Re:Bitcoin mining becomes unprofitable as BTC price falls to...
by DSingularity on Sunday June 19, 2022 @05:57AM
(#31797895)
I agree. The big flaw in Bitcoin is technical deficiency which leads to a system which compromises its core value. It’s core value is to democratize via decentralization. It’s supposed to work for the people. That is undermined in two ways. First it is deflationary and that lead to hoarding and malicious market manipulation. If you don’t know that cryptocurrency is owned by the techno-elites then you aren’t paying attention. Second the hardware acceleration makes you totally useless. Can’t get millions in hardware along with state subsidized energy? Sorry, you have no say in the world of miners and protocol evolution.
A real solution would be truly decentralized. It needs controlled inflation to avoid incentivizing the capture of the supply and it needs CPU only mining to prevent the eventual emergence of parasitic mafia miners.
Conversely there's an outside chance a really big crash will make it useful.
A sufficiently large crash of Bitcoin will leave most current holders burned. Those that have Bitcoin as a purely speculative play will take some big losses, and get out (maybe permanently).
Ridding Bitcoin of speculators will maybe improve Bitcoin usefulness as currency - but I think main-stream will ignore it and it'll become niche.
At its heart Bitcoin cannot decide if its a fast-appreciating asset, or a currency, and it can't be both. Perhaps a really big correction now can kill the fast-appreciating asset approach for good.
Unfortunately though it seems like as a currency its primary benefit seems to be making risky (aka illegal) face-to-face transactions safer, and hence will likely aquire an ever seedier reputation.