RJM Unlimited
Poet, Lyricist, Father, Wonder Lover, Hopefully Kind Person
This website includes the poems and songs and musings of Robert J. McBride. The poems speak for themselves. The songs help the poems find their voice. The musings are just that and cover a variety of subjects; some are amusing and some are not. The songs are the result of collaboration with family or friends who have musical talent and can make songs using my poems/lyrics and occasional melodies. The collaborators have included golf buddies (nicknamed “Unplayable Lies) as well as my son-in-law, Jason Baskin, and my daughters, Amy Baskin and Maureen McBride. My wife, Jackie, also provided her talents. However, the main contributor has been my friend and song-writing partner, Rob Volpintesta of Angel Thorne Studios in Bethel, CT. Finally, there is a children's book at the end which was inspired by our daughter, Sally, and was brilliantly illustrated by Jason Baskin as well as a few short stories.
My deepest gratitude to those who collaborated to make the songs happen. And thanks to anyone who listens to the songs or reads the poems or musings or children's book or short stories. I hope you like them.
Featured piece of the day (poem or music or whatever). It's also in it's normal place; you can find it on the TOC below but you have to use the menu (top left) to get to it (or anything else).
RJM
2/2/25
What is Cryptocurrency?
For some time now I have wondered about cryptocurrency. What is it? What factors determine its value? What gives it any value? I know that some people “invest” in it as a part of their investment portfolio. Why do they? How does cryptocurrency relate to and rely on “blockchain” technology and what is a “blockchain”? What is meant by “mining” for cryptocurrency? What does it involve? Who can create a cryptocurrency and what does it take to create one?
At one point, I thought that the “currency” aspect of cryptocurrency may answer some of the questions. After all, most currencies are just pieces of paper that have almost no value in and of themselves. They only have value because people agree to accept that they have value. People agree that they can be used to exchange for goods and services that do have value, such as food or housing or medical care or any of the goods and services that people need or find valuable for whatever reason. Currencies like the Euro or the Yen or the USD or others are treated as “legal tender” and can be used to pay for goods and services. So, I thought, maybe cryptocurrency is just another form of currency that can be used to purchase things. But that is not the case. With very few exceptions (El Salvador, Cuba), countries do not recognize or accept cryptocurrencies as legal tender.
I decided that perhaps it would be best to look for some definition of cryptocurrency. I found the following on Wikipedia:
According to Jan Lansky, a cryptocurrency is a system that meets six conditions:[34]
It gets to be easier and easier to get wrapped around the axle trying to understand how cryptocurrency (henceforth, crypto) works. The whole blockchain thing is meant to make it more and more difficult to rig the system and create or wrongly obtain crypto. In some ways, I guess, it is probably ingenious; but some geniuses do bad things. Anyway, I am still hung up on where the value comes from and what makes the value fluctuate over time.
With traditional currencies, the value of the currency is in great part determined by the strength of the government which issues and regulates the currency. Thus, if the government and the economy of the country are strong, the currency will be strong in comparison to other currencies that are issued and controlled by other countries that are not as strong. Currencies such as the Euro and the USD and all the others are traded and people make or lose money based on which currencies they hold long positions in compared to other currencies. Although there are hundreds of different cryptocurrencies it does not appear that there are similar exchanges between those with rising and falling valuations. There is no equivalent that I know of to forex trading.
Okay, I have written a couple pages and I am no closer to understanding crypto that I was at the start. Let me go back to the first three questions. What is it? What factors determine its value? What gives it any value? Since it is not legal tender and would have to be converted to legal tender to be used for “normal” purchases in the open economy, it seems to have no value outside of its own crypto world. But, I guess that within that world it could have value. If, for example, I owned some amount of Bitcoins and you had some desire to have more Bitcoins, I could propose a transaction where I would move some amount of Bitcoins from my holdings to yours and you would give me something in return, like a house or a car or some drugs or some weapons. Actually, in the U.S. it may not work so well for the house or the car because local governments would require copies of the transactions to support the transfer of the property and to determine certain taxes and fees and other items of administrative importance. But for things like drug payments or other items that are not tracked (or that the two parties don’t want to be tracked) the payment in crypto may be quite useful.
