Bitcoin Unsustainable? - An opinion, looking for other opinions

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I don't know how cryptocurrency or "NFT" works, but to me it seems that money that's inherently digital - of a realm with no inherent scarcity - doesn't sound reliable.

Especially since digital can be vulnerable to crap like cyber attacks and malfunctions, and depends on complex centralized industry.
 
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ToroidalBoat said:
but to me it seems that money that's inherently digital - of a realm with no inherent scarcity - doesn't sound reliable.
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We're already using digital money with no inherent scarcity, it's called the "dollar". Or the "euro", or dozens of others. The majority of fiat currency currently in existence is just ones and zeroes, not coins and bills.
The real question is whether a public blockchain is a better way of managing digital money than the way we currently do it.
 
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Kosher Dill said:
We're already using digital money with no inherent scarcity, it's called the "dollar". Or the "euro", or dozens of others.
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That's why I said "inherently digital", but it looks like there's fiat money that never was cash, and likely never will be.
 
Hollywood Hulk Hogan said:
Using a currency that can drop 50% of its value in a week is generally not a good idea
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Calling it a currency is a misnomer, at least in the US. It's treated as property instead, which is why capital gains tax applies to it. Should really be called digital asset, as that's more honest about what it is. You are right though, a 50% drop makes it very difficult to use. That's what makes stable coins so necessary.
 
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Grog said:
If the cost of mining Bitcoin becomes too much for some guy to maintain a mining farm and he stops, then the rest of the miners earn more, because the amount that is released as a reward for mining blocks is fixed. It simply gets distributed among the miners depending on how much computing power they're contributing.
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No, except in the monte carlo random sense of it over time, nothing is distributed like that. Winner gets the prize. There are miner pools that do that kind of thing but it's outside bitcoin itself.

But what does happen is puzzle difficulty is recalculated periodically (I forget how many blocks but it works out to about every 2 weeks iirc) to try to keep the average time between new blocks to 10 minutes.
So by design the more mining power there is the more expensive it gets to produce a block. But that also means as block rewards eventually hit zero new coins and only transaction fees can be taken, mining difficulty will also balance out if it's not economical at higher puzzle strengths.

There's other potential issues in the protocol that can't be fixed currently but the longest-chain rule is basically a voting mechanism that means they eventually will be if not doing so isn't economical. Nerds have been arguing about solutions for years so they'll exist before it gets to that point.
So not optimal but it won't reach unsustainability barring someone fucking things up with their secret ayy quantum orbs
 
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CryptoCoins as a monetary system is ephemeral due to technological growth, it's necessary abstraction atop infrastructure, resource consumption, cost of intelligence to participate, and it's speculative nature. It is in essence the concepts+risks of stocks and modern monetary theory merged into a digital entity but with the problems of 'centralization' and resource consumption in order for it to be retained/used. Any system that excludes individuals from participation can not be universal without worsening the class divides; cost of intelligence and resource consumption creates this filter/barrier of exclusion and allows scams to take place. Cryptocurrency will eventually be forced by world governments as a new Reserve Currency. Burdening their populations with more debt, transferring more wealth to the 'elites' along with control. Tracking/tracing as they de-legitimize unapproved crypto exchanges and seize/tax current existing coins into non existence. RIP Mt. Gox. The digital Yuan already exists, the digital Dollar will follow. All hail the future of digital slavery; wage slave 2.0! Can't wait to laugh during future cyberwar skirmishes doing JS/web browser supply chain attacks eventually destroying entire chains/wallets/cert authorities.

tl;dr: speed run currency. buy & sell now. hope you do it quick enough to not be left holding an empty bag or jail time.
 
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