It sounds like we are saying it's bad to have a fiat currency that can fund someone else's illegal activities, but it's good to make money in a way that enables us to illegally avoid paying taxes.
White collar crimes. First world problems.
It sounds like we are saying it's bad to have a fiat currency that can fund someone else's illegal activities, but it's good to make money in a way that enables us to illegally avoid paying taxes.
White collar crimes. First world problems.
In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :
Well since all currencies are fiat currencies these days, AND they're all widely used for illegal and or immoral transactions every single day, it's just a fancier form of money then isn't?
"But BloCkChAin maKes Them AnonYmous and hard to trace" yea, good luck tracing a duffle bag full of cash too.
Taxation is theft, but that's another argument for another day.
SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:Buying dogecoin is pretty much exactly the same thing as buying gold shovels on FarmVille. Its a joke. There is nothing real there.
Except I've made $800 in three days from this joke. Just because you don't like it or understand it doesn't mean it's not real. Whether we all like it or not, cryptocurrency and altcoins are shaping up to be a serious component in future investments.
SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to No Time :
Why is that worse than buying a car with after tax dollars?
You pay income tax on the dollars earned, then pay sales tax on the car purchased with after tax dollars.
I just find it interesting that there are taxes on both sides of that transaction.
Since purchases are typically paid for using post tax dollars (or special circumstances like using HSA), having the payment method taxed at the time of purchase is unique.
It was not something I had thought about with cyber currency being used for purchases.
SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to Mr_Asa :
Why is paying tax a bad thing?
It means you made money.
More tongue in cheek.
infinitenexus said:SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:Buying dogecoin is pretty much exactly the same thing as buying gold shovels on FarmVille. Its a joke. There is nothing real there.
Except I've made $800 in three days from this joke. Just because you don't like it or understand it doesn't mean it's not real. Whether we all like it or not, cryptocurrency and altcoins are shaping up to be a serious component in future investments.
You edited my next sentence, which reversed the meaning of my post:
SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:But people do spend real money on gold shovels. So why not.
Note: You haven't made anything until you've sold. But like I said... Why not? Enjoy yourself.
One aspect of crypto currencies that have been brought up recently is huge amount of power being used to mine them, which of course only gets worse as they become harder to mine.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/21/the-debate-about-cryptocurrency-and-energy-consumption/
- Studies show the electricity generated to mine and process the cryptocurrency is equal to the amount emitted by whole countries, including New Zealand and Argentina, and more than all tech giants combined
We are not talking about a few computers in a back bedroom here:
I know they are trying to create a currency that is worldwide and apart from any government, but then using it at a pump and dump scheme makes it too unstable to be a currency. If you can buy in when the price is low and sell out before everybody else does you can make money when it rises and falls. You can also do that with tulips and Gamestop stock. That doesn't mean there is any value there. Everybody involved can just drop it and walk away tomorrow and there is no authority you can go to that would keep them from doing this. The fact is that if no government or anybody else backs cryptocurrency , so it is really sketchy as an long term investment.
Well it is all fake. It's just like a credit score, your Facebook account, email, and anything else electronic or internet related. Pull the plug, and it doesn't exist anymore.
infinitenexus said:Except I've made $800 in three days from this joke. Just because you don't like it or understand it doesn't mean it's not real. Whether we all like it or not, cryptocurrency and altcoins are shaping up to be a serious component in future investments.
Are you defending crypto, or a pyramid scheme? These are just commonly used logical fallacies. Arguments of substance, addressing the ideas rather than the people, are far more convincing.
In reply to aircooled :
Yep. At this rate, crypto is shaping up to be one of the most environmentally destructive and least sustainable inventions of the 21st century.
The recent reference I've seen to 'Blood Coins' also provides an interesting context to the crypto mining industry.
Vajingo said:Well it is all fake. It's just like a credit score, your Facebook account, email, and anything else electronic or internet related. Pull the plug, and it doesn't exist anymore.
Don't give the terrorists or hackers any ideas. We already have people going around holding corporate electronic accounting systems and local electronic government record keeping systems for ransom. It wouldn't be a stretch for one of these gangs to go after Facebook or Experian.