So, perhaps in limited circumstances crypto can be used as payment without having to be converted to a currency that is a legal tender. But, in normal circumstances it seems that it would be preferable for both parties, the buyer and the seller, to use traditional legal tender in the open market. It makes one wonder why the parties would want to avoid the open market; it’s easy to assume that such an exchange is trying to hide something. In any case, the key point is that the cryptocurrency has no implicit value outside of its own crypto world and it must be exchanged into some form of legal tender to be used for most purchases.
So how did the crypto get to have any value? As far as I know, it gets its value when people purchase the crypto using legal tender of some sort. For example, it gets value when a person buys some crypto using something like USD. Good enough. Let’s say I purchase a unit of crypto, say 1 Bitcoin, for, say, $100,000. What happens to the $100,000? Where does it go? What happens to it? What is it used for? Did I just increase the value of other Bitcoins? Are there a limited number of Bitcoins available? Or did I just create a new Bitcoin?
And, in any case, what happens to the $100,000? Does it go into some bank account? Is it used to invest in something, like a business or some stocks or bonds or interest-bearing accounts? Is it buried under some crypto mattress? What happens? Is it used to pay other crypto investors who want to “cash out” their crypto investments? Is it used to pay or compensate whoever controls the particular cryptocurrency? What happens to it? And what causes the value of the crypto to fluctuate? What makes it go up? What makes it go down? How easy is it to cash it out? How does that work?
I can kind of understand how other investments work. If you buy a stock it’s price will fluctuate based on the financial and overall performance of the company as well as the expected future performance of the company. If you invest in bonds the value will depend on the interest rate and the level of confidence you have that the issuer of the bonds will make good on future payments of interest and principal over the life of the bond. If you invest in interest bearing accounts at a bank or other financial institution, the value of your investment depends on the interest rate as well as the strength of the bank or financial institution.
If you invest in real estate or a business or a mutual fund or any type of traditional investment, you know the factors that will influence the future value of the investment. If you invest in gold or silver or some other precious metals, you know that their scarcity is part of their allure but they also have some useful applications in the real world. Crypto is not a commodity. If you invest in crypto, what makes it valuable and what impacts its future value?
If you invest in a “Ponzi Scheme” you will do well if you are an early investor and you cash out before the house of cards crumbles. Bernie Madoff had a lot of satisfied and even happy investors before the truth came out. People who invested with Madoff were either misled or didn’t really investigate what was going on but people who invest in cryptocurrencies are willing to put their money into a black hole with no hope of finding out what their investment is being used for or what the assets and liabilities of the cryptocurrency world look like. What is the underlying asset or proposed use of the assets that make the crypto valuable? And don’t say blockchain; blockchain is merely a growing list of records but has no intrinsic value on its own.
Maybe the answer has something to do with cryptocurrency “mining.” Let’s see what the definition of crypto “mining” is. According to AI Overview, “Cryptocurrency mining is the process of creating new digital coins and adding them to a blockchain network. It's a competition to solve complex math puzzles, and the winner receives the newly minted coins. Sorry, if anything, this definition only makes it more difficult to determine what the value of crypto is based on. It looks like you get rewarded if you can break the crypto code. If this is true, it looks like a dog chasing its tail.
It seems to me that such an achievement would show that the blockchain was capable of being compromised and, therefore, the crypto world was unsafe. It also seems counterintuitive that such a breach should lead to a reward of some newly minted coins to the “winner.” In no way can I see how it adds any value to the crypto world.
Perhaps in a world where people are so in love with computing and virtual worlds and NFT’s, cryptocurrencies have some inherent value because they fit in with these obsessions. Maybe virtual reality is preferable for these people.
