I am with you. Bored Ape appears to be the same thing I fought my pre-teens on years ago--spending money on NOTHING REAL when they wanted to 'buy' crap for their computer game world. I am going to pass on principal. If I miss out on making a buck--easy come easy go!! But I don't believe I will. Global SCAM IMPO. As far as Crypto--again pass. All this money on paper but nothing IN HAND seems very dangerous, debt wise to me.

All I know is the dancing baby one is cute as a bug. 😆

(Edited to include a link, in case no one knows what I'm talking about...)

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/dancing-baby-meme-nft/index.html

I'm just in the middle of a podcast about NFTs. Maybe they are exonerated later in the podcast, but right now it sounds like an unregulated area where people with less than stellar ethics are taking advantage of that and using means that should be illegal and are highly unethical to create a market. I think they call it "push and dump". Where they hype up the market to create a demand, sell for huge amounts of money and then disappear when the price crashes and someone is left with a basically worthless commodity. The last time I listened, they were speculating that big money was involved and mentioned the Russian mob. Billions of $$$ are involved.

daisychain I listened to that podcast. It does get better but it didn't leave me with much more comfort or knowledge about how this all works.

lucille you are not alone. I don't even know enough to fit on the head of a pin with this stuff but what I do know does not make me comfortable. The crypto mining operation alone and what they are doing to small towns is a mess. As far as the NFTs go, I know it's not the really the same but there is an element that feels a lot like pyramid scams to me - just as daisychain said, some poor soul who came in late is funding an early buyer and gets left holding the bag.

A friends family has invested in crypto mining. They purchased two machines. The machines run 24/7 competing against other peoples machines. They claim to have spent $30K and have made $7k in 3 months. Of course we had to google "What is crypto mining?" I'll admit, it's over my head and I'm not getting involved. 💰

Until now, I'd never heard of "Bored Ape". Another google search....sigh...how stupid!

If it's too complicated for the "experts" to explain for people understand then I avoid it. This reminds me of Tulipmania - the story of a speculative bubble, which took place in the 17th century when Dutch investors purchased tulips, pushing their prices to unprecedented highs. During Tulipmania, the average price of a single flower exceeded the annual income of a skilled worker and cost more than some houses at the time.

At least with the tulips the losers still had something real in their hands to plant when it all crashed down around them. The illusion of obtaining great wealth from investing in nothing (the crypto ether) that many others are investing in is just another new & improved pyramid scheme. If you like gambling it's best sell your tulips before everyone else wakes up to the fact that it's just a tulip.

I think crypto is here to stay because it is useful for black market transactions. The people who do ransomware want to be paid in crypto. I don't think it will become mainstream where you or I will be paying for groceries with it.

I also thought of the Dutch Tulip bubble with respect to NFTs. They are a novelty for people with too much money and not any real needs to spend money on. And the people who think that somehow represents an opportunity to make money.

Apparently I lead a very sheltered life, I don't think I've ever even heard of any of this stuff. Well, maybe I've heard of Crypto, but totally passed over it. So I Googled it. And what I learned is that I still know nothing about any of it. And that I don't think we need to worry about any of it taking over our lives. At least not in my lifetime. Unless we want it to.

Rusty

I keep up with crypto and NFT's. I have on my list of things to do to try and convert a piece of art to a NFT. I have even applied to sell on different platforms. I have not yet made the move to figure out how to create the actual NFT... but I have been thinking about it for at least a year now.

My sister has a friend who made millions mining bitcoin, but he started very early when most people thought that crypto would crash and burn (and before bitcoin mining became the industry it apparently is now). Crypto is pretty volatile; at one point he had something like $6 million in bitcoin, then it crashed and there were self recriminations. He sold after the market recovered, though I don't know what he got for it in the end.

If he'd been reasonably pleased with the result ...

... he likely would have told ya.

What dos "NFT" mean ...

... "Non Funded Trading"?

o j

This is a really long explainer one of my children practically had to tie me down to watch it. I actually just listened while walking, tidying up, it's kinda long. The guy is great. He does an awesome job going through a great deal of financial history to put this concept into contrxt. He is so good Ezra Klein even had him on his show, but he did a much better job on the long, long version of his own.

TL;DR It's a Ponzi scheme, inside a pyramid scheme, inside a cult, inside a confidence game.

