Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

This blog will pay for itself.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Let there be snark.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Second rate reporter says what?

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

The words do not have to be perfect.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

You are here: Home / Economics / Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You / Open Thread: The Cryptocurrency Joke Isn’t Funny Any More

Open Thread: The Cryptocurrency Joke Isn’t Funny Any More

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I am often asked if I will “return to cryptocurrency” or begin regularly sharing my thoughts on the topic again. My answer is a wholehearted “no”, but to avoid repeating myself I figure it might be worthwhile briefly explaining why here…

After years of studying it, I believe that cryptocurrency is an inherently right-wing, hyper-capitalistic technology built primarily to amplify the wealth of its proponents through a combination of tax avoidance, diminished regulatory oversight and artificially enforced scarcity.

Despite claims of “decentralization”, the cryptocurrency industry is controlled by a powerful cartel of wealthy figures who, with time, have evolved to incorporate many of the same institutions tied to the existing centralized financial system they supposedly set out to replace.

The cryptocurrency industry leverages a network of shady business connections, bought influencers and pay-for-play media outlets to perpetuate a cult-like “get rich quick” funnel designed to extract new money from the financially desperate and naive.

Financial exploitation undoubtedly existed before cryptocurrency, but cryptocurrency is almost purpose built to make the funnel of profiteering more efficient for those at the top and less safeguarded for the vulnerable.

Cryptocurrency is like taking the worst parts of today’s capitalist system (eg. corruption, fraud, inequality) and using software to technically limit the use of interventions (eg. audits, regulation, taxation) which serve as protections or safety nets for the average person.

Lose your savings account password? Your fault.
Fall victim to a scam? Your fault.
Billionaires manipulating markets? They’re geniuses.

This is the type of dangerous “free for all” capitalism cryptocurrency was unfortunately architected to facilitate since its inception.

But these days even the most modest critique of cryptocurrency will draw smears from the powerful figures in control of the industry and the ire of retail investors who they’ve sold the false promise of one day being a fellow billionaire. Good-faith debate is near impossible.

For these reasons, I simply no longer go out of my way to engage in public discussion regarding cryptocurrency. It doesn’t align with my politics or belief system, and I don’t have the energy to try and discuss that with those unwilling to engage in a grounded conversation.

I applaud those with the energy to continue asking the hard questions and applying the lens of rigorous skepticism all technology should be subject to. New technology can make the world a better place, but not when decoupled from its inherent politics or societal consequences.

And also, there’s this news…

Reader Interactions

71Comments

  1. 1.

    dlwchico

    Going after the truly wealthy tax dodgers is too hard for the IRS but going after crypto tax dodgers isn’t?

  2. 2.

    Jerzy Russian

    Perhaps he could have had these thoughts before he invented Dogecoin and who knows what else?

  3. 3.

    Gloomyjim

    @dlwchico: yes

    the shady shit hasn’t been codified as legit yet by policy or regulation, so by being proactive they can set up a tax capture structure capable (in theory) of actually clawing back some of that wealth created at the expense of our environment.

  4. 4.

    HypersphericalCow

    El Salvador accepting Bitcoin as legal tender has two purposes: 1) get a lot of press coverage, 2) enable massive money laundering.

  5. 5.

    zzyzx

    I remember the Ilumninatus Trilogy had the idea of multiple floating currencies that people could decide between. Like most anarcho-libertarian ideas, it turns out that the majority of people just don’t want to spend their time deciding on which currency to use. They just want it to be a means to doing fun things.

  6. 6.

    cthulhu

    @dlwchico: Well, crypto is actually pretty simple to target because all you need is to establish similar IRS reporting requirements of the crypto exchanges as stock exchanges. The lone US crypto market, binance.us, already complied for Tax Year 2020. But a lot of Americans trade on international markets, though they are not supposed to, via international based VPNs. So there is a bit of complexity.

    The tax dodges the super wealthy use are otherwise very complex and opaque.

  8. 8.

    Roger Moore

    @dlwchico:

    Going after the truly wealthy tax dodgers is too hard for the IRS but going after crypto tax dodgers isn’t?

