Time to get out of

[Karl Rand]

cryptocurrency....

[InbetweenDreams]

Not sure food and drink is the right place for this but yeah the crypto market is down a good bit.

[Karl Rand]

Not sure food and drink is the right place for this but yeah the crypto market is down a good bit.

It sure isn’t the right section. Thought I clicked on the ”˜Money’ tab but must have somehow missed.

[Chase]

That shit uses more energy than entire nation states. It's absurd that something like Dogecoin that literally started as a joke would exacerbate climate change. Then again, this entire world is absurd and started as a joke.

[InbetweenDreams]

@Karl Rand you can ask @andy to move the thread to the Money section if you like.

@Chase Yes, it does use a lot of energy in mining. The catch is the more people who mine the difficulty goes up to offset the cost to process the transactions. Of course there's other ways to implement crypto such as Proof of Stake which helps with the issue. The Proof of Work models is what several currencies like Ethereum use and that's part of the reason why you can't find any GPU's. Of course the real reason you can't find any graphics cards is because of the pandemic, plus the newest release of cards are a huge upgrade plus a huge demand for working at home, gaming, and of course people buying cards up to mine with. The thing is I think some of these currencies will die off favoring other methods. However, being decentralized there has to be some incentive for people to run their hardware in some fashion. Who knows, I'm just going along for the ride and not trying to invest anything as the currencies are extremely volitale.

[Cridders88]

I have never really looked into it and am not ashamed to say I wouldn't have a clue what I was doing if I did. I know people that are dipping their fingers into it without much of a clue either, foolish if you ask me.

[InbetweenDreams]

Right well, exactly it @Cridders88 people don't know what it is, people don't know how to invest either. I was asked about dogecoin by some co-workers when the price went high....Thankfully they're only playing with like $50 but I explained that now wasn't the time to buy in, that ship had already sailed. Explained how volatile these markets are. Just to give an idea, Ethereum, was around ~$3,400 yesterday afternoon, this morning the market "crashed" and Ethereum bottomed out at $2,180, it has recovered quite a bit but if you had $10,000 yesterday you had $6,400 this morning....so as expected people freak out.

These currencies have the ability to greatly increase in value, it is one of those high risk high reward, but people focus on the reward part and don't realize they'll likely lose money. I would never put my money in it. Mining is one thing, throwing $20 here and there is another, but I wouldn't put my life savings in it. They're unregulated, people like Elon Musk can influence the currencies with a tweet, or buying and selling billions and manipulate the price. I've seen many "pump and dump" schemes over the last years.

[Cridders88]

but people focus on the reward part and don't realize they'll likely lose money.

Exactly, essentially the same premise as gambling. Made worse if you don't know what you're doing. I don't know anyone that has made a significantly large investment but whenever I ask them how it's going they mention it's gone up to try and justify it but then admit they have lost money overall.

[InbetweenDreams]

@Cridders88 I told those people that the time to invest, if they're going to invest, is when the market crashes and everyone stops talking about it. There for a while in 2018-2019 you didn't hear a whole lot in the headlines about crypto that much and that's because the prices were stagnant. Might be 1 year...might be 5, but the craze will repeat again at some point...

[Karl Rand]

@Cridders88 I told those people that the time to invest, if they're going to invest, is when the market crashes and everyone stops talking about it. There for a while in 2018-2019 you didn't hear a whole lot in the headlines about crypto that much and that's because the prices were stagnant. Might be 1 year...might be 5, but the craze will repeat again at some point...

Google ”˜The South Sea Bubble’
I confess however to being biased having worked for an Australian Sharebroker here during the ”˜Posiedon Boom’.
I arrived at work early as usual where the senior partner and I often shared a few swigs of scotch in the  boardroom.
”˜Harry’ always sat at the opposite end of the boardroom table. This morning he didn’t roll the bottle of scotch down the table to me. I thought he was asleep. After a time got up to wake him . He was dead having committed suicide. Turned out he’d committed suicide having stretched the firm’s overdaft and his own way too far buying United P R shares on false mineral assays. We were all out of a job overnight. Those up to their ears in crytocurency should read something about the Great Tulip Boom.
Think I’ve recommended this tome here before so forgive me if I’m repeatiny myself. It’s worth reading “Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay (Publ’ 1842 !) - but we never learn, do we.