241–250 of 253 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No realistic takes on crypto allowed on HN, you might get banned.
The idea that crypto solved "fast, global, cheap, secure, anonymized transfer of value" is not "realistic" - it's preposterous.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
having all of your currency on an exchange, regardless of the currency, has never been a good idea. (signed a MtGox victim.)
The problem with that is, these networks are rather convoluted and are basically unusable for most people without relying on exchanges or other similar services.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The original you see today Exactly proving my point. A $15 print of the Mona Lisa makes it look good. In truth, the painting is suffering from deterioration, the poplar panel is warped, the columns that used to frame her are missing, and restoration has obscured some details. A print doesn't convey the physicality of the cracked, rough surface of the paint, the sfumato technique, the almost total lack of visible br…
Wow do you have an art background, really enjoy how you described design elements in detail.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The credit card transaction involves fungible currency, the Bitcoin transaction doesn't do that. As a result the batch operation succeeds for the credit card. Six equivalent cards, each performing six offline transactions for $5 each results in thirty six $5 transactions, $180 from one account to various merchants. Settlement transactions can complete more or less instantly or take several days, you don't care and yo…
What’s the issue with Bitcoin in this context?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A real cryptocurrency wallet also would have worked.
90% of people won't use their own wallets.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s the issue with Bitcoin in this context?
The credit card transaction isn't about the specific money. A Bitcoin transaction about this Bitcoin A is different from one about this other Bitcoin B. If I do two offline transactions paying with Bitcoin A, but keep Bitcoin B each time, then even though I received goods worth two Bitcoins, the blockchain says only one merchant gets Bitcoin A and neither gets Bitcoin B. But if I do two $100 credit card transactions,…
Credit cards suffer from a similar problem, the transactions will not necessarily go through when you get online.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Crypto does solve a few real world issues (fast, global, cheap, secure, anonymized transfer of value). But it seems that some people thought it fixes the "i want to get rich fast" problem, and was bloated as a result. It was never meant for that problem.
> fast Not fast. Most cryptocurrencies have unbearably slow transaction or confirmation times. Maybe if you are buying a car, they will be confirmed by the time the paperwork is done. Even with initiatives like the lightning network, it's still slow. So much so that some of the major exchanges will tally your transactions off-chain, to be confirmed later. > cheap It really isn't. Be it gas fees or computational power…
If you want to send big money from an account to another, or from a country to another, Bitcoin is really cheap, secure and anonymized.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Banning crypto won't make ransomware go away, it will just increase the cost of ransom. That must be why ransomware demands were so much higher in the pre-bitcoin era. Unless you're including the cost of sending a cargo jet full of cash or gold halfway around the world?
Before bitcoin was still the early days of ransomware. It existed mostly as tech support scams. Now that the floodgates have been opened ransoms will go back to being high-risk western union payments and will be much higher. You can't put the cat back in the bag.
There is a reason ransom amounts skyrocketed when cryptocurrency entered the picture, and no, it's not because it was "the early days" pre-bitcoin.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
San Salvador is a different country from El Salvador, just for the record.
San Salvador is not a country - it’s a city. The capital of El Salvador.