I think you should research what cryptocurrency is and why it's useful. It also gets taxed, so it's not necessarily as dark as you seem to think it is.

 

Would guess many more people these days are just trading and not mining. Just a gut feeling though, nothing to substantiate that.

 

The computing power wasted on mining is ridiculous though, why not use all that processing power for something useful?

 

tulip mania..........

 

Can see the environmental impact of mining becoming a factor soon, doesn't mining already account for more electricity use than some small countries?

I have no issue with cryptocurrency in principle and it has proved useful for me many times.

 

Poor baby!

 

What do you think "real" currency is based on? Britain left the Gold Standard in 1931. Since then what do you think sterling is based on?

EDIT: In fact take a look at an actual sterling note (e.g. a £5). It is a promissory note rather than actual currency. It states "I promise to pay the bearer on demand". If you went to the Bank of England and asked to cash in that note for actual currency what do you think they would give you in exchange?

 

Get a grip

 

Tbh gold only has value because we all agree it has value. It's a fairly useless metal.

When this government reaches its logical conclusion tinned goods and can openers will be more valuable than gold.

 

That is true

 

And that is when Bean Dad will shine.

 

How much power and carbon footprint does it take? In this day and age it seems pathetic to be using so much power for something that seems pointless.

 

It's only useless because it's so valuable and costs too much to use.
It's a good conductor of electricity, it doesn't corrode, it doesn't react with many other things, it doesn't need much processing (it's mined in raw form, not an ore or something).
If it lost all the value we attach to it, it'd probably have thousands of other uses.

 

The complete answer to this question would be very complex and I'm not going to pretend I could do it justice, but ultimately Sterling is based upon the economic output of the U.K. and the percieved ability of the U.K. to pay it's debts. I can see no such support for Bitcoin and to me at least, it gives every appearance of being a bubble. A lot of people are going to make a lot of money off it in the coming months but a lot more are going to burned (In my opinion)

 

Certainly wasn't useless for crinkleshoes has he left the forum or changed name?

Also, some didn't HODL!

 

right...

 

Agree with some of it. Not knowledgeable enough to argue a reasonable case sadly.
It's just a commodity now.
If someone can link me to to a reason why we should all switch to it how its really beneficial, other than us young tech freaks pray that it increases in value in a get rich scheme way?
Really why? Globalization? Waste electric?

There are so many farms here making use of cheap hydroelectric and subzero free cooling...

Honestly why reaally?

 

Don't agree with OP but it would of been better if the equations done for bitcoin were actually something meaningful like protein folding so some good was also being done at the same time.

 

In what way does it cause misery for millions? That's complete crap.