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Is this the end of crypto?

economist.com

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Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#391

Post by georgeecollins »

ManuelKiessling wrote: post #354
P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When bitcoin first came onto the scene I personally knew a guy who was running a website to act as an exchange. It was small because bitcoin itself at that time was very small. Then bitcoin had its very first dip and it became unprofitable to mine bitcoins. When that happened he shuttered the website and kept everyone's bitcoins. I knew of bitcoin early on due to this guy, but even then I had no interest and consider…

Just for the record (and not as a defense of crypto): using gold for protecting your money from inflation is completely nonsensical, too.

Can you teach me about this, like with a link or something? I have known wealthy people who for generations kept a portfolio like 60% equities, 35% cash and very liquid things like bonds, ~3-5% gold, usually in the form of equities that track gold.

I am not saying that is good.. I don't know. Tell me why it is bad. Thank you.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#392

Post by worik »

strix_varius wrote: post #234
smithcoin wrote: post #80

Which will come first: the year of the linux desktop, full self driving teslas or the death of crypto?

Hell, we're already in the age of the linux desktop, we're just not calling it that: > At 37 million units, Chromebooks represent just under 11 percent of the total PC market, ahead of the Mac, with 27 million units and a 7.8 percent share. https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/chrome-os/chromebook/262126/...

I regularly use MacOS, iOS, Android, Windows, and Linux GUIs.

The age of the Linux desktop is definitely here.

It is a tussle between MacOS and Linux Mint whatever I have from them for the best desktop. It depends on your particular needs.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#393

Post by worik »

barbazoo wrote: post #123

I never know what people mean when they say "crypto". Are we talking about coins, de-fi, blockchain? Just yesterday I was presented with an option to pay for a standing desk in ETH and I don't see how FTX's downfall would change that. Is ETH just another scam? Very confusing stuff.

ETH is a meta scam: Very useful for delivering scams, not much else.

You got a chance to pay for a real world service in ETH. Did that make any sense? Any utility over using money? Perhaps dodging taxes....

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#394

Post by worik »

firmnoodle wrote: post #6

I look forward to the day when The Economist and FT don't conflate Bitcoin with all the crypto tokens out there.

But they are all basically the same. They have the same properties.

Some difference in unimportant details.

The central feature is the vector for scam delivery!

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#395

Post by syntheweave »

Zaskoda wrote: post #209
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…

There's this unfortunate mixing up of the technology, the community, and the bad actors within the community. Ultimately, more crime gets committed with USD than with cryptocurrencies, yet we don't blame the dollars for those crime the way we blame crypto. There's a bigger paradigm here that I believe few people understand and that I will desperate attempt to explain. I may be about to write a word salad, but here's…

The succinct term you want is "anti-fragility". Cryptocurrency networks have anti-fragile properties, the same kinds that allow the Internet to be an unworkable mess that nonetheless serves billions.

And you're absolutely right. Bad actors use crypto to go to war with each other; the winner is always crypto. This time, with the FTX scandal, it's gone to places as high as the US Democratic Party. And you would think, "so now they'll just ban it." But it was designed to resist that; furthermore, when you are in the midst of a power struggle, which every government is, crypto is a loaded gun to scramble for - a way to avoid getting freezed out or silenced. The resulting internal dissent has helped to make crypto bans ineffectual everywhere they've been tried, globally.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#396

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

dang wrote: post #382
P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

guidelines state to assume good faith, I asked if they understood the actual point. 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…

It was obviously an unsubstantive comment, unduly personal, and basically a variation on "did you even read the article" which the site guidelines ask people not to post. That makes it flamebait, regardless of your intention when you posted it. I don't think it was a borderline call, nor is it hard to understand. Ironically, the sort of legalistic pleading you're resorting to is a sign of a lack of the good faith you…

One wonders if calling someone a troll could be considered flamebait.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#397

Post by kayamon »

themihai wrote: post #312
luddit3 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if we turned off the internet how many companies would be worthless, because that is about as likely to happen as all mining stopping.

What is crypto used for? Who uses/needs the crypto network for anything except speculation?

People use Bitcoin to trade and send money around the world with each other.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#398

Post by danaris »

runarberg wrote: post #204
pera wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Argentina but live in the UK: in 2020 my mom needed an urgent oncological treatment and the only method I had to transfer the money was using a cryptocurrency. I really don't like to talk about this stuff but when people here in HN keep making arguments like "oh who needs this stuff, I can send money to my friends with the Monzo app" it really makes me feel like my problems as someone from the third world do…

I think most people here agree that it is unnecessarily hard and expensive to transfer money between countries. However cryptocurrency is a technological solution to a regulatory problem. This issue could be solved tomorrow by legislation if governments would cooperate and work to do so. All the efforts pushing cryptocurrency for this particular niche would be better served pushing for international standards for che…

And, just as importantly, once the regulation in the companies catches up, cryptocurrency will be subject to it, too.

It will either become just as slow as the accursèd centralized fiat currencies, or it will be outright banned.

Any regulatory hurdles that cryptocurrency allows you to avoid for now, it won't for long. It is not, and cannot be, a long-term solution.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#399

Post by tim333 »

feet wrote: post #241
tim333 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitpicking but >if we turned off all bitcoin miners today, bitcoin would go to zero instantly isn't true. You couldn't trade them normally with the miners off but you could start mining up the day after - it only takes a couple of computers really.

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

I guess it's a different scenario but if all the existing miners were turned off today, there is nothing to stop me running the open source bitcoin software on a spare computer myself the day after. I guess if you ban that for all time and all places bitcoin would be over.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#400

Post by kayamon »

worik wrote: post #394
firmnoodle wrote: post #6

I look forward to the day when The Economist and FT don't conflate Bitcoin with all the crypto tokens out there.

But they are all basically the same. They have the same properties. Some difference in unimportant details. The central feature is the vector for scam delivery!

The details you consider 'unimportant' are the precise reason cryptocurrency was invented.
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