Yay I can't wait for my tax dollars (and probably SS) to buy useless crypto from rich idiots. If only we could put that money into high speed rail, healthcare, school lunches, ... Nah that stuff is clearly less important.
this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2024
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Strategic exit liquidity for the rich fucks who are lobbying to have others hold the bag.
Oh yeah, let's make a reserve out of a volatile non-liquid digitial asset with extremely limited and contextual utility. Let's also send the treasurer to the WinStar World Casino.
Didn't some country already try this and fail miserably?
Edit: Oh yeah, El Salvador invested $150M in bitcoin only for it to lose half its value lol
Edit 2: lmao at the replies. For those of you who haven't read the Wikipedia article on this, here's the gist of it:
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Salvadorian president Bukele forces businesses to accept BTC as legal tender, sets aside $150M in cash to back up his BTC plans, and offers $30 to anyone who signs up to a government-backed digital BTC wallet. Most Salvadorians never used it, and most who did just spend their $30 and leave. Less than 0.0001% of financial transactions use this BTC digital wallet, and most Salvadorians disapprove of Bukele's decisions, with >70% having little or no confidence in BTC, and 9/10 not even understanding what it is.
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Bukele announces a "Bitcoin City", which leads to El Salvador's overseas bonds to fall by 30%.
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In 2022, because of the BTC crash, the Salvadoran national reserves lost $22M.
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By 2022 only 20% of businesses were actually using BTC, and only 3% thought it was actually valuable. By that point El Salvador's BTC had lost half of its value, and Bukele responded to its volatility by "buying the dip" like a maniac, with many economists predicting the country would likely default on its debt. And in usual right-wing fashion he cut public spending to make up for his incompetence, including water infrastructure and public services in some municipalities.
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Finally, after all of this bullshit, in March 2024 El Salvador's BTC holdings stood at a 50% profit. Now that it's valued at >$100K their profit is higher, though by how much I'm not sure. Bukele still hasn't sold the BTC for some reason.
If you look at all of this and genuinely think that the recent (and undoubtedly temporary) increase in the value of Bitcoin makes this whole thing a "Big Chungus W win for Bitcoin" or whatever, I strongly urge you to stay away from crypto and any casinos for your own sake. I assure you that there are plethora of better ways to spend the time of government employees and taxpayer money, and you deserve better than whatever faux-utopia crypto bros have sold to you. Actually investing in the country's infrastructure and economy, or even something like Norway's sovereign wealth fund, are much better ways to improve the economy without some long-term gamble that causes citizens to suffer.
As of March 2024, El Salvador's bitcoin gambit stood at a 50% profit, with bitcoin having recorded a new all-time high of over $69,000. --the article
And btw, it's currently over $100k. So even higher.
Did you read the article you posted?
Bitcoin has only gone up so I'm not sure how that would even be possible...
It has had a few ups and downs in that time frame and the people that are very much anti-blockchain anything seem to cheer every time there is a (local) dip in value. But, as you say, if you look at its value since its inception....well, it was just under 107K today.
I have a better idea for a crypto plan. Let's chain crypto bros to their mining rigs and throw them both into the ocean. Take out two pieces of trash at once.
Now that's a block chain I would get behind. But could we not pollute the ocean with heavy metals?
Eh. Less damage from the carbon emissions in the long run. And we can chuck 'em in one of those ocean deserts that doesn't have much sea life in it.
Less damage from the carbon emissions in the long run.
I thought nobody cared?
Mining isn't a necessity. ETH lowered it's power usage by 98% by switching to Proof of Stake
Nobody cares.
Given how many people crow on about crypto's environmental impact, I would say that a whole shit ton of people care.
I do.
Your claim has been falsified.
Sorry, I'm done giving mental cycles to crypto apologeia.
Well, you could try to see things as differently as they are. While I agree that PoW aka 'mining' is bad (e.g. for the environment) and there are a gazillion of scams out there, that doesn't mean that each and every crypto is bad.
I see you yearn for the sea...
Nice dude, literal death threat.
Nah. Just stating a fact of nature. Worms belong in the dirt. Pandas belong in a bamboo forest. And crypto bros...belong in the ocean!
Stating a fact about a crypto doesn't make me a crypto bro, just like making a single (somewhat abstracted, but obvious) death threat doesn't make you a murderer. Necessarily.
Ah, so you and zergtoshi are the same person. Nice job replying to your own alts! To the sea with you!
I'm sorry? Please re-read the thread. I posted the comment about ETH reducing energy consumption by 98%. That was me.