And finally, who can create a cryptocurrency? Sam Bankman-Fried. The Trump family. I think Bernie Madoff would have created one if they were available at the time.
RJM
2/2/25
What is Cryptocurrency?
For some time now I have wondered about cryptocurrency. What is it? What factors determine its value? What gives it any value? I know that some people “invest” in it as a part of their investment portfolio. Why do they? How does cryptocurrency relate to and rely on “blockchain” technology and what is a “blockchain”? What is meant by “mining” for cryptocurrency? What does it involve? Who can create a cryptocurrency and what does it take to create one?
At one point, I thought that the “currency” aspect of cryptocurrency may answer some of the questions. After all, most currencies are just pieces of paper that have almost no value in and of themselves. They only have value because people agree to accept that they have value. People agree that they can be used to exchange for goods and services that do have value, such as food or housing or medical care or any of the goods and services that people need or find valuable for whatever reason. Currencies like the Euro or the Yen or the USD or others are treated as “legal tender” and can be used to pay for goods and services. So, I thought, maybe cryptocurrency is just another form of currency that can be used to purchase things. But that is not the case. With very few exceptions (El Salvador, Cuba), countries do not recognize or accept cryptocurrencies as legal tender.
I decided that perhaps it would be best to look for some definition of cryptocurrency. I found the following on Wikipedia:
According to Jan Lansky, a cryptocurrency is a system that meets six conditions:[34]
- The system does not require a central authority; its state is maintained through distributed consensus. (Not backed by any government; it is its own authority or government.)
- The system keeps an overview of cryptocurrency units and their ownership. (This is where the blockchain comes in.)
- The system defines whether new cryptocurrency units can be created. If new cryptocurrency units can be created, the system defines the circumstances of their origin and how to determine the ownership of these new units. (Again, the blockchain.)
- Ownership of cryptocurrency units can be proved exclusively cryptographically. (Blockchain again.)
- The system allows transactions to be performed in which ownership of the cryptographic units is changed. A transaction statement can only be issued by an entity proving the current ownership of these units. (Not sure what this implies; read on?)
- If two different instructions for changing the ownership of the same cryptographic units are simultaneously entered, the system performs at most one of them. (Somehow it decides which one is more likely to be legitimate; it gets more and more bizarre.)
It gets to be easier and easier to get wrapped around the axle trying to understand how cryptocurrency (henceforth, crypto) works. The whole blockchain thing is meant to make it more and more difficult to rig the system and create or wrongly obtain crypto. In some ways, I guess, it is probably ingenious; but some geniuses do bad things. Anyway, I am still hung up on where the value comes from and what makes the value fluctuate over time.
With traditional currencies, the value of the currency is in great part determined by the strength of the government which issues and regulates the currency. Thus, if the government and the economy of the country are strong, the currency will be strong in comparison to other currencies that are issued and controlled by other countries that are not as strong. Currencies such as the Euro and the USD and all the others are traded and people make or lose money based on which currencies they hold long positions in compared to other currencies. Although there are hundreds of different cryptocurrencies it does not appear that there are similar exchanges between those with rising and falling valuations. There is no equivalent that I know of to forex trading.
Okay, I have written a couple pages and I am no closer to understanding crypto that I was at the start. Let me go back to the first three questions. What is it? What factors determine its value? What gives it any value? Since it is not legal tender and would have to be converted to legal tender to be used for “normal” purchases in the open economy, it seems to have no value outside of its own crypto world. But, I guess that within that world it could have value. If, for example, I owned some amount of Bitcoins and you had some desire to have more Bitcoins, I could propose a transaction where I would move some amount of Bitcoins from my holdings to yours and you would give me something in return, like a house or a car or some drugs or some weapons. Actually, in the U.S. it may not work so well for the house or the car because local governments would require copies of the transactions to support the transfer of the property and to determine certain taxes and fees and other items of administrative importance. But for things like drug payments or other items that are not tracked (or that the two parties don’t want to be tracked) the payment in crypto may be quite useful.
