Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, fantastic. Why should it be legal to exchange bitcoin for US$? Or euros?
That sounds like a burden of proof shift. Why should that be illegal in the first place?
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It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency
541–550 of 1001 posts
Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency
#542Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s the combination of strong network effects and artificial scarcity driving the price action. You buy Bitcoin cause something about it really resonated with you. Price goes up and you feel validated. You go and naturally — out of benevolent intentions — tell your closes people so they don’t miss out. The mistake of cryptocurrency is discounting the potential for price manipulation. Earl adopters understood cornere…
> These cycles are continuously producing winners and losers and the losers are generally those who have more to lose and are thus enable to withstand the intense pressure of bear markets. This is the opposite of what I think is true so I'd love to see a citation for this claim.
There is no citation but isn’t it obvious what is happening in this unregulated market? What do you think is happening when the price of Bitcoin is driven down 70% plus every so often? Then what do you think happens as it goes sideways for so long?
Maybe I’ve just seen this cycle a few times and this is my cynical take. But I think it just makes sense.
Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency
#543I've worked in both finance and technology. I think the technical people aren't seeing how amazing this is from a finance point of view. Payments are going to be completely transformed by this. All of fixed income will change to be oriented around crypto. It's just a matter of time. All the main preconditions for crypto to take off are finally in place. If you are a professional money manager or CFO there is no way i…
Yyy. Once you've experienced 24x7x365 instant, no-human finance, there's no going back to mountains of random paperwork, random bank policies, 1pm wire transfer deadlines, etc etc etc
Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency
#5441. Promise a revolutionary technology ("self-driving cars are coming"!) 2. Use that promise as a pretext to ignore all regulation 3. Make a fortune 4. Drop the tech story The author lost me here. Completely subjective take on what Uber has done. They've completely improved ride-sharing and cab hailing within the whole industry, including non uber users. Depending on what country I travel to, Ill be using a different…
I'm the author of the thread. For what it's worth, I grew up as a refugee whose mother had to find incredibly inventive ways to send USD to family back home, where it was illegal to possess. What I don't understand about the crypto remittances argument is how the people sending and receiving them are supposed to convert them into spendable currency. My hunch is that a lot of the value of cryptocurrency in those count…
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Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency
#545I could waste a huge amount of time refuting the author's points, but will make it more of a meta comment. Crypto is vast, complex, and inherently not suitable for binary thinking. I've studied the space for months and have come to the conclusion that crypto is two-sided in almost every aspect. Many/most coins are speculative, which you can associate with words like "greed" and "casino". Yet also provide wealth savin…
People have been saying this for over a decade now. Mainstream applications are just around the corner, wait and see! We have waited, and all we've seen is baseless speculation (which you call "wealth savings/growth") and scams. I see no reason to think this is going to change any time soon.
I mean, it is being adopted by pay processors like Square, PayPal, and Cash App, and is being accepted by some large retailers like Newegg and Overstock. Wouldn't discredit that as not being progress :/
Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency
#546Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could book plane tickets. That, literally all by itself, would be enough for me to think building the internet was worth it. You kids have no idea how much fun it was to go downtown to a travel agent just to find out how much it would cost to fly home from college for Christmas.
> go downtown to a travel agent Phones were out, too? ("You kids" should realize that most of the stuff done on the web today was done by mail or phone during most of the XX century, especially in a country as spread out as the US. Ring up the merchant with the order, sing out the credit card, done, was the MO from the 70s to the late 90s.)
I mean, yes. You’d need to go get the paper tickets.
Obviously there were variations on how people would do things and mail order existed but I’m speaking literally, that’s how we used to do it and when the internet came along it got way way better.
Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency
#547I think this actually overstates the value of cryptocurrencies. The value of say, Bitcoin, isn't even connected to its value as a method of money laundering or extortion through ransomware. However morally objectionable these are, they do have economic value - it's just that value is not connected to the price of any cryptocurrency. Rather, the whole thing is an extended, worldwide pump-and-dump; speculation is drivi…
Wow, thank you. Totally agree. So glad you have been able to put this into words what I have been struggling to explain. "Fear of missing out" is a powerful drug.
Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency
#548There are folks in crypto who both consider most of the industry to be a scam while at the same time are working to fix it because there's something good here. We get hated on by almost everyone - both those in crypto for criticizing (BTC is a ponzi, ETH cannot scale, etc.) and those outside for being a part of it. It's easy to get bitter about this, but recently I spoke to a financial advisor who runs an investment fund that only invests in businesses that share certain values. He felt exactly the same about the financial industry and he's doing fine. If you resonate with this comment, realize you don't need to please everyone.
Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency
#549I think it's time for us in the tech world to speak out and make it clear the emperor has no clothes here. _Gold_ is sustained by a mix of money laundering, human slavery, fraud, ransom, gambling, and delusion. It has no social benefit except helping end first dates fast. What we especially need to stress to regulators is that there's no relationship between the claims of _gold_ and our now thousands of years of expe…
didn't regulation successfully shut down commerce with gold? Why wouldn't that happen with bitcoin
You could stop it with extreme violence, but I sincerely doubt the US will start killing and jailing people for sending bitcoin.
Thus, it is here to stay.
Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency
#550Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are $2 ATM fees "stealing?" They provide a service, which you can pay for or easily avoid by planning ahead a bit. (And cryptocurrency charges even more.)
Depends on your background and experience, I guess. In many European countries ATMs are free, even outside your own country. It is considered an elementary part of the banking service that you don't have to pay to withdraw your own money.
Many European countries also charge negative interest rates. In Switzerland, where I live, bank balances above CHF 100K gets a flat -0.75% interest rate.
Just saying.