Does anyone actually use Bitcoin to pay for things?

Firefly said:
According to the Guardian, Bitcoin is being used by the far-right to fund all sorts of nefarious activities..
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There's a lot of misinformation being bandied about. Cash is the biggest medium of exchange in the global drugs business. HSBC had a bespoke laundering service for one of the Mexican Drugs Cartels - for which they paid a 'settlement'.

Bottom line - cash or BTC can be used for good or bad. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.


Firefly said:
I wonder will the banks of the world somehow unite and refuse to cash in Bitcoins for the exchanges / private sellers?
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Well, the Davos club have trotted out - one after the other - preaching the same stuff. Cryptocurrency needs to be regulated, it's not fair that it's not...yada, yada. There's no doubt in my mind they want to bring it down. As someone who used bitcoin over a number of years, I know at first hand that banks were trying to squeeze out Bitcoin. Certain banks (in both Ireland and the UK) would prevent consumers transferring cash into bitcoin exchanges. Certain banks pulled banking facilities of various exchanges and countless others were refused access to banking in the first instance. In the UK, a niche German bank was being used by a number of exchanges.
We're seeing it again right now with both (credit/debit..) card companies and card issuing banks blocking the means for people to buy bitcoin with a card. They suggest this is for peoples protection. Why then can you use a card to gamble at Paddy Powers? Make no mistake - it's blatant protectionism.
Folks here can have their own views on the merits or lack of - with regard to cryptocurrencies. However, what these banksters get up to is far from wholesome (it feeds into the narrative as to why many of us became interested in crypto in the first place).

Firefly said:
This along with the crazy waste of energy and resultant pollution should mean the end to this at some stage.
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If it ends up being renewable, then it may not be such a big deal. Granted, that's not the case in China - but miners are now looking to move facilities to Quebec - where there is a wealth of cheap renewable energy.
In tandem with that, Lightning Network will mean that the bitcoin system will be much more efficient proportionately in a lot of respects - including energy usage.
 
I don't think someone needs to believe bitcoin will replace fiat currencies to participate in it. In fact, many people who see bitcoin as a bubble that will burst still see an argument for gaining some exposure. For example if someone is a passive investor there is a good argument to have some proportional exposure, unless you know when it will burst.
 
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50cent was using Bitcoin years ago and forgot about it!

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-42820246
50 Cent has discovered that he is a Bitcoin millionaire, thanks to some long-forgotten album sales.

In 2014, he released the album Animal Ambition and became the first artist to accept Bitcoin as payment.

The rapper received more than 700 Bitcoins under the deal, but then forgot about the cryptocurrency, according to celebrity news site TMZ.

The hoard is worth $7-$8m, although the currency's price volatility means that could change fast.

In 2014, one Bitcoin was equivalent to about $662, but was worth about $11,200 on Thursday according to Coindesk.

"Not bad for a kid from South Side, I'm so proud of me," 50 Cent - whose real name is Curtis Jackson - wrote on Instagram, confirming the news in a post that featured a screenshot of the TMZ article.
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tecate said:
We're seeing it again right now with both (credit/debit..) card companies and card issuing banks blocking the means for people to buy bitcoin with a card. They suggest this is for peoples protection. Why then can you use a card to gamble at Paddy Powers? Make no mistake - it's blatant protectionism.
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I agree. The money-laundering, criminality, energy waste cards are over played.
How many convictions are there for money-laundering using bitcoin? Relative to using cash, off-the-book accounting, art, property, gambling etc.
The energy usage is a drop in the ocean in global energy use and if, as you say, its sourced from clean renewable energy, whats the issue?

We are supposedly living in a free world. Unless bitcoin is made illegal, then I should be free to buy and sell as I wish. If I use bitcoin to launder money, then fair enough prosecute me - dont penalise others who have done nothing wrong.

This type of thinking, of banning, blocking bitcoin you would expect from centrally command economies like China, NK, but not in free democratic countries.
To ban something in EU democracies you first need a basis as to why it should be banned, then back it up with evidence, allow for contradictory evidence, and finally a mandate to authorise a ban.

How can you ban a mathematical equation or algorithm?
 
TheBigShort said:
The energy usage is a drop in the ocean in global energy use
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Hi Shortie

I don't think that should be the comparison.

It's the energy efficiency of the transactions. If Bitcoin costs more in energy than a transaction is worth, then that transaction won't go ahead.

I think Bitcoin is worth zero. But let's say that it's worth $300. If transactions "use up" that $300, then it becomes worth nothing. Of course, if Bitcoin is truly worth $20,000 then the energy cost per transaction is very small proportionately.

Brendan
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Hi Shortie

I don't think that should be the comparison.

It's the energy efficiency of the transactions. If Bitcoin costs more in energy than a transaction is worth, then that transaction won't go ahead.

I think Bitcoin is worth zero. But let's say that it's worth $300. If transactions "use up" that $300, then it becomes worth nothing. Of course, if Bitcoin is truly worth $20,000 then the energy cost per transaction is very small proportionately.

Brendan
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I agree with all of that. As it currently stands, to best of my knowledge, bitcoin is being mined for far less than what it is currently being bought and sold for. So the 'energy waste' financial arguement doesnt stand.
On the otherhand, its energy usage has being referred to as a pollutant - that is, its actual waste is more costly in environmental terms than merely its ESB bill. But again, in environmental terms, its pollution wouldnt even register against the pollution of say, the transport industry.
 
TheBigShort said:
But again, in environmental terms, its pollution wouldnt even register against the pollution of say, the transport industry.
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But this is a false comparison.

We get a huge benefit from the transport industry.

Apart from the craic, we get no benefit from Bitcoin.

Brendan
 
Brendan Burgess said:
But this is a false comparison.

