Ballpark calculations

Winning a block gets you 3.125 BTC + approx. 0.06BTC in fees (2%). $6000 in transactions fees with 4000 transactions per block = $1.50 per transaction.

When I first looked at Bitcoin it was around $10/BTC and electricity to mine (on a cpu) was about the same.

The people who make money mining bitcoin have a combination of very cheap electricity and/or next generation asic hardware.

mining has not compensated for mining for a long time.

Fees are less than 2%

The average commission payment is now 1.5 bitcoins. almost half of the reward

I think you have the wrong units. The average fee is 1.5 USD.

And it will pay off only in 1.7 years

This is quite quick. Last time I looked the it was around 3 years. Most of the cost comes from buying the hardware.

The assumption that bitcoin is only used by criminals is much less accurate.

It came from here but this source has more detail.

Because they can’t run out of money, central banks can be the largest buyer and seller over the short term.

But there is no economic rule that demands those entities exist. For example, from 1863 to 1913 the US had almost no use for a central bank.

Note that I’m very far from suggesting the world’s economy should run on bitcoin. Just that central banks are not as essential as they are made out to be. They are used as much to cause inflation as they are to control it.

I copied that from Wikipedia which got their reference from through NY times.

For specific details, this is probably a better source https://www.trmlabs.com/resources/reports/the-illicit-crypto-ecosystem-report-2022

Valuable to the people creating debt in that currency. Not to other stakeholders.

USD FX pairs are currently cheaper using traditional transfers.

However going from a non G20 currency to another non G20 currency can be much cheaper using crypto.

but those costs don’t give bitcoins any inherent value.

Because bitcoins cost X to produce, people believe they are worth X.

People buy big ticket items like cars and houses with bitcoin, not chocolate bars.

Modern blockchain protocols dominate bitcoin in every dimension except market cap.

The cost to produce new bitcoin doubles every 4 years ( a bit more because new hardware is added). This drags up the price of all the dormant bitcoin.

This is a negative for dollars, not a positive.

Being able to inflate your way out of debt makes a currency less valuable.

Cryptobros hate central banks but their policies ensure that a loaf of bread doesn’t cost 3 times as much the next day.

The exact opposite. Only after abandoning the gold standard does a central bank have the power to make a loaf of bread cost 3 times as much the next day.

Central banks are a relatively new invention and are not essential in the slightest.

the only tangible value I personally see in Bitcoin, because it’s not really being used as legitimate currency, is for criminals.

Please, factual answers only.

In 2021, 0.15% of known cryptocurrency transactions conducted were involved in illicit activities like cybercrime, money laundering and terrorism financing

Have you used GenAI for art? It can do a reasonable job for the entire composition, but the extra fine detail have to be inpainted with specific prompts, and there are special routines that make sure faces and hands look human.

The same with code. It can outline the entire project but details need to be inpainted and specific errors handled.

The context window can’t handle an entire codebase, never mind multiple projects.

Cory Doctorow wrote a pretty entertaining book on the subject of tech vs politics.

https://craphound.com/attacksurface/

Also it’s well researched

https://pavelanni.github.io/attack-surface-tech/attack-surface-tech.html

It also means we don’t have to obey the law

Not true. Even pre ICE. Law enforcement is allowed to lie to you, but you cannot lie to them. The playing field is not level.

Ni