Bitcoin or Money?

[TwoTankAmin]

Let's suppose you have 1 million dollars. You can put it into a bank (or brokerage firm) or you can buy Bitcoin. Now my question is which of the two different assets do you think in today's world is easier to steal from. you? I am pretty sure hackers can get the Bitcoin with greater ease than anybody can rob a bank.

And then in the digital age many folks never carry money. I always have a few hundred in on me. I have credit cards but no smart phone. I wonder how most of the world would function if a serious solar flair suddenly hits us and electronics are not working. Or even worse what if an enemy nation manages to take down the internet here for some time?

I have this strange thought every now and then about self driving cars. When things reach the point that we no longer drive and our cars do it all. What if an enemy nation gets control over the systems that actually does the driving, maybe just the GPS part, and they start arranging for all the cars to drive into each other, the ocean, rivers etc. So there you are in the self-driving car doing 70 mph headed for a brick wall and no way to stop it?

Personally, I am pretty sure I will never go anywhere in a self driving vehicle. They scare the poop out of me.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Trans Atlantic AIrways first flight totally controlled by an AI. There is no pilot, there is no co-pilot. Years of development and testing have been conducted to insure this will be a safe flight. As we are taking off we want to assure each and every one of you that nothing can go wrong, can go wrong, can go wrong, go wrong, wrong ..........

 

[Fishmanic]

I was in the supermarket yesterday and saw one of these safety robots a few feet away from me. Never saw one of these before but evidently they have been around for a few years now. They check for dropped items or wet spots on the floor. And they also look for low stocking levels on the shelves. They report to the staff as needed.

 

[jaylach]

I think that it is a long time before a plane will not have a pilot or a self driven car can't immediately be taken over by the person behind the wheel.

Oh, and I won't even think about touching Bitcoin as it has absolutely zero stability.

 

[Colin_T]

If you invest in bitcoin now and sell in a couple of years, you will probably double your money. That's a lot better than a bank. Governments initially liked digital currency and wanted a cashless society to help prevent tax fraud and money laundering and trafficking. Now we have digital currency they realise the criminal organisations are using it for those exact reasons and the government can't control it

Since bitcoin and most other digital currencies are controlled by organised crime, they probably have very good safety measures in place to stop hacking, and if someone does hack them, they will hack back, find the perpetrator and remove them.

As for robbing a bank, that's easy to do. Bank vaults are on a time delay lock. They usually open the vault first thing in the morning to stock the tellers, then close for most of the day before re-opening in the afternoon to put everything away. They have an override (the manager does) and if you stick a gun to their head and kill a few staff members, they will probably open the vault for you. Make sure you have semi and full automatic weapons, wear body armor and have several escape routes and you're good to go.

--------------------

Most modern aircraft fly automatically once airborne. Auto pilot on aircraft has been around for decades and it wasn't hard for plane companies to incorporate modern technology into aircraft so they can climb, descend, avoid bad weather, and even take off and land without a pilot. The two or three people in the cockpit of a plane are primarily there to monitor the control panel and make the passengers feel safe. The next generation of aircraft will be fully automated and be capable of flying without pilots.

Elon Musk and Space-X have rockets capable of launching, going into space and landing again and it is fully automated. Commercial aircraft will be the same soon.

--------------------

Self driving cars will be safer than human driven vehicles because the computer won't get distracted by its phone or other things. They won't speed, tailgate or cause accidents. And engineers will make sure they have an override switch in them so you can take control of the vehicle in an emergency.

If enemies hack into the car or plane's computer systems, well that's not going to be good. But they will also know that if they can hack our systems, we can hack theirs. As for an enemy doing that, I wouldn't bother personally. I would simply use an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) and black out the entire country. There would be no power, phone, internet or transport. Emergency departments would be unable to communicate or get around. Perishable food would deteriorate, there would be no water or sewerage pumps working. The place would be in chaos and a few weeks after when they get power back, you simply do it again. The enemy could simply sit back and watch the country go back into the stone-age and the affected country wouldn't be able to use computers to try and find out who did it. They would be totally in the dark, quite literally.

 

[seangee]

I have this strange thought every now and then about self driving cars. When things reach the point that we no longer drive and our cars do it all. What if an enemy nation gets control over the systems that actually does the driving, maybe just the GPS part, and they start arranging for all the cars to drive into each other, the ocean, rivers etc. So there you are in the self-driving car doing 70 mph headed for a brick wall and no way to stop it?

They don't need self driving cars for this - here's what they can be done today

• Shut down the power supply - you don't need solar flares or EMP
• Turn off the phone system
• Turn all the traffic lights green (or off)
• Take down air traffic control
• Shut off water / oil lines

And that's just to name a few!
Even more scary is that the current encryption used on the internet can be cracked in seconds by a quantum computer. Quantum computing is very expensive and the only organisations that can afford to use it today are the likes of Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft etc (all the usual suspects) and government. But there are already private users - and guess what? Organised crime is the only industry that can afford it, so today they are the biggest users.

 

[connorlindeman]

Bitcoin ad other cryptocurrency are good, as an investment. I don't get people who try to use that in their day to day life. Cash is still king in that sphere.

