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Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

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Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#231

Post by 3np »

barbegal wrote: post #20
gnrlst wrote: post #13

Remember when BTC used to be fun and exciting? Stupid projects being created, tipping widespread all over the internet. It was created to be a "peer-to-peer electronic cash system" (quoting from the whitepaper title)... oh how far it has strayed.

Yes I remember when you could send Bitcoins and your transaction was practically guaranteed to get into the next block. I had fun solving puzzles created using Bitcoin scripts. If you could solve the puzzle you could win some Bitcoins. Transaction fees were so low as to be irrelevant and you could send small tips to anyone you wanted, buy beers, gift it to strangers to try out... But even then you could see that Bitc…

A $30 SBC such as RPi 3 with a $50 SSD is more than enough to run a full Bitcoin node with full history. You can share with a blockchain explorer or Lightning node without performance being a problem. Many people with little technical knowledge do this.

Even a leftover smartphone from yesteryear should be capable of running a full node, as long as you scale storage appropriately.

I synced a full BTC node from scratch on budget hardware last week, took about 2 days total.

Meanwhile, a full tracing archive ETH node took >4 months on a dedicated 8c16t CPU, 64GiB DDR4 RAM and tiered NVMe + SATA SSD for the 8TiB.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#232

Post by dmingod666 »

wayneftw wrote: post #194
dmingod666 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Men own most bitcoins" "Mostly men are into computer technology." Where exactly in the bitcoin purchase or process the gender of a person relevant or disclosed? Why do people try to drag gender into things where it has zero relevance. I'm not trying to be a lawyer, the point is, that this argument has as much logic as "Aquarians are better swimmers." You can't prove or disprove it.. either way, it's irrelevant..

If someone said "The remarkably small circle of mostly hair stylists who control bitcoin" would you have responded so many times? No, there's something about gender here that's got you incensed. I'm not trying to sound flippant, but I think there's more to this than genitals and the amount of relevance that genitals or gender has to the story. First though, I think you're confusing what was said. The starting sentenc…

I am not incensed at all. Say, gender equals to genetalia 99.x% or 9x% of the time.. for arguments sake we can substitute one for another..

The reason for using that word is to show the absurdity of any gender based argument, feel free to substitute it with "people who can grow beards" if you like. As specific data points they may have relevance as tools, but, making sweeping claims about 50% of humanity makes for bad reasoning..

I think if you can be nuanced about gender vs biology then I'm sure you can see what I'm talking about.

"Why are most men criminals though? It's probably because men are just generally more aggressive than women."

You probably meant to say, why are most criminals men.. That is the danger when we start dealing in sweeping arguments.. it's easy to jump from the specific to the general and not notice..

I just think it's pointless to bring in gender into things where it's not relevant.. 4 out of 5 top defence companies are led by women.. it's a data point sure, but live through the life of that person who got to the top, did she get there because of being a man or woman, no, there is a bunch of hardwork and time they put in to get where they got to.. can you replace that woman with just any other woman, both are women right? Ofcourse not, because she is there because of what she can do, not because of her biology.

The individual has more power over their lives than just being robots dictated by biology. Making biology central to reasoning about larger things is denying the power of the individual.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#233

Post by dmingod666 »

random5634 wrote: post #66
dmingod666 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are repeating my point.. My point was, why do you want to attribute gender to things where it isn't directly relevant.. How does the author know the gender breakdown of a currency where we can't even figure out who the person behind the bitcoin address is...

"Hey guys, want to get coffee" - is a historically common (and yes, now bad way) of asking if a group of folks, of any gender, want to get coffee. The insistence that someone is focusing on genital's and have a pervasion when asking this really does seem like a projection on the part of the folks making that claim, and I have noticed the genitals things come up over and over now in this context - it seriously is WEIR…

I am not talking about everyday conversation 'guys' / 'gals' / 'babe' / 'baby'.. you can say whatever is appropriate in your social circle...

I'm just trying to show that any gender based argument is pretty broad and sort of ridiculous (hence use of the word genitals, to show how absurd the argument is..)

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#234

Post by matvore »

dmitriid wrote: post #177
matvore wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptocurrency promotion implies to some extent that central control of money is a bad thing. So it is somewhat political. I think most HN folks are against it for political reasons to a certain extent. Even if they say they aren't, they are getting their information from and socializing in a bubble with a political bias. There are some news topics on HN that i will never read the comments of because of how motivated…

There's nothing political in the simple fact that Bitcoin (and blockchains in general) is a bad technology for any of the uses that it's advertised for: https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/ten-years-in-nobody-has-c... (and the second part, linked directly from that article)

I agreed with the part of the first paragraph that says that most uses of blockchain are deadends or solutions looking for problems. I'm coming from "Bitcoin blockchain + POW is a store of value," and "LN is the fast, convenient transaction mechanism" that sits on top.

