Bitcoin: no angel investors, only Faustian bargains

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > Bitcoin: no angel investors, only Faustian bargains

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

The stupid part about NFTs isn't that people ascribe some kind of value to them or are willing to exchange money for them. That's just buying poo poo you like. Conceptually it's no different from paying some artist you like twenty bucks for a pic to hang on your wall, or use as an av, or whatever the hell you want to do wit hit.

The stupid part is assuming that this means the sketch of your Sonic OC you commissioned has an intrinsic value of at least $20 - if not more! - and treating it as a speculative investment. Maybe if your weird pic was drawn by the next picasso or banksy, sure, but 99.9999% of the time it's just a thing you enjoyed and isn't worth anything beyond that.

If this had just been about cryptography nerds swapping ugly ape pics then whatever, that doesn't even get into the top 100 weird but ultimately harmless things on the internet. It's the speculative mania that's idiotic and it's idiotic for all the pedestrian reasons every speculative mania is.

# ? Jan 3, 2024 19:28

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# ? Jun 4, 2024 07:51

graventy: Jul 28, 2006; Fun Shoe

Impossibly Perfect Sphere posted:

lol ok, go try and collect on them

I live in Minnesota, there's no way I couldn't sell a share in the packers faster than I could a bitcoin. I have no idea what actual value they hold, though.

# ? Jan 3, 2024 19:33

Impossibly Perfect Sphere: Nov 6, 2002; They wasted Luanne on Lucky!

She could of have been so much more but the writers just didn't care!

Cyrano4747 posted:

The stupid part about NFTs isn't that people ascribe some kind of value to them or are willing to exchange money for them. That's just buying poo poo you like. Conceptually it's no different from paying some artist you like twenty bucks for a pic to hang on your wall, or use as an av, or whatever the hell you want to do wit hit.

The stupid part is assuming that this means the sketch of your Sonic OC you commissioned has an intrinsic value of at least $20 - if not more! - and treating it as a speculative investment. Maybe if your weird pic was drawn by the next picasso or banksy, sure, but 99.9999% of the time it's just a thing you enjoyed and isn't worth anything beyond that.

If this had just been about cryptography nerds swapping ugly ape pics then whatever, that doesn't even get into the top 100 weird but ultimately harmless things on the internet. It's the speculative mania that's idiotic and it's idiotic for all the pedestrian reasons every speculative mania is.

Eh, the stupid part is that the "art", such as it were, has literally no connection to the blockchain token that is being purchased. The art is entirely divorced from the supposed mechanism of ownership. You are paying an artist for something that you do not control the ownership or distribution rights to in either a physical, virtual or legal sense.

Perhaps you could say that you are keeping that artist/NFT project in business because you like their art. Much like people who "buy" "shares" of the Packers are in reality donating their money to a multi-billion dollar corporation so that they will keep producing their "product."

# ? Jan 3, 2024 19:37

Elias_Maluco: Aug 23, 2007; I need to sleep

Cyrano4747 posted:

The stupid part is assuming that this means the sketch of your Sonic OC you commissioned has an intrinsic value of at least $20 - if not more! - and treating it as a speculative investment. Maybe if your weird pic was drawn by the next picasso or banksy, sure, but 99.9999% of the time it's just a thing you enjoyed and isn't worth anything beyond that.

For me the most stupid part is believing that if you take a picture of a diamond and post it somewhere and than make a NFT of it and destroy the diamond, it will have the same value as the diamond because "scarcity"

Not even if it was a Picasso instead it would make sense, because the digital image of it would still be something you can make infinite copies of, NFT or not. NFTs are nothing, the original art or object or whatever is not in it or have any real connection to it

# ? Jan 3, 2024 19:40

Time_pants: Jun 25, 2012; Now sauntering to the ring, please welcome the lackadaisical style of the man who is always doing something...

