Elon and influence on crypto currency markets

[Strategium]

Wasn't the real point here that that he claims bitcoin mining uses too much coal and other fossil fuels? Obviously he should stop selling cars in China and concentrate on inventing the battery powered computer instead

Other power saving ideas include abandoning SatNav and inventing the resuable paper navigation guide, dumping mobile phone and providing public access call devices strategically placed in tiny coin operated booths and note sending boxes. We could also get rid off road freight and dig a network of waterways with barges for distance haulage. And for people who insist on driving in a mire of noise I have an idea for clockwork device that turns a grooved cyclinder to vibrate a needle amplified through a large horn....

There you go again with more of your radical technology ideas.
What we need for exchanging messages is not these tiny coin operated booths you have designed to replace mobile phones, but the bio-messenger alternative, some call a 'pigeon'. Energy input is 100% renewable biofuel. Multiple use and at end of life 100% biodegradable. Some pollution issues unfortunately as they do tend to *sugar* everywhere, but you can't have everything...

 

[Yev000]

Have a look at PayPal (ironically sold by Musk)

"In 2019, the payment provider's annual payment volume came to 712 billion U.S. dollars"

Current Market Cap 281.829B

In the same year Bitcoin had $13.8 Trillion in volume and had a marketcap of ~ $134 Billion. In 2020 it averaged out at 13 billion per DAY.

Current Market Cap 1T

If crypto has no value, then neither does PayPal

 

[KennethS]

Analysis shows its takes about 700k visa transactions to use the same amount of energy as 1 bitcoin transaction.

Bitcoin energy consumption 2023 | Statista

The average energy consumption for one single Bitcoin transaction in 2023 could equal several hundreds of thousands of VISA card transactions.

www.statista.com

From Harvard Business Review

 

[pgkevet]

There you go again with more of your radical technology ideas.
What we need for exchanging messages is not these tiny coin operated booths you have designed to replace mobile phones, but the bio-messenger alternative, some call a 'pigeon'. Energy input is 100% renewable biofuel. Multiple use and at end of life 100% biodegradable. Some pollution issues unfortunately as they do tend to *sugar* everywhere, but you can't have everything...

I grew up not far from the pic below.. a major information interchange but such archaic practices are at risk of malicious virus:
(Willington Dovecot - 1500 nest boxes)

 

[Durzel]

Banks are obligated to deal with AML and KYC.

Transferring large sums of currency instantly to foreign entities sounds great on paper. I'm not sure governments will be so pleased about it if it bypasses both of those things, and capital gains taxes as well, etc.

Once this stuff reaches a critical mass you can be sure that there will be regulations to stop banks accepting payments to or from crypto exchanges and/or to find a way to tax them. The idea that they're just going to sit by while people freely transfer or export wealth with no oversight is fantasy thinking.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Have a look at PayPal (ironically sold by Musk)

"In 2019, the payment provider's annual payment volume came to 712 billion U.S. dollars"

Current Market Cap 281.829B

In the same year Bitcoin had $13.8 Trillion in volume and had a marketcap of ~ $134 Billion. In 2020 it averaged out at 13 billion per DAY.

Current Market Cap 1T

If crypto has no value, then neither does PayPal

Paypal is NOT a currency, its a payment system. It provides a service which is how it creates its value.

Bitcoin is NOT a payment system, its a cypto currency.

You seem to misunderstood the difference between moving money on somebodies behalf and being invested in the thing itself. You're also conflating the money flowing in and out of Bitcoin with the money passing through Paypals payment systems and not the people buying and selling shares in Paypal. The annual payment volume of paypal drives the profit of the company which is how it makes a return. There is no equivalent metric in Bitcoin because its a currency and not a payment system.

+1. Or even try sending a more modest sum of money to a family member in another country involving a currency conversion. With BTC or other crypto I can do that for minimal fees and nearly instantaneously even on a weekend or middle of the night. With many banks, fees and costs aside, it can take a few days to be received.

