do you people discussing the environmental impact follow ethereum? PoS would make a massive difference in this regard, but also worth noting most of the points made about BTC's environmental impact are wrong/disingenuous. With that said, the Dan Held perma-pumper shill types make many disingenuous/mindless arguments on the other end of the spectrum. The real answer is somewhere in the middle; ie, it has a non-zero environmental impact, as does gold, but if enough people find it useful as money, then that's okay. Still believe we should strive to do better if possible, and I'm hoping ethereum's PoS will be that. I'd recommend reading Nic Carter's pieces on environmental impact though.

Thanks for sharing your insights on the environmental impact of cryptos, fellas.

As far as I understood, ethereum is in the middle of its transition from PoW to PoS. Is that correct?

I have no problem with the experimentations happening in other coins, in fact I think it's a good thing. But it's inevitable anyway, so it doesn't matter what anyone thinks. Just because I'm not against the experimentation happening, doesn't mean that I feel like spending my time reading up on it and staying up to date. I have done some deep dives into some alts on a few different occasions, but I have always been disappointed.

When it comes to Proof of Stake, I am very sceptical. Below was my view of it two years ago, and as far as I am aware no one has been able to convince the knowledgable sceptics since then.

When I have someone tell me (using cherry-picked articles for "evidence") that mining for BTC is more important than surviving I begin to wonder what is going on. I only need to convince myself that belief is found in less than <0.01% of educated population.

All the rando's I know are starting to fomo in... making me very nervous. These are people who have never bought crypto before (even in 2017), have never done any research and just want to gamble with a few hundred bucks

HFSP. At least you'll have your Prius.

Yes, we are approaching correction territory here when random people come out of the woodwork to ask about investing again. Last time for me it was every sales guy at our tech company asking about crypto and which alt coin to buy. This time around I'm getting texts from friends who forgot about their investments but want to get back into crypto.

The biggest TA indicator will always be whether or not my parents or 92 year old grandma ask about bitcoin. Once that happens, it's time to sell!

My friend I dont even know how to sell

only buy

LOL

While these types of anecdotes may be fun, there are lots of counterpoints to them:

1) Last cycle was based on a) "institutions are coming" -- now they are here, b) ICOs, which were all vaporware. Some of these are now real projects with lots of $$ in them such as EthLend, which became AAVE. There are lots of other real projects now as well. Note why Mark Cuban said he flip flopped on crypto-- back then there were no real apps. Now there are.



2) Market structure is significantly different and more mature. USDC, USDT, more trading pairs (ie, last cycle, almost all alts just had crypto pairs, now basically every coin on coinbase trades against USD). CME futures do a lot of volume. A lot more volume as a % is done in markets with good ability for regulators to watch for manipulation. Greyscale is ENORMOUS with consistent inflows. Paypal buys alone are absorbing more than the 900 BTC/day that is mined. Asset management firms have BTC allocations, and nearly all of them allow or plan to allow clients to trade crypto. Last cycle they'd have all scoffed at a 1-5% BTC allocation. Now they have it themselves and will recommend to clients.

3) Lots of institutional money intends to allocate but hasn't yet been able to due to corporate red tape. See Guggenheim over the last few months. There are others. This has obviously been frontran to some extent.

4) There is far more investable $ in the world now compared to 2017. Stimulus, macro continuation that is now a > 10 year bull market. Combination of covid, the K-shaped recovery, and the wallstreetbets saga made it very clear why decentralized money/decentralized financial services make a lot of sense.



Lots of random punters gambling $500 at a time doesn't matter nearly as much in the grand scheme of things when presumably stronger hands (like TSLA) are buying $1.5B at a time. That's only 1 of the S&P 500...

5) BTC **is** a macro asset now. There's been a real rotation from gold and treasuries into crypto. And macro now is a lot different from macro then.

MAY 19, 2020: The Last Word on Bitcoin’s Energy Consumption

FEB 8, 2021: What Bloomberg Gets Wrong About Bitcoin’s Climate Footprint

If people prefer videos - Nic Carter was just on Bloomberg a few days ago.

