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.

But it’s not backed by energy.

The energy was consumed in the process of creating the crypto, that energy no longer exists and since it doesn’t exist it can’t back anything.

Isn’t there a person that famously said something to the effect of energy is neither created nor destroyed, only modified? I want to say it was like Isaac Newton or something. Some big name anyway. So you’re not destroying the energy. You’re changing the energy into heat, which during the winter can heat your home as a subsidy to your furnace, and you are turning it into a digital representation that you can take and spend anywhere in the world.

I get you’re desperately trying to sound smart, but in this context, “energy” meant electricity. Because that’s what it takes to produce cryptocurrency. Not the general definition in the realm of physics study. And electricity can most certainly be created and destroyed.

When you buy gold, you have the gold. It’s backed by the thing you have.

When you buy cryptocurrency, you don’t have the electricity that was spent in fabricating those numbers. You don’t get sent a battery in the post. You have nothing.