I mean, wut? Alaskas favorite fast food restaurant is Tim Hortons? Hawaii’s is Popeyes? Also – what’s Mod? And why is it so popular?
I mentioned yesterday that our former VFX Supervisor on SG-1, James Tichenor, recommended we invest in Netflix. Back in 2004. Netflix? The movie rental company? James was quite insistent that streaming was the way of the future – but I’d been hearing about it forever and it seemed like streaming was exclusively the venue of people pirating off bit torrent. Oh, how wrong I was.
Fast-forward, oh, eleven years later and Akemi was telling me I should invest in this thing called bitcoin. Although I found the idea of digital currency interesting, I also found it altogether baffling, from the manner coins are “mined” to the bewildering means by which they are purchased and stored. Five years later, things are slightly less puzzling on that front, but I’m still on the fence. On the one hand, I think that, conceptually, it makes perfect sense and should be the currency of the future. On the other hand, how far into that future are we talking about because, at the moment, the coin has no applicable practical value beyond its theoretical prospectus. I mean, sure, some places will allow you to pay using bitcoin, but how many? And how many people actually do pay with bitcoin? At present, not very many, rendering bitcoin a purely speculative investment. Which is fine, I suppose, but opens it up to significant volatility. Also, I hear transaction times lag and the fees are high.
I was looking into the other digital currency, but I ultimately know even less about these coins beyond…
Ethereum: The second most popular alt coin – although a distant second – that, apparently, may suffer from security issues.
Ripple: Doesn’t require mining like other digital currency, but the fact that the majority of its coins are owned by Ripple makes the risk of manipulated inflation/deflation a concern.
Litecoin: Referred to by some as the silver to bitcoin’s gold, it offers faster transactions but is really just a bitcoin clone.
Tether: One of the more popular stable coins, so called because its market value is tied to a currency. It was hacked to the tune of 30 million in tokens a few years ago, which doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
Monero: Really, all I know about this one is that its private, untraceable, and perfect for drug dealers and terrorists.
EOS: The relatively new kid on the blockchain. Introduced in 2018, it offers fast transactions but confusing in its application.
And there are plenty more – Binance Coin, Bitcoin SV, Bitcoin Cash, Cardano, and Facebook’s yet to be released Libra. Like I said, all very interesting but also confounding and potentially unstable.
Would love to hear hear from you crypto experts. Have you invested? If so, which digital currency do you prefer. More importantly, which digital currency do you steer clear of and why?
Yesterday’s movie-themed question:
And tonight’s movie-themed question:
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