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Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

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Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#161

Post by Symbiote »

disruptalot wrote: post #60
jl6 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any thing that has both positive uses and negative uses, it seems reasonable to weigh the positives against the negatives. The dollar has substantial non-infringing uses that benefit people. Bitcoin less so, and particularly when weighed against the great harms (environmental or criminal) that Bitcoin brings, I don’t find the criticism baseless.

Now imagine comparing child pornography (and other things) in mediums before the internet and after. These comparisons are not useful for exponential, paradigm changing technology.

Child pornography was never a significant use of the Internet.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#162

Post by adamhp »

maxqin1 wrote: post #53
neals wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you traveled? Enough places where the dollar is not the national currency but still accepted and used for purchasing drug and weapons.

I'm not familiar with foreign drug and weapons markets, but even so, That is still a significant minority compared to USD as a whole. BTC as a whole is used for just that and gambling.

I'm not even pro-crypto really, but you keep making this wild claim without substantiating it. You're speculating anecdotally on the majority usage pattern of Bitcoin.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#163

Post by majewsky »

keiferski wrote: post #141
jsiepkes wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but cryptocurrency/blockchain in general are real, useful technologies. Whats the last time you bought anything (besides other coins) with cryptocurrency?

I’m guessing you’re from a country with a reliable banking system and without rapid inflation. In places where this doesn’t exist, crypto is a miracle. Beyond that, crypto has existed for about a decade now. It’s absolutely absurd to claim that it’s “not useful” because it hasn’t been widely adopted by everyday merchants. Traditional currency has a ten-thousand year head start. Perhaps we can be patient? And that’s n…

You don't need a ten-thousand year head start to be widely adopted. Bitcoin is 12 years old now. PayPal was that old in 2010/2011. PayPal was definitely more widely adopted at that age than Bitcoin is now.

And besides, claiming that "traditional currency has a ten-thousand year head start" lumps so many wildly different forms of currency into a single category that the category is borderline meaningless.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#164

Post by bronzeage »

shlant wrote: post #138
bronzeage wrote: post #75

The real issue with Bitcoin is tether. Tether printing is practically responsible for almost all the gains in Bitcoin. Just look at Tether volume versus Bitcoin volume and tell me you trust bitcoins valuation when it's backed by make belief tethers. When you can print make belief dollars, in volumes that were never proven to exist, and pretend trading them for Bitcoin is the same as trading dollars, then of course Bi…

> "Tether printing is practically responsible for almost all the gains in Bitcoin" It was a meme in the crypto community that when you see tether being printed, you long. Maybe it was true at some point that tether was propping up the market or maybe not fully backed[0], but AFAIK they are now doing audits[1] and transparency reports[2]. > "The day regulators finally ban tether" I'm not sure how you would go about ba…

Just because they held appropriate balance at one point in time doesn't mean they are actually sitting on dollar reserves corresponding to tethers. They could have borrowed to reach these numbers for the report.

The current state is still that the majority of Bitcoin volume comes from tether, and these tethers aren't regulated and required to exist the same way dollars traded for stocks are required to exist. They already mixed tether reserves with other funds in the past, don't trust them to suddenly stop.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#165

Post by keiferski »

majewsky wrote: post #163
keiferski wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m guessing you’re from a country with a reliable banking system and without rapid inflation. In places where this doesn’t exist, crypto is a miracle. Beyond that, crypto has existed for about a decade now. It’s absolutely absurd to claim that it’s “not useful” because it hasn’t been widely adopted by everyday merchants. Traditional currency has a ten-thousand year head start. Perhaps we can be patient? And that’s n…

You don't need a ten-thousand year head start to be widely adopted. Bitcoin is 12 years old now. PayPal was that old in 2010/2011. PayPal was definitely more widely adopted at that age than Bitcoin is now. And besides, claiming that "traditional currency has a ten-thousand year head start" lumps so many wildly different forms of currency into a single category that the category is borderline meaningless.

PayPal or other online banking apps are nowhere near as big of a leap as crypto is. Not even remotely comparable. The former is simply making a trusted single location for a database of transactions. The latter is making that database global and uncontrollable by any single entity. A vastly more difficult and complex task.

And again, the idea that a technology can be deemed useless a mere decade after its launch is deeply historically ignorant. Automobiles, airplanes, he printing press, the list goes on and on. None of these things replaced their competitors in a decade.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#166

Post by maxqin1 »

adamhp wrote: post #162
maxqin1 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not familiar with foreign drug and weapons markets, but even so, That is still a significant minority compared to USD as a whole. BTC as a whole is used for just that and gambling.

I'm not even pro-crypto really, but you keep making this wild claim without substantiating it. You're speculating anecdotally on the majority usage pattern of Bitcoin.

Come on, are you really going to argue this well-known fact without providing any examples to the contrary?

Well guess what, I have a Q story and I'll sell it for your BTC!

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#167

Post by [deleted] »

stepanhruda wrote: post #150
dcolkitt wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary use case of Bitcoin is to evade governments control over capital. Sometimes that’s good (governments disgorging kidnappers of their ransom). Sometimes that’s bad (Nazis seizing wealth of targeted groups). Sometimes it depends on your perspective (governments preventing the trade in illicit drugs). Overall how you feel about this in aggregate will depend on how comfortable you are with government power. Le…

You… really think a tyrant would fail because of a bunch of armed general population? The make or break is having public support, a bunch of people armed with guns don’t make a difference - maybe they would when the amendment was written, but the efficiency gap between a person with a gun vs US military has increased 1000x.

[deleted]

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#168

Post by ryanlol »

whoisjohnkid wrote: post #91
betterunix2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that someone can safely collect a Bitcoin ransom far from the police and can use it far from the police (no way to freeze a wallet etc.). This is called the "perfect crime" in research on ecash dating back to the early 90s.

criminals tend to prefer privacy coins like monero over bitcoin because of how easy it is to track bitcoin transfers. If any of their bitcoin transfers ever touches a KYC wallet they are screwed; until taproot gets activated for bitcoin it requires a ton of work to truly stay anonymous

> criminals tend to prefer privacy coins like monero over bitcoin

This is speculation with very little connection to reality. If you actually go on crime forums you will see that privacy coins are not as widely used as you might think.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#169

Post by programmarchy »

betterunix2 wrote: post #157
bitcoin01 wrote: post #21

Remember that Coca-Cola is responsible for one of the biggest health issue of our civilisation: obesity, and Berkshire invested heavily in it.

Warren Buffet has given many interviews on the topic, and on the topic of Berkshire's investments in tobacco companies. His view is basically that as long as those industries are legal he has a responsibility to his shareholders to invest in them because it is so profitable to do so. He has also summarized his views on Bitcoin many times -- he has no interest in investing in it because it is not a productive asset (t…

Ah, so he's merely being _responsible_ by investing in the destruction of public health. What a clown.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#170

Post by goodpoint »

maxqin1 wrote: post #45
mmahut wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same argument can be make about Tor. While it primary uses are probably illegal (doesn't necessary mean immoral) activity, it helps a lot free press in oppressed regimes (also illegal, but by western standards moral).

Bitcoin doesn't have the equivalent of a "free press." And TOR is rarely used. Journalists use apps like Signal now.

> And TOR is rarely used. Journalists use apps like Signal now.

Absolutely not. Internet censorship is growing rapidly - worldwide.

A lot of "legitimate" websites like newspapers get blocked around the world and can only be accessed over Tor.

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