Bitcoin is more like gold, a commodity, than a currency. Except you can't make nice jewelry out of a bunch of numbers.
I haven't heard much about 'Web 3.0" for a quite a while time. Your friend is pitching NFTs of blog posts in poorly formatted HTML. The tech doesn't seem to have ripened much. None of this technology is much better from a consumption perspective than a good RSS reader. No wallets required.
From a content quality perspective IMO society is worse off having killed newspapers, CDs, and DVDs. With newspapers you got to read stuff you didn't know you were interested in. Substack is OK, but I've got limited $50-$100 chunks. Streaming music is consistently poor sonic quality partly because people listen on cheap headphones. Streaming doesn't pay the people who you want to pay. If you listen only to classical music a big chunk still goes to Taylor Swift et al. Video streaming services yank content you don't quite own and change the actual movies to fit someone's view of 'better' or 'right'.
Blockchain might prove valuable in the future. It hasn't done much yet.
The streamers will never sell anything approaching true ownership rights for content. The whole streaming subscription thing is possibly another net loss to society. Nobody is saving much if any money vs. cable anymore. Springsteen's "57 Channels And Nothin' On" came out in 1992. I'm to the point where I'm likely to do the rotating active subscription thing.
I'm in the camp that says bitcoin or cryptocurrency is a solution looking for a problem. What problem does it solve? It's not easy to use as a currency, as a medium of exchange. It's certainly not a store of value, given its volatility. As an investment or an asset, it has value much as tulips were once seen as having a value--something with scarcity or prized for some other intangible qualities.
By the time it becomes transparent and usable as a medium of exchange, then what? An alt-currency to the dollar for hedging and speculation?
I'm skeptical, I don't see it. I'm happy to have my eyes opened--but not due to novelty of its gee-wiz technology--but as something solves or satisfies a need or problem.
I look at cryptocurrency the same way I look at the Dave Matthews Band. It's not that I don't like the music of the Dave Matthews Band per se, it's just that I don't like the people who like the Dave Matthews Band.
I know ... I know ... I was being sarcastic. That being said, some of the reasons I continue to not speculate in cryptocurrencies include:
(1) I don't think the assets are safe. If someone tries to steal my securities at my brokerage firm, the FBI will get involved and my brokerage firm will make me whole. If a hacker from Bulgaria steals my cryptocurrency (or cryptocurrency owned by an ETF, for example), do you think the FBI is going to Bulgaria to track them down? Is SIPC or the FDIC going to back up that account?
(2) Due to its volatility, cryptocurrencies are a poor store of value.
(3) Cryptocurrency prices are not tied to any legitimate economic phenomenon. Yes, speculating in cryptocurrencies may be similar to speculating in (say) soybean prices, but the fluctuations in soybean prices are driven, in large measure, by actions outside of the speculative crowd. This is why speculators always want to know what the commercial traders are doing, because commercial supply and demand is what drives soybean prices. Cryptocurrencies, being united to any legitimate economic phenomenon, are driven by shady "influencers" and crypto bros who hope enough people believe their crap so they can pawn of their store of dogecoin.
I think there should be a Zen saying, "money can be wasted, but money doesn't go to waste." Even if one believes that at best, Bitcoin is for money laundering, or at worst, a Ponzi scheme, if you buy a Coin that ultimately becomes worthless, the seller of that Coin then has a non-virtual wallet full of your cash that will ultimately be deployed elsewhere. Just like a game of Monopoly, or the CME clearinghouse, life is somewhat zero sum. Trouble is, money printing Treasury's and CB's have perverted the game by allowing lucky rollers of the dice to access piles of unearned money by mere virtue of landing on Free Parking.
The Saylors of the world had to change their diapers frequently at 16k, but here we are: from 16k to 52k in just over a year is amazing. At this rate, all time highs will be approached in a couple of months. What's going to stop the speculation pile on now?
I dunno. I'm generally not an early adopter of things. I don't have the patience to sift through yet another platform that I have to learn, subscribe, etc. I'm not a Luddite, but it's cost/benefit. When things go more mainstream, it is generally easier and more efficient to learn and adopt those things.
I generally don't buy the first model or version of anything. It's the same reason that you don't buy the first model year of a car that comes out. There will be problems and it will require a user to be someone who is the guinea pig. That driver will have to immerse themselves into it, and I don't have time for that. Unless the benefits of the car/new thing are so paradigm-shifting that I have to have it, then I'm going to wait. I can't afford more lost time than I already spend.
I also have an adage: "The better tech gets -- the worse it gets." What that means is that as these tech companies continue to automate things (not a bad thing, per se) the user ends up being the one who has to debug it. I get fed up with all the changes and the pace of change -- I find myself spending more time on something stupid, because they took the humans away, and now the code doesn't work well. So I have to figure workarounds or it fails.
Also, even after reading your friend's blog entry, I still know nothing about Web3, and why it is better than Web2.
What are the benefits to your reader? This substack setup seems pretty easy for me. Why change it?
Bitcoin, if it hits the web (vs direct wallet to wallet transactions) is easily traceable using AI. But there will be lots of government entities, oligarchs, and illegal aliens using it for just that and as long as they payoff and/or support the “correct” people, they’ll get away with it. We plebs won’t get that privilege. We would be hunted like dogs for misusing it. The blockchain tech and Web 3.0 tech will evolve and mesh with AI over time. Bitcoin may or may not last, but whatever it ends up being, what it definitely is, is a stalking horse for CBDC.
Bitcoin is more like gold, a commodity, than a currency. Except you can't make nice jewelry out of a bunch of numbers.
I haven't heard much about 'Web 3.0" for a quite a while time. Your friend is pitching NFTs of blog posts in poorly formatted HTML. The tech doesn't seem to have ripened much. None of this technology is much better from a consumption perspective than a good RSS reader. No wallets required.
