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Re:Sam Altman Wants to Scan Your Eyeball in Exchange for Cry... by runbathtime on Tuesday June 29, 2021 @06:29PM (#27682607)
You cannot just create a crypto out of thin air and expect it to have value, unless you are selling eye scan data to generate revenue that might give value to these tokens somehow. I fail to see how any crypto can be UBI, if they do not have value in dollars. UBI cannot be done through a private person, must be done through the government, which makes me think he is intending to partner with the government to make this a reality. It sounds really really disgusting. It actually seems like a backdoor to raising money via ICO, the con being you provide your eye scan (something valuable) for a worthless token (something worth zero). The con being they con people into believing these tokens are in fact valuable somehow. If this was a contract, it would fail contracts law 101 since something of value must be exchanged on each side.
Re:Sam Altman Wants to Scan Your Eyeball in Exchange for Cry... by rspeele on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @09:48AM (#27688473)
> You cannot just create a crypto out of thin air and expect it to have value

Counterpoint: every crypto?

Doesn't make sense to me either.

Re:Sam Altman Wants to Scan Your Eyeball in Exchange for Cry... by rfd4sgmk8u on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @11:50AM (#27689981)
Not quite -- in Bitcoin (and other hard money, proof of work coins) we use energy to mine, and that ensures that bitcoin is hard to produce. We must consider the 'stock to flow' model of emission. Proof of Stake coins are made up out of thin air and are actually worthless.
Re:Sam Altman Wants to Scan Your Eyeball in Exchange for Cry... by rspeele on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @02:14PM (#27691774)
The work isn't what makes Bitcoins valuable though. I could create a new PoW cryptocurrency with twice the mining difficulty of Bitcoin, and it wouldn't be worth as much as Bitcoin, let alone twice as much. The labor theory of value doesn't hold up.

The only thing that makes Bitcoin, PoS coins, gold, or anything else valuable is a market of willing buyers. There seems to be no rule stopping that market from developing for practically any asset no matter how absurd.

Re:Sam Altman Wants to Scan Your Eyeball in Exchange for Cry... by Tepix on Thursday July 01, 2021 @08:49AM (#27698575)
If i create another PoW coin then it will also become valuable if i just increase the hashrate enough?

No. It has to be desirable, too.

Given that bitcoin has lost most of its utility since its inception, it's also losing its desirability.

Re:Sam Altman Wants to Scan Your Eyeball in Exchange for Cry... by gavanwilhite on Thursday July 01, 2021 @11:41AM (#27700288)
Sure you can. Money is worth what you think someone else will think it is worth later. This can become an arbitrary amount stemming from the memes present in the zeitgeist