341–350 of 448 posts
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The government moves very slowly and basically waits until the problem is over before regulating it.
As it should. The problem with government is that it lacks perfect knowledge, which would only be exacerbated by acting too early.
FTFY. Nothing about this is exclusive to governments.
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So bad people did bad things to stupid people using made up numbers, so people with guns should take other made up numbers and give them to people with guns, and tell the people with guns to make sure the bad people don’t do bad things to the stupid people, because they know what’s best for them because they’re too stupid and incapable of becoming strong enough for the big scary world?
> so people with guns should take other made up numbers and give them to people with guns, and tell the people with guns to make sure the bad people don’t do bad things to the stupid people I think people who are doing the telling actually don't have guns; but are sitting atop a made-up hierarchy.
Fractional reserve is a scam, not crypto. Every institution which doesn't have money which they promised to keep safe, should collapse. Proof of reserves and audits are extremely easy in crypto and it doesn't require any regulations. Self custody of crypto is also pretty simple. Market is young, people greedy and as a result we got this domino of falling companies. Even after Mt. Gox collapse people didn't learn much…
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ETH validators are around 8% right now, not 5%. The 'risk' is that the developers don't successfully implement withdrawal or that the whole network goes down. Two, imho, huge risks and part of the reason I don't personally stake at this time. That said, eip-1559 and 'the merge' did happen, without much of a hitch at all, which are pretty major accomplishments. Confidence in the developers is a bit higher now as a res…
Care to comment on the Ethereum Foundation now removing all reference to a date in which “staked” ETH can be withdrawn? Or perhaps commenting on the fact that to become a validator requires 23 ETH, or approximately $28,000 of upfront investment that cannot be withdrawn in order to achieve your stated yield?
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I see this point of view a lot on Hacker News because it's dominated by people living in places like the US. Let me add a little perspective on how Bitcoin is used in lower- and middle-income countries from my personal experience. If you live in a country with a highly functional banking system and no kleptocracy, Bitcoin is probably a bit puzzling unless you have family in Cuba. But it’s not puzzling at all for thos…
Every time I see the "Bitcoin for remittance" logic, the first question I ask is: what is the use case or demand for Bitcoin at the third world where you are sending your money? Why should anyone want that except for speculation? Clearly, Bitcoin is not being accepted at the mom-and-pop shop in Bangladesh (they don't even take credit card), so what are the people supposed to do with the Bitcoin once they receive it?…
Another important use case that I didn't mention is leaving the country to live somewhere better. Suppose you've saved up money in, to use examples I know something about, Argentina or Venezuela, and you've managed to do it in a form that doesn't evaporate due to inflation: US$100 bills, emeralds, gold, real estate. Now you want to move to Spain, Uruguay, or Mexico. Getting those savings safely out of the country with you is going to be very challenging indeed; Argentine customs has dogs that are trained to sniff out dollar bills, for example. (And of course in the case of real estate it's impossible.)
Again, maybe this is an example of "buying illegal shit": you aren't supposed to be able to escape these places with your life savings, because otherwise how can kleptocracy keep klepting? But obviously (at least to me) being able to take your savings with you makes the world a better place, even if it's illegal.
But it's definitely not "stripping wealth from the global poor and draining it back to the wealthy ones". The "heavily regulated", "government insured", "government managed" world banking system is what does that.
Maybe fleeing the country like this sounds like an extremely marginal, unimportant use case to you, but if so, that's probably because you don't know anybody from Cuba, Ecuador, or Venezuela. Not only are significant percentages of those countries' populations already living abroad, but even larger percentages of the people living there today depend on family members living abroad.
I don't know anything about Bangladesh. I've never been there and I don't know anyone from there very well. Maybe the situation is different there and Bangladeshi people only invest in Bitcoin because they think they'll get rich. What are your experiences there?
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One could argue that the complete and utter strawman by the other poster is more likely to start a flamewar than someone asking if they understood the actual point. But let me guess, if I press you on this I'm going to get banned in a week or so for such and such reason. something something assume good faith?
> One could argue that Sure, but it always feels like the other person started it and did worse—so everybody always argues that.* Let's assume you are right and the other person is wrong. Posting an unsubstantive snark is the worst way to respond. It poisons the atmosphere, evokes worse from others, and ultimately discredits your own position (which, if you're right, means you're discrediting the truth—and that hurts…
What's happened here is my assumption of good faith with a question got turned into a warning by the mod because they, themselves, did not assume good faith on my part.
So the question becomes, are those guidelines taken seriously by the moderators of this site or not?
If they are, then maybe admit to your error and lets all just move on.
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One could argue that the complete and utter strawman by the other poster is more likely to start a flamewar than someone asking if they understood the actual point. But let me guess, if I press you on this I'm going to get banned in a week or so for such and such reason. something something assume good faith?
The other poster took the idea you expressed - that "[crypto is] 100% speculative and nothing else" - and further explored the idea, and some markets they have seen where the price action either devolves or remains rational. What exactly did he do that was a "strawman"? Why are you so angry? It was an interesting comment thread, and then you are acting as if persecuted by the other commenter and HN moderators.
I asked if they understood my actual point because I was never denying that gold had speculation, but that when that speculation collapses gold still has value due to it's application in the physical world.
They obviously misunderstood me.
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Turning mining back on is entirely changing the parent's statement. "Well yea you could do that change to tank the value, but imagine if you just undid it huh???" The point was without mining entirely, there is no value
But there's only ever going to be a fixed number of bitcoin - does it all just stop working when it's all mined out?
Once established, the idea is that transaction fees are used and the distributed nature of the network causes a natural competition to be the most efficient so miners can charge the lowest fees while making a profit.
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Its value is all well and good if you personally have a use for it, but if you are merely stockpiling it in hopes of selling it later then that doesn't help much if the price has fallen to zero. You might be left with something pretty to look at and little more as you hold out for a recovery, if you don't take the bath and end up with nothing. Which could also be said about Bitcoin. I'm sure someone out there would f…
In fiction there's an idea known as 'plot armor'. In essence, it's the idea that causality and realism are suspended for some reasons related to the plot. Your scenario here is plot armor. Sure, if we pretend that gold stops having ANY use outside of being pretty, then when it stops being considered pretty it's value will go to 0. But the fact is, gold has a myriad of uses besides being pretty and those uses give it…
I fail to see the purpose of this 'pilot amor'. There is no reason why gold would stop being useful beyond being pretty. This fiction you've come up with doesn't even make any sense and certainly has no relevance to the discussion.
However, that doesn't mean there is always a user available. When we saw the price of oil go negative there were still just as many uses for oil as there ever was, but for various reasons there weren't buyers in that moment. Gold is not immune to the same.
In case you are still confused, let me be clear: Price and value are not the same thing.
> IOW, stop posting fiction.
Sage advice.