Impossibly Perfect Sphere posted:

Eh, the stupid part is that the "art", such as it were, has literally no connection to the blockchain token that is being purchased. The art is entirely divorced from the supposed mechanism of ownership. You are paying an artist for something that you do not control the ownership or distribution rights to in either a physical, virtual or legal sense.

Perhaps you could say that you are keeping that artist/NFT project in business because you like their art. Much like people who "buy" "shares" of the Packers are in reality donating their money to a multi-billion dollar corporation so that they will keep producing their "product."

This is kind of what I was getting at. It might be sold to fans of the team as "buying a share in the Packers" or "keeping the team in Wisconsin."

At best, it's a huge corporation asking for a handout from the very people who already fund the team with ticket and merchandise purchases, paying for stadium renovations, etc. At worst, it's a ransom demand combined with an implicit threat: "Nice football team you got there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it."

# ? Jan 3, 2024 19:51

WithoutTheFezOn: Aug 28, 2005; Oh no

cruft posted:

I found out this weekend that Fubo TV charges people something like $80 a month, just so they can stream college football games.

I'm not into sports but it sure feels like any sports fan in the US is well-acquainted with every damned thing being monetized.

In case you don�t know, the Fubo service isn�t just sports it�s also a regular �cable� package, like YouTubeTV or Hulu Live.

# ? Jan 3, 2024 19:55

Strategic Tea: Sep 1, 2012

cruft posted:

We'll probably print them out and put them in a book that you can pick up and open and only need your eyes and brain to decode.

Woah big mistake, in 2100 when your eyes and brain are in the blockchain they won't be compatible

# ? Jan 3, 2024 20:11

cruft: Oct 25, 2007

WithoutTheFezOn posted:

In case you don�t know, the Fubo service isn�t just sports it�s also a regular �cable� package, like YouTubeTV or Hulu Live.

Oh, so it's like a streaming version of a Cable package that includes Basic Cable + ESPN? The pricing makes more sense that way.

Really glad that the end result of moving everything to streaming is that we're back to cable packages. Really really happy about that.

# ? Jan 3, 2024 20:16

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

https://info-skat-dk.translate.goog/data.aspx?oid=2395533&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Different country, but I thought people here might find it amusing. The Danish Tax Agency has recently decided that losses due to NFT "rug pulls" are not deductible as trading losses since no sale has occurred, and the asset hasn't been relinquished. The NFT never goes away, so you never get to write it off. Also, "rug" means "rye" in Danish, which is why Google Translate gets confused.

# ? Jan 3, 2024 20:58

Time_pants: Jun 25, 2012; Now sauntering to the ring, please welcome the lackadaisical style of the man who is always doing something...

cruft posted:

Oh, so it's like a streaming version of a Cable package that includes Basic Cable + ESPN? The pricing makes more sense that way.

Really glad that the end result of moving everything to streaming is that we're back to cable packages. Really really happy about that.

Thank goodness for the captains of industry saving us from new bad things by returning to the old bad things. It'll make the transition back to an agrarian society so much easier.

# ? Jan 3, 2024 20:59

Exodor: Oct 1, 2004

graventy posted:

I live in Minnesota, there's no way I couldn't sell a share in the packers faster than I could a bitcoin. I have no idea what actual value they hold, though.

According to that linked wiki you can only transfer Packers shares to family members and they can only be sold back to the Packers for a fraction of their original value.

# ? Jan 3, 2024 21:02

cruft: Oct 25, 2007

Exodor posted:

According to that linked wiki you can only transfer Packers shares to family members and they can only be sold back to the Packers for a fraction of their original value.

LOL

"shares"

# ? Jan 3, 2024 21:04

CharlestheHammer: Jun 26, 2011; YOU SAY MY POSTS ARE THE RAVINGS OF THE DUMBEST PERSON ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH BUT YOU YOURSELF ARE READING THEM. CURIOUS!