Driven5 said:infinitenexus said:Except I've made $800 in three days from this joke. Just because you don't like it or understand it doesn't mean it's not real. Whether we all like it or not, cryptocurrency and altcoins are shaping up to be a serious component in future investments.
Are you defending crypto, or a pyramid scheme? These are just commonly used logical fallacies. Arguments of substance, addressing the ideas rather than the people, are far more convincing.
Some people make $800 playing Blackjack or Poker as well. Are card games real? Is playing poker investing if you can make money doing it?
As I said, just because a person doesn't like it doesn't mean it's not real. Just because a person doesn't understand it doesn't mean it's not real. Like it or not, cryptocurrencies are part of the future of investing.
I had a discussion the other day with a guy that mines Ethereum basically for a living. One of his mining machines, which cost about $4K to build, brings in more than $1,000/month. He has several of those running, and just built another monster that cost twice as much and - you guessed it - earns roughly twice as much. His next project involves running a dozen 3090s, which are very expensive GPUs, but that can make several thousand per month. People say it's a joke because they don't understand it. There are people making a LOT of money on cryptocurrencies right now. I do a bit of mining myself, just for fun really, but I just got an old graphics card for free and I'm going to use it to mine (one a power adapter comes in the mail). Mining Monero, I should get $50-70/month, and that's after subtracting the cost of electricity (which is negligible at this level.) My total cost will be $3.79, for said adapter.
In reply to Driven5 :
Bitcoin is the biggest culprit on this one. Globally, Bitcoin miners use more electricity than the country of Argentina. However, the power used by inactive appliance in American homes is roughly equal:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952
This also shows how mining Bitcoin has a larger carbon footprint than Visa transactions and mining physical gold:
https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/
I'm trying to find the link, but I read somewhere how much energy it will take to mine the final bitcoin - only 21 million will ever be released and the final one is expected to be mined around the year 2140. The amount of energy it will take was almost unbelievable.
People make a lot of money working for the NFL. Stadiums cost billions. It takes a lot of electricity to light up a stadium at night. Air conditioned stadiums with a lid on the roof. Don't ask.
It's still just a game.
Crypto currency isn't currency. It's a very sophisticated pump and dump gambling game.
In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
I think most investments could be described as gambling.
And why would you say it isn't currency? You can purchase things with it. It has value, as a fiat currency.
In reply to infinitenexus :
Just because someone doesn't like something, doesn't mean they don't understand it.
Just because someone does like something, doesn't mean they do understand it.
Just because someone doesn't place value on something, doesn't mean that other people can't.
Just because someone does place value on something, doesn't mean that other people must.
Just because the market value of something goes up, doesn't mean that it is investing. Speculation, FOMO, and good old fashioned dumb luck can all look awfully similar to investing to the casual observer. Pyramid schemes go up in value and provide real returns too... Right up until they don't.
Cryptos have proven to be terrible as currencies so far, even though that's what they're primarily billed and sold as. Their real value to this point, beyond wild speculation and FOMO, has been almost exclusively as store of value. Basically it has turned out more akin to gold in the modern age, than dollars... And that will remain true until things can be (and are) directly priced in terms of crypto, rather than just being 'crypto accepted' with the amount of crypto varying depending on the date and time of the transaction and still referenced against an actual currency. This means no more wild price fluctuations.
infinitenexus said:In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
I think most investments could be described as gambling.
And why would you say it isn't currency? You can purchase things with it. It has value, as a fiat currency.
It's not generally accepted currency. I can walk down to McDonalds and buy a hamburger with a five dollar bill or a visa card. Not with a bitcoin. I can pay my mortgage with dollars or with my debit card. Not with bitcoins. If I am out in the middle of West Texas I can stop, pull out a wad of cash, eat dinner at the local diner and spend the night at mom and pop hotel. With bitcoins. They may not even know what they are.
There are a few bitcoin hobbyists who will exchange items and services for bitcoins, but they are few and far between. That does not make it a currency. Every retail store in the US takes dollars.
It's not so much that I don't like bitcoins. It's that the clerk at the grocery store and the guy behind the counter at the gas station don't like bitcoins. That's going to be a problem for me tonight if I have no cash but bitcoins.
