases is enough for around 2°C of warming, or more.
2°C of warming is far from safe, and may trigger the “Hothouse Earth” scenario.

There is no carbon budget for 2°C if a sensible risk-management approach is taken.

Even accepting the IPCC carbon budget for 2°C at face value, emissions need to be zero before 2030 for developed countries with higher per capita emissions.

http://www.climatecodered.org/2021/05/repost-zero-by-2050-or-2030-15c-or-2c.html

Last bolded part: Sweden is 10 million people in the last range so essentially we now have to take care of an extra Sweden. Also BitCoin is far from the only one doing this so their emissions are only a part of the total energy use over all of them.

While you might need a car for work and can only run an ICE one due to funds there is just no way you need BitCoin. So essentially it is a moral choice between money or planet.

And if you are interested in long term investments there is probably more money to be made on an unbroken planet...

PS: off course there is waste all over. You could also power bit coin by turning of all always on but idle devices in the USA but let´s face it we need that reduction for the global budget and not your hobby.

[Neven]

Apart from the energy and ethical discussion, I don't believe that cryptocurrencies somehow offer more independence from the system that is solely geared towards wealth concentration. I think that's a lie. It's some kind of Ponzi scheme or a smokescreen for something else.

[oren]

Apart from the energy and ethical discussion, I don't believe that cryptocurrencies somehow offer more independence from the system that is solely geared towards wealth concentration. I think that's a lie. It's some kind of Ponzi scheme or a smokescreen for something else.

It's a decentralized Ponzi.

[Garabaldi]

Neven and Oren, my most (truly) appreciated virtual mentors, cryptocurrency is a diversion and money is much more complex than arctic sea ice (i.e. no one understands it). I would be devastated if your much deserved authority was wasted on such trivia

[Neven]

There's nothing I like more than wasting my much deserved authority. 

Money can be as complex as it wants, there is one very simple perennial wisdom and that's that it should not end up in fewer and fewer hands. In other words words, money is not the problem, the dynamic of wealth concentration is.

I wouldn't be surprised if this dynamic is already tainting, or will taint in the near future, this business of cryptocurrencies.

[oren]

Thanks for the comment, I mostly distance myself from such diversions, and it's not my jurisdiction anyway.

[Sigmetnow]

A crypto crash wiped out $1 trillion this week. Here's what happened

New York (CNN Business) — Wild, stomach-churning moments are part of the experience when you buy a ticket to the crypto circus. But the past week's volatility was enough to make some of the crypto faithful wonder whether they've been bamboozled.

On Wednesday, a broad crypto crash wiped out about $1 trillion in market value — a staggering drop from $2.5 trillion just a week ago. Bitcoin, which accounts for more than 40% of the global crypto market, nosedived 30% to $30,000 on Wednesday, its lowest point since January.

By Friday, bitcoin had rebounded slightly, to around $37,000 — bruised by continued regulatory concerns, and far off its all time high above $64,000 that it hit a month ago.

Volatility is baked into the nascent cryptocurrency market, but the digital assets' explosive growth in the past year has attracted hordes of amateur and professional investors looking for a quick profit. Many of them ride an upswing and get out, or panic sell when things turn sour, exacerbating gains or losses. ...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/22/investing/crypto-crash-bitcoin-regulation/index.html

[Rodius]

A crypto crash wiped out $1 trillion this week. Here's what happened

New York (CNN Business) — Wild, stomach-churning moments are part of the experience when you buy a ticket to the crypto circus. But the past week's volatility was enough to make some of the crypto faithful wonder whether they've been bamboozled.

On Wednesday, a broad crypto crash wiped out about $1 trillion in market value — a staggering drop from $2.5 trillion just a week ago. Bitcoin, which accounts for more than 40% of the global crypto market, nosedived 30% to $30,000 on Wednesday, its lowest point since January.

By Friday, bitcoin had rebounded slightly, to around $37,000 — bruised by continued regulatory concerns, and far off its all time high above $64,000 that it hit a month ago.

