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On anti-crypto toxicity

blog.mollywhite.net

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461–470 of 734 posts

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#461

Post by LargeWu »

scottLobster wrote: post #412
reedjosh wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politically working in sound money (no printer go brrrr) is governmentally forbidden. Bitcoin subverted the corrupt political process and has brought that choice back.

Bitcoin will only be "sound money" when I can pay my taxes in it. Or at least pay for my oil change. Sure it's artificially limited in quantity. Great! Doesn't make it money. It's a commodity like any other.

In addition to that I would add it needs to be a real store of value. Over any moderate timescale (a few years, say), it should reasonably maintain its value over that period. Swings of 40% purchasing power are unacceptable for a useful currency.

Sure, bitcoin maximalists love to point out that if you bought it a year ago, it's up XXX%. But what if I bought near its high value? Not so good a proposition then.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#462

Post by rendaw »

Mindwipe wrote: post #371
gwbas1c wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree, and I must add: Those are all political problems. Technology does not solve political problems. Politics solves political problems. All cryptocurrency does is obfuscate the politics behind its monetary system. As flawed as our monetary system is, the politics behind it are visible and under control of a government. In my country, my government is elected, and I'm an active and informed voter. Thus, I thin…

> Technology does not solve political problems. Politics solves political problems. I don't think this is true, bluntly. Technology does not automatically solve political problems. But technology does sometimes render bad political actions unviable. I would argue that a large part of the widespead acceptance of homosexuality in Western society was due to the deconstruction of singular media gatekeepers by the move of…

And there's also plenty of political problems politics have failed to solve. Like getting rid of Confederate statues (they're not being put back up), which were eventually removed via vandalism.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#463

Post by kllrnohj »

sneak wrote: post #230
logifail wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In one corner we have types who want to send > arbitrarily large amounts of money and in the other corner we have the types who know about and enforce AML and KYC legislation. How is this possibly going to end well for the first group?

It turns out there are actually things that lawmakers don't really have the power to effectively ban, drugs and prostitution and gambling and cash transactions principally among them. A lot of people don't seem to integrate this fact. The practical power of a lawmaking body is not unlimited. There are certain things they simply cannot stop, no matter how many laws are passed. It won't "end" for either group, really.…

Except Bitcoin transactions (or any other blockchain transaction) is forever public and forever traceable. It's the complete opposite of a cash transaction.

Once your wallet is in some way connected to you, all your transactions since the beginning of time are now known. This is a wet dream for government enforcement.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#464

Post by tablespoon »

______-_-______ wrote: post #345
tablespoon wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People shitting on crypto, while sitting on their ass without addressing the problems in other ways are doing society a disservice. But cryptocurrency doesn't address any real problems. The claims that it does are mostly BS and marketing. The problems cryptocurrency solves are ones that are created by holding to peculiar ideologies and/or speculating about problems that haven't happened and may never happen. The on…

Crypto has addressed real problems for Ukraine's military. > “In a situation like this, where the national bank is not fully operating, crypto is helping to perform fast transfers, to make it very quick and get results almost immediately,” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/11/technology/bitcoin-ukrain... Is this BS and marketing?

> Crypto has addressed real problems for Ukraine's military.

>> “In a situation like this, where the national bank is not fully operating, crypto is helping to perform fast transfers, to make it very quick and get results almost immediately,”

>> https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/11/technology/bitcoin-ukrain...

> Is this BS and marketing?

Here are the next two paragraphs after your quote:

> But Mr. Bornyakov [Ukraine’s deputy minister of digital transformation] seemed wary of overstating crypto’s importance to the Ukrainian cause.

> “I don’t think crypto is playing a major part,” Mr. Bornyakov said. “But its role is essential in this conflict in terms of helping our army.”

Ukraine needs every bit of support they can get, and they won't turn away tens of millions in donations from cryptobros, but it's a minor part of their effort. You can also easily donate USD or do a bank transfer to send them money:

https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-sp...

And they've gotten far more donations that way:

https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/nbu-pererahuvav-na-potrebi-v...

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#465

Post by mr_spothawk »

kuschku wrote: post #209
Capira wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use the Lightning Network to send Bitcoins instantly.

True, if I keep my assets in EUR and only convert them to BTC as needed. I can’t really use BTC to store money, as it fluctuates too much. The old use case of “keep money in your BTC wallet on your own PC, send it as needed” doesn’t really work anymore (not even counting the issue of being unable to run a full node anymore)

> True, if I keep my assets in EUR and only convert them to BTC as needed.

