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Why I’m Cryptophobic

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Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#281

Post by TrapLord_Rhodo »

bendtheblock wrote: post #275
TrapLord_Rhodo wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that the current financial system is not secure in any sense. Why would i have to give you my entire credit card information to make a payment. Why are you 'pulling' money from my account instead of me sending it to you. Why have we failed to implement a public/private key relationship with our financial data? >giving the info to centralised entity like a bank is bad? Well my first and prime example would…

My question to you is: what's the problem? On the few times I've lost money to online fraud, the bank returned it to me. Why does having a huge public web of transactions on the slowest ledger ever created help? What happens to your "sovereignty" when everyone can see your purchases patterns? What happens when grandma loses her wallet key? re: Greece, worth hearing Yanis Varoufakis on crypto: https://www.youtube.com/…

> re: Greece, worth hearing Yanis Varoufakis on crypto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS0W-Whl0T0

top comment: "How fantastic to let this man expose how incredibly dangerous governments are, without him even realizing [he's] doing it."

Also, the entire time he seems to conflate crypto with CBDC which are nothing alike.

>what's the problem? On the few times I've lost money to online fraud, the bank returned it to me.

How is that not a problem?! I really don't understand this sentiment. There is hundreds of millions of fraud occuring on these systems that employ thousands of people for flagging, eliminating, and reimbursing people due to it being a fundamentlly flawed system. Pull vs. Push here is an important distinction. Having a public private key, even within the current financial system (Not talking crypto here) would be an order of magnitude improvement and would eliminate all of this.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#282

Post by silentsea90 »

FabHK wrote: post #278
silentsea90 wrote: post #269

Imagine a world where you live as a slave with your owner having rights over your time to the extent they'd like. That sucks. Well, fiat is that with the Govt stealing your productive time (since your time was spent on earning money) to the tune of 7-8% (officially) and likely 10-15% unofficially. This is in addition to 40% tax. You effectively spend 50% of your working time serving the Govt. Would you vote yes on se…

Nonsense. Inflation has been running at below 2% for decades, and everyone is free to invest their savings in shares, gold, other currencies, or even crypto. Comparing that to slavery is not only fundamentally wrong, but distasteful.

US debt is skyrocketing, expenses like war paid for by debt[1]. Inflation in the US has been 2% but only because it was in a position of strength with the world accepting USD as the global reserve. That's changing steadily both with excessive printing and the world rejecting US debt instruments as a savings asset.

"Everyone being free to invest" is a bit of an elitist claim, as most in the US live paycheck to paycheck and are hurt by inflation. Cost of ownership of houses skyrocketing over decades, and CPI being oriented around very basic goods points to inflation being hidden away.

The US is incapable of paying their debt and must continue funding the economy via more QE. Other nations have moved to their currencies to trade with each other (Euro, Ruble, Yuan etc). This game won't last forever.

[1]: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/how-the-fed-hides-costs-...

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#283

Post by danans »

ntoskrnl wrote: post #25
mjburgess wrote: post #4

There needs to be some basic economics here.. Money has value because of the value of the economic transactions in which its conducted. Government-backed currencies are forced to have value in the sense they force people to use it for their taxes. The US, additionally, forces the world to use it for oil trades. Value is in those economic transactions. A currency is just a "liquifying" of that value, to make it easier…

Who says BTC isn't used for payments? Many porn sites ONLY allow you to pay with crypto, including PornHub[1], and they're keeping the lights on somehow. It's being used by the Ukrainian military to pay their suppliers while the banking system is offline[2]. It's being used for remittances. I had to pay my rent with it once. Also VPNs, etc. There's far more global economic activity conducted in BTC than in gold. It a…

> It's being used by the Ukrainian military to pay their suppliers while the banking system is offline

Ukraine's banking system is both online and functional:

https://kyivindependent.com/hot-topic/ukraines-banking-mirac...

Regarding donations to Ukraine, the total value of donations to Ukraine has been around $900M so far [1], of which only $7M has been in crypto (according to your WSJ article), so less than 1%.

1. https://fortune.com/2022/04/15/how-much-donated-ukraine-war/...

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#284

Post by douglaswlance »

mjburgess wrote: post #4

There needs to be some basic economics here.. Money has value because of the value of the economic transactions in which its conducted. Government-backed currencies are forced to have value in the sense they force people to use it for their taxes. The US, additionally, forces the world to use it for oil trades. Value is in those economic transactions. A currency is just a "liquifying" of that value, to make it easier…

Cryptocurrencies have inherent value.