False argument really until Crypto is a currency that can be used for domestic purposes (and at a current transaction fee level of what, about £36 per transaction, thats not going to happen), so sending money to a foreign country requires currrency A -> bitcoin then bitcoin -> currency B

Or you could just use a service like western union or paypal as they are means of transfering funds because they're payment systems.

And anyone defending the environmental credentials too much, well even Tesla have now come out and said Bitcoin os too much,

 

[Fraank]

False argument really until Crypto is a currency that can be used for domestic purposes (and at a current transaction fee level of what, about £36 per transaction, thats not going to happen), so sending money to a foreign country requires currrency A -> bitcoin then bitcoin -> currency B

Or you could just use a service like western union or paypal as they are means of transfering funds because they're payment systems.

And anyone defending the environmental credentials too much, well even Tesla have now come out and said Bitcoin os too much,

£36 is still cheap for huge transfers, but yes Bitcoin can't do micro transactions without offchain solutions, like lightening network. Other cryptocurrencies can. Nano for example is completely free and almost instant settlement. I anticipate it to be huge in the future.

Western Union are already using Stellar (XLM) for some of their business.

Bitcoin is the old but incredibly reliable dog, grumpy in the corner. It's like round one of the internet. We are now seeing round 3 (round 2 was the Ethereum virtual machine).

We are still incredibly early in the emergence of what blockchain will offer, I believe it will be intrinsically woven into how we live our lives in 10-20 years.

 

[Yev000]

Paypal is NOT a currency, its a payment system. It provides a service which is how it creates its value.

Bitcoin is NOT a payment system, its a cypto currency.

You seem to misunderstood the difference between moving money on somebodies behalf and being invested in the thing itself. You're also conflating the money flowing in and out of Bitcoin with the money passing through Paypals payment systems and not the people buying and selling shares in Paypal. The annual payment volume of paypal drives the profit of the company which is how it makes a return. There is no equivalent metric in Bitcoin because its a currency and not a payment system.



False argument really until Crypto is a currency that can be used for domestic purposes (and at a current transaction fee level of what, about £36 per transaction, thats not going to happen), so sending money to a foreign country requires currrency A -> bitcoin then bitcoin -> currency B

Or you could just use a service like western union or paypal as they are means of transfering funds because they're payment systems.

And anyone defending the environmental credentials too much, well even Tesla have now come out and said Bitcoin os too much,

Like I said, try sending serious sums of money. You are picking up at the details. Money this, service that....

Shares are only valued because people want to buy them. There is a vague notion of the company behind them being valuable, but that only remains true while they are in business.

But whatever, you wont change your mind so lets agree to disagree.

 

[rotor2k]

Try transferring a million US dollars using traditional methods to a different country....

If you don't see the value doesn't mean there is none to someone else.

Put in $1M at one end, get $<random> out the other (could be MORE than $1M, this is exciting!)? Or pay Transferwise a known (very small, extremely reasonable) fee and receive an exact amount at the other end. So hard to decide which is better!

If you are referring to the illegal transfer of funds, then I agree, cryptocurrencies are *great* for that. Billions of dollars of ransomware are 100% thanks to cryptocurrency. Basically there are a dozen illegitimate uses for cryptocurrency, and genuinely not a single legitimate one (unless you call gambling a legitimate use, which I suppose for its entertainment value may be the case).

 

[Yev000]

Put in $1M at one end, get $<random> out the other (could be MORE than $1M, this is exciting!)? Or pay Transferwise a known (very small, extremely reasonable) fee and receive an exact amount at the other end. So hard to decide which is better!

If you are referring to the illegal transfer of funds, then I agree, cryptocurrencies are *great* for that. Billions of dollars of ransomware are 100% thanks to cryptocurrency. Basically there are a dozen illegitimate uses for cryptocurrency, and genuinely not a single legitimate one (unless you call gambling a legitimate use, which I suppose for its entertainment value may be the case).

