Is this the end of crypto? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#131

Post by certifiedloud » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

whatwherewhy wrote: post #89

certifiedloud wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: How do you use it? Do you mean you use it to make purchases, or do you mean you hold it as a store of value, and that's the use? Something else?

I don't hold Bitcoin. I use it for cross-continent transactions. I buy it from people in my city using a local FB group or (way in the past) Localbitcoins.com and then send it to the recipient. They usually use Localbitcoins to convert it to their own currency AFAIK. The fees (transfer and exchange) are much lower this way - usually less than 0.5% all things considered. Compared to $100+ fee to just transfer the mone…

How long does it take for a typical transaction to finalize?

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#132

Post by mjburgess » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

olalonde wrote: post #120

mjburgess wrote: post #9

This is just such an awful betrayal of their mission. The Economist should know better, and everyone I have spoken to which is senior in their readership does know better. This is still a pro-crypto-scam article. They repeat the same scam-artist lies, crypto is somehow an innovation in "trust", somehow more "efficient" than existing infrastructure, somehow "smart contracts" are more reliable than actual contracts. Th…

I'm sorry but no one in their right mind will come away from this article thinking that this is a "pro-crypto-scam" article. The article is actually very critical. > The problems blockchains solves are highly academic csci issues around "trust" and "programming" in absurdly distributed systems. They have nothing to do with trust, risk, contracts, ownership or rights in anything like an economic, political or moral se…

> The whole innovation behind Bitcoin is to eliminate the need for trust in a centralized entity

Err, nope. That's the scam.

A blockchain is a kind of database which requires no single machine to be nominated as the single-source-of-truth. that's it.

This has nothing to do with centralisation, power, trust, or anything of that kind.

The sense of "centralisation" in blockchain means computer network centralisation, as in how one connects databases. And "trust" in the sense that entries in that database are "reliable" in some academic sense.

This has absolutely nothing to do with eliminating the need for "trust in centralised entities" -- such a claim is not only absurd, but the premise of a scam. A scam which continues to be perpetrated. And this article participates.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#133

Post by Animats » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

China has shut down every crypto asset activity in China that they can find.[1] The hammer came down in 2021. Mining farms had their power cut, and several hundred people were arrested. (There's a "digital yuan", but that's a payment system run by the People's Bank of China.) So a big part of the world has already ended crypto as an asset class.

[1] https://coinpedia.org/cryptocurrency-regulation/cryptocurren...

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#134

Post by olalonde » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

legutierr wrote: post #92

We are making steady and inexorable progress through the technology hype cycle. From earlier this year: https://emtemp.gcom.cloud/ngw/globalassets/en/articles/image... Now we enter the Trough of Disillusionment. Given the general accuracy of this model/metaphor in the past, should we consider it to be any different this time around?

Because the "Trough of Disillusionment" has already happened 3-4 times...

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#135

Post by sokoloff » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

throwup wrote: post #119

danans wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US dollar is used for shady stuff all over the world, but we’re not trying to ban it. That is because it is overwhelmingly used for standard non-shady stuff, like trading legal goods and services. Crypto can't make a similar claim.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3942181 > For example, illegal transactions, scams and gambling together make up less than 3% of volume.

What constitutes a "scam" in the that paper? That paper treats all USDT (Tether) transactions as "not scam".

I think that remains to be proven and I don't think it's anywhere near certain.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#136

Post by philippejara » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #78

lupire wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good government is a luxury many lack.

Is there any crossover in a Venn diagram of "government is so bad you need crypto" and "government is good enough that they won't shut off the internet to control the people"? If there isn't then crypto isn't very useful in those places.

Most governments that are so bad you need crypto are not that bad because of repression necessarily, but because of corruption or incompetence. Corruption or incompetence doesn't care enought to "shut down the internet" and if they do odds are a bad job will be done of it.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#137

Post by aww_dang » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

cooljacob204 wrote: post #11

When Crypto was young it was this cool new technology that mostly interesting because of the underlying tech. But even back then it was mostly valuable for buying drugs online and other illegal stuff. Now it's that and a way to scam people of their life savings. I do hope it dies out, it should have been heavily regulated from the get go. Way too many people saw these high production commercials with their favorite c…

The great part about this is that you are not forced to use cryptocurrency. It is entirely voluntary.

I like cryptocurrency as an open platform. I don't have a problem with the market clearing out the speculative mania. I do disagree with detractors who admit that they have no use for cryptocurrency demanding regulation. If you like regulated markets, stick to them. If you love the security of the petrodollar, good on you. Live and let live.

Can I just publish a few cryptogames without the obscene generalizations?

The worst part of this is that the entire FTX debacle comes on the heels of SBF demanding even more regulatory capture. Shades of Bernie Madoff. The insider connections to regulatory bodies and SEC board members. History repeats itself.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#138

Post by tb_technical » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

No, not really.

But we have to be honest with ourselves. Crypto failed.

It was supposed to allow people to make transactions without trusted institutions, and the manipulations of the Federal Reserve.

Unfortunately it's been subverted as a security.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#139

Post by algoatecorn » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

1970-01-01 wrote: post #88

Here's how I see it: Crypto as an investment - Not your keys, not your coin. Crypto as a currency - I can't directly buy food, water, shelter, transportation, energy, or anything fundamental with it. I know acceptance is growing, but 10+ years later, crypto still has extremely limited acceptance for daily goods and services. It is almost exclusively held as an investment.

>I know acceptance is growing, but 10+ years later, crypto still has extremely limited acceptance for daily goods and services. It is almost exclusively held as an investment.

Which makes sense considering its volatility. Why would I make transactions with a unit of currency that sees hundreds of percentage change over just a few years?

And as others say, there is no real value to it other than speculation. This gets argued to death, but it's true. At least fiat has stability, and the USD is used to settle basically all energy (and most commodity) transactions. Do people actually expect the commodity market to be settled with crypto in the future?

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#140

Post by honestduane » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

I can only hope crypto dies soon.

Its actively a violation of the GDPR and this illegal in the EU.

It violates human rights laws, including privacy laws, and is this illegal in most other places.

It violates all the laws around SWIFT, at the international level, so its illegal under these laws.

It never should have existed. Its a grift and a scam; Even NFT's vanish when the host doesn't want the expense of hosting other peoples images.