Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers • Hacker News Board

Re: Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

#321

Post by dale_glass » Mon, Oct 10, 2022, 9:31 AM UTC

dougk16 wrote: post #317

dale_glass wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and pretty much nobody cares: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/monero-transactions.htm... 20K transactions per day currently? A single city would have more transactions than that just from people having breakfast in the morning. And these are world-wide stats.

Ah c'mon gimme something better to chew on, this argument is cake to dismantle. (1) You don't use Monero to buy breakfast. It's for large money transfers so at least compare it to bank wires. (2) Very few people know about Monero yet. Credit cards were at 20K transactions per day at some point. If you know how to look at the chart you linked, you can see the TX count growing sustainably over several years. This is he…

> You don't use Monero to buy breakfast.

And why the hell not? It's supposed to be a currency.

> It's for large money transfers so at least compare it to bank wires.

And then what, exchange to USD? That'll bind it to an exchange rate, and create the same problems BTC has. Rather than having direct use as a currency, it's a betting mechanism.

> Very few people know about Monero yet. Credit cards were at 20K transactions per day at some point.

It's been almost a decade. That's an eternity in internet terms. If it only has 20K daily users world-wide then it's failed as a currency. People usually trade with people close to them, and if there's 20K people active in the world then that suggests either a very tight knit community somewhere nobody else cares about, or a bunch of nerds all over the world.

> If you know how to look at the chart you linked, you can see the TX count growing sustainably over several years.

I see it growing way too slowly and oddly. Yeah, there's periods of growth but there's also stalls and falls, and going back and forth. Growth also tends to start from a spike. To me that suggests Monero doesn't have that much traction of its own and in a good measure profits from the failures of other crypto systems.

I'm not sure if that's an accurate analysis on my part or not, but if there actually was interest in what monero provides I'm quite confident it should be growing a lot faster and be a lot more prominent. It's the one crypto that actually wants to be a currency, and yet near nobody seems to be interested in that, preferring to gamble with BTC and ETH.

> It's a more honest comparison to include transaction counts of non-fungible cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH that people are unfortunately using as a currency for now.

Those are heavily congested, so the transaction counts is mostly what the network is capable of, not what people would like to have.

> Enjoy your CBDCs in the metaverse.

My what? If you're talking about the project I work on, we formed specifically around the rejection of cryptocurrency and in general don't care for fiat transactions either.

Re: Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

#322

Post by dougk16 » Mon, Oct 10, 2022, 11:45 PM UTC

dale_glass wrote: post #321

dougk16 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah c'mon gimme something better to chew on, this argument is cake to dismantle. (1) You don't use Monero to buy breakfast. It's for large money transfers so at least compare it to bank wires. (2) Very few people know about Monero yet. Credit cards were at 20K transactions per day at some point. If you know how to look at the chart you linked, you can see the TX count growing sustainably over several years. This is he…

> You don't use Monero to buy breakfast. And why the hell not? It's supposed to be a currency. > It's for large money transfers so at least compare it to bank wires. And then what, exchange to USD? That'll bind it to an exchange rate, and create the same problems BTC has. Rather than having direct use as a currency, it's a betting mechanism. > Very few people know about Monero yet. Credit cards were at 20K transactio…

I would continue easily dismantling your points but you're like a boomer railing against the Internet in the early 90s. It's bad according to your value system so other people shouldn't use it either. You don't understand it or want it or whatever. Which is totally fine. I'm not saying your position is a bad thing. In fact you have my respect. My Dad was like this with the Internet in the early 90's, and still is. He STILL doesn't use the Internet and his construction business is just fine without it. He has my respect. Both he and I ended up being "right". My only advice is to stick to your guns going forward, be like my Dad and NEVER use cryptocurrencies or metal or barter. Only use military-backed currencies and have them tracked and traced as much as possible. In fact don't even use physical cash. For your safety.

As for me, I'll continue to use Monero and precious metals and barter, and use fiat and the coming CBDCs as little as possible. If that's alright with you of course!

It takes all kinds. Though if you don't know what the Metaverse or CBDCs are you got some surprises coming!

Re: Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

#323

Post by dale_glass » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 6:05 AM UTC

dougk16 wrote: post #322

dale_glass wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't use Monero to buy breakfast. And why the hell not? It's supposed to be a currency. > It's for large money transfers so at least compare it to bank wires. And then what, exchange to USD? That'll bind it to an exchange rate, and create the same problems BTC has. Rather than having direct use as a currency, it's a betting mechanism. > Very few people know about Monero yet. Credit cards were at 20K transactio…

I would continue easily dismantling your points but you're like a boomer railing against the Internet in the early 90s. It's bad according to your value system so other people shouldn't use it either. You don't understand it or want it or whatever. Which is totally fine. I'm not saying your position is a bad thing. In fact you have my respect. My Dad was like this with the Internet in the early 90's, and still is. He…

Nah, you're barking up the wrong tree entirely. I did have a very passing interest in crypto way back, when BTC wasn't yet at full capacity. I was sure back then the situation couldn't last, because paying $50/transaction was completely ridiculous for any kind of currency. People HAD to rebel against that and at least raise the block limit to alleviate the urgent problem now, even if that wasn't the long term solution.

