551–560 of 704 posts
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Also amounts > 20000 in a weekend? How much fees do you pay on that?
I've actually never woken up on a Saturday morning and thought shit, I could really use 20000 EUR right now, so I couldn't tell you what the limits are. I've never hit them. Fees however, are around 1EUR
Anyway, still seems inferior to nano.
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The authors example use cases about a database doing everything except crime summarizes it well. One persons crime is another persons freedom. If you rephrased it as saying, the only thing blockchains provide that a database doesn't is freedom, I think the resounding response would be: Yes. What I think anti-crypto people object to is the freedom of others, because it represents a limit and undermines the necessary a…
The very same people complain about Nanny State when they’re stopped from getting scammed, and scream for justice and legal action once they manage to get scammed after all. See also: people getting absolutely furious when the bank stops them from wiring money to Nigerian scammers for their million-dollar lottery win - and then demanding the same bank reverses the transactions after the jig is up. They want to freely…
Cryptocurrencies represent a respite from the logic of that idea and allow for mutual tolerance, presumably as an alternative to organizing and fighting.
It's not so much a nanny state as a mad aunt in the attic state. (e.g. MMT) Nanny state is an oddly gendered trope, but it's meant to represent not just oversight, but Animus. My argument is essentially that most anti-crypto articles I've read are an expression of ideas that originate from a neurotic animus and an affected condescention that the rest of us just don't buy.
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So, can you name one single successful application of blockchain in the real world? Apart from crime. I believe this is exactly the point of the author - there's lots of handwavy bubblebabble about this technology, but we're now well into the second decade of blockchain/distributed ledgers, and yet to see one single non-criminal real world application.
It's hard to believe $2.6T worth of crypto is all for criminal applications. Maybe you've overlooked something.
There is some value in providing shadow banking to the global criminal underworld, but I don't think it will be the next technological revolution.
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I agree. Just the fact that he lumps Doge and Bitcoin together into "meme coins" tells me he has no idea what he's talking about or that he has an ulterior motive. Whatever you think about those two coins, they are not really similar, especially given that some nations have made Bitcoin legal tender at this point.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing the way cryptocurrency revolutionizes the world in the next 20-50 years, but even I don't see any difference between Dogecoin and Bitcoin other than Doge having a dog on it. Yes, it's pretty unorthodox to consider Bitcoin a memecoin, but it is fundamentally nearly identical to doge, but with even less energy efficiency. The fact that it's a more established asset class with wid…
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And how is fiat not a Ponzi scheme?
And how IS fiat a Ponzi scheme? You don't buy into the US dollar expecting your "share" of dollars to go up. You just use it to pay for stuff.
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So real-estate, stocks and gold are all ponzi schemes?
All of those have value even if you wouldn't be allowed to sell them. Stocks pay dividends, people use gold as jewellery, and you can live in real estate. Speculating on assets with real world value is different from speculating on assets nobody would care about unless they could sell it. The whole point of these scams is to convince people to buy assets that nobody wants, but you convince them that some other guy re…
The opening quote in the article captures it all for me, except the last part. The implied definition of crime is so narrow.
From what I know of the financial markets in the US, mortgages and other loans as well as more esoteric financial instruments -- it's all moving in the direction of Ponzi schemes and get-rich-quick scams. I'd go as far as saying that it is all in fact a big organized crime circuit, if you're just a little flexible in the definition of crime (mostly in the part where crime usually has consequences, but the really big crooks have found a reliable way to "socialize" the consequences of them getting theirs).
In that light, having a public, transparent ledger of all the "important" transactions at the top levels could help reduce the amount of routine white-collar crime that goes on. Perhaps it is not explicitly criminal in nature - or it is, but the offenders have far too many resources to be held accountable -- but all the same it's harmful to society at large. An idealist can dream of a system where these actors can be scrutinized, and named-and-shamed into some kind of socially responsible behaviour.
I think the biggest lesson here is that people really, really love unregulated gambling. The same way they love doing drugs, making narcotics an extremely profitable business. If we don’t legalize the things our population deeply desire, the criminal elements are more than happy to step up and provide said services.
The authors example use cases about a database doing everything except crime summarizes it well. One persons crime is another persons freedom. If you rephrased it as saying, the only thing blockchains provide that a database doesn't is freedom, I think the resounding response would be: Yes. What I think anti-crypto people object to is the freedom of others, because it represents a limit and undermines the necessary a…