Why Transferwise’s Co-Founder Backed This Blockchain Company

2020 was a massive year for blockchain adoption, with some of the largest financial institutions worldwide buying or integrating cryptocurrencies into

www.newsbtc.com

 

[Fraank]

Put in $1M at one end, get $<random> out the other (could be MORE than $1M, this is exciting!)? Or pay Transferwise a known (very small, extremely reasonable) fee and receive an exact amount at the other end. So hard to decide which is better!

If you are referring to the illegal transfer of funds, then I agree, cryptocurrencies are *great* for that. Billions of dollars of ransomware are 100% thanks to cryptocurrency. Basically there are a dozen illegitimate uses for cryptocurrency, and genuinely not a single legitimate one (unless you call gambling a legitimate use, which I suppose for its entertainment value may be the case).

I'm sure your sentiments were repeated by the naysayers of the internet in the mid 90s.

You best let IBM, Microsoft, Google and Amazon to stop playing with this pointless tech!

 

[rotor2k]

I'm sure your sentiments were repeated by the naysayers of the internet in the mid 90s.

You best let IBM, Microsoft, Google and Amazon to stop playing with this pointless tech!

It's amazing how powerful FOMO is!!!

 

[imstitch]

Speaking of Elon... There's a report on the daily mail that his/one of his jets arrived in the UK today. If it is him, I wonder what he's up to.

 

[Billbrown1982]

Speaking of Elon... There's a report on the daily mail that his/one of his jets arrived in the UK today. If it is him, I wonder what he's up to.

Maybe my replacement door trim has finally arrived?

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

I'm sure your sentiments were repeated by the naysayers of the internet in the mid 90s.

I think its more an accurate reflection that in the 90's a lot of dot com companies popped up with big promises and extreme valuations, and in the early 2000s many of them burst. You can count on one hand how many of the companies back then went on to bigger and better things. Take yahoo as one that didn't, market cap in 1998 was $40B, in 2000 it was $125B, by 2002 it was $10B and today...? Its $32B Thats still big, but in 23 years its actually shrunk, and compared to its 2000 valuation its a basket case of an investment.

The opposite of not believing the hyperbole around products or crazy valuations doesn't mean they don't see a place or a value for them, it's just seeing the underlying value more clearly. Same goes with the Tesla share price. Plenty can and do make money on the ride, but knowing when to get off is not always easy

 

[Yev000]

I think its more an accurate reflection that in the 90's a lot of dot com companies popped up with big promises and extreme valuations, and in the early 2000s many of them burst. You can count on one hand how many of the companies back then went on to bigger and better things. Take yahoo as one that didn't, market cap in 1998 was $40B, in 2000 it was $125B, by 2002 it was $10B and today...? Its $32B Thats still big, but in 23 years its actually shrunk, and compared to its 2000 valuation its a basket case of an investment.

The opposite of not believing the hyperbole around products or crazy valuations doesn't mean they don't see a place or a value for them, it's just seeing the underlying value more clearly. Same goes with the Tesla share price. Plenty can and do make money on the ride, but knowing when to get off is not always easy

There is a second part to this. Many conflict trading with investing. If you have a time horizon shorted than 5 years you are not investing, you are gambling/trading.

The main question to ask yourself is "where do you think this will be in 5+ years time" and don't invest money you are going to need to live on.

That and do your own research...

 

[rotor2k]

I'm sure your sentiments were repeated by the naysayers of the internet in the mid 90s.

I think its more an accurate reflection that in the 90's a lot of dot com companies popped up with big promises and extreme valuations, and in the early 2000s many of them burst. You can count on one hand how many of the companies back then went on to bigger and better things. Take yahoo as one that didn't, market cap in 1998 was $40B, in 2000 it was $125B, by 2002 it was $10B and today...? Its $32B Thats still big, but in 23 years its actually shrunk, and compared to its 2000 valuation its a basket case of an investment.

