Posted on 01/01/2023 5:37:50 AM PST by catnipman
Bitcoin miners had a rough 2022, showing “how to not build a mining business,” However, industry experts don’t see 2023 as any better, unless markets improve significantly.
high energy prices, increasing competition for Bitcoin blocks and a bear market hit miners, knocking out those with high leverage.
The sector was shaken by bankruptcies and loan defaults, and next year will likely bring even more pain.
lots of money was spent over the last year to boost hashrate ... but those investments didn’t pay off, as companies loaded up on debt to finance the growth only to see the economics of crypto mining break down.
"Many miners acted too deterministically," projecting bitcoin (BTC) would hit $100,000 and not even considering that the price would drop below $20,000
(Excerpt) Read more at coindesk.com ...
Oh now that IS too bad.
If you wish to crush illegal activity, recall and replace the $100 bill.
It would be fun to watch the truckloads of cartel money turning into worthless paper.
Digital currency is a disaster waiting to happen. “Money” which disappears whenever the Green New Dealer shuts down the grid wherever you are. And shut it down they will, in the Sacred Name of Mother Gaia, if our enemies don’t kill it with an EMP first. And you will die. But that’s a feature, not a bug.
MONEY is tangible: Gold, Silver, Lead and Brass for example. Men carried little sacks of gold, silver, and copper coins around for at least 3000 years. Are you so weak now that you can’t still do it?
:)
I started lurking here back in 2002. I didn’t really know much about politics then. I knew weightlifting, girls, beer, and basketball. I knew I didn’t know enough to post, and I was also reading the site in a SCIF.
What has become the worst, in my opinion, is everything turning into a binary argument.
I don’t want the US involved in the Ukraine, therefore I’m a commie Putinista.
You get it.
An EMP can’t take out global, redundant and shielded servers.
If things completely brake down, only bullets, like minded people, and food will matter.
To be honest, I’m more concerned with our government than I am about cartels.
“Frankly I never understand the hate for crypto.”
It is currency that does not work when the power goes out....that is called a clue!
Agreed most of us are old but we have lived long enough to see many scams, cons, lies, and assorted garbage peddled in the form of get rich quick schemes.
At least we have lawns to get off of!
To be fair, big ticket cash purchases are rare. But that's more for convenience. Many kids under 30 still use cash, especially if they're getting paid under the table (which, nowadays, for gig economy kids is a way of life). While I suspect many older people will succumb to the siren song of going cashless, most of won't fall for the trick.
I don't deny that crypto regulation is coming. But it'll simply be a business-insulating barrier to competition versus a "protect the little guy" edifice.
“ It is currency that does not work when the power goes out....that is called a clue!”
Credit cards don’t work with the power out either. Snark notwithstanding.
“Credit cards don’t work with the power out either.”
They are “credit”—that is like saying bank loans don’t work when the power is out....
With the green maniacs trying thousands of ways to cripple the grid and bring the world back to the stone age it makes no sense to have a currency dependent on electricity.
I have lots of “snark” when it comes to crypto—it is gonna make a lot of folks lose a lot of real assets before it goes into the dustbin of history.
High-tech tulip bulbs—and at least the bulbs smelled good!
“I don’t deny that crypto regulation is coming. But it’ll simply be a business-insulating barrier to competition versus a “protect the little guy” edifice.”
I agree, as long as you mean its real purpose vs its stated purpose.
I understand. But I would counter that our government is probably in fear of the cartels—on an individual level.
We should be droning cartel facilities in Mexico, not weddings in Yemen.
“We should be droning cartel facilities in Mexico, not weddings in Yemen.”
We finally agree on something.
—> crypto-miners use a TON of electrical power
I think they pay for it.
How much electricity does the banking industry consume??
—>employ almost no people
I don’t know of any business that employs people they do not require.
—> or contribute to Society in any way, in their greedy quest for money ...
This is simply a short-sighted opinion that sounds like you parroted Trudeaux…
“If I wanted to piss some money away I’d rather go to a casino......at least there you can see who’s getting it.”
and you can get a bit of arm exercise with the old-style one-armed bandits ...
“Financial guy on tv said the other day, that in the next couple of yrs, crypto will be regulated out of existence by the gov’t.”
hopefully, there won’t be any new regulations ... the old ones will be good enough ... there’s not special legislation for Beanie Babies and Franklin Mint Figurines, so why so for imaginary “money” ...
heck, even enforcement of the wash-trading rules will destroy crypto because that’s the only means that it obtained “value” in the first place, namely faking trading volume and pumping the fake price ...
and of course paying interest on non-interest-bearing imaginary money is and was a scam from the gitgo, said interest being obtained only by winning long bets in the fake perpetual futures “market” for crypto ...
and when crypto crashed and the bets all turned sour, ftx, voyager, genesis, gemini, blockfi, celsisus and all the rest went belly up and their coffers turned up empty because they had bet and lost their customer “deposits” ...
It is a wonderful new year. Lol
“Real currency is based on an illusion too, but it’s backed by the full “faith and credit” of the federal government, which is equal to zero. And those dollars are losing their purchasing power as an out of control government puts more and more unbacked dollars into circulation.”
all true, and the USD works (for now) because it DOES have the three main properties of a functional currency, namely unit of account, store of value, and accepted medium of exchange, that is, you can buy stuff with it ... also, the USD functions as the world’s reserve currency because it’s still the best of the lot ...
“you can get a bit of arm exercise with the old-style one-armed bandits”
Good luck finding one....last I heard they’ll a pushbutton now.
Kinda takes the fun out of it IMO.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.