So, perhaps in limited circumstances crypto can be used as payment without having to be converted to a currency that is a legal tender. But, in normal circumstances it seems that it would be preferable for both parties, the buyer and the seller, to use traditional legal tender in the open market. It makes one wonder why the parties would want to avoid the open market; it’s easy to assume that such an exchange is trying to hide something. In any case, the key point is that the cryptocurrency has no implicit value outside of its own crypto world and it must be exchanged into some form of legal tender to be used for most purchases.
So how did the crypto get to have any value? As far as I know, it gets its value when people purchase the crypto using legal tender of some sort. For example, it gets value when a person buys some crypto using something like USD. Good enough. Let’s say I purchase a unit of crypto, say 1 Bitcoin, for, say, $100,000. What happens to the $100,000? Where does it go? What happens to it? What is it used for? Did I just increase the value of other Bitcoins? Are there a limited number of Bitcoins available? Or did I just create a new Bitcoin?
And, in any case, what happens to the $100,000? Does it go into some bank account? Is it used to invest in something, like a business or some stocks or bonds or interest-bearing accounts? Is it buried under some crypto mattress? What happens? Is it used to pay other crypto investors who want to “cash out” their crypto investments? Is it used to pay or compensate whoever controls the particular cryptocurrency? What happens to it? And what causes the value of the crypto to fluctuate? What makes it go up? What makes it go down? How easy is it to cash it out? How does that work?
I can kind of understand how other investments work. If you buy a stock it’s price will fluctuate based on the financial and overall performance of the company as well as the expected future performance of the company. If you invest in bonds the value will depend on the interest rate and the level of confidence you have that the issuer of the bonds will make good on future payments of interest and principal over the life of the bond. If you invest in interest bearing accounts at a bank or other financial institution, the value of your investment depends on the interest rate as well as the strength of the bank or financial institution.
If you invest in real estate or a business or a mutual fund or any type of traditional investment, you know the factors that will influence the future value of the investment. If you invest in gold or silver or some other precious metals, you know that their scarcity is part of their allure but they also have some useful applications in the real world. Crypto is not a commodity. If you invest in crypto, what makes it valuable and what impacts its future value?
If you invest in a “Ponzi Scheme” you will do well if you are an early investor and you cash out before the house of cards crumbles. Bernie Madoff had a lot of satisfied and even happy investors before the truth came out. People who invested with Madoff were either misled or didn’t really investigate what was going on but people who invest in cryptocurrencies are willing to put their money into a black hole with no hope of finding out what their investment is being used for or what the assets and liabilities of the cryptocurrency world look like. What is the underlying asset or proposed use of the assets that make the crypto valuable? And don’t say blockchain; blockchain is merely a growing list of records but has no intrinsic value on its own.
Maybe the answer has something to do with cryptocurrency “mining.” Let’s see what the definition of crypto “mining” is. According to AI Overview, “Cryptocurrency mining is the process of creating new digital coins and adding them to a blockchain network. It's a competition to solve complex math puzzles, and the winner receives the newly minted coins. Sorry, if anything, this definition only makes it more difficult to determine what the value of crypto is based on. It looks like you get rewarded if you can break the crypto code. If this is true, it looks like a dog chasing its tail.
It seems to me that such an achievement would show that the blockchain was capable of being compromised and, therefore, the crypto world was unsafe. It also seems counterintuitive that such a breach should lead to a reward of some newly minted coins to the “winner.” In no way can I see how it adds any value to the crypto world.
Perhaps in a world where people are so in love with computing and virtual worlds and NFT’s, cryptocurrencies have some inherent value because they fit in with these obsessions. Maybe virtual reality is preferable for these people.
And finally, who can create a cryptocurrency? Sam Bankman-Fried. The Trump family. I think Bernie Madoff would have created one if they were available at the time.
