Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

Wow. An "investment" that is not based on anything is losing value? Whouldathunkit. Now, if you'd generated a few hundred Bitcoins at the beginning when it was possible and sold them when they were worth $100,000+, that would have been quite awesome. But it still wouldn't have been an investment: it would have been speculative trading to other speculators. Because there's nothing behind it. Still, the only value in Bitcoin is other people buying it and it being used for illegal activity such as to traffic in drugs and paying ransomware demands.

This is an excellent quote from the CNBC article: "Bitcoin differs from stocks, bonds and real estate because it doesn’t generate earnings, interest payments or rental income that investors can use to estimate its value, says Robert Johnson, a finance professor at Creighton University. Instead, its price is largely determined solely by investor demand.

“You cannot invest in Bitcoin, you can only speculate,” he says."

A comment in the Slashdot story notes that prominent FORMER promotors of Bitcoin, Marc Andreesen and Peter Thiel are no longer singing the praises of Bitcoin, they're now telling people to invest in AI. Apparently they made their money in BC and got out.

By the way, unless you're really good at timing markets, don't invest in AI.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/12/bitcoins-price-drop-is-forcing-investors-to-revisit-why-they-own-it.html

https://slashdot.org/story/26/06/14/0817238/bitcoin-has-lost-nearly-half-its-value-in-11-months

The Ukraine operation was stealing power from the grid at an order of $260,000 PER MONTH! using rigged power meters. The equipment seized included 5,000 PCs and 3,800 PlayStations, along with various other things. One hopes they also seized a bunch of the mined Bitcoins!

https://www.yahoo.com/news/look-inside-underground-crypto-mining-090129713.html


The Texas operation. Sigh. Because Texas has cheap energy and an absolutely infallible power grid, an operation has started up there that, when completed, will consume 750 MEGAWATTS of energy. The mayor of the town is so invested that he himself has his own server rack mining Bitcoin.

As an example, 750 megawatts is enough to power 150,000 homes. And Bitcoins are backed by - absolutely nothing. They're vaporware backed by the faith of the people who have bought them and are willing to buy and sell them. They've been proven to be no where near as anonymous as originally touted, witnessed by the number of people in prison for illegal drug, weapon, and murder for hire attempts, such as the operators of the Silk Road.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-miners-break-ground-texas-213205425.html


Greed over common sense, any and every day.