Takeaway? Should've dumped in January My take: Better hope they don't destroy it by over taxing looking for a way to fund those tax cuts. Or by lobbying against by financial firms. In any case, there's billions being dumped into hardware/software development to push it forward, but Uncle Sam's got to get its beak wet, and right now there's no easy way for them to do that. Bitcoin is the "ancient" tech but has higher resistance to volatility.
Who knows what the future holds. Bitcoin might exist in its current form forever, as a traded asset, and a currency used to pay for drugs, hookers and VPN subscriptions. My point is that it can never replace real money, because I don't think the power consumption would be sustainable. It might exist in its current form forever though.
Right now criminal gangs are stealing from millions of device owners across the world. There is an environmental cost but forget that for a moment (WTF solar?). Optical computing might help. Quantum computing could cause real havoc. Guys in the US who wear those blue light glasses and go to FB crypto meetings in nice bars don't grasp what is actually happening and that is law enforcement are blind to so much now. Talk about what might be, but what is now sure seems pretty dire due to the strange popularity of the untraceable & untrackable classics. If someone can explain to me why in bad old downtown Medellin Colombia I saw two crypto ATMs in places you would not go without guards in the evening, I'd be interested to hear. They are not in the usual malls, no normal people using them, just where angels fear to tread.
what? power consumption? that's like reason #245 it will never replace fiat. the number 1 reason - banks have guns.
I don't think it is gonna happen in the near future when crypto will replace fiat currencies completely.
obviously it will not be completely. it is similar to a statement that the $US will no longer be a reserve currency in the near future. it won't happen. more interesting is to define a tipping point where one can say that crypto currency usage is now mainstream. is it when my grandmother uses them or my lawyer accepts them as payment or a politician accepts them for doing a favor etc. etc.? ps forget the point about politicians.
Energy consumption.....volatility and security are the three main factors why it will never replace normal currency!
What this means is there's a lot of money willing to buy hashing power instead of private jets or space trips. Would it be more eco-friendly to burn all that gas instead? The current energy consumption levels is an anomaly due to the recent parabolic price increase. It's completely unecessary as its only use is making transactions in blocks harder to rollback, which is what gives faith that your incoming payments will still be valid when you need to spend them. At the moment, it's about $90K every 10 minutes that would be required to rollback a transaction. This means if you buy a coffee, you can rent about $90K of hashing power to overwrite the block containing your coffee transaction to another address you own. Completely unecessary. Even for car purchases, it's completely unecessary. Who has all that money to burn on such ridiculous security? I have no idea. It's as if you guarded the garage containing your 2005 corrola with a small military force. Some people feel the need though, so more power to them!