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On anti-crypto toxicity

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Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#161

Post by MrMan »

Capira wrote: post #88
bertil wrote: post #25

The largest and easiest argument against crypto is the environmental impact. It’s completely ignored in that piece.

Bitcoin is very effective environmental activism. It accelerates our transition to renewable energies. Bitcoin makes renewable energy sources more profitable because it offers a base price for excess electricity. Any time, any place. Furthermore, Bitcoin can lower the hidden costs of the petrodollar. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/the-hidden-costs-of-the-... And Bitcoin incentivises having a low time preference.…

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Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#162

Post by BLanen »

janandonly wrote: post #116
guywhocodes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Largely crypto seems to fail at being distributed internet money. If a project is fast and cheap enough for it that correlates with being too niche to be viable. We have seen BTC and ETH lose their function as internet money as transactions and prices have gone up.

Then you did not look (closely) enough at BTC. When transaction prices went up in 2017 [1] the second layer technology "Lightning" was invented and build-out. Right now, Joe Average, can transact for fractions of pennies. [2] [1] http://melaurent.github.io/spamattack/ [2] https://bitcoinist.com/lightning-cnbc-sent-btc-to-a-ukranian...

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Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#163

Post by whywhywhywhy »

rntrg wrote: post #40
ulzeraj wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard of a bitcoin or Ethereum deterministic wallet being canceled because someone found out its owner is from Iran or Venezuela. That's a huge improvement over the crap that is the current financial system.

Or Russia? Seems the ability to freeze the assets of a tyrannical regime can come in handy from time to time, no?

It also means if your country does become a warzone you can have everything taken from you but still maintain your wealth if you remember 12 words.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#164

Post by xvello »

maccard wrote: post #99
brianolson wrote: post #53

I'm grumpy about Visa/MC taking 3% of every transaction. I want a technofix for that. There are new blockchains that cost less than a penny per transaction use about a millionth of the wattage of bitcoin and I hope they turn out to be non-BS. I just want an efficient low-cost barrierless payment network.

Where are you located that visa and MasterCard are charging 3%? In the EU the fees are limited to 0.3%, and in other areas (e.g. the UK) it's 1%. As a card holder I'm pretty happy to pay a ~0.3% service fee to know that I have recourse with a merchant, for example. > I just want an efficient low-cost barrierless payment network. Whats low cost to you then?

> Where are you located that visa and MasterCard are charging 3%?

I am guessing the good old unregulated free market of the US of A: https://www.valuepenguin.com/what-credit-card-processing-fee...

There, banks and credit card companies offer huge perks and cash-back to card holders. That money must come from somewhere, and that's from the transaction fees paid by merchants (and transitively customers, as merchants still need to make a profit). AMEX has even higher transaction fees, which is why some businesses don't accept it.

The situation is now at an idiotic local maximum: if I don't use one of these cashbacks cards, I am losing money paying for my neighbor's air miles, as I don't get a discount anyway. You don't need a "technofix" for that, you need regulations that cap interchange fees like the EU.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#165

Post by mattdesl »

greybox wrote: post #94

Regarding the list of questions that are presented here EG - "How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services?" Can anyone explain to me how crypto is uniquely suited to solve this problem? I'm not in principal against crypto currencies existing, but more and more I just see people trying to apply it to problems that they think exist because "the financial system is…

There are several properties of blockchains that could improve upon our current financial structures.

1) Custody: with fiat, the concept of self-custody is "store your cash under your bed," and as we continue to move away from cash into digital money, this option is being eroded. In crypto, the concept of self-custody may be an EOA (account based on a private key) smart contract (such as a multi-signatory account), or some combination. This is not to say that all users should be choosing non-custodial wallets, but the ability to choose and diversify your assets across a range of these technologies is, in my opinion, better than having no choice at all.

2) Mitigating the need for intermediaries in certain situations. Currently to handle escrow of digital assets in fiat systems, you typically need to hire or use a third-party agency. In some cases escrow could instead be managed by a (cryptographically-verified) program execution, e.g. "transfer X domain name record for Y amount of stablecoin assets".

3) Privacy-preserving attestations via zero-knowledge proofs, which could use a public (decentralized) ledger so that all parties can verify the validity of the proof.

4) The immutable and public nature of smart contracts gives them certain properties we do not have with our traditional financial systems. For example Libor manipulation went unnoticed for several years; partly because the systems were closed and difficult to analyze. The public ledger is comparatively easy to analyze and difficult to manipulate. (The most common manipulations rely on social engineering; e.g. convincing somebody to sign a transaction, or buy ShitCoin2000.)

5) General security and operational improvements. Much of our traditional system is upheld by FORTRAN and questionable security methods (PINs, passwords, cell phone 2FA). Crypto currencies are extremely adversarial environments that are forcing new security models and cryptographic primitives: zk-proofs and zk-VMs, multi-party computation, new methods of private key storage and management, post-quantum cryptography. Hopefully some of these advancements (being funded by crypto currencies) will eventually spill over to other sectors.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#166

Post by binibus »

igorkraw wrote: post #54
Ekaros wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it is rather hard to separate the Libetarians and Anarcho people... Other one might be right and other left, but there is some weird commonality when it comes to state and control of financial system...

