221–230 of 704 posts
Not being pegged to a centralized, state-controlled currency is a dealbreaker for me. It's still in infancy and it's true that 99% of the projects are get-rich-quick schemes with no intrinsic value. Though, I think the author lives in a country with a trustworthy government because that's not the case for many people including me. In the last two days my country's currency has shaken much more than crypto and I don't…
Stephen is mostly likely right that the decentralized nature of Crypto is not really a benefit. That said digital cash and tokens and NFTs do have value and I expect them to get even more popular. I am reminded of the P2P/decentralized nature of Napster and how it was going to be a revolution. Napter's P2P infrastructure (and later Gnutelle and Bittorrent) allowed it to operate in a legal gray zone or at least have d…
Torrents still account for a massive share of internet traffic. Furthermore, I think it's reductive to just consider it a tool for piracy. Blizzard uses (used?) BitTorrent in their game launcher to alleviate server costs. Not to mention that a lot of bittorrent traffic lives in the fuzzy area of sharing lost media and abandonware. Gabe Newell famously referred to piracy as a service problem, and the success of services like Spotify, Steam and Netflix undoubtedly prove that to some extent. Like yes, the easiest way to dive into the Disney back catalog is through Disney+, but there's also Disney content which, for various reasons, you can't access through the service but still has historical value.
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But that ledger isn't accurate. It's just distributed and difficult to change. I technically am the owner of (quite a few) bitcoin that were being processed by MtGox when they imploded. The wallet they were in at the time was emptied and no longer exists. I still receive the relevant court documents as the case continues still. As far as the ledger is concerned - they are no longer mine. --- So question to you: How d…
Not your keys not your coins. Unless you trust some central authority to take care of you, which you should by now understand that doesn't always work, and when it doesn't work, it's usually a spectacular failure. So to answer your questions. Although possible, no reconcile is the pure spirit of a trustless network. Now? you make sure to avoid custodian services and keep your keys safe. or stay away from crypto until…
Which is entirely true, and there are some useful properties to that, but the whole thing falls down the second you have a real dispute over the trade of goods for value (which I might remind you, outside of the pure speculation/gambling that occurs in bitcoin pricing, is the point of actually holding a currency).
So how do I go about safely spending these things? Oh - it turns out that still only works in the context of a central authority and the legal system they support.
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>Leaving aside the dubious idea that the Federal Reserve can give their friends the ability to print money You didn't read my comment correctly.
What is the mechanism that ensures bitcoin inflates proportionally to the dollar?
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The problem is that PoW is hurting everyone via greenhouse emissions.
Algorand is carbon negative.
Any cryptocurrency's monetary value is derived from exchange with the others — wasteful PoW titans like BTC and fraudulent wildcat banks like Tether.
By participating in ANY openly traded cryptocurrency, you're participating in that economy that AS A WHOLE is involved in wasting power, fucking the GPU market, and massive financial fraud.
Viewing any coin in isolation is completely stupid. Coins don't exist in a vacuum, you MUST have a holistic view.
>Until proven otherwise it seems like the goal of the crypto ecosystem is to build an enormous unregulated casino with a crazy party scene. The goal of crypto was to move blockchains from theory to reality. Upsetting traditional FinTech and its regulation was a side-effect of the experiment.
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You fail to see people who lost trust in their governments and organizations? You don't see how people are unhappy with getting their savings diluted by unlimited money printing?
> You don't see how people are unhappy with getting their savings diluted by unlimited money printing? Money printing dilutes wealth if you hold it in cash, but every other asset appreciates. Moreover if you have more debt than wealth, money printing reduces that burden. How many people actually have more wealth than debt but keep it largely in cash? I never understood who exactly has this problem.
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You know, there is a reason why crypto people chant "Not your keys, not your coins".
Sure, but value without an enforcement mechanism is not very useful. People usually want to trade stored value in exchange for goods and services (at least in a functioning value store - I don't really believe bitcoin serves that purpose at the moment). So lets say we agree that I pay you 10k in bitcoin in exchange for you remodeling my bathroom (and ignore how unlikely this scenario is with real crypto currencies).…
Bitcoin is not designed to solve the counterparty risk, it's just a digital cash that has a fixed emission schedule. It can be stolen just like regular physical cash can be.
Smart Contracts try to solve the counterparty risk issue, but it's just an extra layer around cryptocurrencies, that has it's pros and cons.
From the article: > Any application that could be done on a blockchain could be better done on a centralized database. Except crime. Governments, world-wide, may end up emulating China, which is planning to outlaw other crypto-currencies while providing its own. The information gathered by a national government monopolizing crypto-currency is simply too appealing to those that would like to deter crime, stop tax-avoi…
A CBDC will be introduced and all other USD stable coins will be banned and consider counterfeit currency. The US CBDC will replace stable coins and allow the US to continue exporting its currency abolishing other currencies in the process while gathering intelligence.
Crypto is libertarianism-as-code: it promises freedom for all, even from the state (or "cathedral" in Moldbugese), but it's really an unworkable scam whose actual effect is to enrich the founders and the investor elite at the expense of everyone else. Oh, and as a side effect, it contributes to destroying the environment while its proponents tell us this is a good thing.