The shares are meant to be a keepsake they aren�t an investment

# ? Jan 3, 2024 21:06

Foo Diddley: Oct 29, 2011; cat

more like the green bay puckers

'cuz they're a bunch of buttholes

# ? Jan 3, 2024 21:33

ymgve: Jan 2, 2004; Offensive Clock

SimonChris posted:

https://info-skat-dk.translate.goog/data.aspx?oid=2395533&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Different country, but I thought people here might find it amusing. The Danish Tax Agency has recently decided that losses due to NFT "rug pulls" are not deductible as trading losses since no sale has occurred, and the asset hasn't been relinquished. The NFT never goes away, so you never get to write it off. Also, "rug" means "rye" in Danish, which is why Google Translate gets confused.

There are services that will buy your rugged NFTs for pennies, turning your worthless NFTs into a realized loss

Capitalism wins again!

# ? Jan 3, 2024 21:37

Professor Shark: May 22, 2012

I wonder what the next ridiculous little bauble will be for tech nerds trying to get rich

# ? Jan 3, 2024 21:54

Impossibly Perfect Sphere: Nov 6, 2002; They wasted Luanne on Lucky!

She could of have been so much more but the writers just didn't care!

Something involving AI.

# ? Jan 3, 2024 21:59

The Bible: May 8, 2010

CharlestheHammer posted:

The shares are meant to be a keepsake they aren’t an investment

It doesn't seem like you own anything though, so what are you keeping?

# ? Jan 3, 2024 22:51

CharlestheHammer: Jun 26, 2011; YOU SAY MY POSTS ARE THE RAVINGS OF THE DUMBEST PERSON ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH BUT YOU YOURSELF ARE READING THEM. CURIOUS!

The Bible posted:

It doesn't seem like you own anything though, so what are you keeping?

What exactly could you own?

# ? Jan 3, 2024 22:52

Mozi: Apr 4, 2004; Forms change so fast
Time is moving past
Memory is smoke
Gonna get wider when I die; Nap Ghost

i want to own the butt fumble NFT

# ? Jan 3, 2024 22:56

Impossibly Perfect Sphere: Nov 6, 2002; They wasted Luanne on Lucky!

She could of have been so much more but the writers just didn't care!

Mozi posted:

i want to own the butt fumble NFT

Sorry, but that belongs to everyone who witnessed it that very special Thanksgiving night.

# ? Jan 3, 2024 22:57

RocketMermaid: Mar 30, 2004; My pronouns are She/Heir.

Impossibly Perfect Sphere posted:

Eh, the stupid part is that the "art", such as it were, has literally no connection to the blockchain token that is being purchased. The art is entirely divorced from the supposed mechanism of ownership. You are paying an artist for something that you do not control the ownership or distribution rights to in either a physical, virtual or legal sense.

Perhaps you could say that you are keeping that artist/NFT project in business because you like their art. Much like people who "buy" "shares" of the Packers are in reality donating their money to a multi-billion dollar corporation so that they will keep producing their "product."

The other stupid part is producing the carbon footprint of loving Brazil just to trade digital Beanie Babies, as the effects of climate change are already becoming more drastic year to year. Crypto and NFTs are intrinsically an evil and obliteratingly stupid thing because of this.

# ? Jan 3, 2024 23:08

Foo Diddley: Oct 29, 2011; cat

someone once expressed it in tons of coal per transaction, and i had to go lie down for a bit

# ? Jan 3, 2024 23:12

Mozi: Apr 4, 2004; Forms change so fast
Time is moving past
Memory is smoke
Gonna get wider when I die; Nap Ghost

Impossibly Perfect Sphere posted:

Sorry, but that belongs to everyone who witnessed it that very special Thanksgiving night.

if only crypto could make things worse for everybody except one singular person...

# ? Jan 3, 2024 23:13

PurpleXVI: Oct 30, 2011; Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/01/crypto-hedge-fund-ceo-may-not-exist-probe-finds-no-record-of-identity/

Content: Huge crypto hedge fund turns out to have a non-existent CEO and to have made up basically all its endorsements, lmao.

