Cryptocurrencies, accelerationism, and the death of money

[SomaSpice]

Crypto. Its funny money. A bit too funny to be money some would say.

Yes, we've got our bitcoins and ethereums. We've got vapourware, privacy coins, use cases, and memes. We've got NFTs, rugpulls, and ponzi schemes. Some want the death of fiat, some want to avoid the watchful eyes of those-who-glow-in-the-dark, and some just want to make a quick buck. I'd guess most of us in the forum are well aquainted with the world of digital currencies so this post won't be a primer on that.

Regardless of what side of the fence you might fall into, I want to discuss an idea I've had recently whilst thinking about the concept of memecoins. I believe that in our ultra-modern, borderline post-scarcity world, money, be it crypto or not, might lose its ability to determine value.

Let me make my case.

Memecoins are absurd in every sense of the word. We're seeing the inception of assets that are technically devoid of value, yet by sheer popularity are capable of propelling individuals into billions in net-worth. Do mind that due to how liquidity works, net worth is not equal to real usable value. Its just what hypothetically someone is worth. So you might say, "Whatever dude, the money is coming from point A and ending up in point B, what's the big deal?" Enter hyperinflation and money supply.

Money supply goes from M1 to M4. Let me give you some quick definitions:

M1 is real, usuable money. Cash.
M2 is assets easily convertible to money. Like your savings. (That your bank is not obligated to return to you if supply of M1 is scarce)
M3 is basically institutional money. Stores of value and stocks.
M4 is commercial paper. IOUs. Its money backed only by an issuing bank or company that promises to pay the amount on a certain date, and its not backed by collateral. This is where things get fucky, especially as banks are able to loan debt to each other. In my opinion, its money that doesn't exist but nonetheless is used. And I think that's in part why we see countries and banks with huge debts that are basically of no consequence.

Allright, next.
The gobby is printing a lot of money.

And much of it is to bail institutions.

The point being, with the institutional adoption of crypto, I think we're seeing a bit of that M4 invisible money turn into M3 and M2 money. Something like tether (a stablecoin pegged to the value of one dollar, who is being investigated of basically printing money) artificially inflating the value of bitcoin.

If that money does trickle down from institutions to individuals in enough amounts, well, I don't know what the fuck would happen. But my guess would be that money would just stop representing value, and much like memecoins, attention and popularity would become the prime representative of worth. Afterall, it seems we've been eschewing the physical for the digital.

I'll end this by sharing one last image.

This is a real billboard for a memecoin in new york city. Shit's weird.

 

[SomaSpice]

And yeah, I know its a fucking schizo theory, there are holes in my argument and I'm not putting much stock into a meme fueled future happening. I wanna know what you guys think though.

 

[IlluminatiPirate]

Jesus christ a billionaire though Shiba. I think what cryptocurrencies are struggling right now is the ability to have real case use and transaction speeds. It's horrendous slow compared to traditional methods and the tech of blockchain as no real use in any industry. I read a case study about it for the aviation industry and they pretty much sumed it up that block chain is looking for a problem to solve. But the I know that USD is pretty much being backed by the petro dollar and ever since the Keystone pipeline was shut down, the value has been decreasing drastically and thats why you see the rise in gas prices.

I've seen degebonk ads on 4chan btw kek

 

[Coton]

Memecoins are just 21st century Tulip Mania.

Tulip mania - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Pangolin]

Memecoins are an important release valve for the economy and monetary inflation. All the extra money has to go somewhere.

 

[Kolph]

The memecoins have hurt the crypto market a lot this year honestly. As soon as these dog coins fuck off we could see more adoption take place as the whole Doge and Shiba fiasco has just made it look dumb.

 

[Sweet n' Comfy]

Memecoins are just 21st century Tulip Mania.

Tulip mania - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Unlike tulips memecoins can have some actual use and value and the whole "but it's neeeeeewww technology bro, so futuristic wow" aspect. The fact is that I think it will take some time until this stuff gets perfected, like Monero; Monero is a great example of how good crypto could get.

 

[Pangolin]

Unlike tulips memecoins can have some actual use and value and the whole "but it's neeeeeewww technology bro, so futuristic wow" aspect. The fact is that I think it will take some time until this stuff gets perfected, like Monero; Monero is a great example of how good crypto could get.

The use is supposed to be that it has value and is tradeable, but all you see is cryptonerds holding onto it through speculation. Eventually a speculation day is supposed to happen when people cash out their winnings.

 

[0ur0b0r0s]

Cryptocurrency as we know it may just be a prelude (/small side-show) to digital currency. The future in this area is centralized though, if le banksters get their way. Check out Central Bank Digital Currency (lot of resources, but here's the central bank in canada talking about it: link). The IMF and BIS sure are interested.

 

[CognacDefender]

I've never understood how to work any of this crypto shite. How do people obtain them? How do they 'mine' them? Do you have to pay to hold onto them?

 

[fammy_lammy]

I've never understood how to work any of this crypto shite. How do people obtain them? How do they 'mine' them? Do you have to pay to hold onto them?

It's like a mailbox system. You have box with a slot for people to drop money into, and a key to get into it. You tell people the address, and you get into it with your private key.

​

You could just make up a random number and it would work as a private key. 32 64 hexadecimal dice rolls would do it, then a wallet could generate a public address from it, without ever connecting to the internet because it's all math until you actually broadcast a transaction.

 

[s0ren]

I've never understood how to work any of this crypto shite. How do people obtain them? How do they 'mine' them? Do you have to pay to hold onto them?

