This brings us to "cryptocurrency", about which I know only what I can write in little: One bitcoin is divisible to eight decimal places (100 millionths of one bitcoin), and this smallest unit is referred to as a Satoshi.
The Satoshi is the smallest unit of the bitcoin cryptocurrency is named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of the protocol used in blockchains and the bitcoin.
The Satoshi is currently touted to equal almost a nickel, 4and1/2
cents, but unlike the nickels we're used to --backed by the U.S. Government-- they are no more fungible than my phoney million dollar bill.
Plug nickels. A theory.
When a theory is the only one, it usually means I have misunderstood the theory or the problem --would appreciate apposite comments.
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In response to Jenny_O's comment below, I have added some info+photo on the meaning and origin of the "Plug Nickel", which occupies the opposite end of the Hypnocurrent Spectrum. I'll explain it in my reply to her excellent comment:
Dear Geo., I am lost to understand cryptocurrency - it is so cryptic that I can't be bothered to decrypt it. (I am quite good at buying and selling shares). Of course I heard that it devours masses of current (double-meaning here?)
ReplyDeleteI intend to use my time left on this beautiful earth to find out how much time a flower needs to fill up its nectar after it was visited by a bee - if any of your readers can tell me that: please, please do - no biologist (and I asked quite a few) could tell me.
I am glad that you feel better again, Geo. - and of course you know Mark Twains interesting short story "The Million Pound Bank Note" - to me much worthier than Hypnocurrency.
Dear Britta, Twain's £1,000,000 Bank-Note was certainly an effective metaphor of humanity's sense of compassionate generosity and fun. I delight in your further connective theme involving nectar spurs as they reward pollinators. I likewise look forward to theories>
DeleteIt is just too much for my shrinking brain to understand Bitcoin. However, my teenage granddaughter has invested in some and “attempted” to explain it to me. She is used to my blank stare but still went on and on. The only thing I got from her was that she made some money that day. That was a few weeks ago, but things turn on a word from Elon Musk.
ReplyDeleteDear lovely Arleen, Our brains are not shrinking; they're concentrating. Hacking one's own endeavors to amplify publicity is not a new technique. We remember back in in another century when Sinatra's son faked his own kidnapping to boost publicity. Likewise, the man you mentioned will do everything, even revive "Anonymous" to keep folks riveted on him. I hope your granddaughter DID make some money that day and gets to keep it. Perhaps Elon Musk will get to be emperor of Mars and remain
Deletethere.
I have never understood bitcoin or any of the other cryptocurrency. Smoke and mirrors. "Ignore that man behind the curtain."
ReplyDeleteDear Margaret, I too believe cryptocurrency is the main medium of exchange in OZ.
DeleteI don't think I will ever understand cryptocurrency. Some have tried to explain it to me but they may as well be speaking a foreign language.
ReplyDeleteDear Emma, I thoroughly agree. They may be speaking a foreign language --or a language of the future, but I doubt even my descendants will welcome or understand it.
DeleteI'm no expert on cryptocurrency, but I would not invest in "money" that can't be used to pay a bill.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
Dear Janie, it DOES look like cryptocurrency is set to take the fun out of fungible.
DeleteHa!
DeleteIs a plug nickel the same as a wooden nickel? If so, I think your theory, at least as I understand it, is correct. Some days I think the world has gone mad. But then I realize that it's just a few very public figures who make the news and give the impression of widespread madness. Most of us are just regular people, living regular lives, naming our kids sensible names that they won't suffer from all through their schooldays. lol
ReplyDeleteO_Jenny, I'm afraid a "plug" nickel is more similar to a "slug" nickel than a wooden one. To this end I've added a Normaphoto of an electrical junction box to my post (please consult above). J-box has 3/4 inch holes from which covers ("slugs") can be pried away to admit conduits. Rather than purchase a new j-box, an electrician can fill an extra hole with a nickel, impact it with a hammer until secure and use it to PLUG any future accidental electric discharge. Sometimes there's tape and solder involved, but that's ok.
DeleteAh - an excellent explanation. It must be excellent for me to understand it, as I'm not a handyman type at all. Seems like an appropriately inexpensive fix! And yes, not at all like a wooden nickel :)
DeleteWhat I understand about cryptocurrency is that it uses a large amount of energy, making it even worse for our ecology than the hardware version. But now I have land and can wiggle back to bartering :-)
ReplyDeleteDear Lisa, excellent wiggling project. I too sometimes practiced trading produce back and forth with neighbors but it got too hard to fit fruit and vegetables into my wallet.
