I have to say that I've been waiting for this to happen for a long while.

I'm sure there will still be pundits hyping Whatevercoin and blockchain for the foreseeable future ; it's hard to cook the goose when the feathers are so soft - or something like that.

But the fact is that everyone with half a brain can now sit back and run down the checklist of everyone they know who's been singing blockchain praises and wait for the "oh shit" face.

Get the popcorn and start taking notes. This is a time-limited event and you don't want to miss out !

Icon for my "told you so" face -->

Until crypto value starts going up, then the mad crush to buy hardware will begin all over again.

Delusion of the masses is driven by 'get rich quick' schemes. Add your fave influencers backing it up and you have a ticking time bomb. People will get rich, but it won't be you or I. The lawyers on both sides will make a killing.

And the celebs pushing it, as well as the sellers of mining kit. But that is about it.

With tulip bulbs you could at least have a nice flower. A really very expensive flower, but it had at least the potential to grow in the real world and show you a nice flower if you were just a little bit lucky.

With crypto you start with nothing, throw lots of money at it and still end up with absolutely nothing.

I'd rather pay too much for the tulip. I'd still have a flower.

" At least with famous financial scams of the past, such as the Dutch Tulip Bubble and the 2008 real estate crash, you had tulip bulbs and houses for your money "

During the South Sea bubble boom (1720), stock was purchased to the value of £2000 within five hours against the prospectus " a company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is " 1 . (Equivalent to about £40M today)

The proposer " was philosopher enough to be contented with his venture, and set off same evening for the Continent. He was never heard of again. " 2 .

1 & 2: Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, 1841. Reprinted 1995, Wordsworth Editions, ISBN 1-85326-349-4

The intrinsic value of money is unimportant and therefore the same holds for cryptocurrencies.

A paper $100 bill probably costs $0.50 to in materials and labor to make. It's useless for anything but its purpose. Gold can be made into useful products (jewelry, plating for connectors etc.) but it's value is much higher than it's intrinsic value.

Paper currency is backed by the purchasing power of the government that issues it, so not really the same.

I apologize in advance for using you as an example, but you have mentioned just that single facet and discounting the others that are far more important (such as the backing of tender rendered legal by government) - and unfortunately, that has allowed such fads to proliferate. Again, apologies for calling out your example

When Donald Trump's old accountants find an industry too unreliable to be able to report on, one has to take notice.

When the graphic at the top of a Financial Times article, [1]What this year in crypto has taught us [paywalled], is a fly-buzzing pile of shit, one has to take notice

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/bd850edf-9c4c-49b0-9449-e0da314f5729

I second that motion.

But fun to have been proved right when you've said it was worthless nonsense all along.

As it all goes bust, we're now regularly invited to listen to the sob stories of those who gambled vast sums on it, as a way to deflect from what every one of them had in common : the overriding of all sense by their own greed.

Those who deal in real money backed by real assets and national economies knew all along that enabling anyone with a printing press to print their own currency would eventually end up with all those currencies being worth nothing.

With the crypto bubble (slowly) collapsing, many pundits have retreated to blockchain technologies - "We never believed in Crypto, it was always about the underlying technology".

Can we take a moment to ask why an incredibly inefficient, slow to update and questionably secure distributed database might ever be chosen over known, mature and trusted solutions? People jump through hoops to wave blockchain over otherwise dull IT projects in order to hype them up and secure funding. Almost without exception the core concept could be replaced with a standard centralised database with no loss of functionality, significantly easier maintenance, better and more consistent performance guarantees and just as much security.

This, ten times this. Waving blockchain shouldn't be a hype factor, it should be a red flag.

That's how I treat it - the moment someone mentions blockchain, I immediately move them to the 'I'm dealing with an idiot' bucket

I'd gladly buy the author a beer (with real fiat money) for pulling no punches and saying it like it is.

I've often pontificated on the lack of financial education and common sense of the cryptozealots / 'cryptobros' - was there an underlying layer of inherent grift all along, or just sheer zealotry born of ignorance? Doesn't matter - stupid is as stupid does, fool and his money soon parted, etc etc.

