The currencies we have seen so far are, yes, but this is not unalterable in its magnitude. A certain amount of energy will always be necessary though to keep it secure, but this is the case for all our communication. The internet as a whole would require quite a bit less energy without HTTPS, but that would preclude most use cases we have become accustomed to.
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There’s a significant difference between a bit of energy and a massive waste for an extremely low yield. If you compare it with a network like VISA’s that handles a shitton of transactions each day compared to their energy usages then you quickly realize that Bitcoin will never be a proper transaction method compared to any alternative already in use unless there’s a major shift in it’s design.
Plus, you pretty much have to play your own bank with Bitcoin and that has turned out to be extremely problematic for a lot of people, but that’s just another minor chapter in this long running ponzi scheme.
I’d be really interested in some data about the total energy usage of any of these payment services, if you have any.
Again, the energy usage results from using proof-of-work, but that isn’t the only approach you can take.
There’s services similar to an e-banking account that serve as a wallet, so i’m not sure what you are getting at.
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I don’t see the advantage of blockchain vs conventional distributed databases.
Transaction speed and data integrity basically are two killers for any serious widespread use in financial applications.
What keeps the Bitcoin boat floating is the speculation bubble which keeps increasing the price (I won’t call it value). This and that not all the costs are factored in (environmental damage, increasing energy prices etc)
It may be the case that there are other concepts than BC’s proof of work. The problem is that (almost) no one is interested in the ideals behind the crypto currency. Everybody is chasing the money. The more people mine for coins the more energy is wasted. Remember, only the first solution will continue the chain. All the other energy spent to power hundreds/thousands of Kilowatt eating rigs was useless. Exactly this inherent inefficiency is what Kome was adressing in is initial rant. And I agree. We should not allow this nonsense.
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There is no way of stopping it. As long as people keep driving the prices, it will not stop. If you try to disable it, somebody will fork it and the whole malady will continue just like nothing ever happened.
Sure you can force it into illegality, but that hasn’t worked with drugs either.
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I tend to agree with Sobek, that there are enough investors and/or people who are either convinced of crypto’s profitability or value to humanity, as with Cardano (ADA), that it is here to stay. I don’t understand well enough all of the nuances of currency and how markets work, for that matter, to make an informed decision, but I think if you look at how crypto has performed over the last decade, that it you would be hard pressed to convince me that it doesn’t factor into the way we engage in commerce in the future. I take most of what I hear from “influencers” and institutional investors with healthy dose of salt, knowing that both sides have agendas, but this seems to be how most proponents of crypto (in the US you are taxed when you execute an exchange to fiat currency if there was a gain, or a deduction if a loss, so in essence an asset rather than a currency) view its worth and future utility. Video time of 49:15 to hear discussion of El Salvador voting to accept BTC as legal tender.
I always recoil when I hear people want to dismiss an opinion because of an “agenda”.
I counter, who is going to be knowledgeable enough about a topic to make their opinion worth listening to that is NOT going to have an agenda driving it? If you ask Warren Buffet about health issues, it’s not an expert opinion, so the fact that he has no agenda behind it either is meaningless. If you ask him about investments, he’s going to know what he’s talking about, but he’s also got an agenda behind what he says.
The point that people miss is to listen to ALL the informed opinions and then make up your own mind. Just because you know you’re going to disagree with Prof Smith doesn’t mean that they may not bring up some points you were unaware of, hadn’t considered, or agree with anyway. Likewise expert Dr Jones on another blog may be someone you usually agree with but they can still be WRONG about X, Y, or Z.
Instead it seems like people want to find someone whom they can blindly listen to and not put in the work to think about it themselves. That’s just lazy and even if you come out on top more than half the time, you’re still risking being misled because everyone makes mistakes and has agendas, whether you notice it, or know what it is, or not.
Using Pound Sterling as an example - it derives its value from the fact that people need it to live. The Government from day one has exercised economic controls to ensure this happens - the concept being that if people need it then they will work for it - not much more to it.
Therefore if you are wondering why you and nobody needs Cryptocurrencies then - well you don’t need them and they will never have stable value like the Government currencies as it stands.
Secondly a government should ideally have full control of its currency to control its economy - so anything like Bitcoin will never be in the picture.
Can a government create their own cryptocurrency that they control? - sure that might work:
British finance minister Rishi Sunak told the Bank of England on Monday to look at the case for a new “Britcoin”, or central bank-backed digital currency, aimed at tackling some of the challenges posed by cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.
A BoE-backed digital version of sterling would potentially allow businesses and consumers to hold accounts directly with the bank and to sidestep others when making payments, upending the lenders’ role in the financial system.
The BoE said a digital version of sterling would not replace either physical cash or existing bank accounts.
“The Government and the Bank of England have not yet made a decision on whether to introduce a CBDC in the UK, and will engage widely with stakeholders on the benefits, risks and practicalities of doing so,” the BoE said.
BoE Governor Andrew Bailey has previously said bitcoin, the best known cryptocurrency, fails to act as a stable store of value or an efficient way to make transactions, making it ill-suited to serve as a currency and a risky bet for investors."
‘Britcoin’ not bitcoin? UK considers new digital currency | Reuters
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It did not? So why not make heroin or meth legal then? There are profits to be made.
People are selfish and stupid. Change my mind. 
If something is beneficial only to a few but has negative side effects for the majority it might be a good idea to make a law so that you can prosecute for the general good (I know that is naive)
Oh sweet summer child…
Good question. Portugal is currently taking an interesting approach to the matter. They do not prosecute people for drug dependency, instead focusing heavily on education and social work. My point is not that we should “open the gates”, but in both cases, drugs and cryptocurrency, prohibition is a dead end. We as a society have no leverage whatsoever to stop either by force.
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Major issues with crypto currently:
Volatility - Imagine going to bed with $3 under your mattress and tomorrow it’s $300,000. How about when it’s worth $.30 the day after? Business (with a capital B) does not run on anything that volatile. It runs on things that have a fairly fixed worth, with forecastable ups and downs. If I am megacorp A, do I take $10 billon worth of payments in something that might be worth $5 billon tomorrow? There is a reason the US Dollar, EU Euro, etc are used for major trading. Even major retailers that take BC are going to convert those to some stable currency, and they are probably doing so at a staggering bad exchange rate to hedge against the volatility of crypto.
It’s not fiat currency - Crypto is basically the equivalent to trading shares of stock, they can go up and down radically at a moments notice. And much like a share of stock they have no intrinsic value that society has agreed upon. I can walk into any 7-11 in the US and buy a soda with a $5 bill. I can not get that same soda with a paper stock certificate of Amazon, even though the value is over 650 times that of a $5 bill. Same issue with crypto. Yes all currency in this day and age is fiat, but as a society we have all agreed that it has value. Crypto is not there, and likely wont ever be there.
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Our point of sale (POS) provider at work is Square Inc. I read with interest a couple of days ago that they are investing in a 100% solar powered Bitcoin mining facility. Full disclosure, if memory serves, they purchased 50M of Bitcoin in 2020. I wonder how much cubic space of solar panel it takes to power a modest mining rig (say 1x3080 and 2x3070)? I’m thinking that it might be a few years to break even, LOL. Hmmm, rear of house has southern exposure. <>Wheels turning mode…</> If I can get a healthy rebate from our electrical utility for our solar panel investment, it’s like they would be subsidizing a mining rig, right?