Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by grugagag » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 4:15 AM UTC

ketamine__ wrote: post #188

grugagag wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to believe you but keep in mind that at the same time the government also propped up the private sector (special interests) and it did spend way more than on the citizenry. Industries that were too big to fail were bailed out while a big chunk of the population were left unable to support themselves and I'm sorry but a check or two of a few thousands is not gonna do a damn thing for them when they are forced t…

Big industry means lots of jobs. They were right to bail them out. Are we supposed to let the car industry die on principle if it causes a massive amount of destruction? China wouldn't let it happen.

Help both and if that takes too much a slice from the industry let them suffer a bit, how else can they learn their lesson? So far the Feds bailed them out and the cancer in these corporations that was supposed to naturally recycle will be even more entrenched, so this will continue to weaken the country while the unfortunate who got laid off during the pandemic would have to figure it out without a job, with the possibility of losing it all and becoming homeless.

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

#242

Post by dehrmann » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 4:30 AM UTC

phatfish wrote: post #212

briefcomment wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Bitcoin is just of store of value that has some marginally better aspects than many other stores of value. It won't inflate aways like fiat. It requires no upkeep like buildings and other property. It requires less intuition and research than fine art. It is more portable and storable than gold. It is more readily accessible than most things. It is less dependent on products, market fit and changes, execu…

"It requires no upkeep like buildings and other property." I suspect the physical footprint required to keep the Bitcoin network running is actually quite significant. Considering estimated power usage of all the "mining" operations.

This brings up an oddity of bitcoin: storing gold costs money, property has upkeep. Endgame (non-inflationary) bitcoin is free to store, at the cost of people actually using it. The other oddity is it's not clear what would happen if no one traded it for n days. At some point, miners shut down, and because of how specialized mining hardware is, the currency might collapse.

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

#243

Post by lumberingjack » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 4:45 AM UTC

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…

Along those same lines of thinking I've seen a ton of current events editorial writers claiming space travel is a waste of time and energy only for the "privileged" attacking musk and SpaceX any chance they get.

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

#244

Post by vinger » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 5:07 AM UTC

hammock wrote: post #201

anonisko wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every store of value that has ever existed and will ever exist is just a game of speculation that it will continue to be valued when you're ready to withdraw your money to do things you've saved for. Gold was the best portable and fungible speculative bet for a very long time. Bonds are speculation that a country will continue to be productive and well managed enough to pay their debts without resorting to massive in…

Do you think gold still has value?

There is gold in that computer you are using. I would say gold has value.

Bitcoin as a working system has a value.

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

#245

Post by vinger » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 5:09 AM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #195

betterunix2 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually the ultimate reason why a note has value is that it can be used to settle tax bills and other debts, so you do not have to "hope" that someone out there will take it -- the government behind the money will take it from anyone who owes taxes, which is almost everyone who lives or does business in the country.

Crypto is required to pay extortionists (whether you agree it is right or not is irrelevant).

On the more legal side, some merchants are crypto only.

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

#246

Post by dmingod666 » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 5:57 AM UTC

random5634 wrote: post #239

wayneftw wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A field is dominated by x - y is not getting paid anything. What is the involvement of x in the life of y? if you get rid of x - would y suddenly change and start doing things that x did..?

Americans workers are paid $x per hour to work. Bangladeshis are paid less than $1 a day. It is the fault of the Americans?

Some people have ample food, others are dying of hunger. Who takes responsibility of the dying people? all the people that have food?

I can see you are pointing out a difference in life outcomes of different people, but how are you tying this with gender? this is my question.. are you suggesting a woman can't take care of her child and be successful at the same time? are you saying women don't have enough agency to make their own life decisions till a savior comes along and makes the right decisions for them? What if it appeals to this woman that she care for her child as a higher priority than trying to go out and increasing some number on a banks database - Are you trying to say the value systems of each individual should be aligned to money alone? that, the ones that have money are successful and the ones that don't have it have failed somehow?

If I make the argument, person x is religious, see how god blessed him with a good life. Look at person y, he's poor and misrable, its because he doesn't follow this religion. Its not a very sound argument because I am just confidently asserting a co-relation where none may exist..

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

#247

Post by meowster » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 6:14 AM UTC

jgalt212 wrote: post #237

If tether is such a scam, how is it still trading close to par? Is anyone willing to buy a non-trivial amount of tether at par (other than tether co. and Bitfinex)? https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/USDT-USD/

How did Bernie Madoff's investment fund operate for years after people were claiming it was a ponzi?

People want to believe just a little longer.

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

#248

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 9:08 AM UTC

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.

[deleted]

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

#249

Post by loceng » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 9:18 AM UTC

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…

"In any case, feel free to keep all your wealth away from Bitcoin. It's not mandatory to use it -- unlike the US Dollar, which is actually managed by a mafia, which we call "the government", and which will use force against you if you don't use its currency."

So instead you create and support a system that zero chance of penalizing-swaying known bad actors via financial penalty by things like the Magnitsky Act: how do you propose we implement such a tool otherwise? No one answers this when I ask it - it just gets ignored.

How about we fix the system, build trust, get quality leaders into positions of power? It takes work, and yes, Western society has been degenerating and is relatively weak at the moment due to many decades of industrial complexes' regulatory capture and the duopoly that's been structured via those policies.

I really hope you'll answer this question too: you say "which will use force against you if you don't use its currency" - have you thought through what a global, decentralized currency - where you gain more money, wealth, the more people that are using it - doesn't create a group of people aligned [the "army of HODLers" as many call themselves] who want all of global society to adopt Bitcoin? It's known that wealth is transferred from weighted from the latest adopters to the earliest adopters; I'd love to know how the answer to preventing regulatory capture from continuing via the VC-finance-Bitcoin industrial complex [because the VC-finance industrial complex has started to heavily align with Bitcoin].

Elon Musk recently said "Bitcoin is almost as much bs as fiat money" - he hasn't elaborated yet, and sure, maybe it's slightly better than fiat money currently is - but Bitcoin et al allows tyrants to use and transfer funds freely, globally, to whomever with no way to stop them: don't you think that is an very bad unavoidable pitfall that we shouldn't design into or allow into our systems?

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

#250

Post by riekus » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 9:23 AM UTC

charia wrote: post #236

runawaybottle wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peopl…

I have start noticing it as well after stumbling on some interviews with Jordan Peterson.