People need to ask themselves why financial authorities haven't clamped down on NFT's, which are clearly a rip-off scheme. Answer: because NFT's don't undermine the control the politicians (and therefore Big Money) have over the financial system.

People are losing billions of $ with NFT's but the government ignores it.

I disagree - a possible reason that financial authorities haven't clamped down on them is because they haven't become methods of defrauding the public at large, or being used for nefarious purposes.

It was sold as an investment vehicle, but in itself, is it fraud? No. It's a foolish investment, but in an open market - caveat emptor, value of what someone else will pay for it, etc.

"It's hard to admit that you've been a financial fool for years or even a few months."

Legalities aside, the "investor" who got in early and cashed out near the peak of any ponzi, er, crypto scheme walked away wealthier - sometimes substantially so - ergo, is not a fool.

That's all investing is; to a first approximation this is equally true in stocks or houses ("as safe as..."). The goal is never to hold the investment forever, the goal is to buy low and sell high. Buy the house/tulips/cryptocrap while it's cheap, but sell it before it, or the market, burns down.

Full disclosure: I don't crypto. My risk tolerance is too low. I don't own investment homes, either.

Not sure about the "never hold it forever" part. If I had bought Berkshire-Hathaway stock in the 70s and kept it "forever" - as in still owned it today - I don't think I'd have any complaints.

The crypto bros aren't worthy of the comparison, but the difference is Warren accumulates real assets with long-term value. Crypto bros? Get rich quick baby, and leave the suckers by the side of the road.

Just because some people made money by getting out at the right moment, doesn't mean they're not fools. Just lucky.

Occasionally people win big at the casino too. Doesn't mean they're not fools. There's a reason why the saying "The house always wins!" exists. Because the only people who win regularly at the casino is the casino.

Same applies in crypto. Although with worse odds than even the most crooked casino...

Let's bring back cash.

I've been told the Legally Exchangable Accessible Finance is going to really pick up in the spring!

.

Here at Mangrove Manor, it never went away.

You’re left with nothing of value, but the rest of us are left with incalculable environmental damage.

...but the rest of us are left with incalculable environmental damage.

Debateable. But I'm kinda curious. There had been a slew of reports about the 'environmental' impact of cryptocarp. Mostly based on the amount of energy consumed. So given many crypto mining operations are busily going titsup.com, is there any noticeable impact on the energy market? If the reports were correct and crypto was consuming X% of electricity generation, then there's a corresponding X% reduction in demand, which should translate to lower energy costs.

Yes, I'm an optimist in assuming those cost reductions will be passed through to consumers. See the UK's annual gas price data for more info.

It's also curious to watch the rise & fall of SBF. From multi-billionaire cryptobro with a luxury penthouse in the Bahamas to being 'broke' and having to move back in with the parents. Also curious how the security on his bail works, and who his 'friends' are that have put up most of the collateral. His parent's house in Cali's value won't come close to covering that, and their holiday home might get seized if it was bought with dirty money.

Are there any regular Reg readers who would disagree with this article?

Fiat currencies DO have a value. You can pay your taxes with them. And you HAVE to pay your taxes.

OK, Crypto does have a use paying extortionist to get your data out of jail, but eventually the extortionists want to pay their taxes, as Al Capone found out!

There's Bitcoin and the shitcoins that are mostly Ponzi schemes and rug-pull rip-offs. Bitcoin will survive and thrive. The rest will die.

Don't equate Bitcoin with the rest. There can only be one!

"Bitcoin will survive and thrive."

I look forward to your tortured justification of this prognostication. Unless . . . are you part of a ransomware gang?

I was stupid enough to try popping 30 quid into Ethereum just for the hell of it. Really easy to get your money in, try getting it back out again! Which told me all I needed to know. I eventually managed to just transfer what I had left to a charity that accepts cryptocurrency donations. I'm sure they were most pleased with the £2.20 I ended up with.

It's a scam. Simple.

I don't care how dead it might be, the emissions from it are still real and we all need to have a serious conversation about how much freedom to waste energy is permitted going forward. The era of everyone using as much energy as they can buy for purposes with no social benefit needs to end yesterday.