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Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

defector.com

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Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#251

Post by nootropicat »

In absence of real economic growth winning at zero and negative sum games is the only realistic chance at making it in the broadly defined West. The ponzi trend is only going to grow until the whole system collapses under itself. People not playing the game are going to lose the most, as unfair as it is, because rich executives are going to exploit their positions and dump their bags on public companies they control. In more corrupt cases, countries instead of companies. It's only going to grow.

Even so, arguably crypto ponzi games are harmless compared to more socially accepted ways of wealth extraction. Facebook, twitter and other mass social media destroyed society and utilize best ai/ml in existence to steal people's attention, at this point they should be viewed as human hostile ais. The lost potential of years wasted on pointless flamewars and mindless clicking is immeasurable. So many smart people wasting their best years on making ads even more effective instead of creating actual wealth.

In the good timeline there was no bailout in 2007 and the global financial system completely disintegrated, deleting most of fake wealth and unsustainable liabilities in the process, but without long term damage to real productivity.

This is the bad timeline in which wealth extraction dominates until there's nothing left, after which everything stops with no system energy reserves. That's how Soviet Union ended.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#252

Post by jcbrand »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #199
jcbrand wrote: post #190

This article conflates NFTs with cryptocurrency, in a way that looks to me to be intentional in order to bolster his argument that crypto is for rich people to conspicuously consume and to pump and dump on the plebs. NFTs aren't money, or currency and just because they can be created on some blockchains doesn't make them so. I also don't see a genuine effort from the author to really understand why proponents think t…

What has happened in those 12 years has been a great deal of scams, get rich quick scheme a and instability. Bitcoin has also become dominated by a few major players and is a power structure in itself, not really benefitting ordinary people much at.

Bitcoin is NOT dominated by a few major players. A few years ago when some large commercial players wanted to increase the block size, they weren't able to do so because a majority of nodes on the network rejected their code.

The Bitcoin network has stayed remarkably stable and it's still possible to run a node on a raspberry pi, which is done exactly because the Bitcoin community value the ability of normal people to participate and be able to verify their transactions and that of the whole chain.

Concerning scams. Let's look at another relatively open technology. Email.

The vast majority of emails are actually spam, and a lot of those are scams (phishing, Nigerian princes etc.). In the beginning a lot of people fell for email scams, many still do, but by and large people are aware they exist and are able to use email productively without constantly falling victim to scams.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#253

Post by wyager »

karpierz wrote: post #9
wyager wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only two known usage of blockchain that actually seem to offer a clear advantage over some other strategy (running the thing centralized, not having coordination at all, etc) are A) solving double spend (a la Bitcoin) B) solving zooko’s triangle (a la Namecoin, or the clone you mentioned from ipfs). Identity on blockchain beyond resolving zooko’s triangle (I.e. stably mapping pseudonyms to pubkeys) typically does…

Why does Bitcoin have a clear advantage in solving double spend over a centralized solution?

If you’re fine with all the downsides of trusting you bank, the bank’s central bank and currency issued, the bank’s government, etc then that obviously makes Bitcoin less appealing for you. Remaining upside includes reduced friction for things like international settlement. Don’t tell me that international settlement is easy with traditional banks - I am a financial system power user and it is not.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#254

Post by oefrha »

zrobotics wrote: post #65
oefrha wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to be a billionaire to count as "bored rich", which I take to mean anyone who has too much money lying around and can't find better uses than shitty computer-generated "art" (note that this doesn't include people who buy these with the sole purpose of flipping them to a greater fool). There are a surprising number of bored rich people, especially when you consider all the new-found crypto wealth. Most…

>> (note that this doesn't include people who buy these with the sole purpose of flipping them to a greater fool). Hate to burst your bubble, but that is 99.99% of the NFT market. There is maybe 5 people total who bought a NFT for art appreciation reasons, but aside from that rounding error the only reason anyone owns one is as a speculative investment.