The opposite of not believing the hyperbole around products or crazy valuations doesn't mean they don't see a place or a value for them, it's just seeing the underlying value more clearly. Same goes with the Tesla share price. Plenty can and do make money on the ride, but knowing when to get off is not always easy

I interpreted it as a comparison of the introduction of the Internet (one of humanity's great achievements), with the introduction of cryptocurrency (really cool academic research that spun out of control resulting in wasted 100s of TWh of mostly polluting energy and many destroyed lives and companies).

 

[Fraank]

I interpreted it as a comparison of the introduction of the Internet (one of humanity's great achievements), with the introduction of cryptocurrency (really cool academic research that spun out of control resulting in wasted 100s of TWh of mostly polluting energy and many destroyed lives and companies).

You clearly hate cryptocurrency for some reason, which is fine. But it does seem you have a particularly unbalanced view of it. Perhaps you should read the bitcoin white paper to understand it better.

I would also suggest starting to withdraw your savings and keeping them under the mattress, to prolong how long you don't have to use cryptocurrency in your daily life. Those pure as white bank notes that have had no blemish on society. You'll be able to sleep well believing you have a currency that was never used to control and destroy entire economies. A currency that was minted by unicorns in a green field of grass and lollipops I presume.

 

[rotor2k]

You clearly hate cryptocurrency for some reason, which is fine. But it does seem you have a particularly unbalanced view of it. Perhaps you should read the bitcoin white paper to understand it better.

I would also suggest starting to withdraw your savings and keeping them under the mattress, to prolong how long you don't have to use cryptocurrency in your daily life. Those pure as white bank notes that have had no blemish on society. You'll be able to sleep well believing you have a currency that was never used to control and destroy entire economies. A currency that was minted by unicorns in a green field of grass and lollipops I presume.

I'm *fascinated* by it, and have read hundreds of papers, articles, and essays over the years, and not a single thing I've read has made me think "oh wow, now I get it, this is amazing, this is going to change the world, this is what the world has been missing for its entire history". I do, on the other hand, very strongly suspect that those who embrace it don't actually understand the true mechanics of it. If it's gambling you're after, then I get it, but there are plenty of less-polluting options!

You didn't address the most basic thing that I mentioned: the enormous waste of dirty energy and the pollution it generates. If someone comes up with a cryptocurrency that requires virtually nil energy to run, then have at it! That would be great!

The latest thing I read (this morning, regarding Tether):

https://twitter.com/x/status/1393669812220465162

 

[Yev000]

You didn't address the most basic thing that I mentioned: the enormous waste of dirty energy and the pollution it generates. If someone comes up with a cryptocurrency that requires virtually nil energy to run, then have at it! That would be great!

There are a number of coins that need virtually zero energy to run (aside running servers with nodes on them).

Bitcoin is the oldest and the most "polluting" coin. It's popular because most people don't look into crypto beyond BTC and it has the first mover advantage.

There are 2 basic systems

1. Proof of work - doesn't have to be GPU/ASIC work, some coins use disk space. You can use anything in theory. Tesla could create a coin with miles driven as proof of work for example.

2. Proof of stake - basically your existing coins earn you interest. Which uses zero energy beyond running a node. You stake your coins to do "work" for you, you cant use those coins and they are used to validate the new coins.

To simulate scarcity both methods get "harder" the more people do it for any given algorithm. That's how ASICs kill off GPU mining, they are much faster so the algo adjusts and gets harder for everyone - GPU miners now get less.

There are exceptions - like XRP - which is mostly run by banks and the coins are generated when they need more to keep the price down - same as FIAT.



There is a lot more to it than that .... Every coin has different characteristics by design. For example Monero (XMR) is designed to be super private, so you can't trace transactions.

Bitcoin is just the first - and the least advanced out of all of these - the Atari of crypto. Ethereum is probably going to be the next big thing as it goes to proof of stake soon and all those environmental concerns go away...

Then there is Doge - which is basically a copy of BTC done for a joke... That's why Elon likes it. it also has 1% of BTC energy use per transaction - which is why Elon is thinking about accepting it as payment for Tesla.



Then there are Non Fungible Tokens...... That's next level madness...