Nice low-key self report though. Everyone must have alts, right?
Going from PoW to PoS and reducing the overall ecological (and economical) footprint by doing so was a great win for Ethereum and the planet.
This eludes stubborn haters and why wouldn't it, if their key characterisicts are 'stubborn' and 'hater'.
Careful, wouldn't want to be accused of having a conversation with yourself 🙄
I often have conversations with myself, just not using online platforms with different accounts.
No, we aren't.
Stop your false accusations and threats already!
These facts of nature don't extend to what you call 'crypto bros', because they're not that part of nature you insinuate they are.
Oh, I do like the sea, the waves, the beach.
What I don't like so much is people trying to force their (imho) limited perspective on others.
So please go on hating crypto unaware that you basically just hate Bitcoin (and potentially other crypto involving mining) - at least that can be derived from your recent comments - but leave me out of it.
If you can't deal with having easily falsified a statement of yours, that had no merit in the first place, you might consider refraining from making such statements.
Have fun!
Why invest in the future when you can invest in Ponzi scheme 2.0!
There should be a law against being this dumb.
Hmmm.
I wonder if they have certain expectations (read inside information) about the inevitable collapse of the USD that will coincidentally happen during the next presidency of the guy with ties to Russia and his VP who is backed by the dark-right silicon crypto bros.
Nah. That's crazy talk.
Edit:
Consider that Peter Thiel bankrolled JD Vance and that he, musk, zuck, et al have essentially established a technocratic state within the new admin. https://www.ft.com/content/408fb864-5831-4b1d-beef-fd1966b3beed
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jd-vance-trump-vp-peter-thiel-billionaire/
The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk might support that PAC to the tune of around $45 million per month. Musk has denied that specific claim since, but the America PAC, which is run by Lonsdale, appears to be created to support the “PayPal Mafia” worldview — which includes (and indeed depends on) the bankruptcy of the United States.
https://washingtonspectator.org/peter-thiel-and-the-american-apocalypse/
At least PayPal had a suitably grand mission—the kind that post-bubble skeptics would later describe as grandiose: we wanted to create a new internet currency to replace the U.S. dollar.
~ Peter Thiel Zero to One https://archive.org/stream/zero-to-one-peter-thiel-and-blake-masters/Zero%20to%20One%20-%20Peter%20Thiel%20and%20Blake%20Masters_djvu.txt
I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.
~ Thiel The Education of a Libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/
https://newrepublic.com/article/183971/jd-vance-weird-terrifying-techno-authoritarian-ideas
And one final, very important thought:
I mean it's almost certain the value of the dollar is going to tank and that the US is hit with at least a recession if not another depression if Donvict does even half the things he's said he will, but banking a bunch of bitcoin isn't going to help with that. Anything that tanks the dollar will likely tank the value of bitcoin as well. This reads more like a) idiots that don't understand bitcoin and b) an attempt to pump the price up so some of the more heavily invested techbros can exit the market before it tanks.
If they actually wanted to form a strategic reserve they should have picked something with inherent value like buying a bunch of lithium, Iridium, or just plain old gold (which is honestly one of the least valuable metals as it has very few actual uses outside of acting as a corrosion barrier).
Consider that Peter Thiel bankrolled JD Vance and that he, musk, zuck, et al have essentially established a technocratic state within the new admin. https://www.ft.com/content/408fb864-5831-4b1d-beef-fd1966b3beed
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jd-vance-trump-vp-peter-thiel-billionaire/
The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk might support that PAC to the tune of around $45 million per month. Musk has denied that specific claim since, but the America PAC, which is run by Lonsdale, appears to be created to support the “PayPal Mafia” worldview — which includes (and indeed depends on) the bankruptcy of the United States.
https://washingtonspectator.org/peter-thiel-and-the-american-apocalypse/
At least PayPal had a suitably grand mission—the kind that post-bubble skeptics would later describe as grandiose: we wanted to create a new internet currency to replace the U.S. dollar.
~ Peter Thiel Zero to One https://archive.org/stream/zero-to-one-peter-thiel-and-blake-masters/Zero%20to%20One%20-%20Peter%20Thiel%20and%20Blake%20Masters_djvu.txt
I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.
~ Thiel The Education of a Libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/
https://newrepublic.com/article/183971/jd-vance-weird-terrifying-techno-authoritarian-ideas
Etc...
Yes. Yes it is.
Please see my edit. You may rethink your response
Google: set reminder for 2 years.
I wonder if that's why BTC started approaching 107K.