Would you say there is value in having the capability to transact with someone else? There is some value there, no matter how many alternatives and how little that value is. That value scales exponentially with the number of potential transactional partners because each additional partner gives all other partners a new potential transactional partner.

So at scale, even if the value of having the option to trade is minuscule, it balloons into real value when every single person on earth is a potential trade partner. That is the inherent value of a cryptocurrency network.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#285

Post by Hellbanevil »

tuesdayrain wrote: post #190
throwaway413 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is well said, I’m gonna borrow that - “crypto is like a 0 calorie apple.” This matters. Even gold, at least I can wear it and display my wealth. You can’t even display your crypto wealth like that. It is entirely lacking in any “real” value. Idea: luxury tshirt made out of a $5 white tee with a wallet QR code slapped on the front showing off the balance of the shirt. Or a ring. Crypto fine jewelry.

>Even gold, at least I can wear it and display my wealth. You can’t even display your crypto wealth like that I'd feel much safer displaying large sums of wealth online by posting a wallet than by wearing luxury goods in public.

No post body was provided.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#286

Post by FabHK »

benreesman wrote: post #205
dmoy wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You completely ignored what GP said. The floor is different from what people will sell it to you for right now. AMZN may have a floor of $ASSETS / #SHARES (or something, I just made that up), but that doesn't mean anyone will sell it to you for that right now.

Anyone can invent quasi-financial terms to make grandiose claims. The beauty of the market is that loudmouths don’t participate in the market for long. I’ll sell an American-style options contract to someone who thinks BTC is going anywhere near there at Black-Scholes -75. And I’ll have no trouble financing it. You want the other side?

You're selling puts on BTC struck at 1000 at a discount? Yes, I'll take a few.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#288

Post by datadata »

bendtheblock wrote: post #267
datadata wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flowers were not a commodity before there was a market for them. Internet did not have commercial value before the speculative wave, in fact very little profits were made even by the end of the dot com boom. Agree there is rife speculation in crypto, but rife speculation does not prove that there won't be future sustained value. When dot com boom imploded it was because people similarly thought there was no value in…

Flowers are used for decoration, dies, teas, scents. Sometimes they may be overvalued. Crypto doesn't have any underlying value. It's just greater fool investing, there is no underlying cashflow, asset or company. Future cash flow comes from greater fools buying in. When you say "the internet" I think you mean the wave of web1 companies? Same as flowers above, there are real uses and value creation, which can be pric…

In 1999, what web1 companies had cash flows or even a business model that could become profitable? In hindsight it is obvious because we know that things worked out, but at the time it was just speculation, and the crash was the market calling it worthless. Similar objections then around what underlying value is and how the tech was useless. The ways to monetize often were invented much later (eg search ads).

If you were a middle age farmer, sure you might like to look at or smell a flower but you would be crazy to say stop growing wheat and plant tulips. But as society advances markets can emerge to serve needs of people that were not possible before.

I agree crypto tokens is just speculative investing. But that doesn't imply that the value doesn't stick-- it doesn't have to either collapse to zero or go up forever. Monetary premium is a real thing and necessary for humans to transact. You can't predict what money we will use in the future.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#289

Post by hahaxdxd123 »

silentsea90 wrote: post #269

Imagine a world where you live as a slave with your owner having rights over your time to the extent they'd like. That sucks. Well, fiat is that with the Govt stealing your productive time (since your time was spent on earning money) to the tune of 7-8% (officially) and likely 10-15% unofficially. This is in addition to 40% tax. You effectively spend 50% of your working time serving the Govt. Would you vote yes on se…

Imagine living in a deflationary world where you live as a slave to unaccountable powerful holders of Bitcoin, where a man who holds 20% of the worlds wealth will continue to do so forever into perpetuity, at 0 risk. Do you think this is a world where real wealth creation (goods, intellectual property, etc) is possible?

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#290

Post by bendtheblock »

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #137

That is kind of a scary article. I tend to dislike crypto arguments that make it political. There are pure economic arguments against it, from free market laissez-faire Friedmanian perspective, from centrist perspective and more obviously from the left wing perspective, that show crypto as dangerous for society. No need to make it another wedge issue (I tried to be somewhat politically neutral here: https://benoitess…

all money is political. good starting point: https://washingtonspectator.org/paranoia-on-parade/
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