this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
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- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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Its unclear. There is a japanese name associated with it but its assumed I believe that its not the persons actual name.
Why would they have regrets?
You know the story about the Somali pirate stock market?
Think that, but times 1000.
Bitcoin is mostly used for illegal shit. Mostly drug trades, but anything else criminal as well. Want to buy guns, whores, even a hitman? Bitcoin.
The drug trade basically created the value for Bitcoin. And then the traders who already had lots of it when people began hyping Bitcoin became richer and richer.
Which annoys me a whole fucking ton, because at one point I had over 120 Bitcoin in my possession. Should've saved at least one and I wouldn't be in this problem. Well, honestly, I would, because I'd have probably sold it at 500 or something.
Back when I had then they were worth 1e a piece. Ordered me some drugs, so I never bought them as an investment, just as currency.
Tldr Anyway yeah investing in Bitcoin is essentially funding drug cartels.
Source?
Source for what? For my personal experiences? For me having purchased drugs?
Or the amount of marketplaces, interactions in the marketplaces, and their values?
We can't quantify the size of the illegal drug trade, but it's in the hundreds of billions, if not trillions.
Hell, if only any of those marketplaces were open anymore, I'd have had probably now worth thousands in Bitcoin because a portion of them remained after my shopping. I didn't have a local Bitcoin wallet, the stores had wallets you'd transfer into.
But yeah they switch so often, after either cutting and running or being caught.
But yeah, that's what made Bitcoin a bit more mainstream, but the value radically shot up once people began seeing it as something worth investing in, since the value was growing relatively fast even without there being investors.
I don't know what you're asking a source for, exactly.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_drug_trade
And those are honestly very conservative (and bad) guesses. Of course it's much larger. You can see if you google it, none of the guesses are even similar to each other, lol.
Also, remember there's a hugely popular show called "how to sell drugs online - fast" or smth. It's just everywhere. But people pretend it isn't. It's fascinating to me, the willfull ignorance.
We have to legalise all drugs to actually get them under regulation.
Your thesis:
I've bought a ton of drugs with cash. Is cash mostly used for illegal shit?
What a shit strawman. The illegal drug trade figuring out it could use tor and bitcoin is what made cryptos popular.
No-one knew shit about them before that. The blockchain was invented in the 90's.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)
While nowadays places do accept bitcoin and it could also be used as a every niche currency, in practice, there is no use for it, except purchasing illegal goods and services.
Because if you actually need something that isn't illegal, why the fuck would you use bitcoin? Because first off, you'd have to find someone who agrees to accept it. Are there any supermarkets where you live which accept bitcoin? Any stores which accept it, period? Perhaps the local headshop/vapestore/other such place run by some weed-worshipping 20-year old might, but seeing how slow it is, that's doubtful either. People take donations on sites in Bitcoin.
What use does Bitcoin actually have, except for illegal shit?
It's downright obtuse pretending otherwise. When Bitcoin came out in 2009, it had no users or use cases. Then 2011 Silk Road opens and less than three years later there are official inquiries from states like UK into cryptos, because it started the crypto boom and made Bitcoin actually valuable, because it's used to facilitate drug deals, which are worth actual money.
So because it has a base value of the trading going on in the marketplaces, investors started just buying it because it was a very good investment. But people don't buy it to use as currency — unless they plan on buying something illegal.
As a decentralized store of value.
But it's not.
It's an actively used currency. Very actively. There's probably been thousands of transactions in the time we've had this chat.
It's just that pretty much every single one of those is for drugs or other illegal services, mostly drugs. (I say "pretty much everyone" because there's the offchance that someone has actually used one of those niche stores which accept bitcoin).
So I've given you plenty of proof.
Based on your best guess.
Its also not relevant. Bitcoins key utility is as a store of value, and that's what its being used for most.
No, based on actual data available.
We only have data for busted markets, which is only a miniscule proportion of the trade being done, yet it still far outweighs any transactions used for legal purposes. Even when stores like growstores accept bitcoin and growers sometimes use their profits (made illegally, from several illegal transactions) to do one transaction which is for legal grow shit. The amount they'll make off that gear will be far greater than the it's cost.
This isn't a debate. This is you just refusing to accept reality.
https://syntheticdrugs.unodc.org/syntheticdrugs/en/cybercrime/onlinetrafficking/payment/index.html
https://www.europol.europa.eu/cms/sites/default/files/documents/Europol%20Spotlight%20-%20Cryptocurrencies%20-%20Tracing%20the%20evolution%20of%20criminal%20finances.pdf
It's impossible to have specific numbers of a black market, in case you want something even more specific, but despite not being able to pin down specific numbers, it's obvious.
First of all, we aren't talking about cryptocurrency, we're talking about Bitcoin.