Volatility is baked into the nascent cryptocurrency market, but the digital assets' explosive growth in the past year has attracted hordes of amateur and professional investors looking for a quick profit. Many of them ride an upswing and get out, or panic sell when things turn sour, exacerbating gains or losses. ...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/22/investing/crypto-crash-bitcoin-regulation/index.html

Crypto is still small, relatively speaking.
What basically happened is Elon Musk and several other wealthy people and institutions created a fear campaign as a means to drive the price down and it worked.
If you actually dig a little into each claim being made, from power usage to China banning crypto, you will find that the news items being released are essentially full of shit.

It is a short-term event.
Crypto will go back up, especially the ones that provide an actual service, and in a month or two it will return to previous levels and keep increasing.

This type of event happens several times per year, and it is the same story over and over again.
And yet, after multiple drops of 20% to 40% within a one year period going back to the beginning of Bitcoin, crypto almost always holds significantly more value year after year.
Even now, Bitcoin holds more value than the beginning of this year and the returns are still high compared to any other market you want to compare it too.... and that is after several dips of 30% this year.

It is a new market, it is to be expected, but in the coming years, people like Musk and his wealthy, narcissistic mates wont be able to manipulate the crypto market because it will be too big.
And even then, these same people manipulate the NYSE, which is 71 times larger than the crypto market...... but at least the volatility will be vastly reduced.

[Sigmetnow]

What basically happened is Elon Musk and several other wealthy people and institutions created a fear campaign as a means to drive the price down and it worked.

LOL.  If Musk was trying to “pump and dump” as has been claimed, he did it wrong.  Tesla only sold some Bitcoin a couple months ago, before all the tweets and the run up.  Crashing the coin is bad for Tesla because the lowest price must be reported in the quarterly financials, not just the current price, and the company will take a sizable hit in Q2 because of this.

Matt Wallace
Elon Musk: Makes #Bitcoin go up 400 billion in market cap with Tesla accepting it.

Elon Musk: Makes #Bitcoin go down 100 billion in market cap with Tesla no longer accepting it.

Bitcoin Maxi’s: “So reckless. Can’t believe @elonmusk screwed $BTC like that.”

 https://twitter.com/mattwallace888/status/1393930223004098564
5/16/21, 10:03 AM

Elon Musk
 

Elon Musk
To be clear, I strongly believe in crypto, but it can’t drive a massive increase in fossil fuel use, especially coal

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1392950720979030019
5/13/21

Elon Musk
To clarify speculation, Tesla has not sold any Bitcoin

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1394170030741413888
5/17/21

[Rodius]

What basically happened is Elon Musk and several other wealthy people and institutions created a fear campaign as a means to drive the price down and it worked.

LOL.  If Musk was trying to “pump and dump” as has been claimed, he did it wrong.  Tesla only sold some Bitcoin a couple months ago, before all the tweets and the run up.  Crashing the coin is bad for Tesla because the lowest price must be reported in the quarterly financials, not just the current price, and the company will take a sizable hit in Q2 because of this.

Matt Wallace
Elon Musk: Makes #Bitcoin go up 400 billion in market cap with Tesla accepting it.

Elon Musk: Makes #Bitcoin go down 100 billion in market cap with Tesla no longer accepting it.

Bitcoin Maxi’s: “So reckless. Can’t believe @elonmusk screwed $BTC like that.”

 https://twitter.com/mattwallace888/status/1393930223004098564
5/16/21, 10:03 AM

Elon Musk
 

Elon Musk
To be clear, I strongly believe in crypto, but it can’t drive a massive increase in fossil fuel use, especially coal

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1392950720979030019
5/13/21

Elon Musk
To clarify speculation, Tesla has not sold any Bitcoin

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1394170030741413888
5/17/21

Elon Musk wasn't pumping and dumping.... he was tweeting rubbish about not accepting BTC because of the environmental concerns he suddenly has learned about.
There is no way he didn't know about the way BTC was powered, and just to add more to this, the energy isage isn't as simplistic as it looks and BTC is a driver toward green energy because the miners are trying to use green energy because it is cheaper. Cheaper means more profits.

Also, Musk is having a fight with the EPA, and the EPA dislikes BTC and had become a pint of concern between Musk and the EPA. He decided to stop accepting BTC because the EPA dislikes it and Musk is trying to get money from the Govt for being green.... something the EPA needs to approve and BTC was something that was stopping him getting the money.