Most people don't actually mine. They just turn real money into make-believe money, which lets some bagholder cash out and escape before the shitcoin goes to zero while you're stuck getting rug pulled. If you're lucky, you'll do the same and some other sorry sap will come in and take them off your hands, minimizing your losses. It's basically the same as fiat currency swaps, but you're turning your $/€/£ to Zimbabwe dollars hoping they'll bounce back. I normally just go on (((FagSwap))), buy a bunch of Chuck E Cheese tokens, and then watch them go down in value while pink-posting on /biz/. Makes me feel alive.

Related:

 

[lain is here]

Related:

Fuck I miss Bizonacci. Man, I remember literally sitting in class at Uni in a class that normally bored me out of my mind when the Great Crypto crash of late-2017/early-2018 happened. Good times. Had a lot of fun shitposting on /biz/ during class that day.

Anyone remember Bitconnect?

 

[SomaSpice]

I think what cryptocurrencies are struggling right now is the ability to have real case use and transaction speeds. It's horrendous slow compared to traditional methods and the tech of blockchain as no real use in any industry. I read a case study about it for the aviation industry and they pretty much sumed it up that block chain is looking for a problem to solve.

The thing about the aviation industy seems pretty interesting. If you remember what it is by any chance I'd be real happy if you could post a link to it.

I think the technology is really solid, but much like AI which started to be developed since the late 50s if I remember correctly, it will need a lot of time to properly mature and become useful.

I've seen degebonk ads on 4chan btw kek

They've got the most intense and annoying shills ever.

 

[SomaSpice]

Memecoins are an important release valve for the economy and monetary inflation. All the extra money has to go somewhere.

The memecoins have hurt the crypto market a lot this year honestly. As soon as these dog coins fuck off we could see more adoption take place as the whole Doge and Shiba fiasco has just made it look dumb.

Nice duality of man there. I honestly don't know what to think, both arguments sound logical.

Unlike tulips memecoins can have some actual use and value and the whole "but it's neeeeeewww technology bro, so futuristic wow" aspect. The fact is that I think it will take some time until this stuff gets perfected, like Monero; Monero is a great example of how good crypto could get.

The monero chad makes glowies mad.

Anyone remember Bitconnect?

BIT-CONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

 

[Coton]

Unlike tulips memecoins can have some actual use and value and the whole "but it's neeeeeewww technology bro, so futuristic wow" aspect. The fact is that I think it will take some time until this stuff gets perfected, like Monero; Monero is a great example of how good crypto could get.

When i refer to memecoin i speak about Doge and all the other shitcoins based on nothing but speculation. I like cryptos, especially Monero, but i think some coins really are nothing but Tulip bulbs and don't serve any purpose

 

[Still a Youth]

the only good acceleration is Mark Fisher's

 

[SeketMeto]

I've never understood how to work any of this crypto shite. How do people obtain them? How do they 'mine' them? Do you have to pay to hold onto them?

Mining coins is actually dying, because of (fair) environmental concerns, and also because it makes the network slow as fuck. Except for bitcoin, my guess is that POW (mining) is gonna disappear within the next decade. Most modern crypto use Proof Of Stake. It's a global name for a few different mechanics, but basically it just means that if you hold some crypto (or sometimes if you "stake" or commit them) you automatically receives rewards, because you passively help to validate the transactions on the blockchain.

To obtain crypto it's easy, you sign up on a exchange like binance or coinbase, you buy them with fiat (usd, euros, etc) with you credit card or bank wire, and they're at your name on your account on the exchange. At this point, the exchange still has the keys so it's not super safe to let your crypto sleep there (it's only useful if you want to trade or sell them), so the best is to move them to a crypto wallet, which is often a desktop or mobile app secured with a veeery long passphrase (it's in fact a seed, but for the sake of simplicity we'll say it's a super long password).

You don't have to pay to hold them. Once they're yours, they're yours. You have some fees to transfer them and sell them. It can be ridiculously small (a few cents to move dozen of thousand of euros, like with ALGO or XLM for example) to ridiculously high (ETH fees happen to sometimes be higher than the money you actually want to move), it depends of the blockchain and/or exchange you're using.

If you're thinking about getting into crypto, do your research on the different coins, and stay the fuck away from shitcoins (basically anything running on the binance smart chain or on Ethereum, including ETH itself). Nothing with an animal name, an anime name, or with "moon", "safe" or "rocket" in the name. Don't buy anything at its all time high price. And even though it might not ensure to get you rich, avoid projects that don't fit with your values (if you're here, I'd assume you'd like to avoid coins related to the metaverse for example).

 

[Still a Youth]

just in case y'all hadn't seen it https://cryptoslate.com/edward-snow...oin-in-the-nsa-leaks-at-blockdown-conference/

 

[Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意]

Its all a bubble. Its all relative. There is no stability. Humanity is a society. When one aspect collapses, another fills its place. From gathering, to bartering, to gold, to paper IOU's (the original dollar), to the dollar, to the DogeBonk, its an endless spiral perpetuating itself by a human's need to be involved in stability. The universe is an uncaring, cold, cosmic void with no intuition, no consciousness, no thought or desire or need. It exists, it does what it does, and that is scary. Money evolves like humans evolve, maybe money is humans evolving at a rapid, ass-clenching pace, as we viciously hurdle ourselves into despair, incapable of pulling the brakes, our only option to slam the accelerator harder until the natural cosmic forces eventually clash with us so violently we are torn asunder and ripped from our corporeal form and mangled and chewed and spit and tossed across the ethereal void, one atom at a time.

Anyways, I made like $500 off Shiba, it was a good time.