Secondly, like I already said, it's irrelevant. Bitcoin is for storing value.
Edit: To put it another way, let's say >51% of Bitcoin transactions are used to facilitate illegal activities -- so what?
Like I said, this isn't a debate. It's just you refusing reality.
Those studied specify bitcoin, but they talk about it as the tech it is. Some memecoins have stock sure, but the most stable and valuable is bitcoin. Why? Because most of it is being actively used for criminal enterprises.
There wouldn't be any value in bitcoin without drug markets. That's the point. The only reason some wannabe 20's think it's to "store value" is because they can't afford any of the things which actual investors invest in.
You demand proof from me, yet you don't even offer a rationale to your delusions. Quite hypocritical, no?
I'd say it's closer to 99.9%, and that's a conservative estimate, in line with data. Where's yours?
Like some whiny kid said a few comments ago: "source?"
Also you've failed to cite anything that even points to a ballpark percentage. Which data specifically points to ~100% of Bitcoin transactions being used to directly fund illegal activities?
You ve literally no proof for yourself delusions about it being a "store for value", but I've showered you with europol and other statistics showing that TRILLIONS are being used in criminal enterprises.
Do you know how large a number a trillion is?
Just because there are some barely valuable pump and dump meme coins doesn't make my original assertion any lesser correct. Having a few hundred million worth is nothing compared to the TRILLIONS in drug money.
And like I said, it's inherently impossible to quantify a BLACK MARKET, so the data we have is only showing a miniscule proportion of the actual illegal trades and even the best estimates are shown to be extremely conservative.
You just can't face reality.
https://www.drugpolicyfacts.org/node/4383
Overlap that with the value of bitcoin. When was it's sharpest rise again?
Oh my. Looks like reality keeps differing with your delusions, mister "I-won't-accept-being-wrong-no-no-no"
You haven't even argued that it isn't a store of value... Only that it's propped up by illegal activity.
Trillions of USD, not trillions of Bitcoins.
Again, we're talking exclusively about Bitcoin.
I can face reality just fine, you just can't seem to prove your claim.
Also not sure why you keep trying to, because again it's irrelevant
Well yes. That's the point. You can bank in anything that you can rely on, and you can rely on drug markets making money. "A store of value" is nothing but an investment. And the only reason it became actually reliable and profitable to invest in Bitcoin is because of the drug markets.
You're pretending like you can't infer things. Like people can't infer things. Do you know what that word means?
And had you bothered to read the studies, you'd notice the specify they do as well.
Well not to a person who can't face reality, no. Obviously since you can't face reality, you'll decry anything as "not sufficient evidence", because your ego is just too weak for you to ever admit to having been wrong.
Show me proof that I'm wrong. Oh, wait, you can't, because I'm right and I've proved that and if you research the subject you'll find nothing but data agreeing with me and disagreeing with you.
So we agree, it's a store of value.
Was in reference to you bringing up pump and dump memecoins. That's why I quoted that part...
What reality have I not faced?
That's not how that works, and you know that. I also never said you were wrong about anything except Bitcoin not being a store of value, which you agree that it is. So not sure what you're even looking for...
No you haven't.
Then present it.
Disagreeing with me about what...?
Much in the same way that any blunt object is a hammer? Yeah, sure. But if you go around calling wrenches "hammers", just because you can hammer things with them, people are gonna look at you as if you were... eh.. "special."
Those are still a marginal proportion of the trade. A hundred million is 0.01% of a trillion, as I'm sure you weren't aware. Some meme coins being pumped and dumped IS the >0.01% I was talking about.
Yes, it is, because you refuse to acknowledge any data or any information we can infer from the data. Oh right, sorry, you don't understand the word. It means deduce or conclude (something) from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit statements.
Yes, I have.
I already have, and you've the whole internet to research data or information supporting your delusions. Which you don't have and NEVER WILL. You know, because they're delusions.
I acknowledge the data you've cited -- but you have done nothing to demonstrate how that leads to a reasonable inference that ~100% of Bitcoin transactions are for illegal purposes.
If you set aside purchasing or selling bitcoins, then yeah, that is more likely true than not.
I've asked you what else could there be? What use can it be for people? And the only thing you came up with is "a store of value". Meaning you're investing in something that is being actively used as currency, despite you not having a single use for that currency, because the market which utilises that currency is so strong, it makes investing (ie "storing value with the expectation it's gonna grow") in a currency profitable.
Like I said from the start, the drug trade created the value which made Bitcoin a worthwhile investment. That's what created the value; a market valued in TRILLIONS.
Remember that? How the value is in the TRILLIONS? Or are you just gonna pretend all the data I showed — from fucking Europol and not some niche independent propaganda rags — doesn't exist?
What claim did I make that you want a source for...?