# ? Jan 3, 2024 23:24

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Foo Diddley posted:

someone once expressed it in tons of coal per transaction, and i had to go lie down for a bit

ooo been a while since I looked at this analysis

current network hashrate is around 500,000,000 terahash/second

the most efficient miner available runs 110 Th/s at 3.25 Kw power consumption

The entire network if running on only the best available hardware has an instantaneous power draw of 14.77 terawatts

~One block per 10 minutes, ~2,000 transactions per block

1,231 Kwh per transaction,

roughly 1.1 - 1.5 tons of coal per transaction

note these numbers are lower bounds

shame on an IGA fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Jan 3, 2024

# ? Jan 3, 2024 23:48

Mercury_Storm: Jun 12, 2003; *chomp chomp chomp*

BallerBallerDillz posted:

Yeah, the NFL realized they hosed up by allowing it to happen and changed ownership rules. Green Bay is grandfathered in but they won't let it happen again

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers#Community_ownership

Doesn't make the NFL infinitely increasing profits, forever, I guess?

# ? Jan 3, 2024 23:51

TaurusTorus: Mar 27, 2010; Grab the bullshit by the horns

We could simplify things by just trading tons of coal. I have 3 tons of lignite for fanart of Shrek kissing the shark from Jaws.

# ? Jan 3, 2024 23:52

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

I have to loop back to that 14.8 TW figure

The entire worldwide installed capacity of wind generation adds up to 0.9 TW

they have negated all the windmills on earth fifteen times over

# ? Jan 3, 2024 23:55

Foo Diddley: Oct 29, 2011; cat

shame on an IGA posted:

ooo been a while since I looked at this analysis

current network hashrate is around 500,000,000 terahash/second

the most efficient miner available runs 110 Th/s at 3.25 Kw power consumption

The entire network if running on only the best available hardware has an instantaneous power draw of 14.77 terawatts

~One block per 10 minutes, ~2,000 transactions per block

1,231 Kwh per transaction,

roughly 1.1 - 1.5 tons of coal per transaction

note these numbers are lower bounds

thanks, gonna go lie down for a bit

# ? Jan 3, 2024 23:56

Strategic Tea: Sep 1, 2012

TaurusTorus posted:

We could simplify things by just trading tons of coal. I have 3 tons of lignite for fanart of Shrek kissing the shark from Jaws.

You're gonna have to come up with a better offer buddy no AI can generate that image using less than 3.6t

# ? Jan 3, 2024 23:57

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

I have to have dropped a decimal somewhere they're using more electricity than actually exists by my bad math

# ? Jan 3, 2024 23:59

Lammasu: May 8, 2019; lawful Good Monster

Mozi posted:

i want to own the butt fumble NFT

I just got the Cheeks achievement in the High on Life DLC.

# ? Jan 4, 2024 00:04

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

yeah I'm off by 3 zeroes, corrected below

shame on an IGA posted:

ooo been a while since I looked at this analysis

current network hashrate is around 500,000,000 terahash/second

the most efficient miner available runs 110 Th/s at 3.25 Kw power consumption

The entire network if running on only the best available hardware has an instantaneous power draw of 14.77 gigawatts

~One block per 10 minutes, ~2,000 transactions per block

1.231 Kwh per transaction,

roughly 2.5-3 pounds of coal per transaction

note these numbers are lower bounds

# ? Jan 4, 2024 00:07

cruft: Oct 25, 2007

I think you're still off. Last time I checked, one transaction used enough energy to get my electric car to Wyoming. 1.2 kWh can't even get me out of the county.

# ? Jan 4, 2024 00:12

...!: Oct 5, 2003; I SHOULD KEEP MY DUMB MOUTH SHUT INSTEAD OF SPEWING HORSESHIT ABOUT THE ORBITAL MECHANICS OF THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE.

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT A LAGRANGE POINT IS?