It's really not that hard. Libertarians, minarchists and "anarcho-capitalists" take one of the things which inherently need a state to uphold it (private property) and use it as the conceptual foundation of their social order - while not liking "the state". All other anarchists don't and hence get labeled as "left". That's the main difference, and the reason why "anarcho-capitalist" is inherently paradoxical. There i…

Hi, minarchist here. You are almost right in the distinction between right and left anarchism being about private property. But it's a little more profound. The main difference radicates in the conception of legitimate power. For a right anarchist, power is illegitimate only when it's carried out through violence. Meanwhile, for a left anarchist almost any power hierarchy is illegitimate in itself. To the extent that private property could give rise to power hierarchies, a left anarchist will reject it. But it's only a particular case derived from the core belief.

> "anarcho-capitalist" is inherently paradoxical

Well, anarcho-capitalists believe that there are ways to provide property rights outside the state. As a minarchist, I'm skeptical about it, but if you believe it there's no paradox.

On the other hand, I do find deeply paradoxical the left anarchist stance on rejecting capitalism but also (AFAIK) reject any means to stop its emergence in society.

> There is also another conversation to be had about minarchist/libertarian ideas basically wanting to remove all the good bits of the state [...] but keeping the bad parts

As a minarchist, I strive for reducing the weight of the state as much as humanly possible. Justice, defense, and a minimal social security net are the only services I can't think how to provide without the state. If you think these are the bad parts I'd love to hear a viable alternative, maybe you can make me fully anarcho-capitalist ;).

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#167

Post by sofixa »

ulzeraj wrote: post #90
rntrg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or Russia? Seems the ability to freeze the assets of a tyrannical regime can come in handy from time to time, no?

I guess its time for a reality check: Putin oligarchs are still filthy rich, the ruble has come back to pre-war levels while average Russian citizens who have been excluded from the rest of the world. https://developers.slashdot.org/story/22/04/18/016252/is-git...

The ruble's course doesn't matter because it's close to unusable. The Russian economy is cut off from vital supplies, and will soon have all sorts of shortages of all sorts of high tech/quality things - vehicles, phones, computer parts, sensors for their precious resource extractions. China and India cannot fill all the gaps, there's too many of them.

As for the oligarchs, they're still rich, but much less so, and they've lost many precious toys ( yachts, villas, football clubs).

Yes, the average Russian citizen is excluded from the rest of the world, and will bear the brunt of the impact. As they should, because they're the ones who mostly sat idly and allowed all of this to happen. I have zero sympathy for the average Russian whose inaction made them unable to purchase a new phone or car. They won't starve to death, and they won't be bombes to pieces, which are the prospects facing Ukrainian citizens suffering from the invasion which brought all of this on.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#168

Post by anhner »

stavros wrote: post #76
egeozcan wrote: post #51

You cannot solve contract/legal problems and wrong transactions through decentralization. You can't also make a democratic system act on every conflict. You assign a central authority to act on them and you select that authority through a democratic process, which is what we already have. - I want to have a beer! - ok, scan this QR, and accept the transaction - there you go! - thank you, here are your 5 beers - oh, d…

How is this different from cash?

...that's what he was saying? What do we need crypto for if it has the same drawbacks as cash? (and also others on the side, like huge fees)

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#169

Post by trompetenaccoun »

Werewolf255 wrote: post #125
ekianjo wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that isn’t deflationary So you believe inflation is a good thing?

I think some inflation is good as it is an incentive to invest in capital projects. If you only have deflation, why shouldn't you hoard your wealth? I mean, since it's always going to be worth more tomorrow than today. Inflation is a shadow that people use to excuse their greed

It seems you assume investment is generally good. As you can see right now people invest in anything just to save their cash from rising inflation, but the investments often aren't sensible to put it mildly. Valuations of many companies based on realistic forward P/E ranges are outright silly. Nor is investing necessarily beneficial for society in general. In fact many of these corporations are outright destructive, but capital gets allocated to where it can multiply the best, not where it might have a positive influence on society.

It's the fiscal policy of many countries that's massively driven up asset prices including cryptocurrencies. Those who didn't invest saw their savings printed away.

Inflation (of IOUs) is good for those holding the actual wealth (resources, land, farms, factories, real estate, etc - often through public shares). It's good for those who have debt denominated in inflationary currency. It's definitely good for some people and their business. What many people simply don't understand is they're not part of that group.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#170

Post by liminvorous »

Quindecillion wrote: post #122

It's unfortunate that Bitcoin has become so mired in partisan politics. For me its purpose is simple. If my money is a representation of my time and effort, why should I accept the central banks' inflation "target" of even 2%, due to money printing? I don't see why anyone should be okay with that, particularly given that central banks rarely meet that target for long and more often than not overshoot by a significant…

Money is a leaky representation of your time and effort that we accept because it is better than isolated subsistence agriculture. It's purpose is to motivate you to devote time and effort to satisfying the needs and wants of other people, opinions differ on how well it accomplishes that. Mine is roughly it's not very good but I don't think bitcoin as it exists is likely an improvement.

I kind of suspect you're missing some idea about how your particular idea of money leaks but I can't tell from your comment what in particular you're missing. Maybe try thinking through the relationship between not consuming something now, and wanting to consume something in the future without using the idea of money?

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