    Short response: Yep.

    Longer response: The difficulty in going after a tax cheat depends a lot on how sophisticated they are.  The pikers trying to cheat their taxes using cryptocurreny are mostly unsophisticated cheats.  They think crypto is untraceable, so they’ll be able to slide right past the IRS.  When this turns out to be wrong, they’ll be caught blatantly cheating, and they’ll be comparatively easy to prosecute.  The truly wealthy are sophisticated cheats whose dodges are much more difficult to explain, and they’re saving enough through their tax cheats to afford an army of lawyers and accountants to fight the IRS if it challenges them.  Of course, the really well off ones can frequently buy loopholes for themselves so they can avoid paying taxes legally.

  9. 9.

    Roger Moore

    @Jerzy Russian: ​
     

    Perhaps he could have had these thoughts before he invented Dogecoin and who knows what else?

    In fairness, Dogecoin was invented as a joke to make fun of the other forms of cryptocurrency. That people are actually taking it seriously and it’s allegedly worth billions of dollars now isn’t his fault.

  10. 10.

    cthulhu

    @Jerzy Russian: He created Dogecoin as a joke over a weekend simply by replacing certain lines in the publicly available BitCoin code (this is how easy it is to start a cryptocurrency). For a very long time, it stayed a joke as Redit users would tip each other in Dogecoin for liked posts.

    Eventually the scammers came to his door…

  13. 13.

    waspuppet

    @zzyzx: That’s the thing. No one was sitting around saying “Gee I wish money was private and not issued by a government,” and no one ever will. The idea of cryptocurrency is not actually popular and never will be.

    From there, all that remains to be seen is whether a few connected bros can force it into existence.* Sadly, they might.

    *(Not only do they never say why it’s a good idea, but it never even seems to occur to them that that’s something they should do.)

  15. 15.

    Kent

    @dlwchico:Going after the truly wealthy tax dodgers is too hard for the IRS but going after crypto tax dodgers isn’t?

    99.9% of IRS compliance is voluntary.  Very few people get audited for any reason.  If the IRS writes regulations that extend tax reporting to Bitcoin and other crypto currencies then most people will comply.  To not do so will be to be engaging in felonious tax evasion.  Are you truly positive you won’t ever get caught?  People thought that about Swiss bank accounts too.  Most people will probably be caught when they try to convert their bitcoin back to regular currency or use it to buy stuff.  That is when you start leaving a paper trail.   You don’t think you leave a paper trail if you say…..buy a Tesla with bitcoin?

  17. 17.

    Roger Moore

    @waspuppet:

    No one was sitting around saying “Gee I wish money was private and not issued by a government,” and no one ever will. The idea of cryptocurrency is not actually popular and never will be.

    There’s a difference between saying the idea is unpopular and saying nobody believes it.  There is obviously a core group of libertarians who really do want to privatize the money supply.  Ten years ago, they would have been goldbug acolytes of Ron Paul.  Today, they’re advocating for cryptocurrency.  And then, of course, there are the grifters who don’t really care about the details but see crypto as the con of the moment.

  18. 18.

    Elizabelle

    I’m not interested in cryptocurrency.  This was interesting to me, though.  Frank Luntz is ringing the firebell.

    Mind you, they interviewed several of these morons at a CPAC conference, which is the worst diner in the world.

    WaPost:  Vaccine hesitancy morphs into hostility, as opposition to shots hardens

    … What began as “vaccine hesitancy” has morphed into outright vaccine hostility, as conservatives increasingly attack the White House’s coronavirus message, mischaracterize its vaccination campaign and, more and more, vow to skip the shots altogether.

    The trend is unsettling public health experts, particularly as the outbreak worsens again. Confirmed U.S. coronavirus cases have more than doubled in the past week, with deaths rising 28 percent. Medical experts say those deaths are almost entirely among unvaccinated Americans.