From a content quality perspective IMO society is worse off having killed newspapers, CDs, and DVDs. With newspapers you got to read stuff you didn't know you were interested in. Substack is OK, but I've got limited $50-$100 chunks. Streaming music is consistently poor sonic quality partly because people listen on cheap headphones. Streaming doesn't pay the people who you want to pay. If you listen only to classical music a big chunk still goes to Taylor Swift et al. Video streaming services yank content you don't quite own and change the actual movies to fit someone's view of 'better' or 'right'.
Blockchain might prove valuable in the future. It hasn't done much yet.
I think these are very fair criticisms. I wonder about subscription services like Netflix in a crypto world.....what's that look like?
The streamers will never sell anything approaching true ownership rights for content. The whole streaming subscription thing is possibly another net loss to society. Nobody is saving much if any money vs. cable anymore. Springsteen's "57 Channels And Nothin' On" came out in 1992. I'm to the point where I'm likely to do the rotating active subscription thing.
Yes, we are right back where we started, because now the streaming platforms need to make a profit. And now they almost all have ads.
It was good while it lasted, but I find myself already spending less time on a streaming platform.
I don't want to see HIV medicine commercials 14 times while watching one movie or TV show.
The tech sucks.
I'm in the camp that says bitcoin or cryptocurrency is a solution looking for a problem. What problem does it solve? It's not easy to use as a currency, as a medium of exchange. It's certainly not a store of value, given its volatility. As an investment or an asset, it has value much as tulips were once seen as having a value--something with scarcity or prized for some other intangible qualities.
By the time it becomes transparent and usable as a medium of exchange, then what? An alt-currency to the dollar for hedging and speculation?
I'm skeptical, I don't see it. I'm happy to have my eyes opened--but not due to novelty of its gee-wiz technology--but as something solves or satisfies a need or problem.
I look at cryptocurrency the same way I look at the Dave Matthews Band. It's not that I don't like the music of the Dave Matthews Band per se, it's just that I don't like the people who like the Dave Matthews Band.
I know ... I know ... I was being sarcastic. That being said, some of the reasons I continue to not speculate in cryptocurrencies include:
(1) I don't think the assets are safe. If someone tries to steal my securities at my brokerage firm, the FBI will get involved and my brokerage firm will make me whole. If a hacker from Bulgaria steals my cryptocurrency (or cryptocurrency owned by an ETF, for example), do you think the FBI is going to Bulgaria to track them down? Is SIPC or the FDIC going to back up that account?
(2) Due to its volatility, cryptocurrencies are a poor store of value.
(3) Cryptocurrency prices are not tied to any legitimate economic phenomenon. Yes, speculating in cryptocurrencies may be similar to speculating in (say) soybean prices, but the fluctuations in soybean prices are driven, in large measure, by actions outside of the speculative crowd. This is why speculators always want to know what the commercial traders are doing, because commercial supply and demand is what drives soybean prices. Cryptocurrencies, being united to any legitimate economic phenomenon, are driven by shady "influencers" and crypto bros who hope enough people believe their crap so they can pawn of their store of dogecoin.
I think there should be a Zen saying, "money can be wasted, but money doesn't go to waste." Even if one believes that at best, Bitcoin is for money laundering, or at worst, a Ponzi scheme, if you buy a Coin that ultimately becomes worthless, the seller of that Coin then has a non-virtual wallet full of your cash that will ultimately be deployed elsewhere. Just like a game of Monopoly, or the CME clearinghouse, life is somewhat zero sum. Trouble is, money printing Treasury's and CB's have perverted the game by allowing lucky rollers of the dice to access piles of unearned money by mere virtue of landing on Free Parking.
The Saylors of the world had to change their diapers frequently at 16k, but here we are: from 16k to 52k in just over a year is amazing. At this rate, all time highs will be approached in a couple of months. What's going to stop the speculation pile on now?
I dunno. I'm generally not an early adopter of things. I don't have the patience to sift through yet another platform that I have to learn, subscribe, etc. I'm not a Luddite, but it's cost/benefit. When things go more mainstream, it is generally easier and more efficient to learn and adopt those things.
I generally don't buy the first model or version of anything. It's the same reason that you don't buy the first model year of a car that comes out. There will be problems and it will require a user to be someone who is the guinea pig. That driver will have to immerse themselves into it, and I don't have time for that. Unless the benefits of the car/new thing are so paradigm-shifting that I have to have it, then I'm going to wait. I can't afford more lost time than I already spend.
I also have an adage: "The better tech gets -- the worse it gets." What that means is that as these tech companies continue to automate things (not a bad thing, per se) the user ends up being the one who has to debug it. I get fed up with all the changes and the pace of change -- I find myself spending more time on something stupid, because they took the humans away, and now the code doesn't work well. So I have to figure workarounds or it fails.
Also, even after reading your friend's blog entry, I still know nothing about Web3, and why it is better than Web2.
What are the benefits to your reader? This substack setup seems pretty easy for me. Why change it?
It’s simple
Bitcoins is the technical solution for criminals to launder there cash !
They don't need it. They already have the fiat banking system.
Bitcoin, if it hits the web (vs direct wallet to wallet transactions) is easily traceable using AI. But there will be lots of government entities, oligarchs, and illegal aliens using it for just that and as long as they payoff and/or support the “correct” people, they’ll get away with it. We plebs won’t get that privilege. We would be hunted like dogs for misusing it. The blockchain tech and Web 3.0 tech will evolve and mesh with AI over time. Bitcoin may or may not last, but whatever it ends up being, what it definitely is, is a stalking horse for CBDC.