 

[connorlindeman]

They have an override (the manager does) and if you stick a gun to their head and kill a few staff members, they will probably open the vault for you. Make sure you have semi and full automatic weapons, wear body armor and have several escape routes and you're good to go.

I can't believe you just gave us instructions on how to rob a bank.

 

[GaryE]

As a mod, we're getting into the realm of unacceptable. I know people are joking around, but I had to delete the last one because of violent imagery.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

@Colin_T

$2.2 Billion Stolen from Crypto Platforms in 2024, but Hacked Volumes Stagnate Toward Year-End as DPRK Slows Activity Post-July​

I am sorry,but I will not be considering you as my financial advisor

And, I do not know about Australia, but in the states we have something called the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation).

the standard maximum amount insured by the FDIC is $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, for each account ownership category.

So you put 1/4 of the million in each of 4 banks and you can not have it be stolen.

And as for your comment about self-driving cars, oops wrong again I think.

Companies Developing Truly Driverless Vehicles:

Waymo:
Waymo, formerly known as Google's self-driving project, is developing autonomous vehicles for ride-hailing and delivery services, with some vehicles designed to operate without a human driver.

Zoox:
Zoox is another company focusing on robotaxis, designing vehicles from the ground up for passengers, without a steering wheel or driver's seat.

Nuro:
Nuro is a company that develops self-driving vehicles for delivery services.

And then what about Tesla self-driving cars? Unlike others, these rely 100% on cameras. No radar etc. The complaint about this is heavy rain, snow or fog may be an issue.

And do we really think that people in those cars with driver overrides will be paying anywhere near the same attention to the road as we don now with no self-driving feature? Do we think self drive will have more or fewer people texting which the car is driving? And if you have been riding safely in a self-drive for some time I would bet this will make texting while the care is going will be more frequent.

A plane's auto-pilot is not the same thing as no pilots.

Here is what I do know. Modern cars are no longer repairable, nor is doing much maint. on them possible since they became digitally controlled in many ways. A service dept. needs to hook up a computer to the car to diagnose and determine what needs to be fixed.

If there is one thing I do know for sure. Most of what we have owned in the home that involves the combination of mechanical and digital usually breaks on the digital side not the mechanical one. The last dishwasher I bought I chose the only model in the showroom that had nothing digital. It has buttons and a dial. It has been the most reliable dishwasher in the house we have had in the past 30 or so years. Out first microwave was an Amana Radar Range and the had it for about 25 years. Since then we have have had to buy 3 or 4 new ones.

I am happy to use digital technology, to a point. The steps I take to protect my data and privacy have served me well since I got my first PC built for me by a friend in 1987. I have never been hacked, I have never had malware come onto my PC nor have I ever gotten a virus. But, I also know that it is not protective software that mostly keeps me safe, it is how I choose to use the net. I almost do not exist in cyberspace.

Btw, when I left the work force I had spent the last dozen years working in Wall Street. I was a broker, was able to sell insurance products which I never did. But I got qualified as one of the very earliest to become a Certified Financial Planner. I got my training before there was a certification board, and about 9 years after the professioal training started in 1972. In my final years in the business I worked in a division that consulted to the huge defined benfit palns- both corporate and municipal. When I retied from the profession, I was also a registered investment advisor. I managed family and my own money and still manage my own as the family is long gone.

I still to don't understand what gives Digital currency any value whatsoever. It is what I learned to describe as a greater fool investment. This is one with little intrinsic value but which people chase because they believe somebody else will always be willing to pay more for than they did. I did not coin the term and am not accusing anybody of being a fool. It is just a descriptive term for a highly speculative investment

The Dutch tulip bulb market bubble was one of the most famous market bubbles and crashes of all time. Also known as tulipmania, it occurred in Holland during the early to mid-1600s when speculation drove the value of tulip bulbs to extremes. The rarest tulip bulbs traded for as much as six times the average person’s annual salary at the market's peak.

The story of tulipmania serves as a parable for the pitfalls of excessive greed and speculation in investing.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Flash- just found this from Mar. 16, 2025.

Tesla Autopilot drives into Wile E Coyote fake road wall in camera vs lidar test​

Read about it here https://electrek.co/2025/03/16/tesla-autopilot-drives-into-wall-camera-vs-lidar-test/

 

[GaryE]

The Acme Anvil self driving cars have no such issue.

 

[Back in the fold]

I bit a coin once to make sure it wasn’t a wooden nickel .

 

[seangee]

f there is one thing I do know for sure. Most of what we have owned in the home that involves the combination of mechanical and digital usually breaks on the digital side not the mechanical one.

Yup. Sold my car yesterday for that very reason. Nothing wrong with it and 100% reliable. Its also the nicest car I have ever had. In perfect condition but it will soon be 10 years old. Only reason is my concern that if the electrickery starts going wrong it becomes very expensive to maintain. And of course the replacement has even more electronics crammed in...

I still to don't understand what gives Digital currency any value whatsoever. It is what I learned to describe as a greater fool investment. This is one with little intrinsic value

I think you meant to say ZERO intrinsic value