    … Frank Luntz:    “We always ask, what will be the last straw? What will be the moment that we lose the ability to communicate and cooperate and get things done?” said Frank Luntz, a longtime GOP pollster who’s been working to encourage vaccinations. “Well, we’ve reached it. This is it.”

    He added, “Now decisions are being made not because of evidence or facts or statistics, but strictly on political lines. And now people are going to die.”

    …. [CPAC attendee] Gregory Chittum, a 58-year-old from Port Aransas, Tex., said he admires Trump but distrusts the vaccine because of the other people involved. “He depended on Fauci!” Chittum said of Trump.

    Chittum, who rattled off misinformation about the coronavirus — claiming that it has killed only 12,000 people in the United States rather than the 607,000-plus deaths measured by the Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention — vowed that his opposition to the vaccines would not melt away with more time and testing.

    “You’re going to have to bury me to get it,” he said.

    [I am fine with Mr. Chittum taking a dirt nap.  His choice.  I just hope he does not take any innocents with him.]

    One of the few ways to change the minds of people like Chittum, Luntz said, is for Trump himself to get involved and endorse the vaccine in a full-throated way. “He says he wants to get the credit for developing the vaccines, but his followers are saying — in his name — that the vaccines are killing people,” Luntz said. “You can’t have it both ways.”

    Trump may be wary of alienating the base that adores him, a former senior Trump official said.

    “It’s a chicken-and-egg problem,” said the former official, who requested confidentiality to stay on good terms with Trump’s retinue. “Is he willing to use the immense credibility he has with that base to endorse the benefits of covid vaccination, or does he want to sit back and not have his base get mad at him?”

    …  [It’s an egg on their face problem.  How ironic would be it be if a lot of these “conservatives” ended up COVID long-haulers, who actually desperately need the easier measures: vote by mail, drive-up voting, no excuse absentee voting, to keep their own dinosaurs in office??]

    …. “I think the White House has come to the conclusion that something more has to be done,” Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said Wednesday on CNN. “We have to take this on frontally and not simply shrug it off as if, ‘Well, people will eventually come around to the right perspective.’ We’re losing time here. The delta variant is spreading. People are dying. We can’t actually just wait for things to get more rational.”

    … Podcast host Megyn Kelly, who this spring shared her story of hunting for a coronavirus vaccine in New York City and repeatedly urged her listeners to get vaccinated, has more recently rebuked the effort to vaccinate younger populations.

    “I don’t want my kids to get this,” Kelly said on her June 28 show, criticizing efforts to require vaccines for school and citing ostensible risks, like fertility problems. “Can you imagine looking at your kid and trying to explain that they lost their ability to, God forbid, do something as profound as have children because you really wanted them to participate in gym class and sports?”

    There is no evidence the vaccines affect fertility, the CDC has said.

    [Breeding for your own family line, vs. breathing for others.  It’s hard, isn’t it, Megyn??  They finish up with an outright moron:]

    Debbie Billingsly, a 67-year-old Texan who attended CPAC for the first time, said she and her husband got the coronavirus vaccine on a doctor’s recommendation. Her husband is diabetic, she said, making him more vulnerable to covid-19.

    “I had mixed emotions, to be honest,” Billingsly said. “I don’t think, though, that these companies would inject all these millions of people with something that they thought was not safe.”

    But now, she said, she’s hearing that Pfizer is advocating booster shots.

    “Why do we need a booster if it worked — you know what I’m saying?” Billingsly said. “So you kind of question what’s going on.”

    She added, “I will not get the booster. I’m done.”

  19. 19.

    Just Chuck

    @Kent: This.  It’s not the money that attracts attention from the IRS, it’s the stuff you buy with it.

  20. 20.

    laura

    Cryptocurrency is the distillation of the essence of libertarian move fast, break things, profit (!) bro culture. Also, underpants gnome.

  21. 21.

    Just Chuck

    @Elizabelle:

    Now decisions are being made not because of evidence or facts or statistics, but strictly on political lines. And now people are going to die

    We are all reaping what Mr Luntz has helped to sow with his Orwellian manipulations, and there appears to be zero acknowledgment from him on that.

