Not recommended though, RPIs aren’t really suited for production, plus I think only Nimbus runs well on RPIs?

Your position was clear.

I’m not sure how else you’d prefer someone to call out untruths that you’ve posted. It’s either calling you a liar, or some version of saying you’re talking out your ass, or what not. But you’re right, that’s what I was saying. FWIW, I don’t think it’s lying the way Trump lies; I think there’s just a lot of uninformed knee-jerk reactionism. For example, you talk about processing times; have you ever heard of Lightning? It’s a crypto used a lot in Nostr and which has instant transfer times.

My point is that I you’re arguing a point that is easily refuted, when you have other points that are reasonable and justifiable. I could argue against the other points, too; for example, I could bring up proof-of-stake crypto-currencies which do not have huge energy use, and which haveno more energy footprint than the SSL transactions that you’re using constantly, every day. But it would be a harder arguement for me to make because the original cryptocoin, Bitcoin, is proof-of-work and has had a huge eco impact.

And I might not try to argue that unless I thought you were open to discussing the topic in good faith. Which I don’t believe you are; I think you’ve already made up your mind on the topic, and now all that’s left is evangelism.

I do have a question, though: do you understand how blockchains work, and the what the various kinds of proofs are? Not in the “could you program it” sense, but in general, like could you describe how they work to someone over beer? Or have you just read a lot about how bad they are? How much of your opinion is based on your social media filter biases?

Also I really don’t appreciate your passive aggressive way of calling me a liar

They’re not wrong to do so when most of your points are outdated or crap:

the overhead for making the transaction is just a non-starter

Outdated

if the power goes out, your wallet goes with it

Bullshit

For a decentralized currency, people sure do love centralizing under large exchanges, and the massive losses, thefts, fraud, etc. have shown that no matter how “decentralized” it’s supposed to be, it’s still susceptible to the same bullshit as any other currency

Privacy coins are the best way to live the dream of fungible secure currency, which is why they’re being suppressed. All the others are an experiment in how to monitor transactions more deeply.

Its high profile association with grifters, scammers, malware, and dark web shenanigans has completely soured its image in the public mind

If I may don a tin foil hat, likely left rampant by design. The proof of concept has been done, the tech works and has been in the hands of the public long enough that it’s normalized. This may be to pave the way for countries to replace their currency with “legit” crypto versions in the next decade or two, which requires putting a bullet in the head of the rest.

It’s entirely a speculative investment scam now.

If you talk in absolutes you’re destined to be wrong.

The issue with retail is how long it takes for a bitcoin transaction to be confirmed. The overhead simply isn’t feasible. A vendor isn’t going to sit around an wait an hour for confirmation that payment has been received.

Outdated.

And yes, let me be perfectly clear: I absolutely do want cryptocurrency to fail. That’s not about being a shill for government hegemony. It’s about there being literally no inherent good in it, either in principle or in practice. From the fact that it consumes more energy than entire countries and pumps more CO2 into the atmosphere than entire major industries, to the environmental impact of increased mining for rare earths, increased manufacturing strain, and supply chain disruption due to the demand for the chips to drive the miners.

At some point PoW will probably die a death and PoS will be all that remains. PoS is cheap.

there are decentralized currencies that work perfectly well without wasting tons of energy, although I agree that none have yet achieved the necessary scale to actually replace current centralized money systems. These currencies might find a niche that doesn’t need the capacity to handle thousands of transactions per second, or perhaps one of the many many different ways to scale these currencies that are currently being worked on will end up being good enough (they aren’t, yet)

And shouldn’t the environmental cost of “real” currencies be compared as well? It’s not like printing and minting all those bills and coins is zero energy. Even treating it virtually (direct deposit, etc - we rarely handle cash) has some overhead.

I don’t have a horse in this race, but comments that are obviously trying to grind an ace are suspicious to me.

“Did you know if you ask me if I’m a cop that I legally have to answer you truthfully if I’m a cop? So relax! What do you spend it on?”

Thanks for the response. Aside from the fed responses lol I was wondering what people actually used it for since we can’t deny there is a lack of products you can buy with crypto. I will def start using it for donations and VPN

I guess it depends on your time-frame and your risk profile. BTC/ETH over the medium term has done much better than pretty much any other asset in the world. Altcoins didn’t even factor into my brain when I made that comment.

This is a great point.

I’ve recovered from my Bitcoin maxi days, so I hope things move forward in the industry (namely, the normies learning about ETH)

This is a weird take and not the “gotcha” you might think it is.

Cryptos are a scam where nobody but very few at the top of the fraud actually win. While some crypto bros might be beyond help, they are actively endangering other people by trying to sell them their snake oil and drag them down with them. And the most tragic thing is, they stop applying any form of reason before making dangerous monetary decisions. People have and will continue to lose all their savings, so I would definitely agree with you that this shit is disgusting.

Decentralised social media on the other hand does not and can not endanger people’s lifes like that. Yes, social media has dangers in itself. But I’d wager those dangers are far less pronounced, despite having a share of wackos.

If you are into cryptos and don’t realise it is among the worst forms of gambling on it’s best days, maybe you should take a couple of steps back and reevaluate if you actually understand everything that’s going on, including the umcanny risks: Do you actually, for real, understand how it all works on the technological side or do you just pretend to or take someone’s word for it? Do you actually make your own decisions or are those influenced by forces outside of your control (e.g. “diamond hands”, “hodl” etc.)? Do you have a concrete and detailed financial plan that incorporates the worst scenarios as well ad exit strategies or is your “investment strategy” mostly determined by chance? How is your investment secured? Could you actually and factually sue in court and win in case bad actors try to prevent you from cashing out? How exactly is anything supposed to turn a profit and who’s pocket is that magical profit supposed to come out of? Is anyone standing to make a profit from you and can you guarantee it won’t happen? How?

Those are just a few (but not even all) considerations where cryptos usually should ring enormous alarm bells for anyone with a modicum of financial education. But not to crypto bros. To them all of this is weirdly enough just dandy and questioning anything is greatly discouraged. At some point they stop all critical thinking and just throw money into the fire, so some grifters can grift.

I’d personally rather use the money in cash to light a real fire. At least that will provide some warmth for a hot second.