The regular banking and payment processing systems are infinitely more efficient than crypto. I once did the calculations a few years ago. If all money transactions handled by banks and other payment processing institutions were made in crypto instead. Crypto would need 10 times the total energy consumption of humanity to process all those transactions. So it's not whether we need crypto, it is that crypto is literally a doomsday device if it grows too large.
I don't understand the question. What Banking institutions use presently is obviously just a fraction of the total energy consumption of humankind.Did you consider the countless data centers across the world and millions of people that work for the banks/etc to facilitate those processes in your calculations?
I calculated using the difficulty that was actual at that time. It can only get worse from there, and I'm sure it got worse since then. Obviously the number is different for each type, I only calculated using BTC, with different ones the difficulty of confirming transactions might be lower, but still magnitudes more power hungry than the current banking systems.Crypto energy consumption doesn't necessarily scale based upon volume of transactions - most scale/energy requirement increases are baked into the difficulty adjustments...
I would agree with that.Crypto isn't much different than the stock market.
I would follow that up with:I would agree with that.
And that's the problem. It shares one thing with the stock market and that's gambling. The gamble that it will go up or down in value. In the case of stocks there is a company behind the shares. You can research and learn what the company can and can't do. You can make risk assessments on whether the company can follow through with promises, products, services, etc. You can't count fully on what the company says or does or how another company may affect the company you're looking to invest in but there is something tangible behind the stock besides risk.Crypto isn't much different than the stock market.
The USD as well as the Euro and most other currencies isn't backed by anything other than the faith of the Government who issued it. Not much different than Cryptos.
You can also research each crypto coin to see what it's purpose is and whether or not you want to back it's mission.
For the first part... true, but with some nuance there. Being backed by a government means quite a bit - there is an entire legal framework behind that statement, not to mention that most governments have a good bit of history and stability behind them.
Well Crypto is backed by whomever founded that particular coin... but for most there isn't exactly an enforceable legal standard behind them, nor have any of them been around for 200+ years.And crypto does the same thing only they're doing it by decentralizing the currency instead of having one or two entities back and control it.
Well Crypto is backed by whomever founded that particular coin... but for most there isn't exactly an enforceable legal standard behind them, nor have any of them been around for 200+ years.
I guess you could say it's ultimately down to trust - do you trust Uncle Sam and/or Nakamoto? Because that's really all Faith and Credit come down to.
Well the "USD" might have been around for 200+ years as the name; but the Federal Reserve has only been around for a little over 100 years. The length of time is really meaningless. They had to start at some point as well. It's not like it's been around since before Humans started trading.
Exactly this. Until Bitcoin and other crypto can be discussed without mentioning a fiat currency in the same breath then it has no worth as a currency.And that's the problem. It shares one thing with the stock market and that's gambling. The gamble that it will go up or down in value. In the case of stocks there is a company behind the shares. You can research and learn what the company can and can't do. You can make risk assessments on whether the company can follow through with promises, products, services, etc. You can't count fully on what the company says or does or how another company may affect the company you're looking to invest in but there is something tangible behind the stock besides risk.
The only thing crypto has is people gambling that the "value" will increase and they can sell for cash. It's not a currency in any form despite people trying to claim it's a currency. There is no real trust in crypto because it's literally backed by nothing.
Even when crypto is used like a currency it's only value is based on a real currency, what you can sell the "coin" for for real cash. The only value is based on perceived scarcity which as another poster has mentioned can be manipulated in different ways and that's not counting artificial pump and dump scams which is likely what we saw in the last big jump from Bitcoin. It is inherently unstable in value which destroys any possible use it has as a currency. Currencies must be stable to be useful. Small changes up and down are normal with stable currencies but massive swings which double, triple, quadruple, halve or quarter value in short amounts of time make it's use as a currency impossible.
That's my issue with crypto. It's nothing more than an unstable gamble useful as a way to fleece people due to its inherent instability and lack of tangible backing.