    “It’s a chicken-and-egg problem,” said the former official, who requested confidentiality to stay on good terms with Trump’s retinue.

    Some real Profiles In Courage right there.

  22. 22.

    Immanentize

    @cthulhu: i so agree. Crypto is not.currency. regardless of proclamations by needy governments, it cannot buy anything (except Tesla’s?) Today, one bitcpin it is worth about $32,000. Poor and middle class, hell, most lower upper class cannot own a Bitcoin. It is primarily suited to crime and money laundering.

    As a Int. Crim. Law Scholar, I would recommend that the US declare Bitcoin a “pirate” market and go after it and those who own it hard.

  23. 23.

    NotMax

    FYI.

    The Texas House of Representatives voted Tuesday to allow for the arrest of their Democratic colleagues who have fled to Washington, D.C., in an attempt to stop election legislation.
    [snip]
    As of Tuesday evening, the Texas Department of Public Safety had not returned a request for comment on whether troopers had been dispatched. Enrique Marquez, a spokesperson for Phelan, said “DPS has in the past but not at this time,” in a text to the Star-Telegram.

    But if they are dispatched, the search is expected to be contained within state boundaries, as that’s where they have jurisdiction. Marquez noted that the warrants would be civil arrest warrants that can’t be served out of state. Source

  26. 26.

    Just Chuck

    @Immanentize: Bitcoins are denominated in fractions.  Increasingly smaller fractions at that, since it’s a deflationary currency by design.  The price tag of a full bitcoin has no bearing on BTC’s affordability: a poor person can burn a $10 bill as easily as a rich person can burn $100, and both of those will get you their corresponding value in BTC.

  27. 27.

    Elizabelle

    @Just Chuck:   Indeed.

    I just wish the unvaccinated would keep the deaths and longterm disability to themselves.  Covid, sadly, does not work that way.

    There has been some interest in COVID aftereffects and impotence. On the one hand, that might spur some to consider the vaccine.

    On the other, righwing media is already flush with impotence solution ads.  It’s one of their grifters’ main lines of revenue.

  28. 28.

    cthulhu

    @waspuppet: *(Not only do they never say why it’s a good idea, but it never even seems to occur to them that that’s something they should do.)

    They do but it is mostly libertarian gibberish. One interesting oddity I have noted is the intersection between gold buggery and crypto-proponents is very much not zero though it should be in a logical world.

    To be fair though to the crypto-investors, many stock markets are pretty untethered to actual underlying value. That there is zero underlying value to crypto is not that big of a logical jump. This may say more about the irrationality of stock markets than many people are willing to admit.

  29. 29.

    Immanentize

    @Elizabelle:

    CPAC conference, which is the worst diner in the world.

    Yes but, is it anything like the Diner at the End of the Universe? Because I want to know what the best cut is today.

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    Jab creation.

    The Biden administration delivered 500,000 doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to Haiti on Wednesday, hoping to provide relief to the Caribbean nation roiled by the coronavirus pandemic and an ongoing political crisis.

    Haiti was the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean — and one of five in the world, according to the World Health Organization — where the government had not yet administered one jab of a COVID-19 vaccine.
    [snip]
    The country’s delayed reporting on the disease shows that as of July 6, there were 79 new confirmed cases and five additional deaths. During the pandemic there have been a total of 19,374 confirmed cases and 487 deaths.

    While the number of cases is low compared to elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean, experts say they are an undercount.
    [snip]
    In addition to the United States, the governments of Spain, Canada and others have donated vaccines and other support for Latin America and the Caribbean. PAHO continues calling on more developed countries to help expand access to vaccines for the region.

    So far, close to 26 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been delivered to 31 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean through COVAX. However, only about 14% of the total population in the Caribbean and Latin America has completed their vaccination schedule, and some countries have not yet been able to vaccinate more than 1% of their population. Source

  32. 32.

    Another Scott

    @NotMax: Google and others have done very interesting things with Google Earth (and similar tools) to show very clearly what coastal cities are up against.  E.g. Shanghai after 2C warming (most of it is under water…).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  33. 33.

