Bitcoin

[yendi]

A former co-worker decided to flex and sneer about his investing in BitCoin (in a comment on a post about some financial issues I'm dealing with -- totally classy), along with a preemptive "but it's not bad for the environment" whine that of course he couldn't substantiate with any real sources.

Anyway, wrote this on FB, but might as well put it somewhere where things don't get algorithmically buried:

A few follow-ups to the Bitcoin discussion from the other day:

1. Bitcoin is environmentally ruinous. Full-stop. If you're involved with it, you're doing damage. To be clear, lots of things we're involved with hurt the environment, so how involved you are is a factor (though if you mine bitcoin, you're at ground zero).

2. If you bought Bitcoin in 2013 (or 2010, or 2018) and became rich from it, it's not because you were smart. It's because you did something really stupid with your money and got lucky. The only way buying Bitcoin in 2013 could be "smart" would be if you're a time traveller, and given point 1 above, that would make you scum.

2.5 Yes, BitCoin is a pyramid scheme.

3. Ethereum is also ruinous (and yes, has been planning a change to a less awful system for so long, it might as well be called Duke Nukem Forever). As are almost all the chains where NFTs exist (with the exception, best I can tell, of Wax and a handful of others).

4. As the crypto bros like to sneer, I "did my own research." When the bros sneer that, they don't actually mean it -- they actually just want you to shut up and listen to them and not do any research.

5. There are plenty of cryptocurrencies that are low-energy and, if not environmentally friendly, generally on the same level as other things like email, texting, etc. But as long as all the bros are behind the big ones, that almost doesn't matter.

Comments

[laurion]

Wow. Real class act.

[yendi]

Yeah. His time at Brandeis was during your time away, but he really wasn't an ass back then, best I can remember.

[gingicat]

Thanks for the analysis.

[yendi]

You're welcome!

[jadelennox]

Ugh.

Here was my post on NFTs and grift, which was my ragesplosion about them.

[yendi]

That's an excellent summary. I've found the entire NFT/Crypto space to be fascinating in a rubbernecking sort of way, only with no end of chaos to keep rubbernecking at.

[lovingboth]

Endless comedy, apart from the way its helping destroy the planet.

I presume you know of Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain?

[yendi]

Indeed I do. If you haven't seen it, Gerard was a participant in a fantastic group takedown of some awful NY Times crypto "journalism."

[lovingboth]

2. If you bought bitcoin in 2013 or 2010, you probably lost it via losing the key or a hack or a "hack".

5. Even if they are low-energy, they're still not useful, either as a currency or investment.

Without the magic imaginary money machine that is Tether, you'd probably need 20,000 bitcoin to buy a couple of pizza again.

[yendi]

All true.

[rubian77]

I tried figuring out Bitcoin....and couldn't. When what I'm reading sounds like 'you get Bitcoins by creating the unique codes that make up Bitcoins' it started to resemble counterfeit money.

[yendi]

That's not entirely untrue, but what doesn't get mentioned is creating the codes takes enough energy to power multiple small towns.

[minkrose]

This person's bragging now especially "funny" given the market this week 🙃 fuck cryptocurrencies!

[yendi]

Seriously! I'm trying to rein some of my schadenfreude (because of things like this), but that only goes so far.