DeleteMy only understanding of cryptocurrency is that it takes enormous quantities of energy in computers to operate it. That is more than enough for me not to want to have anything to do with it, or even to try to understand it. [Just as well, really!]
ReplyDeleteI must agree. I understand the system only vaguely, as it coincides with the game of Monopoly. Monopoly money is effective within the game but not beyond --not backed by insurers or governments. Any relation to goods and services has somehow escaped me.
DeleteA bit of a coin is too cryptic for this tiny mind to understand.
ReplyDeleteDear Bruce, "a bit of a coin"--I like that. It brings to mind various physicists opining the human brain exploits some sort of quantum coherence --a subatomic region occupied by irreducible particles. Apparently, according to my exhaustive research, Bitcoin can't be made smaller than the "Satoshi" --somewhat under the size of a plug nickel. Personally, I find this nomenclature less alarming than the close proximity of "The Church Of Our Lady, Help To Christians" to the town of Frankenstein, Missouri. I cannot force myself to reduce that.
DeleteA plug nickel I can understand. Cryptocurrency on the other hand even sounds dubious. I've read and studied it but find it to be too Asimovian, Vernish, Dickian** and beside that, too manipulative. So we are supposed to put faith in a substance that is "mined" by use of computers and energy. Maybe it should be called the Carbon Big foot" instead of a bit. I'm more comfortable with your million.
ReplyDelete**I enjoy the work of these authors, but as fictionalists and purveyors of speculative reality, not as Gospel prophets.
Wow. Dear Tom, I believe you've nailed something, "faith in a substance". Certainly, substance is reliable and invites trust and trade, but Bitcoin has no substance. Equally certain is the calculable value of ideas --Verne's moonshot, Azimov's laws of robotics. Dickens did it with the character of Peggotty in "Copperfield": Her gentle, generous, compassionate character improved lives and enabled heroes. Her reward? Love, security and committed appeals,like "Barkis is willing." The substantial medium of exchange for goods, services and ideas was perfected thousands of years ago. Currencies of trade among populations and countries had immediate,enduring value --tangible substance-- not consigned to disappearing ink or fallible electronic malfunction.
DeleteCryptocurrency isn't something I understand or have any interest in, as your Dear Readers already pointed out, I doubt it would work for me either... and they seem much more astute than I about it all! If only your bill were real... but then, I've found most Shops won't even take a real Hundred anymore... nor a Fifty... so perhaps it would be rendered quite useless?
ReplyDeleteDear Dawn, Indeed, my counterfeit million dollar bills have served as reward offered to the kids for help and happiness they've furnished through the years. The face-value of the bill is spiritual.
DeleteI'm staying as far away from cryptocurrency as I can, Geo. I understand it somewhat, but I have no interest in it , and I don't care if others make tons of money from it. I do worry about its environmental impact.
ReplyDeleteUnderstood! So far as I can intensely misunderstand it, cryptocurrency was invented on Planet Krypton and we all know what happened there.
DeleteI feel like somewhere in the world a chorus of "Ok Boomers" is chanting on repeat. It's funny you mention wine in the same post as cryptocurrency....I was at the wine store recently and they had a big cryptocurrency vending machine installed. It struck me as kind of a dangerous combination. I wonder how long it took the marketing team to come up with that idea? Like everyone here, I know nothing about cryptocurrency and find it vaguely threatening, but I'm not going to let that stop me from picking up a few Satoshi (probably while on an errand at the wine store-so convenient!) for the sake of experimentation and casual conversation starters (Oh me? I'm fine. I've amassed a very tiny bit-coin fortune.)And maybe, if a hole in the universe should open up, I'll donate a Satoshi to plug it. Hopefully, that missing half cent worth doesn't throw everything off and end the world
ReplyDeleteDear Consigliere, Your comment is delightful --the stuff of stabilizing humor, unlike cryptocurrency (the stuff of strange confusing dreams). If we have to plug a hole with a Satoshi, It's portal we shouldn't have pried the slug from in the first place.
DeleteAw thanks Geo. We do so many things we shouldn’t do. It’s a wonder “we” have lasted as long as we have.
Delete