    Elizabelle

    @NotMax:   Wonderful news.  Makes me so proud of the Biden administration.

    Poor Haiti.  A deadly pandemic is not even the top of the dangers their citizens face right now.

    PS:  I loved Heave it to Beaver.

  34. 34.

    Immanentize

    @NotMax: i think old Elon has backpedaled on his ban, but it is fuzzy.

    I do believe that buying anything in Bitcoin — a car, a house, etc. Is a red flag under the money laundering crimes statutes.

  36. 36.

    Roger Moore

    @Immanentize:

    A bitcoin may be very expensive, but it’s possible to carry out transactions in tiny fractions of a bitcoin.  IIRC, it’s theoretically possible to carry out transactions as small as 1/2^32 bitcoin.

  37. 37.

    Immanentize

    @Just Chuck: today it has a value, but tomorrow it does not. It is equity share, not a currency — and its only value is imaginary. It is a Ponzi scheme.

    It is Not a currency, no matter how many two-steps people do.

  38. 38.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @NotMax:

    The notion of a Kryptonian dog always bothered me. It’s got all the impulsiveness and bumpiness that characterizes Terran canines, but superstrength. When it pees, it cuts boulders in half. It’s turds can clear out cities.  And if it starts hunching on your leg, you’ll wind up with a severed limb….

  39. 39.

    Elizabelle

    @Immanentize:   Never read that.  Is that series a must read?  I’ve heard good things about Douglas Adams.

    Do the books still stand up?

    PS:  I am still smiling over Immp getting the all clear for now.

  40. 40.

    Just Chuck

    @Roger Moore:

     IIRC, it’s theoretically possible to carry out transactions as small as 1/2^32 bitcoin.

    For the muggles, that’s a bit under 1/4 of a billionth of a bitcoin.

  41. 41.

    Roger Moore

    @cthulhu: ​
     

    They do but it is mostly libertarian gibberish. One interesting oddity I have noted is the intersection between gold buggery and crypto-proponents is very much not zero though it should be in a logical world.

    I disagree. Gold buggery and crypto-mania have the same basic root: fear of government control over the money supply. I think it’s tightly tied to fears of a Weimar/Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation. They’re sure, absolutely certain, that the whole fiat money economic system is going to collapse any time now, and they’ll be the ones to get the last laugh by investing in something of real value.

  42. 42.

    NotMax

    Exit, pursued by a bear subpoena. (WaPo link.)

    Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg has resigned from a trust set up to control all of the company’s assets — seemingly giving up his place at the top of the company’s formal hierarchy — according to government filings obtained by The Washington Post.
    [snip]
    In papers filed with regulators in New Jersey, the Trump Organization said that Weisselberg was no longer a trustee of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. When Trump took office in 2017, that trust took in all his companies and investments. In effect, Trump’s lawyers said, the trust owned the Trump Organization.

    Until this month, the trust had two trustees: Weisselberg, Trump’s longtime chief financial officer, and Donald Trump Jr. Eric Trump, the former president’s other adult son, was chairman of the trust’s advisory board.

    But last week, the company told New Jersey there was now just one trustee.

    “Donald Trump Jr. has assumed the positions previously held by Mr. Weisselberg,” the Trump Organization’s lawyer wrote. The company was notifying New Jersey because it wanted to remove Weisselberg’s name from two liquor licenses held by Trump’s golf clubs. Source

  43. 43.

    Just Chuck

    @Immanentize: Sure, it’s completely bogus as a currency.  I’m just saying that when it comes to bitcoin, poor people can waste their cash as easily as the rich, they don’t have to waste a full coin’s worth.

  44. 44.

    Another Scott

    @Kent: Or even sooner.

    GSA.gov:

    Eleven lots of cryptocurrency up for bid on GSA Auctions
    June 16, 2021

    ATLANTA — Become a part of the growing cryptocurrency community by placing a winning bid during GSA Auctions’ next cryptocurrency sale.

