Is bitcoin a climate killing Ponzi scheme?

[Jingthing]

Look I fully realize I'm coming from Old Fogeylandia with this and that many people have made boatloads of "money" with bitcoin and treat it almost as a religion.

 

But looking at history,  how can this NOT end badly? Or maybe history is passe, huh?

 

 

[fdsa]

> Is bitcoin a climate killing

yes

 

> Ponzi scheme?

no

 

</thread>

[1FinickyOne]

a couple of guys get together and say lets make our own money, nothing you can touch, smell, taste, we just say it exists and in limited quantity, give it an aura of rarity... not easy to spend, you need to 'mine it' which takes enormous amts of energy.. if you even know what it means to 'mine'... 

 

look, I have no idea either, except that I have a very real part of my portfolio invested in it and I am making some money... and yes, I understand that tomorrow somebody could be laughing at me and say - - you fell for that? 

 

 

[Exploring Thailand]

I'm still undecided but here is a view of the other side of the (bit)coin.

 

 

[Surelynot]

Probably end badly....but it is all the timing......I have a target price in mind to sell and then I am out........if it doesn't all go pear shaped beforehand.

[Heng]

Like all things, something will replace it.   And chances are it'll be something blockchain like, it won't look like the legacy financial system.   So for the Fogeylanders spinning the energy angle, you're just badmouthing 8 track tapes.... it won't bring back vinyl.    

[nausea]

Tiptoe through the tulips with me. What's that old saying, "there's no such thing ws a free lunch", or "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is"; somebody's gonna be left holding the bag if you ask me, just going by life experience; but then I'm full of schadenfreude, not getting in early enough.. As everyone says, it's all about timing. You took the risk early on good luck to you, and hodlings may still have the last laugh. Where this goes in anybody's guess, not for the risk adverse, that's tor sure.

[AndyFoxy]

I do care if jt ends up being a ponzi scheme (although the money I have made seems real to me). As for the climate, I couldn't care less.

[Jingthing]

On 5/4/2021 at 12:17 PM, Heng said:

Like all things, something will replace it.   And chances are it'll be something blockchain like, it won't look like the legacy financial system.   So for the Fogeylanders spinning the energy angle, you're just badmouthing 8 track tapes.... it won't bring back vinyl.    

Sounds like gobbledygook.  This something that will replace it won't kill the earth? And you know this how?

[Jingthing]

5 hours ago, AndyFoxy said:

I do care if jt ends up being a ponzi scheme (although the money I have made seems real to me). As for the climate, I couldn't care less.

Well I don’t have children and I still care at least a little. I know. I know. Virtue signaling. So sue me.

[Caldera]

Strange, the more money I make with bitcoin (acquired a long time ago), the less I care what other people think about it.

[fdsa]

  

2 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Sounds like gobbledygook.  This something that will replace it won't kill the earth? And you know this how?

google:// pos vs pow

 

1 hour ago, Caldera said:

Strange, the more money I make with bitcoin (acquired a long time ago), the less I care what other people think about it.

I hope you'll stay in Bitcoin when majority of users will move to a better alternative.

[Caldera]

1 hour ago, fdsa said:

I hope you'll stay in Bitcoin when majority of users will move to a better alternative.

 

... for hope is all you have!

 

[expatjustice]

2 hours ago, fdsa said:

I hope you'll stay in Bitcoin when majority of users will move to a better alternative.

 

One thing is what's better technologically speaking. And another one what's better for the market. 

 

Technologically speaking, Bitcoin is terrible. The algorithm is old, outdated, there simply are way better and more efficient alternatives. 

 

When it comes to the market, and the 99% of the people who invest in it... Very few things better than Bitcoin, because at the moment and for the past year it has made a lot of money for a lot of people. 

 

The majority of the people which are in Bitcoin for gains couldn't give less of a f***k about the technology behind it...

[EricTh]

Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. When there are nobody buying it anymore, it collapses.

[asiacurious]

Quote

Is bitcoin a climate killing Ponzi scheme?

 

Yes

[asiacurious]

Also, too, I thought this video on the topic was interesting.  (I suffered through the whole 76 minutes.)

 

 

[expatjustice]

59 minutes ago, asiacurious said:

 

Yes

Then they would have managed to scam some of the biggest and brightest companies and individuals in the world ????

[AndyFoxy]

7 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Well I don’t have children and I still care at least a little. I know. I know. Virtue signaling. So sue me.

I do have children but I still don’t care.

[ukrules]

3 hours ago, EricTh said:

Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. When there are nobody buying it anymore, it collapses.

You should read up on what a Ponzi scheme actually is - it's nothing like Bitcoin.

 

[Jingthing]

8 minutes ago, AndyFoxy said:

I do have children but I still don’t care.

Brats?

[bkk6060]

Doge is the way to go.

