Crypto currency sceptics thread

[Ari]

Since those of us with reservations over the real intrinsic value seem to be rather unwelcome amongst the crypto enthusiasts in the crypto currency thread, I thought I'd start a seperate thread for those of us who wish to discuss the possible downsides of crypto currency without being called a 'hairdresser', 'bore', 'boomer', 'miserable sod', 'miserable old man, 'toxic lazy babble' and so forth.

Just to be clear, anyone pro crypto is entirely welcome to join in, indeed I'm always keen to hear persuasive and logic counter points. But if all you want to hear is how great crypto is and throw insults at anyone offering a counter perspective, the other thread is all yours.

Also, I think we want to keep (other people's) names out of this, we don't want to turn this thread into another slagging off fest, and frankly nor do we need to, there's plenty to sensibly discuss so let's rise above that.

For me, one of the most interesting aspects of crypto currency is the almost religious rejection of facts and need to believe. I guess it's just a human nature thing, tell someone something they really want to believe (you're going to live forever in paradise/you're going to make a lot of money/your favourite celebrity is in love with you but just needs a little financial help) and it's surprising how many people are willing to just do whatever they told/pay over whatever they're asked in the hope and belief that it will all come good. There's a saying, 'it's better to travel hopefully than arrive', and maybe that's true for some people?

The other interesting thing is, of course, the small matter of bitcoin halving in value over the last six months or so. Where next?

Thoughts?

[Pheo]

Crypto seems like a potentially useful concept, but not entirely sure what problem it is solving.

Seems a lot like all the previous speculative bubbles eg Tulip bulbs! But with less immediate utility…

[Ari]

I was interested in a comment that it's a bit like mobile phones, in the nineties no one knew how useful they'd become or how they'd develop, which is sort of true. Thing is, if you were a visionary in the nineties and saw huge potential for this new technology that few others had spotted, buying yourself a hundred phones in the hope they'd rocket in value wouldn't have got you very far...

And, to be fair, even in the nineties when mobile phones were large, rare and not very good, you could at least see a practical purpose for them, a reason why people would want to own and use them.

[dmahon]

I think it makes sense to seperate the threads as the viability of crypto is a different issue to discussing specific projects and tokens.

Or late crypto believers also allowed in here? I’m a fan of some crypto, DeFi, NFTs, GameFI etc, but it all became massively bubbleicious for a while.

Crypto - There are room for a few tokens, but not 10k stcoins
DeFi - Permissionless borrowing, lending and derivatives
NFTs - Representing ownership digitally
GameFI - Already proven to be a massive market

I don’t see how anyone can not see the value in some of that?

[Mr Whippy]

Exactly. The tech is the value, not the tokens.

The tokens might be worth something, and I think bitcoin is the closest one to being usable as a payment method (can use it today) and adopted generally (total value invested momentum), and it's proven ability to change with the times (forks), and it's long history/name/brand image.


Blockchain has to be designed to reduce costs, not increase them, and within the business/corporate spaces that means it'll have to be very cheap and efficient, and ultimately that means they'll run on the cloudy/server/AWS/Azure type services.

Lets not pretend we've not had databases for half a century holding such data. Blockchain just manages it differently. There is no more money in it today than there is in the existing IT infrastructure running "things"

All that'll happen is businesses move to this new tech to improve things where they can, and save money.

The problem is all the big players are already there and it's just software.


So I see it all going to zero in a token sense, except maybe bitcoin.

Blockchain might be everywhere in 20 years, but it'll be run by businesses just like SQL or MS Exchange etc is run by them today. So you'll need to invest in the businesses that'll provide it.
But you'll have to remember that whatever business they attract will be at the cost of other businesses offerings.
And there will be competition to drive prices down.
So the real winner in the very end will be the end users with a better method to deal with database type information at a lower cost.


It's not going to make billionaires out of random people buying random tokens any more. I think those days have gone.

[Jiebo]

dmahon said:

I think it makes sense to seperate the threads as the viability of crypto is a different issue to discussing specific projects and tokens.

Or late crypto believers also allowed in here? I’m a fan of some crypto, DeFi, NFTs, GameFI etc, but it all became massively bubbleicious for a while.

Crypto - There are room for a few tokens, but not 10k stcoins
DeFi - Permissionless borrowing, lending and derivatives
NFTs - Representing ownership digitally
GameFI - Already proven to be a massive market

I don’t see how anyone can not see the value in some of that?

