Most Crypto Is Worthless

[james.hendrickson]

All,

After having been investing in and out of crypto for a couple of years now, I've reach the conclusion that most cryptocurrencies are basically totally worthless.

Unless the coin has an actual economic use case, or is actually being used for something, OR represents ownership in a cash flow generating company, its probably intrinsically worthless.

[disneysteve]

All,

After having been investing in and out of crypto for a couple of years now, I've reach the conclusion that most cryptocurrencies are basically totally worthless.

Unless the coin has an actual economic use case, or is actually being used for something, OR represents ownership in a cash flow generating company, its probably intrinsically worthless.

You just figured this out? I've been saying that since day one.

[srblanco7]

All,

After having been investing in and out of crypto for a couple of years now, I've reach the conclusion that most cryptocurrencies are basically totally worthless.

Unless the coin has an actual economic use case, or is actually being used for something, OR represents ownership in a cash flow generating company, its probably intrinsically worthless.

Concur. At best it's "currency" speculation. It's not an investment.

[myrdale]

Yes and no.

Coinmarketcap list the current prices for almost 10,000 different types of coins. Most (99.99%) will never be heard of.

If you're only looking to get rich quick, somewhere in the mess of all of it, there is a coin worth $0.000001 today that may be worth $0.001 tomorrow. You could x10 or x1000 your money. You're probably just as good off buying a lottery ticket.

I saw the article about a guy buying a pizza for 40 bitcoin in 2011 or so. I considered looking into it then and decided it wasn't worth the time. Had I thrown $1000 at it then, I'd be a multimillionaire today. I just don't see than repeating itself.

Wait until you come to the conclusion that our paper money is actually worthless. I think I have mentioned the book "Thou Shall Prosper" before. There is a good chapter on the spiritual nature of currency. Not spiritual like religion, but spiritual like faith, if that makes any sense.

[bjl584]

Yes and no.

Coinmarketcap list the current prices for almost 10,000 different types of coins. Most (99.99%) will never be heard of.

If you're only looking to get rich quick, somewhere in the mess of all of it, there is a coin worth $0.000001 today that may be worth $0.001 tomorrow. You could x10 or x1000 your money. You're probably just as good off buying a lottery ticket.

I saw the article about a guy buying a pizza for 40 bitcoin in 2011 or so. I considered looking into it then and decided it wasn't worth the time. Had I thrown $1000 at it then, I'd be a multimillionaire today. I just don't see than repeating itself.

Wait until you come to the conclusion that our paper money is actually worthless. I think I have mentioned the book "Thou Shall Prosper" before. There is a good chapter on the spiritual nature of currency. Not spiritual like religion, but spiritual like faith, if that makes any sense.

I saw a post that someone put up that had an ad for a card game tournament where the grand prize was a bunch of Bitcoin.
This was from sometime in the early part of the 2000's, when Bitcoin was worth almost nothing.
the prize today would be worth millions.

[ua_guy]

My hot take on this trend is sardonic as usual. I'm flummoxed at the number of young men (and women) who have been swindled into investing in...speculation. They've spent money doing it, they've lost money doing it, and any that I know of who have said they've made some money don't seem to be any better off than had they saved the money as cash, or invested in traditional markets. And the FOMO and YOLO surrounding it is nauseating. It's like watching people gamble their life savings in Vegas.

All currency is essentially worthless including cash (it's just paper, or a numeric value stored in a database). But traditional cash is still king of traded currencies, and that's what currently sets it apart. And I hate the environmental impact of crypto mining which sucks nations worth of power and clean water.

[myrdale]

I had a coworker who made about $40k off of cryto a couple years back, but got in trouble when the taxes came due.

I've got a friend who has known a couple of people who hit it big. One is a Delta pilot who supposedly walked out with around $50M. The second, my friend works with the father of a very popular YouTuber. From what I gather, his general strategy was to buy junk coins, pump up his audience about them, then sale once the price peaked. He has had legal troubles and I think is close to broke now. In both cases these guys got in very early and just sat on their coins for a decade until they took off.

I do put the Youtuber in the category of swindling people based on speculation, but I still think they own a larger share of the responsibility for their own actions. It is the greed and get rich quick mentality that gets them.

[myrdale]

One other funny this is that for several years, from around 2002 to 2008, I routinely ran a program called Folding@Home which uses your computer to simulate different protein folding to help develop future drugs and medical treatments. Other than points on a board, I never earned anything for this. It really isn't that far from mining Bitcoin.

[ua_guy]

One other funny this is that for several years, from around 2002 to 2008, I routinely ran a program called Folding@Home which uses your computer to simulate different protein folding to help develop future drugs and medical treatments. Other than points on a board, I never earned anything for this. It really isn't that far from mining Bitcoin.

Yeah, folding was a very distributed model though. I'm talking crypto mines, huge data centers dedicated to mining crypto. Sustainability isn't quite there yet.

[james.hendrickson]

One other funny this is that for several years, from around 2002 to 2008, I routinely ran a program called Folding@Home which uses your computer to simulate different protein folding to help develop future drugs and medical treatments. Other than points on a board, I never earned anything for this. It really isn't that far from mining Bitcoin.

Totally!!! I was helping SETi analyze some of their data using distributed computing also. It was super cool, and yes, I didn't paid a penny for it.

[myrdale]

Yeah, folding was a very distributed model though. I'm talking crypto mines, huge data centers dedicated to mining crypto. Sustainability isn't quite there yet.

I found one estimate that the world energy consumption for Bitcoin in 2023 was 121 teraWatt-hours.

I found an estimate that cloud storage world wide was 200 teraWatt-hours annually.

[james.hendrickson]

When I first got into crypto, I was drawn to all the hype and bought a bunch of random coins, thinking they’d skyrocket. But after a couple of years of investing, I realized that most of them didn’t actually do anything or have any real use. Now, I focus on coins that have a clear purpose, like Ethereum or Solana, because they’re actually being used for apps and smart contracts, not just speculation.

Whats the use case for Solana?

[ua_guy]

Isn't one of the presidential hopefuls involved in a new crypto venture, or the family is? I'm not surprised, most crypto is a scam.

[stomback]

I was drawn to all the hype and bought a bunch of random coins, thinking they’d skyrocket. But after a couple of years of investing, I realized that most of them didn’t actually do anything or have any real use.

[Tabs]

I am not a personal fan of crypto, even though I do think that some version of it will exist in the future.... On the other hand, with bitcoin at roughly $65k USD right now, I can't help but feel we are already in that sort of future?

Even so, I fail to see how that is a useful value store, since it's not intrinsically pegged to anything, and it's not backed by any credible governments so....

Since I'm here, there is an amusing story I'd like to tell. Well, it's more of a tragedy than comedy. While I do not believe in cryptos, I was nevertheless curious about how the whole technology worked. So, for strictly learning purposes, I went and bought one bitcoin back when it was going for $700 a pop. After it went up to $750, I pulled out most of it, except for a negligible fraction I didn't care about just to keep the account open and active.

Fast forward to earlier this year, where I completely forgot about that account, and received a letter saying that that neglible amount has grown to $650 USD. I still muse about what might have been had I actually plunged in with a lot more money back then, and held until now....