Oddly, that didn't happen. The big players strenuously resisted any effort to alleviate the network congestion. I was feeling very confused.

It slowly dawned on me that my type of usage was a niche. The main players were interested in speculating on the value, and held huge hoards they intended to optimally sell once. They didn't care if it took 10 hours for the transaction to go through or they had to pay a ridiculous fee, because a $100 fee is effectively nothing when you're making a profit of $millions.

So far nothing has really changed my mind. If what Monero offered was what people wanted, they'd have switched over en masse, and they really didn't.

Re: Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

#324

Post by dougk16 » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 7:17 AM UTC

dale_glass wrote: post #323

dougk16 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would continue easily dismantling your points but you're like a boomer railing against the Internet in the early 90s. It's bad according to your value system so other people shouldn't use it either. You don't understand it or want it or whatever. Which is totally fine. I'm not saying your position is a bad thing. In fact you have my respect. My Dad was like this with the Internet in the early 90's, and still is. He…

Nah, you're barking up the wrong tree entirely. I did have a very passing interest in crypto way back, when BTC wasn't yet at full capacity. I was sure back then the situation couldn't last, because paying $50/transaction was completely ridiculous for any kind of currency. People HAD to rebel against that and at least raise the block limit to alleviate the urgent problem now, even if that wasn't the long term solutio…

I dismissed it all very early on but for other reasons. I took one look at the BTC whitepaper way back, saw that every transaction and wallet was completely public, and immediately wrote it off based on that, along with everything to do with the cryptocurrency space, until I found Monero then some other related currencies about 4 years ago.

You have different standards than me as far as what constitutes a "successful" currency. And that's cool! For example you generally can't buy breakfast with the currencies of silver or gold or British Pounds (in America) either. All throughout history there has been different currencies for different situations and crypto is just another one on the pile. I wish salt would make a comeback myself. ;)

I use cryptocurrencies as private replacements for bank wires. If your standard is that you must be able to buy breakfast in a city with it, then I agree with you it is not a currency by that definition and probably never will be.

As for me I get paid for my professional services in crypto and turn around and sometimes pay other people for goods and services without any conversion in between. Sometimes I convert it to precious metal directly. Sometimes I convert it to a fiat currency or another crypto. Sometimes I hold. It's all good!

Thanks for the conversation and good luck with everything you're working on.

Re: Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

#325

Post by sgammon » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 8:22 PM UTC

tekknik wrote: post #316

sgammon wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i suppose i thought you meant insurance against theft, not loss of value

theft is loss of value. either way the fact remains, Bitcoin is difficult to insure due to its scarcity. If I insure 1 BTC now worth $10k then in 20 years or so (or maybe overnight) it jumps to $1mil. The insurance company hasn’t gotten enough premiums to cover the payout. Insurance works well for inflating assets, not so much for deflating.

you don't actually need to lose your coins for them to lose value... custody and value aren't the same thing.

Re: Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

#326

Post by int_19h » Thu, Oct 13, 2022, 10:52 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #33

Oh hey look the consequences of a monetary system that isn't backed by a legal system (that is backed up by people with guns). The reason fiat money works is because at the end of the day if you run into trouble you have the legal system to make things right. And if the perpetrator of the crime doesn't listen to the legal system, there are people with guns/violence to back that up. That's why the whole system works -…

It doesn't have to be a legal system or a government in general. E.g. Rai stones are basically a public ledger system akin to a blockchain, but working through social convention.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones

One could argue that, in this case, the entire society is "people with guns". Which is fair enough, but, again, it's important to keep in mind that this concept does not intrinsically require anything equivalent to the modern state.

Re: Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

#327

Post by int_19h » Thu, Oct 13, 2022, 10:57 PM UTC

kranke155 wrote: post #293

ip26 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying crypto will eventually race pass fiat and discover new regulations we don't have yet but will eventually need?

That’s a fascinating idea but no I don’t think so. I think crypto is just liquidity for the future internet. The idea it has any purpose as a currency seems to me like a relic of the failed Bitcoin principles. Crypto is a bit like the early internet. People thought the liberation of information would make people smarter and democracies. Instead we built giant skinner boxes where people ignore valuable information in…

> Central Bank Digital Currencies where every transaction is logged and financial privacy is erased.

That is already the case though with just regular bank accounts and debit/credit cards, no? There's still privacy in cash, but cash is getting more and more limits placed on it to make it harder to use for this exact reason - and it's not even new, e.g. Sweden has been intentionally openly pursuing "cashless society" as a goal for over 20 years now.