Table of Contents (press the MENU icon on the upper left next to RJM UNLIMITED to get to the contents)
Music Videos (not really videos; just the words with a few pics here and there)
Music w/o Videos (The lyrics are under the songs)
Poems (they must be poems; they rhyme)
Musings (Some things to think about)
Children's Book
Short Stories (New for me but I'm having fun and sorting some things out)
Music Videos (not really videos; just the words with a few pics here and there)
- Division
- Life is Art
- AI
- Ends and Means
- A Colorful Song
- Not As Good As You
- We're All Fools
- Life Is Fatal
- One Great Life
- Planning Ahead (Future Tense)
- Not Bad People
- Sally Anne
- My Gal
- Fertilizer
- Naïve Song
- Addis
- The Curtain
- Pictures (Instrumental)
- Pictures
- Slow Green
- Long Distance Time
- Prime Time Choice
- Not Short on Longing - Her/Him
Music w/o Videos (The lyrics are under the songs)
- I Could Have Been Great
- Mix It Up and Shake It
- Chances
- Causes
- Bred Alone
- Daft
- Wouldn't Trade
- Talia Anne
- Attraction
- Mama
- Regrets
- Not Thirsty Anymore
- Devoid
- Malibu
- Moving On
- So Much To Gain
- Lucky (In Love)
- Wind, Earth, and Sky
- Competition
- Going Sixty
- California Cate
- Philosopher's Lament
- Life
- Time Walks
- Wasted Time
Poems (they must be poems; they rhyme)
- Artistic Freedom
- Anti-Procrastination
- Going Back to Ground Zero
- Brain Dread
- At War With God
- An Act of Contrition
- Relativity
- Capricorn to Cancer
- Dual Duel
- Oh, My God ... Oh My, God
- For Give and For Get
- Cosmic Currency
- Revelations
- In Pursuit
- Not Buying It
- Callous Cruel Lies
- Rx for Commercial Suckscess
- Ba Da Bing (A Modern Love Story?)
- The New Economy
- Religion Isn't Worth a Damn (Loaves and Fish Sticks)
- Anti Christ
- Power Ball
- Attack on America
- Social Progress
- Farmer Otto
- Randy Link
- Class Act
- Equal and Opposite
- Loud To Be an American
- Good News, Bad News
- Tense
- Legacy of Love
- Responsibility
- A Brief History in Rhyme
- Sports
- Poetic License
- Golfer's Blues
- Sir Cumference
- Trees
- Fading
- Just Because
- The Big Test
- Contemplation
- Bwa Bwa Book
- Memes to an End
- I'm a Poet
- Coaxing Out the Spark
- Daynight
- Brain Drops
- Taps
- Here To Be
- Like Hell
- Empathy and Kindness
- Frustration and Rage
- Pretending
- Building an Inheritance
- The Same Amount of Sunlight
- Angry Artists
- Ode #1 to 3
- Manifest Destiny (What Keeps Me Up at Night)
Musings (Some things to think about)
- The Initial Musings cover such diverse topics as the creation stories, the theory of relativity, and the international date line. There are a few poems and pictures mixed in to provide a little light relief from the heavy subjects and tedious prose.
- Subsequent Musings address Fundamental Divides in the way our nation views political issues, my views on religion and spirituality in God Is Love, and my dream of a new and better political party called Responsible Party. There are also some thoughts on the state of politics and power in the world and in America mulled over in Power Struggles. And Christianity is considered in The Tangled Web. A similar musing is titled Creation Stories and Their Impact.
- The latest Musing asks the question What is Cryptocurrency? Unfortunately, the musing lacks a direct answer but there are so many questions!
Children's Book
- The Gdoodledoo (Pronounced like Ga-doodle-do)
Short Stories (New for me but I'm having fun and sorting some things out)
- Fruber's Theory - (How the Multiverse Was Discovered)
- The Holiday Conversation