What?? The parent was talking about the lightning network... which is built on top of the bitcoin node network.

> being unable to run a full node anymore

Full node syncs & runs fine even on a raspi 3... it's slow... and you're not participating in mining... but it's running, and does what you would expect a node to do (validate, receive & broadcast transactions).

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#466

Post by User23 »

malthaus wrote: post #183

Unfortunately, given: "How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services? How can we reduce the power that a small few currently hold over the web? How can we improve data privacy and ensure that people have control over their personal information? How can we create reasonable privacy in the financial system? How can we make information more available to everyone? How…

> "How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services?"

More to the point, how can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to a banking license?

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#467

Post by Crosseye_Jack »

soco wrote: post #411
Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same could be said about paying in cash. Order a beer, hand over a 20 expecting change, bartender gives you 5 beers and no change. In that case you can convince the bartender (who allready said no can do) or call the police (though it might be a civil issue rather than criminal, so calling the cops won't produce any results and you will have to take it up with them via the civil court system). BUt I get your point, I…

On the other hand, I had over time a few credit card disputes, and the existing system worked just fine.

My bank handles card disputes very well imo. Basically I can start the dispute via my banking app and based on your past history the bank will front you the refund while they wait out the dispute.

Things like that happen when you have an intermediate handling the transaction, and personally for my day to day transactions I'm happy with using the existing banking system

BUT the existing system does have flaws in my opinion. For one example, sex workers, banks do not like touching that subject. Crypto removes the gatekeepers to electronic payment transfers, well it does until you want to convert it back to fiat and your crypto gets blacklisted by the exchanges. But me personally, I don't think crypto is the answer, but kicking banks into understanding that adults are adults and don't need banks holding the reins.

(Granted payments in the adult industry are some of the most charged back which becomes a pain for payment providers).

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#468

Post by Traster »

smeea wrote: post #452
Traster wrote: post #46

I think toxicity from the anti-crypto crowd is basically inevitable at this point. It has been a decade of dumb claims and ridiculous assertions from the pro-crypto crowd. None of their claims have materially panned out. There's some promise in some places - mainly in the most nerdy corners of ETH, but it's still only promises. Meanwhile, this long protracted failure has been accompanied by a massive increase in stup…

BTC was the only way I was able to pay for hosting/domain for my non-commercial pet-project (~1,5 years of almost daily after hours development) after sanctions raised against the country I live in. This is my anecdotal experience (and no, I don't invest in crypto), but that's enough for me to not consider cryptocurrencies "just scum". P.S. Also I pay for VPN with it, because this is also the only way at the moment,…

I'd be interested to hear who you bought the hosting from, I'm sure the US government would also like to hear who has been helping you evade sanctions. Sanctions are there for a reason.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#469

Post by crypot »

malthaus wrote: post #183

Unfortunately, given: "How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services? How can we reduce the power that a small few currently hold over the web? How can we improve data privacy and ensure that people have control over their personal information? How can we create reasonable privacy in the financial system? How can we make information more available to everyone? How…

Bitcoin in particular would be the absolute worst tool to use to fix any of these problems. It is 90% owned by a very small group of people. If it becomes more valuable, this will result in a significantly less equitable financial system.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#470

Post by kuschku »

mr_spothawk wrote: post #465
kuschku wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, if I keep my assets in EUR and only convert them to BTC as needed. I can’t really use BTC to store money, as it fluctuates too much. The old use case of “keep money in your BTC wallet on your own PC, send it as needed” doesn’t really work anymore (not even counting the issue of being unable to run a full node anymore)

> True, if I keep my assets in EUR and only convert them to BTC as needed. What?? The parent was talking about the lightning network... which is built on top of the bitcoin node network. > being unable to run a full node anymore Full node syncs & runs fine even on a raspi 3... it's slow... and you're not participating in mining... but it's running, and does what you would expect a node to do (validate, receive & broa…

> What?? The parent was talking about the lightning network... which is built on top of the bitcoin node network.

Yes, but bitcoin is so volatile that you can’t keep money for daily usage in it. You can only use it as long-term investment or ultra-short-term wallet.

The regular usage – storing money for somewhere between one and 30 days – is really painful with bitcoin.

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