    Bidding on 11 lots of cryptocurrency, totaling 8.93 bitcoins and 150.2 litecoins and with a combined market value of nearly $377,000, begins on Friday, June 18, 2021, at 5 p.m. ET. This 4-day auction closes Monday, June 22, 2021, at 5 p.m. ET, with the option to extend the closing time to accommodate last-minute bidding. This auction marks the first time that Litecoin will be available on GSA Auctions.

    GSA first began auctioning cryptocurrency on behalf of the U.S. government in early 2021. To date, users of the GSAAuctions platform have successfully bid for a total of 16.99 bitcoins over three auctions that garnered $937,092.

    “Experienced investors recognize a good opportunity when they see it, which is why our auctions have generated so much enthusiasm among the crypto community,” said Thomas Meiron, Regional Commissioner for GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service. “With the addition of a new type of cryptocurrency, this promises to be one of our most exciting auctions of the year.”

    Registration is required to place a bid, and the winning bidder must make a payment via wire transfer no later than June 23, 2021. The winning bidder will also need a digital wallet to receive the property. Network transaction fees may apply. As there is no tangible asset up for bid, GSA will not hold an inspection day.

    A service of the U.S. General Service Administration, GSA Auctions is the federal government’s online clearinghouse for surplus federally owned assets and equipment, such as office furniture, vehicles, scientific equipment and collectibles.

    ###

    The winning bidder has to give a wire transfer number and a SS/Tax ID number.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  45. 45.

    Immanentize

    @Roger Moore: i hope, because I like you, that you don’t own any. How are you going to prove to the feds that your bitcoins are not the product of, or co-mingled with (in order to prop or increase value) illegally gotten proceeds of a specific unlawful (criminal) activity?

    That’s the standard. Are your investments and their gains “innocent?”

    If you buy Bitcoin on a secondary market, you cannot claim they are innocent.

  46. 46.

    NotMax

    Whether one at a time or in bunches, the dastardly dominoes are falling.

    An Idaho man who was seen dangling from the Senate gallery and sitting in the chair earlier occupied by Vice President Mike Pence pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges stemming from the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
    [snip]
    The maximum punishment is 20 years in prison, but his sentence will undoubtedly be far less severe. Court documents said he has agreed to cooperate with the FBI’s investigation of the siege.
    [snip]
    Court papers said that Colt bought a gas mask and a helmet before he came to Washington and that he wore them when he entered the Capitol. Source

  49. 49.

    NotMax

    “Doctor,” my aunt Fanny.

    “This defendant allegedly defrauded and endangered the public by preying on fears and spreading misinformation about FDA-authorized vaccinations, while also peddling fake treatments that put people’s lives at risk. Even worse, the defendant allegedly created counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination cards and instructed her customers to falsely mark that they had received a vaccine, allowing them to circumvent efforts to contain the spread of the disease,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said in a statement.

    According to the Justice Department, the woman also claimed her vaccinations would provide “lifelong immunity” to the virus.
    [snip]
    Court documents also allege the woman provided vaccines for childhood illnesses that she claimed would meet California’s immunization requirements for schools. The Justice Department said she then provided fake vaccine cards to parents who submitted them to California schools. Source

  50. 50.

    Kent

    @Roger Moore:I disagree. Gold buggery and crypto-mania have the same basic root: fear of government control over the money supply. I think it’s tightly tied to fears of a Weimar/Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation. They’re sure, absolutely certain, that the whole fiat money economic system is going to collapse any time now, and they’ll be the ones to get the last laugh by investing in something of real value.

    Yes, I have always that that bitcoin was basically goldbuggery for millenials.

  51. 51.

    Roger Moore

    @Immanentize:

    i hope, because I like you, that you don’t own any.

    I do not have any cryptocurrency, and I don’t intend to acquire any until there’s one endorsed by the US government as being just as good as dollars for paying my taxes.  I have generally been conservative in my investment strategy.  The craziest investment I’ve made was putting some money into my BIL’s company, which I did more to help him pursue his dream than in hope of making any money on it.