There is more.... but it is not really about what Musk tweeted.
He was accepting BTC for a while, most of that time the price of BTC was lower than it is now after the recent and ongoing dump. He is doing well regardless in terms of profit.

[SteveMDFP]

...BTC is a driver toward green energy because the miners are trying to use green energy because it is cheaper. Cheaper means more profits....

That's not how I see it.  Bitcoin is an increasing *consumer* of cheap, renewable energy.  Absent Bitcoin consumption, that cheap, renewable power would go to the rest of the grid, and displace more expensive fossil fuel generation.

Bitcoin is an absurd use of electricity, regardless of which segment of grid generation it is drawing from.

[Rodius]

...BTC is a driver toward green energy because the miners are trying to use green energy because it is cheaper. Cheaper means more profits....

That's not how I see it.  Bitcoin is an increasing *consumer* of cheap, renewable energy.  Absent Bitcoin consumption, that cheap, renewable power would go to the rest of the grid, and displace more expensive fossil fuel generation.

Bitcoin is an absurd use of electricity, regardless of which segment of grid generation it is drawing from.

That depends on how much energy and resources are required for the alternative currencies.

[johnm33]

The energy used to mine bitcoin pales into insignificance when compared to the energy used to enforce the U$ dollars use as the international means of exchange.

[Rodius]

The energy used to mine bitcoin pales into insignificance when compared to the energy used to enforce the U$ dollars use as the international means of exchange.

The amount of energy wasted on idle devices in the USA over one year would power BTC for 1.9 years. How are idle electrical devices improving the world?

https://cbeci.org/cbeci/comparisons

[blu_ice]

Idle devices or banking system energy use has nothing to with cryptocurrency.

[SteveMDFP]

The energy used to mine bitcoin pales into insignificance when compared to the energy used to enforce the U$ dollars use as the international means of exchange.

Figures on that?  I very much doubt that.  Even discounting the original energy cost per newly-mined coins,  transactions require updating all the many copies of the blockchain -- this is very, very costly in energy, as it is far from simply recording the new data.

Note that Bitcoin was designed to be a *currency* and not an asset class.  Curriencies are for transactions, not to invest in.  Most Biitcoin is being used as a highly speculative "investment."  On the other hand, electronic transactions for, say, dollars now vastly outweighs physical transactions.  Transactions of dollars are encryped and decrypted, but with nowhere near the complexity and cost per transaction.

Bitcoin is a ridiculous energy hog, and all that is being used for value-free speculation.  Well, also for ransomware payouts.

EDIT:  To substantiate "ridiculous energy hog" consider the attached bar char.  See:
https://twitter.com/teunisbrosens/status/918783702519427072


It's clear to me that Bitcoin will shortly die.  One may  wish to invest/divest accordingly

[Sigmetnow]

Just now:

Elon Musk:
Spoke with North American Bitcoin miners. They committed to publish current & planned renewable usage & to ask miners [worldwide] to do so. Potentially promising.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1396914548167233537
5/24/21, 3:42 PM

[johnm33]

"Figures on that" The cost of enforcing the dollars status is about 90% of the budget of the mic.

[HapHazard]

Crypto is like the wild west at this extremely early stage, and barely anyone has any clue about its future implications. But they still love to bicker about it.

I'd like a [low + green] energy open crypto to replace fiat, honestly. It's certainly possible, but who knows. Time-wise, this is when the Europeans first started exploring North America on the regular.

Here's an interesting & legit use case, at any rate. Done by the Canadian Government:

https://nrc-cnrc.explorecatena.com/en

The National Research Council of Canada, through its Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) used the Ethereum blockchain to proactively publish grants and contribution data in real time, a measure that complemented ongoing quarterly proactive disclosures available through the Open Government website.

On the simplest level, blockchains are public ledgers that record transactions shared among many users. Once data is entered on a blockchain it is secure and unalterable, providing a permanent public record. This technology offers unprecedented levels of transparency and trust allowing public records to be searched, verified and audited at a level the world hasn’t seen before.

[Rodius]

Idle devices or banking system energy use has nothing to with cryptocurrency.

