Merged Bitcoin - Part 3

To quote the Kingston Trio's version of the Pete Seeger's song, "Oh, when will they ever learn?"

Helium evaporates.

Helium was touted as the best real-world use case of Web3 technology. But as it struggles to generate revenue, a Forbes investigation found that executives and their friends quietly hoarded the majority of wealth at the project's inception.

Backed by investors Andreessen Horowitz and Tiger Global, the $1.2 billion Web3 company said it was building the “People’s Network,” a global wireless internet connection for objects like parking meters and dog collars. All Davis had to do was spend $500 on a machine that looked like a wifi router, plug it into her wall and receive Helium’s cryptocurrency in return — a recurring passive stream of income. One Helium investor claimed that owners could recoup their purchase in a few weeks.
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However,

Davis is one of thousands of people who bought into Helium's promise, together spending an approximate $500 million on hotspots they believed would pay steady dividends. But so far, citizens of the People’s Network have seen vanishingly small crypto rewards. After waiting more than six months for her $500 hotspot to arrive at her home in Houston, Davis has mined a single token in three months — about $5. “I could have used my money elsewhere and actually gained some income,” the 52-year-old real estate agent told Forbes, “not lose it after I pay my electricity bill.”
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and,

But Helium has made a handful of people disproportionately rich: its executives and their friends.
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So,

A review of hundreds of leaked internal documents, transaction data and interviews with five former Helium employees suggest that as Helium insiders touted the democratized spirit of their “People’s Network,” they quietly amassed a majority of the tokens earned at the project’s start, hoarding much of the wealth generated in its earliest and most lucrative days.
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Ah ha,
“This is a recurring pattern in the crypto economy,” says Lee Reiners, Policy Director at the Duke Financial Economics Center, who teaches cryptocurrency law at Duke Law. “This thing was set up to enrich the founders and early supporters at the expense of everyday people who bought hotspots thinking they were going to bring value."
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I find it difficult to know if these thing really just start out a scams or evolve into them because, in this case anyway, the idea does not seem too unreasonable.

The Wild West was never this wild but PT usually got it right.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
To quote the Kingston Trio's version of the Pete Seeger's song, "Oh, when will they ever learn?"

Helium evaporates.

Helium was touted as the best real-world use case of Web3 technology. But as it struggles to generate revenue, a Forbes investigation found that executives and their friends quietly hoarded the majority of wealth at the project's inception.I find it difficult to know if these thing really just start out a scams or evolve into them because, in this case anyway, the idea does not seem too unreasonable.

The Wild West was never this wild but PT usually got it right.
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It should be pointed out that bitcoin is unique in the crypto world because it never had an ICO. Every coin was initially mined and not sold/given away by a developer.

It is for this reason that alt-coins are usually considered to be securities but bitcoin isn't.
 
psionl0 said:
It should be pointed out that bitcoin is unique in the crypto world because it never had an ICO. Every coin was initially mined and not sold/given away by a developer.

It is for this reason that alt-coins are usually considered to be securities but bitcoin isn't.
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Not a fan of bitcoin but will acknowledge it often wrongfully bears the stench of the various poopcoin and ICO shenanigans that come up every time interest in crypto peaks.
 
Suddenly said:
Not a fan of bitcoin but will acknowledge it often wrongfully bears the stench of the various poopcoin and ICO shenanigans that come up every time interest in crypto peaks.
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Or shenanigans not actually related to crypto at all. Like offering investment to crypto and then simply running with the money.
 
Suddenly said:
Not a fan of bitcoin but will acknowledge it often wrongfully bears the stench of the various poopcoin and ICO shenanigans that come up every time interest in crypto peaks.
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You don't have to be a fan to want to sort out the facts from the BS. OTOH a lot of unfans don't care whether their arguments are factual or BS as long as they are negative.
 
Bitcoin is now powered 62% by fossil fuels.
This could provide power for 28 million Argentinians.
This is not exactly the fault of the designer but in order to fulfill Michael Saylor's evil intent it is a corollary that it seriously destroys the climate.
That is why I would love to see cryptos disappear.
The world will keep turning.
One crypto to facilitate the lives of the unbanked without consuming fossil fuels would suffice.
 
psionl0 said:
You don't have to be a fan to want to sort out the facts from the BS. OTOH a lot of unfans don't care whether their arguments are factual or BS as long as they are negative.
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Conversely, many of the crypto bros don't care that they don't have any positive arguments and will attack sceptics for pointing that out.
 
jeremyp said:
Conversely, many of the crypto bros don't care that they don't have any positive arguments and will attack sceptics for pointing that out.
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I don't know who you are referring to but I don't have any vested interest in cryptos. I only "attack" sceptics who post BS.
 
porch said:
Are you saying that you currently hold zero cryptocurrency?
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psionl0's affinity for bitcoin probably come from his buying into banking system conspiracy theories that posit banks create their own money out if thin air.
 
porch said:
Are you saying that you currently hold zero cryptocurrency?
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I don't hold enough to make a difference in my life. Of course, had I been a true believer in the past, I would be a bitcoin millionaire today and not have had to stake my life savings to achieve this outcome. C'est la vie.
 
psionl0 said:
I don't hold enough to make a difference in my life. Of course, had I been a true believer in the past, I would be a bitcoin millionaire today and not have had to stake my life savings to achieve this outcome. C'est la vie.
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That's a good point. True bitcoin believers are silly .. but damn are they rich.
 
wareyin said:
Wait, are you trying to imply that nobody has lost money with bitcoin? Or that the people who have are just as vocal about their losses as the winners are about their gains?
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Of course not. Speculation always produces winners and losers. But we don't know how many of each nor the sums of money involved. And we have absolutely no information whatsoever about how many people are publicizing their gains or losses.

But still, this was negative about bitcoin so it passes muster in this thread.
 
psionl0 said:
Of course not. Speculation always produces winners and losers. But we don't know how many of each nor the sums of money involved. And we have absolutely no information whatsoever about how many people are publicizing their gains or losses.

But still, this was negative about bitcoin so it passes muster in this thread.
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Given that it's human nature to not publicize a loss, do you really think we need evidence that we don't hear from the Bitcoin losers as much as we do from the Bitcoin winners? And from that basic knowledge of how humans act, we would expect to be getting a skewed perspective toward Bitcoin with people publicizing their gains while those who lost kept silent?

It just seems a bit odd that you'd need evidence for such a commonplace occurrence.
 
wareyin said:
Given that it's human nature to not publicize a loss, do you really think we need evidence that we don't hear from the Bitcoin losers as much as we do from the Bitcoin winners? And from that basic knowledge of how humans act, we would expect to be getting a skewed perspective toward Bitcoin with people publicizing their gains while those who lost kept silent?

It just seems a bit odd that you'd need evidence for such a commonplace occurrence.
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It is unfortunate that all bitcoin purchased in the last 22 months is showing a loss, this is most of the trillion that is alleged to be market capitalization across the crypto sector. As Warren Buffet says, I would rather own farms, because they produce something meaningful like food to keep people's ribs apart.
 
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