Bitcoin and NFTs

[Ginger Yellow]

This sort of shit is why Musk should not be in charge of a public company (not to mention the market manipulation, but that's another matter). There is zero new information about bitcoin's environmental impact since he announced they would be accepting it as payment all of three months ago.

[ursus arctos]

I like the idea that no one told him that Tesla couldn't book the Bitcoin as revenue, but had to carry it as an asset

[ad hoc]

This sort of shit is why Musk should not be in charge of a public company (not to mention the market manipulation, but that's another matter). There is zero new information about bitcoin's environmental impact since he announced they would be accepting it as payment all of three months ago.

Have I misunderstood what actually happened? Musk talks up Bitcoin (and presumably invests heavily in it) and provokes a spike in the price. Then he "discovers" the environmental costs and sells his bitcoin and publicy says so. Price falls. Musk is even richer than he was before. I mean that's it basically isn't it? He's got so much weird power in his apparently random tweets, that he can just use them to make himself even more wealthy

[Ginger Yellow]

Have I misunderstood what actually happened? Musk talks up Bitcoin (and presumably invests heavily in it) and provokes a spike in the price. Then he "discovers" the environmental costs and sells his bitcoin and publicy says so. Price falls. Musk is even richer than he was before. I mean that's it basically isn't it? He's got so much weird power in his apparently random tweets, that he can just use them to make himself even more wealthy

I mean, it's not technically his bitcoin, though he owns much of the company that owns it (and I'm sure he has lots on his own account too), and Tesla didn't sell all or even most of it, so they're hurt by the fall in price, but no, you haven't misunderstood it.

I like the idea that no one told him that Tesla couldn't book the Bitcoin as revenue, but had to carry it as an asset

This feels very plausible. Or they told him, but he didn't care until it came time for the next quarter's financials.

[ursus arctos]

Ouch

[Ginger Yellow]

I assume the X is XRP, in which case, so much for being uncorrelated.

[S. aureus]

A question I have, which I don't care enough about to try and find out beyond posting this, is how dogecoin is supposed to be pronounced? Is it dog-e-coin (as it was named after a dog, I believe) or doge-coin (like the guy in Venice)?
By the way, as a sad reflection of our world today, googling "doge" brought up the actual doge at the bottom of page 5, before that it's all dogecoin.

[ursus arctos]

I always use the Venetian, but I'm not sure I've heard it in the wild

[ursus arctos]

CNBC agrees (first 10 seconds of the clip after the ad)

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/07/what-is-dogecoin.html

[anton pulisov]

Friend of mine sunk a large chunk of his life savings into Bitcoin in March 2021 or so. He made 15% after a month or so and was very happy. I told him to sell and get out (I had already advised him not to get in in the first place). It's tulip mania, which you should essentially avoid, certainly when it is peaking.

He told me Bitcoin addresses all the weaknesses of fiat currency, etc., etc. There seems to be a lot of that kind of info going about on the interwebs, how Bitcoin will defeat the central banks, printing of money, bla bla. I did try to explain to him that inflation is necessary to run an economy, and a well-run fiat currency is a very good thing, facilitates public expenditure, and that the recovery from the Great Depression was god awful because money was pegged to gold back then. And also, since Bitcoin is essentially a speculative asset, how can it ever work as a currency? There's no incentive to spend Bitcoin as a currency if you are banking on it going up. How is everyone holding on good for the economy. Sure, the current fiat money system is being abused by the 1% for their own gain, but that is a political power / corruption problem, not a fault in the money system itself. Any system can be gamed by the powerful.

Now he is up shit creek and I am sad for him.

[Incandenza]

A question I have, which I don't care enough about to try and find out beyond posting this, is how dogecoin is supposed to be pronounced? Is it dog-e-coin (as it was named after a dog, I believe) or doge-coin (like the guy in Venice)?
By the way, as a sad reflection of our world today, googling "doge" brought up the actual doge at the bottom of page 5, before that it's all dogecoin.

It's "doge", but that's because that's how the shiba inu meme is pronounced

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_(meme)

[Incandenza]

The problem with Bitcoin that I have is that the true believers who talk about it being a new type of currency seem to be few and far between to make that actually work. The people who rushed in and "invested" in it only really seemed interested in it based upon how much it was increasing in value in USD. They basically just see it as a stock and not an actual currency at all.

[Hot Pepsi]

I don’t see what is wrong with old fashioned money. I can pay taxes with it and the government - actual people with mints, a big pile of gold, and, as it turns out, an army - will prop it up if necessary. I feel pretty good about that.

[Ginger Yellow]

Most people who rail against fiat currency generally don't feel good about paying taxes or government interventions.

[Incandenza]

The coal-fired Hardin Generating Station in Montana had been struggling for years. Late last year, a Nasdaq-listed miner called Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. partnered with Hardin’s owner to transform the power plant into a hub for mining bitcoin.

“It was an idle asset,” Fred Thiel, Marathon Digital’s chief executive, said in an interview. “We were able to get access to a large amount of power at a very attractive price.”

The project is in the process of scaling up, with more than 100 megawatts of power capacity planned. Marathon Digital, whose investors include BlackRock Inc. and the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies LLC, said that by tapping the Montana coal plant, its break-even costs to produce a bitcoin will fall to $4,600, 38% less than previously.

The company is aiming to produce at least 55 bitcoins daily by the first quarter of next year, up from an average of two a day in 2020.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoin...bshare_twitter

[Snake Plissken]

Most people who rail against fiat currency generally don't feel good about paying taxes or government interventions.

Right up until the point when they do.

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/kotaku/status/1400235921396559875

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1415379464297533444?s=20

[Sam]

Jackson Palmer has taken years of study to land upon the belief that pretty much everyone on this thread arrived at a couple of minutes after we first heard of crypto?

[caja-dglh]

It is a little "creator of joke Crypto doesn't particularly like Crypto shocker"

[Snake Plissken]

There was some fun and games around new world records being set for selling rare game cartridges. Not only do the same people have a nice little earner going "rating" the quality of the cartridge and box, the same people own the main auction house which makes money from selling these "rare" high-grade carts. And with a rare copy of a Zelda game going for a million dollars, it got paid for in crypto-currency.

I'm sure it's all above board.

[ursus arctos]

A classic collectible scam that probably goes back to the Sumerians

[Discordant Resonance]

Apparently, the ECB is planning to launch a "digital euro" to compete against bitcoin and adjust to a cashless society, but a personal threshold of €3,000 would apply to prevent the collapse of conventional banks.

[caja-dglh]

Crypto has a long way to go to threaten the collapse of conventional banks. Possibly the most hilarious part is how many revolutionaries are prepared to overlook the bag-load of charges that get skimmed in the multiple transactions needed to actually use the currency. If not that, it is all the stakeholders busy selling it all as "sticking it to the man" while stealing said charges out of your pocket that would be illegal in a regulated industry, such as... banks.

[Discordant Resonance]

It's the e-euro they're worried about in that regard, in case a run en masse to switch to the new system triggers instability, but that hardly seems probable.