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The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi

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Re: The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi

#151

Post by koonsolo »

jeremyjh wrote: post #85
monero-xmr wrote: post #18

Cryptocurrency in its purest is money not issued or controlled by a government. Instead the supply inflation is controlled by transparent rules that are plain to see. “Protocol-based finance” vs. the existing government-based finance. Now there are all manner of divergences from the above paragraph. Coins that are totally controlled and issued by a small group or company. Black box rules rather than transparent. Ther…

It isn't money. Money can be easily exchanged for goods and services. It is a digital "asset" whose only meaningful application is speculative trading...of itself. If something only has value because you think you can sell it to the next sucker for more, it is a ponzi scheme.

Here is a valid use-case for crypto (Monero): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31996612

Re: The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi

#153

Post by TacticalCoder »

> The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi

That remains to be seen (for example I'm crossing fingers Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, which is an HN unicorn, ain't at the head of a ponzi) but meanwhile something is certain: SBF was running a Ponzi (guaranteeing insane returns using previous investors and people's money: yup, that's a plain ponzi).

And he was lying in nearly every single of his tweet, up to a few days before the downfall when he was tweeting that everything was fine. Or when he was saying the money was FDIC insured. Deleted the tweets? Too bad, people have copies of that.

To me it seems like quite some people are pushing this "every crypto is a ponzi" now that their poster ponzi boy got caught with the hand in the cookie jar.

But I'm not sure they'll succeed.

I think there could be a future where, just as energy and commodities are still a thing after the Enron ponzi, Bitcoin may still exist after FTX/Alameda ponzi.

Re: The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi

#154

Post by bb88 »

monero-xmr wrote: post #141
carewell wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think parent commenter's argument is that it's hard to get excited about crypto just based on the fact that it allows some people buy drugs online. While millions of investors lose a ton of money to crypto scams.

The problem is HN is an exhausting circular firing squad when it comes to crypto. I could extol the benefits of private currency on philosophical and moral grounds but this won’t convince a lot of people. So I try to put it in more concrete terms and then it’s either criticized or brushed off. If you believe as I do that government control of money is a mistake for many different reasons, then crypto is a revolutiona…

No, that's not the issue. The problem with crypto is the grift -- and the inability to see what's a grift and what's not. I believe the term "rug pull" is the vernacular in the crypto community you may be familiar with.

Re: The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi

#155

Post by ohgodplsno »

yieldcrv wrote: post #58
ohgodplsno wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic crypto-enthusiast denial. Your dreamt of, decentralized system that was imagined by Satoshi is gone. It will either never exist anymore and be gangrened by said centralized exchanges (which are the only things that are artificially prop up the value of your coins), or it will go back to the days where you can pay 10 000 BTC for a pizza because someone decided it would be fun. ETH would be worthless without ex…

I don't get the impression that you two are talking about that same thing, like, you didn't really give a rebuttal to what they said, how do you feel what you wrote is related? the best I can tell is that you are saying that centralized institutions having extremely large influence is necessary? in which case I would disagree

Having large, centralized institutions is necessary if you want your obscure, no-application-in-the-real-world funny coin to have value. They'll bring in money by suckering in people in believing it has value.

Re: The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi

#156

Post by ifeeltriedboss »

monero-xmr wrote: post #141
carewell wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think parent commenter's argument is that it's hard to get excited about crypto just based on the fact that it allows some people buy drugs online. While millions of investors lose a ton of money to crypto scams.

The problem is HN is an exhausting circular firing squad when it comes to crypto. I could extol the benefits of private currency on philosophical and moral grounds but this won’t convince a lot of people. So I try to put it in more concrete terms and then it’s either criticized or brushed off. If you believe as I do that government control of money is a mistake for many different reasons, then crypto is a revolutiona…

Let's assume XMR takes over the world and is the only currency in use.

Who pays taxes?

Re: The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi

#157

Post by NaturalPhallacy »

jeremyjh wrote: post #85
monero-xmr wrote: post #18

Cryptocurrency in its purest is money not issued or controlled by a government. Instead the supply inflation is controlled by transparent rules that are plain to see. “Protocol-based finance” vs. the existing government-based finance. Now there are all manner of divergences from the above paragraph. Coins that are totally controlled and issued by a small group or company. Black box rules rather than transparent. Ther…

It isn't money. Money can be easily exchanged for goods and services. It is a digital "asset" whose only meaningful application is speculative trading...of itself. If something only has value because you think you can sell it to the next sucker for more, it is a ponzi scheme.

>It isn't money. Money can be easily exchanged for goods and services.

And people do. There's a bitcoin ATM at my local liquor store. And a strip club downtown that takes bitcoin.

Re: The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi

#158

Post by everfree »

jeremyjh wrote: post #85
monero-xmr wrote: post #18

Cryptocurrency in its purest is money not issued or controlled by a government. Instead the supply inflation is controlled by transparent rules that are plain to see. “Protocol-based finance” vs. the existing government-based finance. Now there are all manner of divergences from the above paragraph. Coins that are totally controlled and issued by a small group or company. Black box rules rather than transparent. Ther…

It isn't money. Money can be easily exchanged for goods and services. It is a digital "asset" whose only meaningful application is speculative trading...of itself. If something only has value because you think you can sell it to the next sucker for more, it is a ponzi scheme.

> If something only has value because you think you can sell it to the next sucker for more, it is a ponzi scheme.

That's not what a ponzi scheme is.

In a ponzi scheme, there is a fictitious business model that's purported to be turning a profit, and its lack of profit is hidden by secretly using new inflows to pay off old investors.

In crypto, none of that is hidden. It's widely known that dollars cashed out by earlier investors come from the coffers of later investors. Since e.g. Bitcoin doesn't deceive people about being a profitable company, it's by definition not a ponzi scheme.

Edit: This is a discussion section. If you disagree with my comment, let's respectfully discuss it. I see a lot of voting and no replying.

Re: The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi

#159

Post by in_a_society »

bawolff wrote: post #114
onethought wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean communism looks pretty cool on paper too, the actual idea. But we seem to have had a real hard time implementing it. Could crypto be like that?

Tbf, we dont have that many examples of people trying. Communism sucked in russia, but its not like they are that much better under capitalism.

Every time they try, a lot of people seem to die. Maybe pattern recognition over time isn’t a strength people have.

Same story in crypto. There will be shock and awe when Binance falls and plenty of people saying “real crypto has never been tried”.

Re: The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi

#160

Post by Trasmatta »

everfree wrote: post #136
Trasmatta wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto doesn't even excel at buying drugs online. The fact that it's a permanent ledger of transactions means the purchase could be trivially linked to you by law enforcement, unless you jumped through all the necessary hoops to also anonymize it. Which most people don't.

> unless you jumped through all the necessary hoops to also anonymize it There's a single hoop, and it's Monero. It always confuses me when people say that crypto doesn't excel at buying drugs online. Out of all the things crypto does and does not do well, that one shouldn't be in dispute.

Then Monero is good at buying drugs, not crypto in general
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