The problem is that the current valuations are completely disconnected to the viability and the revenue that could be generated by the applications.

Most / many of these coins are worth billions, but have poor use cases for real life usage. It doesn't mean it won't in the future, but it does mean the valuations are nonsense and highly speculative.

[WY86]

dmahon said:

I think it makes sense to seperate the threads as the viability of crypto is a different issue to discussing specific projects and tokens.

Or late crypto believers also allowed in here? I’m a fan of some crypto, DeFi, NFTs, GameFI etc, but it all became massively bubbleicious for a while.

Crypto - There are room for a few tokens, but not 10k stcoins
DeFi - Permissionless borrowing, lending and derivatives
NFTs - Representing ownership digitally
GameFI - Already proven to be a massive market

I don’t see how anyone can not see the value in some of that?

yup agreed you can't really blanket all crypto together due to how many different projects are going on with different use cases. The main barrier to entry is the learning curve, understanding about blockchains and Nodes and so forth.

Yes there are some terrible projects but also some very good projects.

the analogy about the phone is a good one but to counter that... did the phones evolve or did the technology around it evolve making it possible to create smart phones... a smart phone without 4G/5G or Wifi is still a phone...

[WY86]

Mr Whippy said:

Exactly. The tech is the value, not the tokens.

The tokens might be worth something, and I think bitcoin is the closest one to being usable as a payment method (can use it today) and adopted generally (total value invested momentum), and it's proven ability to change with the times (forks), and it's long history/name/brand image.


Blockchain has to be designed to reduce costs, not increase them, and within the business/corporate spaces that means it'll have to be very cheap and efficient, and ultimately that means they'll run on the cloudy/server/AWS/Azure type services.

Lets not pretend we've not had databases for half a century holding such data. Blockchain just manages it differently. There is no more money in it today than there is in the existing IT infrastructure running "things"

All that'll happen is businesses move to this new tech to improve things where they can, and save money.

The problem is all the big players are already there and it's just software.


So I see it all going to zero in a token sense, except maybe bitcoin.

Blockchain might be everywhere in 20 years, but it'll be run by businesses just like SQL or MS Exchange etc is run by them today. So you'll need to invest in the businesses that'll provide it.
But you'll have to remember that whatever business they attract will be at the cost of other businesses offerings.
And there will be competition to drive prices down.
So the real winner in the very end will be the end users with a better method to deal with database type information at a lower cost.


It's not going to make billionaires out of random people buying random tokens any more. I think those days have gone.

So how do you think blockchains work then? what is the incentive for adding another block to the chain?

[dmahon]

stcoins, I see minimal if any value in most of them. They are trying to attribute value to them as governance tokens, utility tokens etc, but only the most succesfull projects will likely hold and accrue value.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are probably all we need for a store of value, currency etc. Ethereum is already effectively a currency in the Crypto ecosystem.

Blockchain I think is fairly pointless in most business settings. It is useful where we need trustless, permissionless, decentralised etc. Crypto is by the far the best use case for that.

DeFi, NFT, GameFi, I think there is real value there.

Skeptics need to be clear what parts of Crypto they are skeptical on, as it's a very broad field nowadays.

[Ari]

dmahon said:

I think it makes sense to seperate the threads as the viability of crypto is a different issue to discussing specific projects and tokens.

Or late crypto believers also allowed in here? I’m a fan of some crypto, DeFi, NFTs, GameFI etc, but it all became massively bubbleicious for a while.

Crypto - There are room for a few tokens, but not 10k stcoins
DeFi - Permissionless borrowing, lending and derivatives
NFTs - Representing ownership digitally
GameFI - Already proven to be a massive market

I don’t see how anyone can not see the value in some of that?

Absolutely! Everyone able to have a sensible debate, for or against, is extremely welcome.

That's the whole point of this thread, so it can be sensibly discussed without the childish name calling and insults.

[Ari]

Mr Whippy said:

Exactly. The tech is the value, not the tokens.

The tokens might be worth something, and I think bitcoin is the closest one to being usable as a payment method (can use it today) and adopted generally (total value invested momentum), and it's proven ability to change with the times (forks), and it's long history/name/brand image.


Blockchain has to be designed to reduce costs, not increase them, and within the business/corporate spaces that means it'll have to be very cheap and efficient, and ultimately that means they'll run on the cloudy/server/AWS/Azure type services.