ETA This YT is specifically about NFTs.

NFT - Nonfungible token

@User is your friend’s profit net of expenses? I understand that the electricity consumption for mining bitcoin is terrific; first the running of the machines and second the power consumption to cool the area where the machines are running.

That dancing baby is grotesque. I know it will show up in a nightmare soon to be playing on my dream screen.

Wasn't there some big honcho that died a few years ago with a bunch of crypto? Didn't he run with the money and was killed in a plane crash, leaving people out millions of dollars.

Or am I dreaming?

And then there is the guy who threw away his hard drive with the cryptokey to half a billion in bitcoin

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/13/half-a-billion-in-bitcoin-lost-in-the-dump

People ought to be absorbing what "Money" actually is. Bitcoin and its ilk are not connected to any country or any real economy. Because of that no one is controlling the creation of cryptic currency, It is a sort of fog. Pure and simple an idea and not a reality.

So, Money represents Value. Your economy creates Value in a host of different ways. It could be physical or it could be an idea. Ideas can be very valuable in real time. Money is an ideated (made real)representation of value that can be exchanged. You do not have to give someone a potato or a chicken in exchange for something of value. You give a representation of "Value". Your government controls the creation of "value" trying to keep a balance between the creation of "value" and something that can be exchanged for socks or chickens like what we call dollars. When that something gets out of balance you get inflation or deflation. OK? When we dont have enough ideas or create enough physical things you shouldn't create more money. There are no limits on Crypto. It is inherently subject to inflation. People will create it and you have no idea there isnt enough economy to absorb and use it. If you have wondered why you have government this is why. Investing in Crypto is gambling at it's wildest. Can you afford to lose?

@bbstx....My husband corrected me...$9k...before electricity & cooling. I read that in 2024 the pay out for crypto mining will be cut in half. I'm sure it has some bad "and" good points. I remember when day trading was considered gambling....now it's done by banks.

This explains how you can tell if you are gambling or are investing with cryptocurrency. I am definitely not the type to try this and not sure I even really understand it.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2021/06/09/cryptocurrency-investing-vs-gambling/7606108002/

I understand cryptocurrency and NFTs. What I don't understand is sushipup's sentence above...?

Hey - just finished reading this article about crypto's crash and thought others here might find it interesting too:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jul/12/they-couldnt-even-scream-any-more-they-were-just-sobbing-the-amateur-investors-ruined-by-the-crypto-crash

Has only this post in its history right now - I just checked.

Very strange...🤔

So glad I steered clear of this foolishness.

NOVA on PBS has a program on it. Maybe a series. Check your PBS site.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/what-is-bitcoin/

“Unraveling the social and technological underpinnings of cryptocurrency, from bitcoin to NFTs.”

Funnily enough, I just happened across this article:

You Can Forget About Crypto Now

The industry’s latest meltdown is not like all the rest.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/11/sam-bankman-fried-bankruptcy-crypto-ftx/672104/

It's about a crypto wunderkind, Sam Bankman-Fried, and how he's lost most of his crypto fortune

Patricia, as it was first created money was more than a representation of value; money was, per se, something OF value. It was minted from precious metals that were available in limited supply, durable, and in demand for other uses than as a medium of exchange— jewelry, for example, and decorative inlay and in tool making. Today most precious metals have some industrial uses and some even have medical value. The value of the currency was tied to the value of the precious metal that backed it. Once countries abandoned the gold standard, currency has taken on a more complicated existence. Many economic factors play into the value of each country’s coin, including but not limited to the amount allowed to circulate at any given time and the interest rate at which it can be borrowed.

What do I think? Crypto isn't going away. It'll change over time, but it's not going away. I wish I knew more about, but saying it's leaving, doesn't make it so. Not understanding it, or calling it obscure, may get one left in the dust. People don't want regulation, for their reasons, and this is the way around it. The lone voice in the wilderness, I know. Do I want it? No.

Some recent announcements say the FTX crypto exhange has filed for bankruptcy. There is story after story of people investing and then losing, large amounts of money. It seems like it is a risky business.

I'm with ya lucillle--count me glad to be in denial/out of it/not into gambling/too ignorant to comprehend!!!!!!

arcy_gw

50 minutes ago

I'm with ya lucillle--count me glad to be in denial/out of it/not into gambling/too ignorant to comprehend!!!!!!

