Right, his talk about how he’s not very good at computers is pretty funny. I don’t understand the crypto hate on Lemmy. Although I guess I don’t understand a lot of why things are hated here. I guess crypto is too close to capitalism maybe? Freedom is frowned upon here.

Crypto is hated because it’s an MLM terminally online people.

It gains value because people want it and people want it because it gains value is both a perfect description of cryptocurrency and scams.

It gains value because people want it and people want it because it gains value is both a perfect description of cryptocurrency and scams.

Or gold, or any other precious metal, or currency for that matter….

Tangible items can have utility in the real world, where cryptocurrencies can never be anything more than numbers on a display.

Gold can be used in electronics, and I get that people are mad that currencies are just something we all mutually agree have value, but generally speaking powerful governments back those up. Cryptocurrency is backed up by people promising it’s totally gonna be a real currency any second now. Please ignore that crypto can wildly fluctuate in value which generally a horrible thing for a currency to do.

You could very well make the argument that ultimately crypto is backed by energy, which is something we all agree has value. Without energy, you can’t go to work, heat or cool your house or anything like that. If you believe that electricity is fundamental for society, then by extension, crypto is backed by the most fundamental force that there is even bigger than a government.

You could very well make the argument that ultimately crypto is backed by energy

Crypto is just evidence energy was used. It’s not stored energy.

Oh, but it is, because you could exchange it for something else. As an example, I can take mine and go exchange it for groceries.

You can also use it to… pay for that energy you just used… Hooray!! /s

I’ve recently been hearing a lot about mining, consuming energy that either would not exist otherwise, or would be wasted. For example, places in Africa can build like a hydroelectric power station, but don’t have the money to run lines far enough for all the energy from the power station to be used, so they give most of it to a crypto mine and let the residents use the rest. If the residents ever need more power, then the crypto mine can shut down temporarily or slack off on their usage in order to provide the residents with more power.

Also consider that many peoples would like to move from the older cryptocurrencies that needs lots of power to run (proof of work) and try to advocate for newer proof of stake models.

To my understanding proof of stake models have dramatically lower power requirements.