NFTs are to Cryptocurrencies as Pyrite (fools gold) is to Gold. Any comparison or association of the two only reveals one’s ignorance of the latter.
People complaining about the environmental costs of proof-of-work are simply blind to the environmental costs of government monopolization of money. Money is to economic information as copper wire and glass filaments are to the internet, the more it is abused the more the signal degrades resulting unfathomably large inefficiencies introduced into the economy. The energy costs of proof-of-work pale in comparison to the amount of energy indirectly expended trying to fight the knock-on effects of the fraudulent inflation of central banks and price controls on interest rates.
One of the best conversations on this subject I have found was on Jordan Peterson’s youtube channel of all places. I think he did two, one 4 months ago and another that came out a month ago. I’m not even an inflation-hawk, nor do I think gold (or deflationary coins for that matter) make for good money, but I still think the costs to society that come from government abuse of their monopoly on money are orders of magnitude larger than even most skeptics understand. A lot of those costs have been pushed off into the future, through credit expansion. Which is precisely why most people don’t understand how big of a problem it is, because credit has the magical quality of giving you all the “benefits” of money printing without the immediate downside of inflation. But when sovereign credit markets grow into a bubble, that leads to a bond market crash which unleashes all that inflation at once like a dam breaking. My guess is that the first cracks will be in Europe and that will trigger a cascade default of sovereign bond markets across the globe.
But I doubt most people here or working at CCP would understand or agree with what I’m saying, after all with EVE lore you could literally replace the word “corporations” with “sovereign entities” or “political factions” and it would make just as much sense. It just doesn’t sound as appealing to most people because the world is still under the delusion that governments are something more than profit-seeking entities given the arbitrary privilege of monopolies on the production of various kinds of infrastructure, security services, and standards of practice (i.e. regulation).
Seriously. A Liberating technology with its primary commercial use being currency speculation, the actual value of the underlying asset being sweet nothing.
Yeah, I want in on that bandwagon … just don’t complain when it all ends in tears.
A yes, we hear this for over a decade now that it will all suddenly end. I guess you did not actually look into what problem Bitcoin solved and can’t grasp the magnitude of what is happening here.
Speculation is not the primary function, it’s just something that happens. The primary function is the first actually sound money we have where no single entity can just change the monetary policy because it fits their agenda.
There are a lot of people that are dissatisfied with how the current money is just complete trash used by a few to put a hidden tax on the little guy by inflating the supply. Now we have another option which is superior and it can’t be stopped.
Gold has some good traits, it’s rare but not in an absolute sense. The more valuable it gets the more people get motivated to dig more of it out of the earth.
And it’s not easy transportable, storable, verifiable (it always fears it’s tungsten inside) and divisible.
Bitcoin has absolute rarity (something we did not even know was possible until Bitcoin), can be transported around the globe instantly, is easy verifiable, divisible as much as is needed and unconfiscatable (you can store it in your head by memorizing 24 words). It’s just superior in almost every way possible.
NFTs are being introduced so that CCP/Pearl Abyss can legalize and get a cut off of RMT. It’s not beneficial to players in any way. It’s a borderline scam in itself, and is a mechanism to get crypto hooked into the game so that a “play to earn” model can be introduced, which will suck majorly for anyone that just wants to enjoy a good game, instead of enduring a “metaverse” set up for investors to squeeze profits out of folks. And instead of deep, engaging gameplay, it will incentivize a grindfest where people try to jump through virtual hoops to earn RL money (which is largely a myth anyways, don’t get fooled into thinking that this is good or economically beneficial for gamers - it is good for investors primarily).
And the only thing that can stop it is the player base kicking off in a way that forces CCP/PA to retract this garbage. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R player base managed to do it, so there is hope.
CCP listens and engages with their player base on a level I’ve not seen in any of the other games I play. Maybe because of this some players feel they have an actual say in the direction and development of the game. (some players do have influence in the direction and development of the game, send you concerns to them please, thats the CSM)
You complain about crypto being bad for the enviroment so much so that you won’t touch it? Take a look at battery’s and solar panels they are far worse for the enviroment in their production and disposal off.
Just about everything we use has been harmful “ruining” to the planet in some way or other, plastics use oil end up in land fills, the oceans or burnt, every metal part virtually has been heat treated which in itself is really bad for the enviroment both in the emissions given off and the gas used. Go back in it’s production chain to the foundry’s how much coal/gas gets burnt to produce the massive amounts of steel we need. All your furniture has probably come from illegal logging. So good luck their having “no part of anything thats ruining our planet”
Oh and for your information the planet is already ruined what we are just starting to do now, should of been started 20-30 years ago.
Even the “green” movements have had a role in the planets demise, blocking and objecting to innovation on the premise that the “original” technology was dangerous and environmentally harmful.
Digital currency usually has quite some drawbacks. For example if you use a credit card or online banking you already use digital currency. The problem is that this is all completely under the control of a third-party you have to trust.
Crypto currencies and especially Bitcoin don’t require banks. Instead they use cryptography so we can transact directly with eachother without a bank involved.
If you are in a first-world country, the benefits of this might not be apparent, because you usually trust your bank and the fees for doing things are relatively low.
However, there are billions of people on the world that don’t even have a bank account or the papers to get one. But they usually have smartphones already, so crypto allows them to participate on the financial system without a bank account.
In the first world it gets mainly interesting if you are a shop owner. You pay a lot of fees to credit card companies, crypto gets rid of this leeches in the middle. And for example if you want to send money abroad, it can take days to weeks with the banking systems and fees up to 50% in some cases, crypto gets rid of that.
For the end user, it will not be much different to using a credit card or bank transfer, you just eliminate the people in the middle who take a cut for basically doing nothing.