  52. 52.

    Kent

    @Roger Moore:I do not have any cryptocurrency, and I don’t intend to acquire any until there’s one endorsed by the US government as being just as good as dollars for paying my taxes.  I have generally been conservative in my investment strategy.  The craziest investment I’ve made was putting some money into my BIL’s company, which I did more to help him pursue his dream than in hope of making any money on it.

    When you can take out a 30-year mortgage denominated in Bitcoin, then you will know it is a real currency.

  53. 53.

    Roger Moore

    @Immanentize: ​
     
    Of course investing in cryptocurrency is a really dumb way to insulate yourself from the collapse of the fiat money system. You’d be much better off to invest in something of tangible value, like real estate or a business that makes something people want. If the economy collapses to the point those things lose their value, your cryptocurrency isn’t going to be worth anything, either.

  54. 54.

    Immanentize

    @Roger Moore:
    Ah, the BiL or friend investment. I always assume going in I will never see a dollar back, so to me it’s not unlike setting an amount of $$$ one is willing to lose without regrets before entering a casino.

    Amount varies based on relationship.?

  55. 55.

    Immanentize

    @Roger Moore: art! Invest in valuable art! There is a market just about as corrupt as crypto.

    Although I do buy art that I love to look at for my house. But nothing expensive. But maybe someday!

  56. 56.

    Another Scott

    @Roger Moore: Nah, someone will have a bike-powered generator hooked up to a salvaged laptop, pedaling and calculating away to update the blockchain.

    “Come back in 2 weeks when the update is done, then you can get your sparrow and curtain rod.”

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  59. 59.

    Mart

    @Immanentize: Seems like the only companies that require bitcoin to get paid for services provided are  ransomware criminals. Seems like a sane global response would be to bust them up.

  60. 60.

    Xavier

    @Roger Moore: “You’d be much better off investing in something of tangible value like real estate or a business.”

    If fiat currency collapses you’re gonna need canned goods and ammo.

  61. 61.

    jl

    @Just Chuck: The fact that bitcoin has a fixed upper limit of supply, makes it inherently deflationary. So disastrous for any macroeconomy. It’s the ultimate Scrooge McDuck economy.

    But it approaches the upper limit asymptotically, IIRC. So, wasting ever more fuel to squeeze out the that last few nanobits. Just like rolling coal in your pickup truck

    Edit: OTOH, there will be other cryptocurrencies too, so we’ll have competition between an ever expanding zoo of private and autonomous non-governmental currencies. So, who knows what will happen. Been sort of tried before in the era of free banking in the US, which were ‘interesting’ times if you weren’t filthy rich.

  64. 64.

    waspuppet

    @cthulhu: Sure. I mean, there’s no underlying value to regular money either, in the way most of us would understand it. (In fact, if you gave most people, including me, a hunk of gold, what would they do with it anyway? Sell it for cash.) And most people know that; it’s a social construct. But the crypto bros are like “Why trust in a social construct that’s lasted centuries and involves millions of people when you can trust in a social construct created by a 26-year-old beardo?”

    Which answers itself.

  66. 66.

    Soprano2

    @Elizabelle: The Hitchhiker’s 5-book trilogy (that’s part of the joke) is funny in places. It’s British humor, so it depends on whether you think that’s funny or not. The best thing I got from those books was the concept of the SEP field – Somebody Else’s Problem. If you put an SEP field around something, no one sees it because everyone thinks it’s someone else’s problem. That applies to a lot of things.

  69. 69.

    karen marie

    @Elizabelle: The best way to experience HHGTTG, in my opinion, is either the original radio plays or the original TV series. Stick to the Primary Phase and Secondary Phase, though, for the radio plays.  The follow-ons I did not like as well. The movie is awful. Or just read the books. I’ve read them several times. Very entertaining.

  71. 71.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    @Elizabelle: el jefe juat needs to channel the latter-day saints, whose leadership had convenient revelations against polygamy (when statehood was in play) & in favor of Black priesthood (when Brazilian missions started).

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