This is pure made up nonsense. It's sad to see people so delusional. Like if you think is worth the energy usage, great, but don't post pure nonsense. Bitcoin has a massive energy footprint that's mostly coal - and even the part of it that isn't coal uses power that has to be replaced by coal. Iceland is one of the few exceptions - that's actual free power that's not wasted since it's not grid connected - and it's a tiny fraction of global mining output.

One would think that for the benefit of society work should actually produce something material.

People ITT are getting confused between "BTC PoW is good" and "BTC PoW is ok to use resources inefficiently because it serves a valuable purpose."

So you sold or are selling? Or your short?

Or you just like to come on here and speculate with absolutely no stake in the game?

Many people already got out in the 10's, 20's, 30's because of the imminent correction. Now we have institutions who are buying it all up and leaving everybody behind. They are not selling. Grandmas money pales in comparison to the buying going on now from the big boys.

There is probably some correlation between small ball speculators and future returns. I've never seen conclusive evidence of it though.

Regarding the environmental impact, here's reality from Bloomberg vs the pure lies/delusion that johnnyBuz links:

Most bitcoin is mined with the dirtiest of coal - massive quantities so large that it's causing power shortages for China's poor. Also, lol at 2/3 of mining being centralized in China. The Chinese government has >51% control.

Divergence in the stocks today. RIOT +20%, MARA +5%, CLSK -5%.
My high level TA is that this is because riot have got blockchain in their name

Haha; Western governments competence levels at all time lows meanwhile life in China is going on like the pandemic ended in June 2020. Maybe its a good thing that they are the ones in control of the network.

(They aren't, obviously)

haha no I'm not selling, I've held through multiple -80% drops. My comment about grandma asking about bitcoin was tongue in cheek.

I think this cycle feels much different than late 2017 and truthfully we are still very early.

edit: and by correction territory I just mean we're getting close to the point where I would expect to see a 20%-40% drop. I suck at timing the market so just going to hold like I've been doing.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ers-in-bitcoin

Imagine the gains once companies start offering to their employees the ability to be paid X% of their paycheck in Bitcoin.

If it’s an equal move relative to the rally from $10K (out of the sideways action) and the low of the recent bull flag (at $30K) then we would expect $60K (that rally topped at like $40k).

An equal move is the default case. Stronger bull markets can extend that ratio. This is just voodoo technical talk, but it is still a reasonable datapoint.

My perception of things is that SPX treasury departments (et al) are starting to perceive what truly happens to their capital holding:
1. cash
2. money market
3. US bonds

I’m either way, the treadmill goes faster than they are running. For how many years in a row does an asset have to gain 200% before it becomes the obvious choice?

You have to think that the worlds richest and smartest man making a $1.5B investment is a strong signal.

My perception is that the bag holders in this rally are not in crypto, but rather those left acting like Blockbuster in the time of Netflix...what are the likely sets of actions taken by: Washington, Brussels, the Fed, the ECB....?

I’ll give you a hint, it is not bullish for rates...

Who?

Yep, actually yesterday one who is very into their sh*it coins and has done well out of it the last week was telling me yesterday he was thinking soon once rona recovery starts kicking in will be a good time to invest in airlines. I suggested to him that this information is already in the price, ie. The airlines and tourism stocks pumped on the announcement of the first vaccine efficiency numbers.

If these are the people going big in crypto, pehaps it is exploitable, as in knowing when a pump is coming.

It seems silly to allow people to get paid in and pay taxes via BTC. Why not just pay people in USD and then let them figure out how much to put into BTC and why not let people exchange the BTC to USD and then pay taxes? It sounds like this mayor is trying to lure companies into HQing in Miami, but aren't all of them smart enough to figure out this is a gimmick?

Also, if a lot of poor and lower middle class people get paid in BTC because of this mayor and BTC goes down so all of sudden these people can't eat or pay rent I hope this guy goes to jail for a very long time. This is more disgusting than mark cuban encouraging the kids on reddit to continue buying GME and similar stocks a week ago. These two are putting peoples' lives in jeopardy for publicity.

Aren't the employees "figuring out" how much BTC they would get from their checks?

Seems straightforward to me. If I have a job and conducting BTC business why should I be required to buy BTC every 2 weeks, if i can get a portion of my pay direct deposited to BTC instead?