The Picard ManeuverBe kind to your elders
REDACTEDBut crypto is borderline useless that consumes more electricity than the entire AI industry while enabling alot of illegal activities and money laundering. I was quite susprised when my drug money found their way into normal people’s lives.
But crypto is borderline useless
As decentralized money it’s great. Even central banks are making their own crypto. It’s a great technology for supply chains.
that consumes more electricity than the entire AI industry
AI and cryptocurrencies consumed around 460 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity
Bitcoin is estimated at 155 TWh per year to 172 TWh per year
while enabling alot of illegal activities and money laundering.
Given the public and immutable nature of crypto, it’s a really bad way to do anything illegal. In 2024 Illicit volume dropped to USD 45 billion, down 24% since 2023. This represents 0.4% of overall crypto transactions
The estimated amount of money laundered globally in one year is 2 - 5% of global GDP, or $800 billion - $2 trillion in current US dollars.
If crypto was so great for money laundering and illegal activity, we’d see so much more of it. The number is as high as it is because Bitcoin is super convenient, so people go out of their way to try to make it work.
Agreed. The upper estimate is that only 5% of money laundering goes through crypto.
If we can somehow kill off the bulk of the pump and dump nonsense and discourage speculation, maybe we can get somewhere with crypto.
First wave was ICOs
Second wave was NFTs
Third wave was (is) memecoins
Are the waves are getting smaller?
Hopefully. It seems like the whole dapps/web 3 thing fizzled, so it’s probably not going to be that next.
Next wave is real-world asset tokenization. I think we’ll see more and more shifts to useful applications as the tech matures.