Diehl is a well known anti-crypto scammer
Crypto is the 'commoditisation of populist anger, gambling and crime'
11–20 of 25 posts
Re: Crypto is the 'commoditisation of populist anger, gambling and crime'
#12First, people should separate the technology of cryptocurrency from speculation on centralized exchanges and other bank-like behavior that actually takes money off-chain. Almost everything that people are talking about when they say "crypto" is explicitly NOT using cryptocurrency but rather collecting money with cryptocurrency to help with marketing and onboarding but then speculating with it off chain in the traditional system.
There are three fundamental advances that cryptocurrency brings to digital money: digital signatures which allow transactions without disclosing account secrets, mathematically verifiable public ledgers which prevent cheating, stealing and irresponsible behavior (such as with FTX), and smart contracts that enforce agreements for structured transactions.
Actually problems with FTX and doubts about Tether should make the advantages of cryptocurrency _more_ obvious for those who understand it. Because fundamentally the issue is the secret unverifiable nature of the ledgers, and manual "legal"-(non)enforcement of agreements (as opposed to automated contracts), in the traditional system.
Re: Crypto is the 'commoditisation of populist anger, gambling and crime'
#13The letter: https://concerned.tech/
I have to say, I think it's dumb. I try not to be a crypto-bro. And some points are accurate (how can something be a stable currency AND increase in price?!). But others are foolish:
* having no ability to reverse a transfer is exactly the point of cash, and reversing transfers is a classic source of fraud in and of itself.
* the claim that crypto has no use case. First it's an opinion, don't lay it next to facts and try and sneak it through. Second, that is fine, don't use it. But don't tell people who do they can't have it because you don't need it.
The thing that amazes me the most about crypto is how it continues to be either the messiah or the anti-christ. It's neither. It's a bit of a novelty, it's useful for some specific cases (hyper inflation, evading state controls be that good or bad). There is a lot of dishonesty, but that isn't the tech's fault. That human nature, refusal to regular and gullible idiots thinking they can get rich quick. It's no different to the early days of any other security.
Re: Crypto is the 'commoditisation of populist anger, gambling and crime'
#14The letter: https://concerned.tech/ I have to say, I think it's dumb. I try not to be a crypto-bro. And some points are accurate (how can something be a stable currency AND increase in price?!). But others are foolish: * having no ability to reverse a transfer is exactly the point of cash, and reversing transfers is a classic source of fraud in and of itself. * the claim that crypto has no use case. First it's an opi…
It is absolutely correct to say reversing a transaction is a classic source of fraud.
Errors made should always be reversed by a separate transaction for an audit trail.
Re: Crypto is the 'commoditisation of populist anger, gambling and crime'
#15> "I don’t want to see so many people getting hurt. My generation has been hit by the financial crisis, by Covid, we’re going to have the climate crisis. These people don’t need this extra suffering in their life." That's a position of profound empathy. There are other arguments mentioned in TFA -- I encourage folks to read it.
"I don’t want to see so many people getting hurt. My generation has been hit by the financial crisis, by Covid, we’re going to have the climate crisis. These people don’t need this extra suffering in their life." Better get working on fixing the financial system, the health care system, and CO2 production. Hating on crypto won't solve those.
But promoting and adopting cryptocurrency technology actually _will_ improve the financial system. That's the thing that, amazingly, technical people are not picking up on.
Re: Crypto is the 'commoditisation of populist anger, gambling and crime'
#16Whenever such threads or articles pop up on here, I rarely ever see good discussion into the details around why the GFC even happened (much of what I will say is inspired by Jeff Snider and his excellent Eurodollar University project). I am going to tl;dr it and say (and I know this specific aspect is usually well-covered) that central banking and fiat money itself is at the very heart of it. An extreme shortage of g…
> I rarely ever see good discussion into the details around why the GFC even happened There are many, many discussions, spanning nearly a decade now, about why the GFC happened, ranging in all levels of quality. There are very few good reasons to believe that fiat money had anything to do with it. The people who predicted it and made money off it based it on their observation that debt was being issued to people who…
Misrepresenting what I said, but okay...
Re: Crypto is the 'commoditisation of populist anger, gambling and crime'
#17Whenever such threads or articles pop up on here, I rarely ever see good discussion into the details around why the GFC even happened (much of what I will say is inspired by Jeff Snider and his excellent Eurodollar University project). I am going to tl;dr it and say (and I know this specific aspect is usually well-covered) that central banking and fiat money itself is at the very heart of it. An extreme shortage of g…
> I rarely ever see good discussion into the details around why the GFC even happened There are many, many discussions, spanning nearly a decade now, about why the GFC happened, ranging in all levels of quality. There are very few good reasons to believe that fiat money had anything to do with it. The people who predicted it and made money off it based it on their observation that debt was being issued to people who…
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Re: Crypto is the 'commoditisation of populist anger, gambling and crime'
#18Whenever such threads or articles pop up on here, I rarely ever see good discussion into the details around why the GFC even happened (much of what I will say is inspired by Jeff Snider and his excellent Eurodollar University project). I am going to tl;dr it and say (and I know this specific aspect is usually well-covered) that central banking and fiat money itself is at the very heart of it. An extreme shortage of g…
> I rarely ever see good discussion into the details around why the GFC even happened There are many, many discussions, spanning nearly a decade now, about why the GFC happened, ranging in all levels of quality. There are very few good reasons to believe that fiat money had anything to do with it. The people who predicted it and made money off it based it on their observation that debt was being issued to people who…
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Re: Crypto is the 'commoditisation of populist anger, gambling and crime'
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I don’t want to see so many people getting hurt. My generation has been hit by the financial crisis, by Covid, we’re going to have the climate crisis. These people don’t need this extra suffering in their life." Better get working on fixing the financial system, the health care system, and CO2 production. Hating on crypto won't solve those.
But promoting and adopting cryptocurrency technology actually _will_ improve the financial system. That's the thing that, amazingly, technical people are not picking up on.
This is just my opinion, but I highly doubt it. Trust in the technology has been broken by all the hacks, scams, and rug-pulls. Without Joe Average investing in the space, it will never get to the scale required for it to be a viable currency, so there will be no effect on the financial system. Trust is won in drops and lost in buckets, so it will be a long time before Joe looks to crypto as an investment vehicle, if ever.
Re: Crypto is the 'commoditisation of populist anger, gambling and crime'
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
But promoting and adopting cryptocurrency technology actually _will_ improve the financial system. That's the thing that, amazingly, technical people are not picking up on.
This is just my opinion, but I highly doubt it. Trust in the technology has been broken by all the hacks, scams, and rug-pulls. Without Joe Average investing in the space, it will never get to the scale required for it to be a viable currency, so there will be no effect on the financial system. Trust is won in drops and lost in buckets, so it will be a long time before Joe looks to crypto as an investment vehicle, if…
That's kind of the popular sentiment throughout history for all technological advancements. They said the same thing about cars, TVs, personal computers, neural networks etc. "this will probably never really be a thing".
Plato said "Writing is a step backward for truth".
Trithemius said "Printed books will never be the equivalent of handwritten codices."
Mark Twain thought that the telephone had no market and passed on investing.
Charlie Chapman said "The cinema is little more than a fad"
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943