Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by rchaud » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

useful wrote: post #240

rchaud wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon took off well before the smartphone era. Bezos was Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 1999. I don't understand what you mean re: debit cards. Is it that the transaction processing fee is passed on to the customer? That is already well understood. The issue is that crypto is nowhere near to matching VISA/MC's per-transaction cost.

My point was that you need less people for a transaction to happen. The cost will go down over time.

> The cost will go down over time.

And the number of transactions will increase over time, adding to the cost. So what does it net out to?

It doesn't look favourable when the bloated payment behemoth can get by charging 2-5%, but crypto transfer fees end up being significantly higher, and prone to surge pricing if too many people are buying Cryptokitties at the same time.

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

#282

Post by xutopia » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

elzbardico wrote: post #93

xutopia wrote: post #86

Not going to say that no one lies about it but I had to transfer a sizable amount of money between two banks at about the same time I did a transaction from my home with BTC that took all but 20 minutes without the need for fax machines. There are advantages to cryptocurrencies and one can very much want a future where currencies they would use isn't hampered by government.

Transferring huge amounts of money between accounts, specially when you own both is not a problem unless you live in the US. For most of Europe, Asia and even latin america this problem has been solved almost two decades ago. Around the same time the banks on those countries retired their fax machines.

I live in Canada and had bank accounts in France as well where anything above 5 figures is hard to do across institutions. I was able to move 50k in 10 minutes in BTC when 25k CAD was tough to send and required days of wait time despite a certified cheque I paid extra for.

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

#283

Post by javert » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

azundo wrote: post #211

javert wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you even know what you're talking about? In the US, a billionaire has more money at the end of the day if they just pay taxes on it than if they give it to charity and take the deduction. The only other way a charity helps a billionaire save on taxes is if they use the charity's assets (e.g. boats, helicopers, real estate) as personal assets. But that's felony tax fraud. A billionaire wouldn't be likely to risk pr…

It isn't about having money, it's about control of that money. Zuckerberg doesn't "have" the money he gives to his foundation, but he still controls it, vs taxes which he wouldn't.

Better Zuckerberg than using the money to send our young men to their deaths in Afghanistan, or pay people to have kids and not work, or to have it siphoned off through fraud by government workers, or wasted by their negligence, or...

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

#284

Post by rfd4sgmk8u » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #274

bitcoin_anon wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf What was Satoshi lying about? What has he done with his riches? > The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks This is not the motivation of someone trying to get richer. It's someone who cares deeply about humanity. Is it so hard to believe that there are others in the space with similar motivations?

Who cares what Satoshi said back then. What Bitcoin has become now is a complete sham with early adopters stoking the flames of FOMO to get rich quick at the expense of everyone else. I wish cryptocurrency fans would stop smelling their own farts for once and realize they aren't the absolute geniuses in finance that they claim to be. It's arrogant.

And I wish cryptocurrency detractors would stop lick state boot, calling for bans and throwing out stupid arguments like energy usage.

While many in the coin space are arrogant from ignorance, I would argue that the detractors are universally arrogant with their ignorance.

Bitcoin people are trying to decentralize the world. Make the powerful less powerful. Free humanity from debt economies, inflation, weak fiscal policy and the slow theft of fruits of your labor.

AntiBitcoin people are trying to centralize the world. Empower the already powerful. Stamp that boot onto the face of humanity forever. Ensure that the state can always rob its people of their savings and lifes work, and force compliance with weak fiscal policy, negative interest rates.

I think I know which is on the correct side of history.

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

#285

Post by imtringued » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

boh wrote: post #267

WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the ecosystem from 12 years ago is radically different from what it is now. Heck, it's radically different from what it was just 2 or 3 years ago. And well, it benefits (smart) ordinary people. That is, those who have invested or are investing. Smart money is here - and small investors are here too. And I'm saying purposefully "investing" as opposed to "trading". The former doesn't require any technical skills. As fo…

Yeah 12 years ago people actually thought they'd be using Bitcoin as it was intended: as a currency. Now most people know better than to do anything but trade it.

It's designed to be harder than gold. When there is a shortage of gold people starting mining it. With Bitcoin there is always a shortage of money. I don't know why people think expensive money is good money. It really isn't.

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

#286

Post by imtringued » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #273

boh wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah 12 years ago people actually thought they'd be using Bitcoin as it was intended: as a currency. Now most people know better than to do anything but trade it.

oh come on. - defi? - Twitter introducing tips in crypto? .. personally speaking I'm paying every day with a crypto card (which gives me a few % cashback ..). But that's ok, you seem to purposefully want to miss the train, can't help people against themselves I guess :shrug:

You do know you're missing the train by spending your crypto?

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

#287

Post by xur17 » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

cfup wrote: post #72

I was involved in a blockchain (DeFi) startup. All the blockchain companies are mostly a huge pyramid scheme. The company I worked for has a lot of big claims, raised millions, wanted to solve world hunger, prioritized partnership, marketing, while having no working implementation. Others in the eco system are the same. The NFT scene is even more BS. It could destroyed uninformed people's life, just like gambling. Ho…

> I was involved in a blockchain (DeFi) startup. All the blockchain companies are mostly a huge pyramid scheme. The company I worked for has a lot of big claims, raised millions, wanted to solve world hunger, prioritized partnership, marketing, while having no working implementation. Others in the eco system are the same.

I agree that there are lots of scammy "blockchain" startups, but I don't think it's fair to paint them all with that brush. There are also plenty that are actually building cool projects, without pumping their coin, and announcing light interactions with a company as partnerships.

If you have 20% of companies being scummy, but churning out 80% of the news, your assumption will be that all of the companies are scummy.

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

#288

Post by imtringued » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

krageon wrote: post #21

karpierz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> centralized If you want to trust a conglomerate of folks who have a vested interest in keeping you small and poor to solve your problems, then there is no advantage. If you do not, then the advantage is exactly that it is not centralised.

What keeps people small and poor is the insistence that people should save in monetary terms.

It's not rocket science. When you keep your wealth in monetary terms, you don't get to have it in physical terms. Money represents how much real wealth you could have if you spent it. It's deferred consumption. There is no real wealth in something that didn't happen.

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

#289

Post by meheleventyone » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

Joeboy wrote: post #221

meheleventyone wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not at all there is rampant fraud in the NFT market. So much so Deviantart made some detection software to help alert artists their work is being stolen. All that can be definitively proved outside of other methods is who created the token.

It sounds like you're talking about cases where, as I said, there's "earlier evidence of somebody else being the creator of the work". In the absence of that , I think the token would be a decent piece of evidence in favour of the token owner.

So would posting it anywhere online essentially. Twitter would work for the same usecase. Or the old sending it to yourself through the mail thing.

NFTs also don’t put the image on chain usually instead just linking from the metadata so a fraudster could register a bunch of placeholder NFTs and then later put stolen art where the link points to. Hey Presto you can steal art and “prove” the actual creator is the fraud.

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

#290

Post by rfd4sgmk8u » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

flipbrad wrote: post #246

toomim wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And he never spent them. It's the most selfless act I've witnessed in my life.

Might not be especially hard to use them as collateral for a loan, though. Live like a king and then eventually sell them, repaying the loan from the (now rather generous) proceeds.

This absolutely is not the case, as any collateralize loans require you to transfer custody to a 3rd party making the loan.

Otherwise, you could just steal the coins straight after handing over the private keys. And even if that wasn't the case, the loaner will want exclusive control and move them to another key they control anyway.

If it was a loan, you would have blockchain records of movement of Satoshi coins. This can be proven not to be the case, and so we can be quite confident there was no loans to Satoshi.