This post really isn’t the usual faire of this community. Sorry about that. If there’s a better place for me to put this, definitely feel free to point me there.

But, to the point of my post, before Bitcoin became a widespread cult, back when all Bitcoin was was a couple of posts on Slashdot, back when mining it was comparatively extremely easy/quick/“profitable”, I mined some Bitcoin. About 1/20 of a Bitcoin. Just by, like, leaving my computer on for a month or so. And I still have access to it.

And Bitcoin is worth can be sold for $62,000 USD per bitcoin right now which makes my little 1/20 of a Bitcoin tradeable for about $3,100 of real money.

Now I know that blockchain is just straight up a scam. But I’ve still got this Bitcoin in a wallet on a hard drive in my posession. (I know, the wallet doesn’t actually “contain” the Bitcoin. Leave me alone.)

The obvious thing to do with it would be to sell it now, but that would leave some poor chap(s) holding a $3,100 bag in a way that I wouldn’t feel great about.

I could just sit on it forever. I suppose I could sell it and donate the proceeds to some cause I thought to be worthy or anti-crypto. If there were enough crypto-skeptics had cryptocurrencies and wanted cryptocurrency to die in a fire, they(/we?) could coordinate to use our collective cryptocurrency in a way that most damages the market and hopefully hastens a crash-to-zero. (But the likelihood that there’d be enough cryptocurrency in the hands of crypto-skeptics to pull that off seems low.) Or I could print out my private keys, delete them from my hard drive, and ceremonially burn the papers while chanting “web3 is going great”.

And maybe this post is just me asking like-minded folks to give me permission to just sell it and leave someone holding a bag so I can buy myself a new OLED TV. Heh.

Whatever the case, I wanted to hear you folks’ takes.

Edit: Thanks for the input, everyone. I’m gonna sell it.

    • self@awful.systemsEnglish
      12·
      6 months ago

      this is brilliant; I’m gonna have to keep it in mind if I hear any of the remaining crypto-encumbered folks in my life are looking to divest in a way that’ll at least do some good

  • owenfromcanada@lemmy.worldEnglish
    65·
    6 months ago

    Personally, I see no moral issue with selling. Whoever is buying is (I’m assuming) in control of their financial decisions, so if it crashes and they’re out $3k, that’s on them. So sell it and treat yo self.

    For what it’s worth, Buttcoins aren’t really any different from stocks. It’s arbitrary “ownership” that has no intrinsic value (there’s nuance there, but in general the money is pretty abstracted away from anything real). I’d say it’s no morally different than trading on the stock market.

  • emax_gomax@lemmy.worldEnglish
    32·
    6 months ago

    I’d say just sell it. I think the thought that you’re selling means someone else is losing is the issue here, you’re not convincing anyone to buy. you’re not spreading"the scam". If that person wants to buy bitcoin their gonna do it with or without your selling. May as well give them what they want and benefit yourself intern. I have this same sorta gripe with epic games weekly free giveaway on Thursdays. I know it’s just to harvest data, I know I’m never gonna buy anything on EGS, I know some poor schmuck is compensating for my free game by buying microtransactiojs on fortnight. But end of the day it’s free games and me not buying it ain’t exactly gonna stop epic doing all that other sh*t they use to make them available. Take what you can. It’ll be better for your mental health to not anguish over what to do.