Tag: Bitcoin
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Digital currencies won’t save you from inflation
As Rod Serling might have put it: submitted for your consideration: the value of BitCoin and Ethereum (actually Ether), two prominent digital currencies, over time since 2016, compared to the U.S. dollar: The dollar of course hasn’t increased in value since 2016: inflation has eroded its value. Since 2016 though both BitCoin and Ether have…
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Who’s really profiting from crypto?
So I’m continuing to explore cryptocurrencies and specifically why anyone would want to buy them. One obvious reason is greed. While returns on most cryptocurrencies is marginal or negative, as pretty much anyone with a computer can make their own cryptocurrency, the big name cryptocurrencies tend to appreciate exceedingly well. They get a buzz, so…
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Speculations on the future of digital “currencies”
So my $88.31 or so that I was paid in BitCoin on July 1st is now valued at $174.20, according to BlockFi, where it still sits because I’ve been too lazy to sell it and turn it into U.S. dollars. Looks like my natural lethargy worked in my favor as if I had sold it…
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Sorry, digital currencies aren’t actual currencies
It’s hard to go a month now without a post from me on cryptocurrencies. I dabbled into this market on July 1st when a client paid me in BitCoin, which worked out to $88.31 at the time of the exchange. Since then its price has increased at a much greater rate than the market in…
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Cryptocurrencies and true financial value
Until recently you could buy a Tesla with BitCoin. Elon Musk though recently changed his mind because it was an environmentally unfriendly currency, since newer mined BitCoins are mined using tons of servers, many of which use electricity generated by fossil fuels. So Musk is going toward more environmentally benign cryptocurrencies. There’s a lot of…
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Monetary policy and the danger of revolution
My recent post on quantum computing and its impact on cyber currencies like BitCoin have taken me exploring the world of money some more. This exploration took me to this video, which discusses who controls money and how it is created. I think this video is meant to be shocking. Most of us are painfully…
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Quantum computers will kill cryptocurrencies, but that’s just the start of it
About five years ago I took my first gander at the BitCoin phenomenon. In that post I wrote: In short, to trust a Bitcoin you must buy into its assumption that it can’t be hacked. Since the dawn of the computer age, hackers have demonstrated their ability to hack anything. They love the challenge. It’s…
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Bitcoin reevaluated
In December 2013 I looked at Bitcoin and called it libertarian bit nonsense. Like most pundits, I’m not good at admitting I was wrong. But I was wrong about Bitcoin. In December 2013 a Bitcoin was worth about $716. As of today one Bitcoin is worth about $3250. (See this index chart.) So if bought…
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Ashley Madison stupidly lets itself get pwned
So I have been streaming Mad Men on Netflix. It’s a strangely compelling series about the world of Madison Avenue in the 1960s. It’s a world of constant drinking, endless cigarettes and infidelity. The principle character is Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm), the creative director for the advertising firm Sterling & Cooper. As we…
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Mt. Gox: more evidence of why BitCoin is best avoided
Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz learned from Glinda that if she clicked her ruby slippers, closed her eyes and kept repeating “there’s no place like home” that she would magically return to Kansas. So simple! BitCoin adherents are a lot like Dorothy. Dorothy at least made it home from her fantastical journey. True believers…
Occam's Razor 