In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
I understand your point of view, and generally agree with it. However using the same argument, personal checks aren't really currency anymore either, since so few places still accept them (and steadily dwindling). I can't pay my rent with a personal check. I probably can't buy a Tesla with a personal check, however I can buy one with Bitcoin. There are stores that don't accept cash anymore, either. My wife had a favorite ice cream place back in Baltimore that didn't accept cash. Credit/debit only. These things change with time, my friend.
More in line with the original topic here, Dogecoin, I can buy tickets and merchandise at a Dallas Maverick's game online with Dogecoin. I can also buy a Pornhub subscription with it. I can buy a luxury hotel room with Dogecoin, then plane tickets out to Houston and buy a Bentley or Bugatti, all with Dogecoin. There's a petition to get Amazon to accept Dogecoin - it would really increase after that. Dogecoin might not be the most convenient form of currency, but it is currency.
https://www.newsweek.com/which-companies-are-accepting-dogecoin-payment-dallas-mavericks-airbaltic-post-oak-motor-cars-1584787
Remember, money is a social construct. It has value because people says it has value. In terms of national currencies, a government says it has value. Some people might bring up the old gold standard - even gold has value because society agrees that it does. Going back to Baltimore, they have their own form of currency that's accepted in plenty of stores - the Bnote. I could walk into my favorite bakery and buy a croissant with it. All these businesses agreed that it had value, and so it does. If enough people agree that anything has value - even broken scissors - then it will have value. Or, a digital currency based on a dog meme and created as a joke, that is currently worth more than Ford, GM, and Twitter.
But if I already have dollars, why do I need Bitcoins and Dogecoins and Etherium and all the rest. It's kind of like having cash lying around in Pesos and Francs and Dinars and a bunch of other currencies when all I really need to operate on a day to day basis are dollars. The rest may have value but they won't take them at the 7-11. I like my life to be more simple than that.
Snowdoggie - I think your analogy of foreign currency is very accurate. They have value but you can't use them in your life in many places. Only specific locations.
I had dollars and I wanted more dollars so I bought stocks and got more dollars, even though I can't buy things with stocks. While there are a surprising amount of places that accept cryptocurrencies, I view it as more of an investment. However, like buying stock, one needs to read up a LOT before wisely investing - cryptocurrencies do not react like traditional stocks or bonds. Actually, Bitcoin is fairly comparable. But Dogecoin is a completely new thing - it was literally created as a joke, a mockery of other cryptocurrencies, and named after a meme dog. And this year alone, it's gone up something like 10,000%. Why? Because people want it to, and so are buying it. Other cryptocurrencies are a bit more comparable to traditional investing, and some investing firms are slowly beginning to realize this and add them to their portfolio - Bitcoin is a notable example.
They're investments, plain and simple. Some - like Dogecoin - are possibly only good for short term investing. My friend that bought 6-7 Bitcoin about 5 years ago for under $1,000 each will tell you that it has been his best long term investment ever. Even in this thread people act like they're expert financial advisors and will swear to you that all cryptocurrencies are pyramid schemes and pump-and-dump scams. Real-world financial experts that are worth millions and millions of dollars (such as Cathie Woods) will tell you they expect the price of Bitcoin to rise anywhere from $75,000 to $300,000. My best investment in 2020 was ARKK. My best investment so far in 2021 has been cryptocurrencies. Obligatory your mileage may vary statement.
In reply to infinitenexus :
Cash, credit, check, money order, etc is just the medium used for the transaction, and is totally irrelevant when it comes to defining a currency... They are all just different forms of USD.
Convincing someone to accept things other than the priced currency for goods and services has always been an option, but that doesn't inherently make whatever is being traded a currency either.
Practically speaking, goods and services are priced in terms of a native currency, with an exchange rate being used to identify the relative value of other tradable goods and services based on fluctuating market conditions. I'm not aware of anything priced in Dogecoin, with the amount of USD varying at time of purchase. It's all priced in USD with the amount of Dogecoin varying on value at time of purchase. That fundamentally can't be a one way street for a currency.
Consider: Would you accept, or pay, an annual salary in 52 equal weekly installments set on a fixed number of Dogecoin?
In reply to infinitenexus :
So, if I walk into Las Vegas and pull the handle on the slot machine and $10,000 drops out, is that investing?
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