Sure, even in that scenario, if a slice of the MLM money can be used for societal good, it’s still something.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#255

Post by jcbrand »

shkkmo wrote: post #248
jcbrand wrote: post #190

This article conflates NFTs with cryptocurrency, in a way that looks to me to be intentional in order to bolster his argument that crypto is for rich people to conspicuously consume and to pump and dump on the plebs. NFTs aren't money, or currency and just because they can be created on some blockchains doesn't make them so. I also don't see a genuine effort from the author to really understand why proponents think t…

I don't see any such conflation, nor do I see any rejection of cryptocurrency's future potential. This article is primarily about what is happening with cryptocurrency right now: > Whatever cryptocurrency might someday be For All Mankind, it is most urgently and avidly in this moment something that people tell weird lies about in hopes of getting richer. You seem intent on spreading such get rich quick and utopian dr…

> You seem intent on spreading such get rich quick and utopian dreams on cryptocurrency.

Please point me to where I spread get rich quick dreams in my comments.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#256

Post by wpietri »

mywittyname wrote: post #192
wpietri wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh? What percent of international transfers are using it?

No clue. I just know people who do it.

Got it. I mean, I know people who ride unicycles. But for this I'm not interesting so much in "is it possible" as "is it effective and widely adopted".

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#257

Post by rssoconnor »

dpedu wrote: post #238
jcbrand wrote: post #190

This article conflates NFTs with cryptocurrency, in a way that looks to me to be intentional in order to bolster his argument that crypto is for rich people to conspicuously consume and to pump and dump on the plebs. NFTs aren't money, or currency and just because they can be created on some blockchains doesn't make them so. I also don't see a genuine effort from the author to really understand why proponents think t…

> Bitcoin is open source, the original founder is nowhere to be found, there were no VCs involved in its creation or in the distribution of the coins and the entire network is run out in the open. The Bitcoin network is a commons. Hmmm. You've conveniently danced around any suggestion or mention of the fact that the "creator" of bitcoin mined 1.1 million - 1/20th of all bitcoins that will ever exist(!) - coins in pri…

This isn't true. The genesis block references a Times headline published on Jan 3rd 2009, so that block was created no earlier than that. The source code was published and publicly available on Jan 9th 2009, which is 6 days later. Blocks were mined much slower than the target of every 10 minutes in the beginning. Block number 17 was mined on Jan 10th 2009. At 50 bitcoins per block we are talking at most 850 bitcoin or so mined "in private" before launching bitcoin.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#258

Post by dpedu »

rssoconnor wrote: post #257
dpedu wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin is open source, the original founder is nowhere to be found, there were no VCs involved in its creation or in the distribution of the coins and the entire network is run out in the open. The Bitcoin network is a commons. Hmmm. You've conveniently danced around any suggestion or mention of the fact that the "creator" of bitcoin mined 1.1 million - 1/20th of all bitcoins that will ever exist(!) - coins in pri…

This isn't true. The genesis block references a Times headline published on Jan 3rd 2009, so that block was created no earlier than that. The source code was published and publicly available on Jan 9th 2009, which is 6 days later. Blocks were mined much slower than the target of every 10 minutes in the beginning. Block number 17 was mined on Jan 10th 2009. At 50 bitcoins per block we are talking at most 850 bitcoin o…

https://whale-alert.medium.com/the-satoshi-fortune-e49cf73f9...

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#259

Post by rssoconnor »

dpedu wrote: post #258
rssoconnor wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true. The genesis block references a Times headline published on Jan 3rd 2009, so that block was created no earlier than that. The source code was published and publicly available on Jan 9th 2009, which is 6 days later. Blocks were mined much slower than the target of every 10 minutes in the beginning. Block number 17 was mined on Jan 10th 2009. At 50 bitcoins per block we are talking at most 850 bitcoin o…

https://whale-alert.medium.com/the-satoshi-fortune-e49cf73f9...

Even if that analysis were accurate, that isn't mining "in private" before "publicly launching" as you claimed.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#260

Post by jcbrand »

dpedu wrote: post #250
jcbrand wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those coins have never moved in all these years. You would think that Satoshi would want to spend and enjoy some of his riches right? To me this points towards Satoshi likely being dead (e.g. him being Hal Finney). Also, AFAIK those were mined because Satoshi was the first miner, not because he purposefully kept it private in order to get the most for himself before anyone else could participate.

Some of those coins moved in the last year or so [1]. Just because they haven't moved for a long time doesn't mean they won't tomorrow. 1. https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/satoshi-is-that...

Those are coins from 2010, not 2009 when Satoshi started mining and they're not from the same addresses.
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