121–130 of 234 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well the parent claimed they would be rendered penniless. If you're temporarily unable to transact you're not penniless.
You "just have a cashflow problem", or are "temporarily embarrassed for money". In other words, you broke.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not that you're wrong about anything that you've said, but your implication (and that of the blockchain punditry) is that somehow crypto is the solution here, without ever exaplaining "how". The idea that crypto is "out of reach" of governments, regulators, law and oppressive regimes is one of the fairy tales that crypto pundits believe that is simply not true. In a country that is unbanked and financially oppressed,…
Real-world situations aren’t binary. They don’t just automatically go to the extreme edge case. It’s a common mistake of programmers whose brains are trained to think that way (mine included!) So when the government is bad people who have guns, it might be tempting to think “There is no mitigation for this because they have guns! They can just exert infinite leverage at any point to squelch any mitigation to their co…
An obscure cryptocurrency black market is the only one that can really exist for any length of time. However, an obscure crypto ecosystem is also one that is difficult to actually use. It doesn't matter how much Bitcoin you've hidden from the government, if you can't actually spend it on anything.
Why is uncensorable money worth the risk of permanently losing your money because you forgot a password or lost a thumb drive?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> when the people with guns realize they are paid in a fiat currency that their bosses keep inflating for their own benefit, what do you think they will do? Same thing that happens in Venezuela. You pay your army in real assets and hard currency. > who will the people with guns shoot at when they can't identify an anonymous crypto wallet? Which is a false assumption, given recent history.
> Same thing that happens in Venezuela. You pay your army in real assets and hard currency. Venezuela proves my point - it's a borderline failed state where the government is very, very fragile. > Which is a false assumption, given recent history. You may be referring to the Colonial Pipeline hackers. When hackers implement strong crypto opsec, it is impossible to catch them.[1] Dumb and careless criminals get caught…
Take out the word "crypto" and this statement is equally true. Law enforcement probably won't catch a criminal with good opsec whether they're using cash or Bitcoin or bags of cocaine.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can live in real estate and get dividends from stocks. Cryptocurrencies are more similar to commodities: gold, wheat, coal. (You can consume wheat and coal, yes, but that consumes them and then you don't have them anymore; that's not profit.)
Yes, except gold, wheat, and coal have inherent value as physical items whereas crypto does not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Torvalds has apologized for past toxic and the damage it incurred, behavior and has vowed to do better from then on.
Vitalik proposed a theory that the toxicity is a valid and perhaps even necessary defense mechanism. I don't pretend to know whether Vitalik's theory is true, but it certainly seems plausible. And defending linux from bad actors is a herculean task. If Torvald's toxicity helped him in that endeavor, his apology would be a negative development. Interestingly, the Rust community has had incredible success being explici…
That is not at all original to Vitalik. It pre-exists in the bitcoin community and maybe is even older than that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But I'm not in Russia and it feels I have to do A) huge amount of research B) huge amount of risk / personal responsibility C) and Still trust some or multiple 3rd party services to practically obtain or withdraw bitcoin, which have same or more power or likelihood to cut me off I (think) understand the dream. I don't see the reality of seamlessly easily practically safely cheaply transacting bitcoin. As a mediocre t…
I find it takes even more effort to continually understand the situation of the traditional financial system and the current status of geopolitics. I don't know when my country could became the next Russia. It's a hostile world out there; effort is required to survive, and risk is unavoidable
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Literally the only way you can profit with crypto is if people keep buying in at higher prices. It's the perfect instantiation of a pyramid scheme. How does that differ from other commodities trading? The only way to profit in the futures market is to buy low and sell high, too, for instance.
> differ from other commodities trading It doesn’t. Trading is zero sum. It supports the extraction, processing and delivery of useful things, however, which is positive sum.
> Crypto-assets like Bitcoin have real cultural and structural advantages that make them powerful assets worth holding and using. Not for me. Why would an asset, which I can lose, have no direct control over it or even better, whose storage places are hacked on a weekly basis, earn my trust? And no, I am not even starting about the energy waste most crypto-assets are.
You don't like it because it's possible to lose? Are all of your other physical possessions immune from being lost?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to mention, if you protest an extensively corrupt government, they could just call up and say "Hey, shut 'em down." And they'd happily oblige. That doesn't happen as easily on the blockchain. You are fully in control of your funds with cryptocurrency. There is no middleman that can say "no, sorry, you can't use your money today."
> You are fully in control of your funds with cryptocurrency. There is no middleman that can say "no, sorry, you can't use your money today." Don't blockchains rely entirely on transaction processors, i.e. middlemen, to process transactions?
[0] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/after-chinas-crypto-ban-who...