this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
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[–] stabby_cicada 27 points 1 month ago (3 children)

at least 130 countries are working on developing national cryptocurrencies.

CBDCs aren't cryptocurrencies.

As for the rest, "It's good because it's making lots of money" isn't as persuasive an argument as you think it is.

[–] Zos_Kia@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

commenting again cause the other poster's remark prodded me into digging the numbers on fundraising and it's pretty interesting :

So the best year for crypto was 2021 with >30B$ raised. 2024 is projected for 10B$ raised so indeed that's a divide by 3, pretty grim picture, right ?

Except if you take a look across industries, it's obvious that 2021 was an anomaly year everywhere. For example Healthtech peaked around 60B$ in 2021 before going down to 15B$ in 2024. Surely you don't think that Healthtech is a dead fad, do you ? That pattern is consistent across industries.

[–] AlDente@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sorry, I'm a bit confused by the "fundraising" terminology. Is this in regards to investments in the cryptocurrency industry, such as exchanges and other corporations, or individual purchases of the raw assets?

Looking at market cap, Bitcoin peaked earlier this year at $1.43 trillion and is currently at $1.23 trillion. That's only a 14% drop. If you look at the global cryptocurrency market cap, it peaked in 2021 at $3.07 trillion and is currently at $2.26 trillion. That's a 26% drop. I understand that you don't think crypto is dead, but there's a lot of delusion in this thread. Surely, if cryptocurrencies are dead, Disney (down 53% from peak) and Intel (down 67% from peak) are on life support.

[–] Zos_Kia@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 1 month ago

Good point, the health of the speculative market ("people buying and selling btc and other cryptos") is a different thing from the health of the industry ("people starting crypto projects and raising VC money to fund them").

By fundraising, i meant the second one. I find it to be a better indicator because it sends the message that people are building projects with promises of value convincing enough that VCs invest in them. I personally think those promises are bullshit but if VCs are pouring 10 billion bucks a year in an industry you cannot credibly call it dead or dying.

To the more general point of the meme... some people only consume headlines. Their pattern is easily recognizable :

  • the mainstream (as in non-tech) news cycle has calmed down a bit so they think AI is on the brink of death
  • big names like Sam Altman come across as insufferable assholes so they think that's representative of the tens of thousands of people currently working the field
  • they don't keep up to date on the subject so they have no idea how far everything has gone in just the past 12 months
  • they over-invest on marginal news like the "model collapse" paper which was reposted a million times on Lemmy and Reddit

It's the same energy as QAnon when they were convinced that Trump would parachute from a helicopter at Biden's investiture to commandeer the US army and publicly execute Hilary Clinton. They really do believe the "AI hype" is about to simmer down and then they'll have been right all along lmao

[–] Zos_Kia@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I don't think GP is arguing that crypto is a good thing here. They are refuting the meme which calls crypto a dead fad.

As mind boggling as it may sound, crypto is still a very strong industry, raising about 10 billion per year. Sure fundraising has been divided by 3 since the hype years but that's still very comfortable numbers.

Again, not saying it is a good thing. But just because it doesn't make mainstream headlines anymore doesn't mean it's dead.

[–] AlDente@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I agree with everything you're saying except crypto is not down by more than half since it's peak.

[–] Zos_Kia@lemmynsfw.com 0 points 1 month ago

You know what you're right, i was mistakenly taking 2022 as a baseline. I'll edit my original comment to reflect that.