Dabbling in other cryptocurrencies with comparable POW's and blockchains to Bitcoin is basically speculation and gambling. I don't think they have very compelling use cases that Bitcoin+LN doesn't solve already. I assume non-BTC cryptocurrencies will survive in the long run, but who knows which ones, and eventually the LN will make swapping and conversion of currencies trivial and/or automatic.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#235

Post by Empact »

glitchc wrote: post #215
Empact wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s strange because I see it essentially in reverse of that: To change the Bitcoin price, vote with your dollars, going long or shorting. You will materially impact the order book and resulting price. Other ways exist: starting a company like the ones mentioned in the article. In contrast, in federal elections you have a vanishingly small chance of casting a deciding vote between two participants in an actual olig…

And if you don't have dollars? No dollars, no votes? And the corollary: More dollars, more votes? Sounds like a plutocracy, don't you think? Be careful what you wish for. Unless you're secretly Bezos or another of the billionaires' club, in a plutocracy you and I and countless others are just peons. At least in democracy you have a voice, regardless of your bank balance. Democracy may suck as a system, but it's defin…

Without dollars there is: advocacy, open source contributions, and sweat equity - as many ways to participate as there are social and creative avenues. Incidentally, some but not all of these are vaunted as the noble ways to participate in politics, including the voice you so celebrate.

Is democracy better? Why did our founders have such a negative opinion of it? The history of unrestrained Democracy is one of failure, e.g. voting oneself into poverty via socialism, or a French-style democratic revolution in which heads roll. So yeah, maybe take your notion of democracy down a notch, it's not so noble.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#236

Post by charia »

runawaybottle wrote: post #227
moralsupply wrote: post #202

> Coinbase Global Inc.’s filing to become a publicly-traded company provides a glimpse into the remarkably small circle of mostly men who command the incredibly lucrative digital landscape Why is the fact they are "mostly men" relevant in any way? What if they are "mostly jewish"? Or "mostly white"? Or "mostly American"? Is Bitcoin now a matter of "privilege"? Are there people out there who fall for this sort of insa…

That’s interesting. Yeah, what if they were mostly Jewish? I never really thought about the demonization of men now days in those terms. Took a long time until Jews fought back against the absolute constant throb of ‘Jewish cabal’ that runs the world. Very long time. Interesting, that was profound.

This is hacker news and so I'm trying to not just post a low effort reply, but reddit.com/r/menkampf is all about taking that premise and running with it.

Before finding that subreddit, I didn't notice how just how commonplace casually insulting men was accepted.

I do understand the power difference that isn't one to one and why this sort of insulting is accepted, in that men are not a real minority like Jewish people are so culturally insulting men is a considered a punching up situation.

Still, I think the proliferation and casual acceptance of the rhetoric people use in this context is not exactly healthy for society.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#238

Post by random5634 »

moistly wrote: post #116
random5634 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hey guys, want to get coffee" - is a historically common (and yes, now bad way) of asking if a group of folks, of any gender, want to get coffee. The insistence that someone is focusing on genital's and have a pervasion when asking this really does seem like a projection on the part of the folks making that claim, and I have noticed the genitals things come up over and over now in this context - it seriously is WEIR…

Are you telling us that you’ve never heard a woman say to her group of female friends “Hey guys, wanna xyz?” It’s 2021. “Guys” has been gender neutral since basically forever and a day. It was so in my schools in the 70s/80s, and by my mother’s recollection, the same back in her school days. And it pretty much has to be so: we lack a good alternative second person plural. Note though that “guy” (singular) is gendered…

Actually - where I am guys is considered negative because it derives from male as the default gender / ie, patriarchal is the argument I've heard.

But absolutely NO ONE considers it a perversion or focus on genitals except for a few folks. This line, why are you focusing on my genitals or why are you focusing on their genitals comes up repeatedly in this context so it has to be a commonly used argument in some more activist circles.

That and focusing on "perversions" - which I find even weirder, most of the offenders are just normal people who didn't even realize "guys" was offensive or might be offensive to some.

Some of the activists who start yelling about perversions and genitals seem a bit more off their rocker at times then the folks they are accusing. The only thing that caught my eye was the perversions / genitals thing, because I'd just been reading someone else who used this same argument in a similar context.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#239

Post by random5634 »

wayneftw wrote: post #194
dmingod666 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Men own most bitcoins" "Mostly men are into computer technology." Where exactly in the bitcoin purchase or process the gender of a person relevant or disclosed? Why do people try to drag gender into things where it has zero relevance. I'm not trying to be a lawyer, the point is, that this argument has as much logic as "Aquarians are better swimmers." You can't prove or disprove it.. either way, it's irrelevant..

If someone said "The remarkably small circle of mostly hair stylists who control bitcoin" would you have responded so many times? No, there's something about gender here that's got you incensed. I'm not trying to sound flippant, but I think there's more to this than genitals and the amount of relevance that genitals or gender has to the story. First though, I think you're confusing what was said. The starting sentenc…

Well described. There are folks going absolutely nuclear over these things - genatalia, perversions.

It's often tied to what appear to be intentional misreading's or overbroad readings of relatively innocuous statements.

"small circle of mostly men" turns into some sort of absolutist statement about bitcoin ownership, genatalia and perversions.

One reason to mention gender is that gender, and broader access by women in particular to tech is a current topic. So here you have a VERY male dominated space worth billions. While a women caring for a child at home get's paid nothing. I actually see some major issues in the way society rewards people, and the gender concentration mentioned in this story is interesting in that context.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#240

Post by Rury »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #171
mcguire wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which results in long-term depreciation, such that spending bitcoin is economically irrational.

It is not so, because humans have finite life span. So they MUST spend their coins within a fixed time frame of about 70 years.

Sure it is.

As more goods get made relative to bitcoin, and more people come to exist, the prices of goods & services must come down relative to bitcoin in order to avoid liquidity crises - especially since the number of bitcoin is set to be capped (while population and goods aren't). Bitcoin instead was designed to handle this problem via trading in fractions such as satoshi's.

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