We get a huge benefit from the transport industry.

Apart from the craic, we get no benefit from Bitcoin.

Brendan
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Its not a false comparison.

If you want to compare the costs relative to benefits from a financial point of view, then fair enough.

If you compare the environmental costs between bitcoin and transport (ie pollution) it simply doesnt register.
Its like having a herd of cattle in a china shop and instead of focusing on the damage they are causing, you spend your time trying to swat a fly.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
We get a huge benefit from the transport industry.
Apart from the craic, we get no benefit from Bitcoin.
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I think this is important. So too the fact that Bitcoin uses so much energy. More than Ireland it has been reported. Perhaps in the grand scheme of things this is insignificant, however this does not mean it is right. We are all being tasked with reducing our emissions and the fact that so much pollution will be caused for such a futile exercise is immoral in my opinion. Some have suggested that renewable energy sources are / will be used, but even so, this will mean that other demands for energy that could be satisfied by these same renewable energy sources won't be.
 
Firefly said:
Some have suggested that renewable energy sources are / will be used, but even so, this will mean that other demands for energy that could be satisfied by these same renewable energy sources won't be.
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Transporting the renewable energy is the problem.
In a lot of cases there just isn't enough local demand for, say a solar farm, wind farm, hydro dam etc.
What else can we do in these cases?
As far as I know, we just turn the plant off because there is nothing else to do that makes sense.
 
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42265728

According to the above BBC article, the methods used to determining how much energy is used for bitcoin is, at the very least, highly dubious.
From my understanding of the detail in the article, mining costs are all estimated! And are estimated on bitcoins value!!
So if bitcoin price goes up - that results in higher energy cost. If it goes down, it reduces estimated energy cost.
In other words it is a daft way of measuring costs.
The article also points out that there are no actual authoritive sources that actually back the assertions of bitcoins energy use.

So along with zero convictions for bitcoin money-laundering, its energy use has never actually been measured.
It is just click bait.
 
Firefly said:
I think this is important. So too the fact that Bitcoin uses so much energy. More than Ireland it has been reported. Perhaps in the grand scheme of things this is insignificant, however this does not mean it is right. We are all being tasked with reducing our emissions and the fact that so much pollution will be caused for such a futile exercise is immoral in my opinion. Some have suggested that renewable energy sources are / will be used, but even so, this will mean that other demands for energy that could be satisfied by these same renewable energy sources won't be.
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It's market driven.
If less people mined bitcoin then the difficulty of the puzzle would lower and it would require less computational power to solve.
The reason it's using so much power is because people are investing in mining.
If you prefer they didn't, perhaps someone will propose a state subsidy to lure miners toward renewables.
Or even to pay them not to mine.

All the miners are not mining Bitcoin all of the time.
Yet it seems that reporters assign the total cost of electric consumption to Bitcoin alone.
Miners constantly switch to mining various coins depending upon what they deem can win them the greatest reward.
 
Since mining is the subject, there's an interesting read of recent interview with a clandestine miner in Venezuela:
https://hackernoon.com/extortion-po...-venezuelan-bitcoin-mining-world-6e97a25e7402

Evidently mining is not strictly illegal, and allegedly can be done with government approval.
But nobody trusts the government; for good reason as it is a fairly brutal, repressive regime there.
No doubt the government wants to commandeer the profits.

The interviewer talks about the government confiscating miners hardware, and then forcing the miner to set it up for the gov.
Or if not the gov, at least for that corrupt officials sake.
 
Firefly said:
Some have suggested that renewable energy sources are / will be used, but even so, this will mean that other demands for energy that could be satisfied by these same renewable energy sources won't be.
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It doesn't necessarily work like that. As ant dee alluded to above, the energy is there and can't otherwise be used in certain cases. For example => LINK
 
More Bank Interference -> LINK

It's crazy stuff that a bank can turn round and dictate what you can or cannot consume. They are doing it under the guise of 'protecting customers' - but we all know that it's to protect themselves. If people are going to be irresponsible with money, they will find something else other than cryptocurrency to make unwise buying decisions with....and no doubt that will be fuelled by the very same credit card.

Whilst I have no doubt there are people being reckless and buying crypto via credit card, there are also those that use this method so that they can purchase quickly. This allows them to take advantage of whatever opportunity they see at that moment in time - whereas if they wait for a sepa transfer, the opportunity (as they see it) may have passed. The other option is to leave money on account with a crypto exchange and that's not savvy practice.

I'd love to see this turn full circle on the banks and their disgusting practises.
 
tecate said:
More Bank Interference -> LINK

It's crazy stuff that a bank can turn round and dictate what you can or cannot consume. They are doing it under the guise of 'protecting customers' - but we all know that it's to protect themselves. If people are going to be irresponsible with money, they will find something else other than cryptocurrency to make unwise buying decisions with....and no doubt that will be fuelled by the very same credit card.

Whilst I have no doubt there are people being reckless and buying crypto via credit card, there are also those that use this method so that they can purchase quickly. This allows them to take advantage of whatever opportunity they see at that moment in time - whereas if they wait for a sepa transfer, the opportunity (as they see it) may have passed. The other option is to leave money on account with a crypto exchange and that's not savvy practice.

I'd love to see this turn full circle on the banks and their disgusting practises.
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coincheck hacked 378 million stolen
 
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RETIRED2017 said:
coincheck hacked 378 million stolen
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That's correct. However, not sure why you quote my post in relation to that? The exchange is at fault. Those behind the NEM token/coin (it was NEM that was stolen - not any other crypto) have criticised Coincheck for not implementing stronger security.

The general advice is don't hold cryptocurrency in an exchange account for longer than you have to (move it out to your own wallet) and the same with FIAT.
 
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