Arcy- I do not think there is anything wrong with posting that one doesn't understand something. It invites others to share their understanding, and that is a way to learn. Several people stepped in and posted links to explanations, or posted their views of crypto. After reading, I decided that it was, to me, an unacceptable risk and can be a trap for the unwary.

I don't understand it and won't be investing in it!

I have enough trouble figuring out the stock market.

I never got back here to answer Kswl.

One of the earliest places to create "money" was china and their "money" had no intrinsic value because they thoroughly understood the concept of value. They originally used shells. Money is representative. In India they used metals with actual value. So on that count not as advanced.

If people insisted on the gold standard which is inherently the same as a potato standard in being something that does have intrinsic value we would be way out of luck because there isnt enough gold to stand in for all the value in all the economies of the world. The gold standard was originally abandoned because of the difficulties in getting enough gold moved around during wars. People talk about going back on the gold standard but we are way past that. I find the whole idea of money and what it is fascinating as you can see. The leap from trading things to trading the idea of the value of a thing is an amazing jump in commerce. But when it comes with a country you have control. I am full of "fun facts" on money. Tediously so.

About a year ago I purchased THIS: Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (Btc)OTCMKTS: GBTC

It's doubled. A lady "expert" said she thinks Bitcoin will be $5million in 5 years, today it's $29K. Link It was a little experiment and kept me in the loop....I'm NOT recommending it.

Patricia, I am not advocating tying money to a gold standard. I was merely pointing out that not all money was, or is today, a mere “representation“ of value. In societies that used shells as their earliest form of money the shells were also ornamental and worn as jewelry.

If you owned a million dollar diamond - would dare wear it ... ever?

ole joyful

Diamonds are worthless if you dont think they are valuable. They are very attractive shiny rocks and very common. Most of the diamonds people have can be sold for about 1/4 to 1/3 of what was paid for them. Only a tiny percentage of diamonds have the color and clarity to be rare and they are still mostly just shiny rocks. Diamonds do have industrial uses.

The original ubiquitous coin was silver, not gold. A huge problem with coinage was the coins were of too high a value. Pennies were made of silver in Britain for instance so there was no money for the small less value things people needed. Rome made most of their coins of pot metal. It was mostly representative. It was an important first in Europe. People used to use bills of lading as money before paper money. You had a shipment of value and traded on that by passing on the paper. People even used IOU's as money.

Of course when coins were gold there was only the jewelry value since gold in its value in electronics did not exist. Jewelery value is like diamonds. Value is in the eye of the beholder. When aluminum was first discovered and smelted they made jewelry out of it. Iron was also used for jewelry. No one gets all excited over the value of iron jewelry today but back in the day it was more valuable than gold being that rare.

Sad story here.

A friends very intelligent and highly educated, professional, succesfull and totally responsible young adult daughter, a wife and mother of three recently got scammed in a manner that has us all just amazed at how it could have happened to someone like her.

It involved a great deal of cash that got deposited into some bitcoin machine is some sleezy part of town under a bogus threat that was made to her.

She is entirely not guilty of any crime and has a totally clean and respectable and wholesome life.

That this was so entirely out of character for her is a wake up call that she is under a great deal of stress and is suffering some psychological disruption due to it. She is engaged with a tense part of her career and is trying to stretch herself across all of the responsibilities of furthering her professional career and raising a family . She is overwhelmed and she took a leave of absence of her mind, a kind of a breakdown.

It resulted in her going to this machine and depositing a really lot of money right into this machine and it went straight to some bogus account that is not traceable. I had no idea there was such a thing as a bitcoin ATM, that is what they are called.

Apparently, crooks and scoundrels have found a way to use them to collect huge sums of cash from people that they manage to manipulate. And, this was a lot of money!! It was as much money as could be legally drawn off as cash from a bank account without further questioning.

The crooks knew that limit.

We are all still reeling from the fact that this young woman could have been such an easy target for crooks like this. They just found her when her defenses were about as depleted as they could be. No one who knows her could have predicted that this would happen to her, no one!

I had no idea that bit coin machines even existed and still not sure just what it is.

Alex, you may be a whiz bang at what you do, but I have no clue of what you speak.

Patriace, I enjoyed your insight on this. So many things that we come to think of as being almost absolute are really just contrived notions that we, collectively , believe are real.