this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts
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I think the original Bitcoin proposition had some merit in introducing a new concept and a new type of trustless economy. However probelms in scaling the PoW mechanism and transaction fees make it infeasible for daily use.
99.9% of the other stuff? Never understood why people see value in NFTs. Especially given that they mostly link to image files on someones web server that would point to a 404 page if taken offline.
My main complaint with crypto is not the underlying idea of a digital currency, is that people used it as a straight investment like it was a normal stock, they traded it like it was a different currency without understanding currency trading fundamentals, or they used it as a hedge against the USD/Pound/Euro collapsing as though that would gain without taking down the complete grid which is how crypto transactions get tracked against the public ledger. Yes, P2P crypto rejections are possible, but in a collapse scenario they’re effectively useless, even more so than gold and silver, and I’m a big believer that the only true precious metals in a grid down scenario are lead, steel, and brass in the forms of tools and weapons to defend communities.
Gold has value as a transaction medium in some scenarios, but they depend on being able to accurately assay the quality and weight, neither of which lend themselves to quick transactions in small purchases. It’s also super heavy, and since the mined coins are a full or half ounce, in a collapse scenario they’re too valuable for little things, which means massively overpaying and therefore spending the hedge at an accelerated rate.