Rupert's article makes Crypto make sense to me..

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   Patty Inglish, MSposted 5 months ago

   Thanks for this clear explanation! I hesitate to involve myself with it, while my city has ATM kiosks all over town for it - starting to look like Vegas slots heaven here. LOL.
   
   https://hubpages.com/money/cryptocurren … onary-tale

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      tsmogposted 5 months agoin reply to this

      I just read Rupert's article, though thorough as it was I am no more smarter on crypto then before I read it. I say that in the sense it is abstract for me. For instance, the fact Trump's meme coin started at $0.18 with its release then magically is worth $30 and there was no mining. I'm lost.
      
      I just peeked to see if I could square myself away seeing there are over 11,000 cryptocurrencies. Now I am more lost. I am left wondering how are they exchanged for fiat monies? How are banks keeping up with it? Like I said earlier, it is abstract to me.
      
      Edit: As an aside, perhaps, having made this post and a very short search online for how many cryptocurrencies there are now my FaceBook feed is inundated with crypto posts. That was a matter of moments. Go figure out how the AI world works today. hmmm . . .

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   Rupert Taylorposted 5 months ago

   So glad I was able to clear up the mystery for you Patty. Perhaps, you can now explain to me how cryptocurrencies work.
   
   After many hours researching the topic, I really don't have a good grip on the mechanics of digital money. What I had suspected is that it was a scam and now that $Trump has been floated, I know it is.

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      Patty Inglish, MSposted 5 months agoin reply to this

      I feel that it is a scam or just to risky. Thanks for the article!

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   theraggededgeposted 5 months ago

   Very good article
   
   There was a guy here in the UK who threw out an old hard drive, forgetting that he'd stored his £50 of Bitcoin on it. Discovered it was worth £4 million. He spent months digging around the landfill site to no avail.

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      Patty Inglish, MSposted 5 months agoin reply to this

      I wonder if anyone got it.

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         theraggededgeposted 5 months agoin reply to this

         I never heard anything. However, I wish I'd splashed out £50 on Bitcoin back in the day

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            JerryFisherposted 5 months agoin reply to this

            I seem to recall that he was offering to pay the local council money for permission to dig up the local, but fairly expansive garbage tip all to find a relatively small hard drive, but they turned him down.

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   Peggy Wposted 5 months ago

   Like you, Rupert, I am no smarter about this imaginary form of  money. Thanks for trying to explain it to us.

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   Rupert Taylorposted 5 months ago

   The leader of Canada's Conservative Party and probably our next prime minister, is Pierre Poilievre. He has been a booster of crypto.
   
   Here is a quote from the right-wing National Post, "Pierre Poilievre promises to 'unleash' the potential of cryptocurrency like bitcoin and ethereum if he becomes prime minister, and make Canada “the Blockchain capital of the world.”
   
   We need help.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 5 months ago

   All money is essentially "imaginary." Those bits of paper with the monarch's head on them (if you're Canadian or British) are only worth anything because we believe it. The same goes for the figures you see when you check your bank account.
   
   I guess it's the same for cryptocurrency, provided people believe in its value, it's valuable.
   
   The national currencies have countries backing them up, though. The crypo (historically) don't.
   
   It therefore does still seem more risky to me. And the Trump/Melania money is outright dubious.

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      Kenna McHughposted 5 months agoin reply to this

      My goodness, when you talk money, you talk politics. There used to be two sides to every ideology, currency, crime, disaster, and so forth, but because of social media, there are multiple sides to every issue.

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   Rupert Taylorposted 5 months ago

   It used to be that you could change a dollar coin or banknote for a dollar's worth of gold. Can't do that anymore, and you are right Paul, all currency is of value only as long as people believe it to have value. However, the governments that back national currencies do have tangible assets, one of which is the right to raise money through taxation.
   
   Also, with fiat money, at least in Canada, there is deposit insurance. If a bank goes bust in Canada, depositors get their money back, although there is an upper limit. Because of regulation and oversight bank failures in Canada are extremely rare.
   
   "During the Great Depression (1930-1933), over 9,000 banks failed in the United States, while not a single bank failed in Canada" (Banking and Finance Law Review).
   
   Cryptocurrencies have no tangible assets. If Fartcoin collapses people with money in it will lose everything; they won't get a penny back.

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      PaulGoodman67posted 5 months agoin reply to this

      Yes, without some form of substantial backing, it's risky, as I said above. The backup is traditionally done by nation-states.
      
      The other issue with crypto is the lack of transparency, which is why it's increasingly used for criminal purposes. The lack of transparency may also be why Trump is taking an interest and has set up his own crypto.

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   Rupert Taylorposted 5 months ago

   Tim - that was the point of my article; to inform readers that, in my opinion, crypto is deliberately unintelligible and it's very unwise to get involved with it.
   
   Even after diligent research I am totally mystified by the internal mechanics of crypto. It seems the vast majority of the population is as confused as I am.
   
   I could be wrong, but it reminds me of the tech bubble of the 1990s when people were throwing billions at weird creations that teenagers were patching together in their bedrooms.
   
   The conclusion I came to is that crypto is an instrument that is promoted by scoundrels with the aim of relieving dupes of their money.

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   Kenna McHughposted 5 months ago

   Bev, I wish I had also splashed $50 back in the day.

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