Is anyone else starting to become a bit worried? mod note in first post

smacl wrote: »

Why so? Technical grounds or resistance from established financial institutions? If (and I know it is a big if) the likes of Tether was robust, it would significantly stabilise cryptocurrency. Of the IOT uses, one already being rolled out is micropayments for electricity top ups on electric cars, so it appears definite that it will be a specific financial instrument in the short term. I can't think why it wouldn't become a more generalised one in the longer term.

smacl wrote: »

You could well be right. To my mind the wild west period will be finite and the technology will become increasingly mainstream. If this happens, and the demand for a decentralised mechanism for storing and exchanging value is still strong, we'll see it happening. I don't see the problem being the financial institutions so much as the governments who have difficulty charging tax in this scenario.

sexmag wrote: »

Have you any evidence to support this claim that 1. You are an adult and not an over grown man child and 2. That the cryptocurrency subculture is just people buying sh!tcoins,dreaming of lambos and masturbating all day?

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

As people on the scene love to say...DYOR

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

I've been a keen observer of this space for quite some time now, and would consider myself quite the expert at this stage. Many of the investors in crypto are guilty of deep cognitive bias, and seek confirmation about their investment decisions by reading heavily manipulated news sources - most often written by others either sharing the same bias, or who have a vested interest in portraying good news about the space. I'd also like to point out that Forbes is no longer a reliable source of news - it has decided to proceed with a model where contributors can pay them to publish an article on their site.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/08/30/bitcoin-and-other-cryptocurrencies-are-useless

It's good to see some sort of separation between the underlying technology, and the glut of spurious and suspicious coin offerings that made the headlines in 2017. One should be very, very skeptical of blockchain as a technology as well though. This is a deeply inefficient database structure that uses grotesque amounts of electricity. Proof of Work just is not sustainable.

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/07/09/why-bitcoin-uses-so-much-energy

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

This means that Bitcoin cannot be used as a currency. So that leaves a store of value. But it fails at that too, because of massive manipulation. Tether is the most outrageous one, but Binance, Bitmex, and other shady exchanges are also engaging in wholesale wash trading, painting the tape, spoofing, and closing down margin positions.

So we are left with other proofs. Only we haven't seen them yet. Ethereum have been promising proof of stake for two years now, but there's nothing concrete emerging. Other coins such as Ripple and IOTA aren't decentralised at all - they effectively run their own network. IOTA is seen as the great white hope among some of its disciples, yet it appears to be one of the most shambolic coins of them all - the tangle is failing to validate transactions, they've written their own cryptographic functions that are the laughing stock of academics, they control the entire coordination network, their protocol can never be used on true IoT devices, so will have to delegate to a controller etc.

Finally, it's a bit tongue in cheek, but a photo to answer Paddy's post.

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

Likewise Johnny. I'm heading down to Galway for a stag with the lads! I'll be hoovering back the guinness in jig time. I only got the pass for 1 day so I'll make the most of it. Might visit a lady of the night later on too.