Lets not pretend we've not had databases for half a century holding such data. Blockchain just manages it differently. There is no more money in it today than there is in the existing IT infrastructure running "things"

All that'll happen is businesses move to this new tech to improve things where they can, and save money.

The problem is all the big players are already there and it's just software.


So I see it all going to zero in a token sense, except maybe bitcoin.

Blockchain might be everywhere in 20 years, but it'll be run by businesses just like SQL or MS Exchange etc is run by them today. So you'll need to invest in the businesses that'll provide it.
But you'll have to remember that whatever business they attract will be at the cost of other businesses offerings.
And there will be competition to drive prices down.
So the real winner in the very end will be the end users with a better method to deal with database type information at a lower cost.


It's not going to make billionaires out of random people buying random tokens any more. I think those days have gone.

Good post, thanks.

I think the truth is that if you talk to the typical crypto speculator, they generally neither know nor care about the utility of them. All they know is, their uncle's boss's dog walker's brother invested £100 in Bitcoin 5 years ago, and now he's a millionaire and they'd like some of that too please, thank you very much!

However, as with all bandwagons, by the time Joe Public can see them, they've already run out of momentum.

[Ari]

dmahon said:

stcoins, I see minimal if any value in most of them. They are trying to attribute value to them as governance tokens, utility tokens etc, but only the most succesfull projects will likely hold and accrue value.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are probably all we need for a store of value, currency etc. Ethereum is already effectively a currency in the Crypto ecosystem.

Blockchain I think is fairly pointless in most business settings. It is useful where we need trustless, permissionless, decentralised etc. Crypto is by the far the best use case for that.

DeFi, NFT, GameFi, I think there is real value there.

Skeptics need to be clear what parts of Crypto they are skeptical on, as it's a very broad field nowadays.

What value is there (and why has it not already been priced in)?

[Ouroboros]

When I was around 5 years ago you could pick any top 50 coin, wait a year and get x25 plus returns.

Those times have gone and with high fees and so much risk, I see no benefit to investing over stocks and shares.

[WY86]

Ari said:

What value is there (and why has it not already been priced in)?

How can something be priced in when it has not evolved yet?

[Ari]

WY86 said:

How can something be priced in when it has not evolved yet?

The same as for any other investment. People see the potential and are prepared to pay accordingly. Happens with shares, property, everything really.

[bitchstewie]

I find it interesting that it's so divisive

I have about 0.2% of my investments in crypto and I'm very clear I don't think of it as an investment it's a gamble with money I can afford to lose and have accepted I may lose.

The worst case downside is known.

The upside is unlimited.

I'm fine with that on the amount involved.

[WY86]

Ari said:

The same as for any other investment. People see the potential and are prepared to pay accordingly. Happens with shares, property, everything really.

But all those markets have 50+ years of statistics and data to determine that, crypto asset classes do not. Citadel a market maker is creating a Crypto exchange if it was all over and no money to be made they would not be moving into crypto.

is there still money to be made in investing/trading/speculating on crypto? the answer has to be yes.

[Ari]

bhstewie said:

I find it interesting that it's so divisive

I have about 0.2% of my investments in crypto and I'm very clear I don't think of it as an investment it's a gamble with money I can afford to lose and have accepted I may lose.

The worst case downside is known.

The upside is unlimited.

I'm fine with that on the amount involved.

Definitely the best way to view it.

[Ari]

WY86 said:

Ari said:

The same as for any other investment. People see the potential and are prepared to pay accordingly. Happens with shares, property, everything really.

But all those markets have 50+ years of statistics and data to determine that, crypto asset classes do not. Citadel a market maker is creating a Crypto exchange if it was all over and no money to be made they would not be moving into crypto.

is there still money to be made in investing/trading/speculating on crypto? the answer has to be yes.

You claim you can see the potential. Do you think you're the only one?

Citadel is not investing in crypto, it's creating access to markets for buying and selling crypto, for which it will charge a fee. There is certainly money to be made out of those speculating in crypto, I don't think anyone is in any doubt about that!

[WY86]

Ari said:

You claim you can see the potential. Do you think you're the only one?

Citadel is not investing in crypto, it's creating access to markets for buying and selling crypto, for which it will charge a fee. There is certainly money to be made out of those speculating in crypto, I don't think anyone is in any doubt about that!

How are they going to provide the liquidity then if they are not buying crypto, they will be invested. Don't be doing stupid smirky faces if you want a grown up conversation.