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The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

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Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#211

Post by arcticbull »

notch656a wrote: post #184
arcticbull wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody keeps bricks of gold at home. Just why would they. Way too much risk.

I'm not rich enough to own 'bricks' of gold, but if I was I would be a bit more creative than keeping them all naively stored under a bed or something at home. In any case having been subjected to various government fuckery in my life, I'm keenly aware of the need for wealth diversification. Self custody of (some fraction of) wealth is a means of diversification against risks of thugs in various official capacities.…

Reddit is the classic trump card haha, you got me there.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#212

Post by Nav_Panel »

tkfu wrote: post #166
Nav_Panel wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the cool parts of crypto is that it enables new forms of social coordination that take place entirely within an online context. We haven't even scratched the surface of what could be possible with DAOs; the UIs and educational materials don't exist yet. But given how online people are in general (and they're only likely to become more online in the future), it's natural they'll want digitally-native ways to or…

I'm curious to dig into this a bit more. In general, I'm skeptical about those use cases. * If it's a governance token system where more money == more power...well, I just don't think it's a good idea in general. * If it's a system that tries to replicate the idea of one person/one vote, you have to have KYC (and re-KYC upon membership transfer) or it devolves into the first case. Then the entity doing KYC has centra…

To address the latter case first: what you gain is standardization and interoperability, where the crypto toolbox acts as a protocol. Even if you're doing KYC in a centralized way, you can plug your token/DAO into any tool that supports it and use their interfaces. At least in theory. Good interfaces don't quite exist yet (it's being worked on). I'm sure there's already web2 tools out there, but the ideal web3 case is far lower friction, requiring no web hosting, deployment, trusted middlemen, etc. The proof of this will be in its success or failure, I'm still not sure how it'll play out.

Regarding the former case, of money and power... this one is a little harder. In theory, if you're a part of some community, and a very rich person wanted to fuck up or infiltrate your community by leveraging their wealth, they could probably figure out a way to do it, crypto or not. At least in this case, the existing community members stand to reap some sort of benefit from it, in the sense that a new whale's buy-in will increase the value of their existing holdings. Then they can all cash out and start a new thing someplace else. It has a similar form and moral valence as neighborhood gentrification (but without the racialized element).

I tend to think most communities will solve this by having some external aim of coordination that discourages people from just speculating (which makes sense given that social proof exists relative to the community in question), even if the balance of power is determined based on buy-in. But again, I don't really know how it will play out in practice, if more regular people will actually take up these tools for non-speculation reasons, etc.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#213

Post by tluyben2 »

Nursie wrote: post #79
dpweb wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is a creation of government, and frankly, the dollar ain’t so bad. If my bank goes under I’m protected by the FDIC. If Coinbase goes under they have the right to use my money to pay their creditors.

While this is true, and should be taken into account ... I can't help feeling that by the time that becomes relevant, those cryptocurrencies are quite likely to be worth very little anyway, as coinbase going under is (IMHO) quite likely to be correlated with a general cryptocurrency market crash.

> correlated with a general cryptocurrency market crash.

Which will be correlated with a general market crash.

As we are going through one now, it seems to follow that cryptocurrencies should crash more as a lot of tech companies have actual value and make/offer things we want while cryptocurrencies do not.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#215

Post by alexb_ »

WFHRenaissance wrote: post #182
alexb_ wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Crypto will succeed because the rich...corrupt...liberarians want it to Just because you want something to happen doesn't mean it will. Especially when you have to assume that we live in some fantasy world where nobody can be trusted and everything has to be done outside the influence of government (i.e. illegally) so we have to use a decentralized append-only database where nothing can be reversed because while you…

All of my stated use-cases are already in use. Society will evolve towards being trustless as the moneyed-class pursue sovereign citizenship and shop for preferential territory on a global scale. They will need a secure way to trustlessly store and exchange funds. Cryptocurrency literally exists nearly entirely for this reason. Ignore the stupid coins.

Oh lord, a hybrid cross of "sovereign citizen" and "cryptocurrency geek". This is an unholy combination. No, none of your fantasies are correct or true in any way. Rich people don't need to escape government, they can influence it just fine.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#216

Post by junofan »

dpweb wrote: post #68
etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #23

Crypto cannot create wealth, only move it around. If too many people become crypto-rich and try to spend it on real-world assets, the assets will just inflate in price. What can happen is that crypto could replace other forms of money. Governments will likely fight this tooth and nail however, because crypto is currently an anti-government technology.

Money is a creation of government, and frankly, the dollar ain’t so bad. If my bank goes under I’m protected by the FDIC. If Coinbase goes under they have the right to use my money to pay their creditors.

When your bank goes under, the FDIC uses your money to pay creditors, same as Coinbase. You get a new account with money funded from the Deposit Insurance Fund. You have already paid for this insurance. You are also free to purchase insurance for your Coinbase deposits. There’s not a difference except one’s compulsory.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#217

Post by WFHRenaissance »

woodruffw wrote: post #196
WFHRenaissance wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPS is spoofable… you’re a security guy, you should know this :p

Yes, I am. I'm not aware of a threat model in which you can't trust the frequencies GPS is on but you can trust the frequencies that the FCC allows personal radio transmissions to be on. Seems like a lot of added complexity (and, notably, no legal recourse) for essentially the same failure mode.

https://www.wired.com/story/spoof-jam-destroy-why-we-need-a-...

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#218

Post by edgelordfan »

WFHRenaissance wrote: post #96

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.

No post body was provided.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#219

Post by WFHRenaissance »

alexb_ wrote: post #215
WFHRenaissance wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of my stated use-cases are already in use. Society will evolve towards being trustless as the moneyed-class pursue sovereign citizenship and shop for preferential territory on a global scale. They will need a secure way to trustlessly store and exchange funds. Cryptocurrency literally exists nearly entirely for this reason. Ignore the stupid coins.

Oh lord, a hybrid cross of "sovereign citizen" and "cryptocurrency geek". This is an unholy combination. No, none of your fantasies are correct or true in any way. Rich people don't need to escape government, they can influence it just fine.

Nice ad hominem.

Sure, in a state where the legislature/executive are captured by domestic industry, you’re right that that’s the case.

It’s clear you live in the USA.

Outside of the USA, governments tend to predate on wealth, and having globally portable money secured in accounts of your choosing is a huge asset.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#220

Post by tluyben2 »

notch656a wrote: post #190
_vdpp wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same reason you don’t keep all your savings under the mattress. There have been a number of stories about people losing or corrupting their crypto wallets. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Would you keep all your cash in the bank? Frankly I feel terrified if I don't have enough cash on hand to last at least a month. For instance the IRS has been known to freeze bank accounts of completely innocent business owners on wild goose chase accusations that small deposits are structured, for instance. It's also worth noting there are certain unique risks to exchanges that aren't really applicable to most bank…

Not sure if it’s my circle, but you seem an exception. I live in a tiny village and haven’t touched cash for years (somewhere 2018), nor has anyone I know. Personally I hear what you are saying as I had my accounts frozen (in my country, you can basically sue a company and start by freezing the assets of the company and their owners without any proof) a long time ago, so I always have a lot of accounts no one knows about (the tax office does but they are not allowed to provide those to lawyers). However, cash… Nah. I can kind of see that someone might put gold somewhere just in case the entire system collapses (which will end cash too), but outside that…
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