Time_pants posted:

This is kind of what I was getting at. It might be sold to fans of the team as "buying a share in the Packers" or "keeping the team in Wisconsin."

At best, it's a huge corporation asking for a handout from the very people who already fund the team with ticket and merchandise purchases, paying for stadium renovations, etc. At worst, it's a ransom demand combined with an implicit threat: "Nice football team you got there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it."

It's a non-profit, not a "huge corporation." They're not holding anyone/anything ransom

# ? Jan 4, 2024 00:13

novamute: Jul 5, 2006; o o o

https://www.techopedia.com/bitcoin-mining-and-energy-statistics

# ? Jan 4, 2024 00:47

Zero One: Dec 30, 2004; HAIL TO THE VICTORS!

Matt Levine on the Bitcoin ETF

quote:

To the point that if you have read a story about crypto so far in 2024, it is overwhelmingly likely to be about the following topic: �People want to be able to put Bitcoins into a box and then sell shares of the box to regular investors in the regular financial system using their regular brokerage accounts.� The big innovation in crypto in early 2024, the thing that has driven up prices, is anticipation that the US Securities and Exchange Commission will approve a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund this month. Then ETF providers � including traditional financial firms like BlackRock and Fidelity � will be able to hold Bitcoins in a pot, and institutional and retail investors will be able to buy and sell shares of that pot to get exposure to Bitcoin�s price without actually owning Bitcoin. This, it is thought, will increase the price of Bitcoin.

If your interest in crypto is �number go up,� this is good. If your interest in crypto is �this is the financial system of the future and will increasingly be adopted by big institutions and ordinary people,� this is a mixed bag: On the one hand, there is a lot of optimism about ETF approval driving retail and institutional adoption; on the other hand, �everyone owns Bitcoin through a BlackRock ETF in their Fidelity brokerage account� is not quite proof that crypto is the financial system of the future. If your interest in crypto is �crypto keeps coming up with fun new ways to do finance,� though, this is pretty boring. Crypto�s fun new way to do finance is to put Bitcoin in a box and sell you shares of the box; the goal is to transmute Bitcoin � this decentralized disintermediated trustless novel form of money that was meant to replace the banks and brokerages � into regular stocks.

quote:

In 2021, as FTX was heading toward a $32 billion valuation, its ambition was to tokenize all the stocks, become the next Goldman Sachs, rebuild all of the traditional financial system on crypto rails. In 2024, the ambition for crypto is to make Bitcoin a stock, to finally get crypto onto traditional rails.

This particular innovation is so old that I wrote about it back in 2018, when these former Citigroup executives were just Citigroup executives, and Citi was going to do the depository receipts:

Here is Citigroup Inc. looking at investor demand and concluding: Yes, sure, Bitcoin is great, but what Bitcoin investors really want is to hold Bitcoins in the form of receipts issued by a giant bank and registered at DTCC. That�s where the real innovation is! That�s what the people want! �Take this blockchain away from me,� they cry, �and give me the old system that I know!�

In 2024 that is obviously what they want.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 00:40

Big Ass On Fire: Jun 16, 2023

Moving it to traditional rails is the best they can get. Levine is brilliant here.

It's never going to replace dollars or electronic transfers etc. All they can hope for to get more people involved in the system is an easy to purchase and sell fund.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 01:12

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# ? Jun 4, 2024 07:51

drk: Jan 16, 2005

Big rear end On Fire posted:

Moving it to traditional rails is the best they can get. Levine is brilliant here.

It's never going to replace dollars or electronic transfers etc. All they can hope for to get more people involved in the system is an easy to purchase and sell fund.

Its not like buying crypto is hard, the average retail coiner is a moron.

It might be a better argument for institutions that dont want to store their coins in an phone app? But, bitcoin custody has been around for a long time. Sure, there are a lot of sketchy players, but you can also get institutional bitcoin custody from like, Fidelity.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 01:48

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