 

If you bought dogecoin at the beginning of the year you’ve enjoyed massive gains over the past four months. A $1,000 dogecoin purchase on Jan. 1, 2021 — at a price of 0.057 cent per coin — would be worth $121,052 at Wednesday’s high of 69 cents, a gain of more than 12,000%

[AndyFoxy]

1 hour ago, Jingthing said:

Brats?

Rats

[Farang123]

On 5/3/2021 at 5:23 PM, Surelynot said:

Probably end badly....but it is all the timing......I have a target price in mind to sell and then I am out........if it doesn't all go pear shaped beforehand.

What price?

[Surelynot]

2 minutes ago, Farang123 said:

What price?

Well I have basket of 6 coins......waiting for them to hit 2 million baht then selling.......but if it looks like an upward trend I will be greedy, hold onto them and wake up next morning to find they have all crashed.....story of my life. 

[cmarshall]

Although some will make money, Bitcoin will end in tears, of course, because it is an unproductive asset like tulips or baseball cards.  

[asiacurious]

10 hours ago, expatjustice said:

Then they would have managed to scam some of the biggest and brightest companies and individuals in the world ????

 

Yes, but.....

 

Biggest?  Well, ok.  With size comes the ability to pump and then dump.

 

Brightest?  Not necessarily.  Too much credit is often given to the so-called intelligence of the super wealthy.  Someone being super wealthy doesn't mean they're among the brightest.  It could just mean they got lucky.  Or they didn't care who they hurt or what damage they cause as they acquire their wealth and status (see, psychopath).

 

FROM THE LINK ABOVE:

 

Quote

“He is a charismatic leader who inspires people to follow him. A strategic thinker who can master the details. A tireless worker with incredible focus and problem-solving skills. He is well-liked by his employees but is also able to make and execute unpopular decisions. Above all, he is an exceptional communicator who can convey a vision to any audience, from Wall Street to the most junior employee.” 

 

Quote

The quote above could describe an ideal CEO. But it’s actually a portrait of a corporate psychopath, provided by a law enforcement official who declined to be identified because they weren’t authorized to publicly comment. 

 

 

Note that I do not discount hard work!  A psychopath won't go very far.  Nor do I discount intelligence!  I'm sure at least some psychopaths are quite intelligent.  Lucky too.

 

 

 

Let's look at a big company led by a guy who I'm not saying is a psychopath (I don't know him so I can't really say one way or the other.)  Back in late 2015 he said, “We’re going to end up with complete autonomy, and I think we will have complete autonomy in approximately two years.”  SOURCE 

 

A lot of cars have been sold on that claim!

 

Cut to 2020 and....

 

Quote

During Tesla’s earnings call Wednesday evening Elon Musk mentioned that Full Self Driving tech is probably going to be released by the end of this year, and that the company may allow certain customers early access to a “feature complete” version of the software. Musk went on to clarify that this means the car will have some chance of navigating from home to work without driver intervention. Feature complete, however “doesn’t mean features are working well.”  SOURCE

 

 

But back to Bitcoin.....

 

As you may already know, Tesla bought about 1.5 billion USD of Bitcoin earlier this year and then sold about 10% of it for a profit.

 

Quote

The big profit recorded in Q1 reveals the approximate size of the overall windfall. A note on page 5 discloses that Tesla booked a $101 million "positive impact" from the sale of Bitcoin, recorded in the 'Restructuring & Other' line on the income statement. The cash flow statement shows that the sale garnered proceeds of $272 million. Hence, we know that Tesla paid $171 million for Bitcoin it sold for $101 million more, clinching a 59% profit.   SOURCE

 

Fun fact!  From that same Fortune article we learn that, "In Q1, Tesla posted pre-tax profits of $533 million. But those earnings included $519 million in sales of regulatory credits, a boost that will soon disappear, as well as the $101 Bitcoin bonanza. Subtract those benefits outside selling cars, batteries and services, and it lost $87 million."

 

I guess I'll leave it there.

[zhounan]

Now everyone has noticed Bitcoin.
But where were all these talkers in 2009?

[Heng]

19 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Sounds like gobbledygook.  This something that will replace it won't kill the earth? And you know this how?

 

Just basic knowledge of current tech events.  Not all blockchain type techs require proof of work (proof of work is the electricity/power consumer in this ecosystem).   There are similar systems that rely on proof of stake or proof of selection, which consume far less energy (not to mention it's the tech itself that allows quantification of electricity use... if there were some way to quantity the electricity currently consumed by the financial system it's designed to replace it would likely be a different relative picture...).   There are alternate low energy chain technologies such as Holochain.     But yes, to many folks it maybe difficult to grasp.   I can telex you more info if you can't get around the Google barrier.  

[Heng]

2 hours ago, zhounan said:

Now everyone has noticed Bitcoin.
But where were all these talkers in 2009?

 

Many of us were on Bitcointalk.org