It does when the criteria for thinking it wastes too much energy.... why not focus on the energy wastage of idle devices that do nothing for anyone?
Crypto, regardless of personal feelings toward it, actually is helping poor people secure their wealth from hyper inflation, is an asset class (Goldman Sachs just called crypto the newest asset class) for non-wealthy people to get into, can be used for the cheap movement of remittance (I use crypto to send money from Australia to Samoa and it saves me $20 per transaction. Taken over a year, that is $240 that is reaching the people we support rather than to a bank), online transactions are easier to do than pre crypto.

Crypto has benefits, and it comes at the cost of energy. But BTC is just one of many cryptos, and many others are cheaper than BTC in terms of energy used.

It isn't a basic situation of the assets being a huge ponzi scheme, it just isn't that simple.

[sidd]

Re: crypto to send money from Australia to Samoa

out of curiosity, how long does the transaction take to clear ? because i have heard some times of days ...

sidd

[Rodius]

Re: crypto to send money from Australia to Samoa

out of curiosity, how long does the transaction take to clear ? because i have heard some times of days ...

sidd

Ten minutes is normal. Twenty minutes at most.
I have never had a transaction take days, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

[sidd]

Neat.

Sorta like hawala, beating it in time to clear, except trust is placed in miner controlled proof of work in a blockchain as opposed to personal and family networks.

sidd

[blu_ice]

It does when the criteria for thinking it wastes too much energy.... why not focus on the energy wastage of idle devices that do nothing for anyone?

We need to focus on both. Cryptocurrency consumes energy regardless of idle devices, or anything really. All energy use comes on top of the rest.

In fact this is a classic denier argument, not that I think you are one.

"Why should I commute by public transport, when people fly to holidays?"
"Why should we pay more on gas, when China burns so much coal?"

[Rodius]

It does when the criteria for thinking it wastes too much energy.... why not focus on the energy wastage of idle devices that do nothing for anyone?

We need to focus on both. Cryptocurrency consumes energy regardless of idle devices, or anything really. All energy use comes on top of the rest.

In fact this is a classic denier argument, not that I think you are one.

"Why should I commute by public transport, when people fly to holidays?"
"Why should we pay more on gas, when China burns so much coal?"

I am not a denier.

I understand that cryptos use energy.

I also understand that crypto, whether you like it or not, is here to stay and has a productive function, one that deserves to be in place.

This doesn't mean we should allow crypto to use excess energy or more energy than is required... which Bitcoin is doing right now.

It means that there are more energy-efficient means to do, essentially, the same job and do it with less energy than fiat money uses to exist.

What would people want if it turns out crypto uses significantly less energy than fiat money?

Not all cryptos use the same amount of energy as Bitcoin and Bitcoin uses the most energy per transaction (I think, if it doesn't it is close to it). Some are extremely energy cheap, you just need to look deeper into the crypto world to discover that.

[SimonF92]

Re: crypto to send money from Australia to Samoa

out of curiosity, how long does the transaction take to clear ? because i have heard some times of days ...

sidd

With ethereum this actually depends on the gwei or 'gas limit' that the sender sets. If one sets it too low then the transaction will get stuck in the darkpool and it could take days. Its basically inadvisible to send a transaction below the recommended gas limit at that time (which scales with network activity), if you try to cheap out you will be waiting a long time

[Rodius]

Re: crypto to send money from Australia to Samoa

out of curiosity, how long does the transaction take to clear ? because i have heard some times of days ...

sidd

With ethereum this actually depends on the gwei or 'gas limit' that the sender sets. If one sets it too low then the transaction will get stuck in the darkpool and it could take days. Its basically inadvisible to send a transaction below the recommended gas limit at that time (which scales with network activity), if you try to cheap out you will be waiting a long time

ETH has very expensive fees.
Plus, I send using Bitcoin anyway, but I will probably swap to another crypto soon anyway because.... well..... there are other options now that use next to no energy relative to Bitcoin and the transaction is next to instantaneous.

[SimonF92]

Kudos to you for still holding anything, I couldnt cope with the capitalist warzone that is crypto over the last 2 weeks. Its much better for my blood pressure to sit this one out