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The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

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Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#111
post #104

The issue here is actually pretty easy to grok. Crypto is a new market, so there is a historical amount of information asymmetry between consumers and producers. This brings a lot of scammers to the space. A lot of crypto is definitely bullshit, but there are some use-cases that I admire that aren’t just gambling on Shit coins.

> you’d be an idiot to ignore the realistic and adopted use-cases Ignoring the hostility, what would you list as the realistic and adopted use-cases for crypto?

Buying drugs, laundering money, ransomware, there are literally dozens.

Oh, did you want legal ones?

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with greenbacks tho EDIT: let me elaborate before you downvote: the value of a US dollar is not "intrinsic", it's the result of the strength of the US government and military, i.e. due to social factors that cause it to be accepted as a medium for exchange. Crypto is no different: any crypto asset that has an exchange value (i.e. for which there's a liquid market) is backed by social proof of some kind, although…

Remind me again what the price of BTC is most commonly quoted in?

Sats bro, and there are 100 million of them in a Bitcoin. Before too long you will notice more and more things denominated in sats.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Governments will likely fight this tooth and nail however, because crypto is currently an anti-government technology. Democratic governments represent the will of the people, and I don't think a technology can be pro-government or anti-government, it ultimately depends on what the people what. I think you are correct though for autocratic governments. Would you for example say that guns are clearly anti-government…

> Democratic governments represent the will How are people still this naive and indoctrinated. Me, earlier: > You vote what you're told to vote by the media that the state and capital dominate entirely (Think about it: how would enough people even hear about an alternative idea or candidate that they don't deem in their interest?) If you're American you get to choose between two millionaires (or sometimes billionaire…

Truly democratic governments would represent the will of the people. Representative democracy, on the other hand, often ends up being an elective aristocracy -- just like you say.

Once we elect a small set of people to make decisions for us, a political class tends to emerge (those with resources and time to spend their days wooing people) and it is their will who is represented by government. The people simply select the least worst of those options.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#114
post #12

Quoted post unavailable.

If you really believe it doesn't have "any value at all" then I invite you to sell it short. That's a free $30,000. The nice thing about markets is that you can express your opinion, and that market opinions without corresponding positions can be ignored.

No post body was provided.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#115
post #104

The issue here is actually pretty easy to grok. Crypto is a new market, so there is a historical amount of information asymmetry between consumers and producers. This brings a lot of scammers to the space. A lot of crypto is definitely bullshit, but there are some use-cases that I admire that aren’t just gambling on Shit coins.

> you’d be an idiot to ignore the realistic and adopted use-cases Ignoring the hostility, what would you list as the realistic and adopted use-cases for crypto?

Online poker and buying drugs on the dark web

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#116

The issue here is actually pretty easy to grok. Crypto is a new market, so there is a historical amount of information asymmetry between consumers and producers. This brings a lot of scammers to the space. A lot of crypto is definitely bullshit, but there are some use-cases that I admire that aren’t just gambling on Shit coins.

What are the adopted and realistic use cases?

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems rash to wish for regulation to be weaponized to the effect of banning something, rather the actual meaning of regulation to define and enforce orderly, fair, predictable functioning of something.

Replace crypto with dumping toxic waste into the local river and re-read your sentence.

You can’t just replace nouns and keep the same meaning, cos language doesn’t work that way.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#118
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you know anyone into crypto you would know they talk about it non stop. Not really. There are a lot of people holding, mining, DCA'ing into projects they believe in who have no trouble at all keeping it to themselves. Your remarks about gambling are similarly projecting a portion of the community onto the rest. Those traders who treat it as a speculative asset are gambling as you say, and tend to be obsessive in…

I'm extremely skeptical that this silent majority exists because I don't see crypto being used for anything other than hodl-ing. Do you have indicators you can point to of cryptocurrency being used as a real currency?

Whether or not you think NFTs are stupid and totally worthless, there's a fairly extensive economy based around fine art NFTs where collectors (who view them more as consumption goods than investments) buy and sell in ETH. And despite wild fluctuations in ETHUSD, people's mental accounting is generally denominated in ETH.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#119
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are the founders of these apps not in prison? I remember getting hundreds of “replace your savings account” ads that abruptly ended with the Luna collapse.

What laws did they break? Legitimately curious.

IANAL. When an entity takes customer deposits it gets hyper regulated, a notch or two below commercial bank. These apps circumvent those regulations by accepting deposits in crypto.

Regulators are are also in bit of a spot because it's an entirely new beast. For most of the current use case crypto acts like unregistered security but in in some minor way it's also a currency. So regulators are biding their time because coming down with a heavy hand will attract a bad rep as big hedge funds are also getting into crypto.

Also, IMO current legal codes aren't good enough to tackle crypto at the moment, see this[1] for example. It's an active area of legal research so will take time to crystallise.

So these apps are slipping through this regulatory crack. Do they deserve to go to jail? I'm not so sure. But they do know what they are doing.

[1] https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2020/11/20/Leg...

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace crypto with dumping toxic waste into the local river and re-read your sentence.

You can’t just replace nouns and keep the same meaning, cos language doesn’t work that way.

It does if the analogy holds. Both have no positive attributes, only negative attributes.
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