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A Use Case for Cryptocurrency
As I’ve said many times, I’m broadly skeptical about cryptocurrencies, think blockchain falls right behind self-driving cars as the second most over-hyped computer technology, and believe Bitcoin is a speculative bubble of little intrinsic value.
Having said that, there is one use case for cryptocurrency that I’ve acknowledged from the start: it can be a practical way for people to execute transactions that those in authority would like to prevent them from making. In some benighted places, like Cuba and Venezuela and other progressive utopias, cryptocurrencies allow people to circumvent kleptocratic governments. That’s nice, and I’m all for that, but it isn’t (yet) a First World problem.
However, what is a First World problem is sanctimonious “woke” corporations that put their own smug self-righteous moral superiority over serving their customers. That includes, for example, every financial institution that threatens to refuse service to legal gun dealers.
So, while the largest serious application of cryptocurrency transactions in the United States is probably to enable criminals to get paid for their crimes, there’s a real, legitimate application as well: making it possible for law-abiding citizens to transact legal business that gives the preening pansies of woke America the vapors.
Those gun sellers who don’t already should start accepting cryptocurrencies.
Anyone interested in cryptocurrencies might want to listen to Rich Goldberg’s excellent new Cryptonite podcast.
Published in General
It drives me up a wall that the statist eco-psychos can’t understand that they did this to themselves. They whine about libertarians in juvenile ways instead of understanding what the hell happened.
That’s one of the big differences with gold. The energy spent to mine it is effectively captured in the price you pay for it. It lacks some of the utility of bitcoin, but that is one of its advantages.
Another hilarious fact. Just to be clear I can’t explain this very well. Places like Texas have so much wind power, that if they add bitcoin miners to the state it actually makes their power grid management easier. So they burn flared (otherwise wasted) natural gas EXTRA and then it lowers everybody’s power bills. lol
https://www.newswest9.com/article/news/local/crypto-mining-bitcoin-permian-basin/513-45e5af37-9ef3-49dc-8782-4d410c0cbd93
Actually to be more accurate, they work off of the grid and then they don’t when they don’t need it or they switch to flared natural gas. I’m not good at this obviously.
I made a donation to the truckers using Strike app
I can see an easy refutation for that.
Just for starters, I could argue that electric cars might be cleaner than the alternative, and people need to get to work etc; on the other hand, mining bitcoin is unnecessary. So any pollution for mining bitcoin is 100% too much.
There was a time when nat. gas production exceeded pipeline capacity and there was flaring. Those days are behind us as pipeline capacity has improved.
I didn’t say that right. If you put miners in Texas and they cooperate with the utility system that is all it takes. Which is extremely bizarre and even worse than the way I originally put it. The main lesson is actually that wind turbines are a bad idea.
I mean why people want harder money and how it happened.
How long have we been screwing with too much big government enabled by negative real interest rates? Two decades? Longer? Total madness. Too many supposed Republicans don’t see the big problem.
“I’ve come not to explain Bitcoin, but to bury it.”
guess who said this in 2018?
Yes I did. ;)
And I’ll stand by it. I think Bitcoin is bad technology, a net negative in terms of its impact on society. That isn’t to say that it doesn’t have some positive uses — and certainly isn’t to say that it won’t make a lot of people rich. But I think it’s a gaudy boondoggle, more a Ponzi scheme than anything else.
Block chain, in contrast, is not a Ponzi scheme. It’s just a not particularly useful way of structuring and authenticating data. For all the pundits telling us how transformative it will be, the reality is that a crypto-authenticated public ledger is a niche solution that will serve only a tiny fraction of all problems in the real world. It’s mostly hype.