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Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

stephendiehl.com

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Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#61

Post by fwlr »

ShowalkKama wrote: post #16

I'd like to remind the readers that some people use crypto as a payment method and do not speculate. As far as I know there is no alternative with the same level of convinience that crypto provide (KYC-less and fast payments to anyone in the world with just one secret). Remember that next time you suggest something among the lines of "crypto should be made illegal".

This is what jumped out at me too. I agree with most of his statements but not with “Crypto is not a medium of exchange”. Yes, all the investment and speculation and “financial instrument” stuff is a mug’s game, but it does mean when I want to make a transaction it’s easy for me to buy some Bitcoin and it’s easy for the other party to sell that Bitcoin. I barely trust my bank to transfer money between different accounts inside the bank; when it goes from bank to bank it’s passing through at least two inscrutable “fraud detection” algorithms implemented by bankers, and if it’s going international it’s likely going through at least two more “fraud detection” algorithms implemented by governments.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#62

Post by throwaway98797 »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #24

Not just a scam, it is the *ultimate* scam. There is no product being sold. People are being convinced to surrender working currency in exchange for a public database entry that records the fact they were duped.

working currency that has lost 95% of its value over the last 100 years (referencing inflation of US dollar since 1920)

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#63

Post by dgb23 »

mabbo wrote: post #37
ShowalkKama wrote: post #16

I'd like to remind the readers that some people use crypto as a payment method and do not speculate. As far as I know there is no alternative with the same level of convinience that crypto provide (KYC-less and fast payments to anyone in the world with just one secret). Remember that next time you suggest something among the lines of "crypto should be made illegal".

The killer app for crypto is "KYC-less" which usually means "I can evade taxes or sell illicit goods". Otherwise, real money is faster, more scalable, and more resilient to users making mistakes. Nothing I do is illegal; I pay my taxes; sometimes I make mistakes. Why would I ever want to use crypto over real money?

Not an advocate for crypto. Quite the contrary.

But legitimacy and legality diverge.

Not sure if it’s marketing BS or similar, but I’ve read that some people used it to circumvent defunct government or hyper inflation.

If that’s true, then I side with those that want to live a decent life despite corruption and (international) politics exploiting and oppressing them.

Again, I don’t know how reliable that info is, and I doubt that there isn’t a better solution.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#64

Post by angio »

mabbo wrote: post #37
ShowalkKama wrote: post #16

I'd like to remind the readers that some people use crypto as a payment method and do not speculate. As far as I know there is no alternative with the same level of convinience that crypto provide (KYC-less and fast payments to anyone in the world with just one secret). Remember that next time you suggest something among the lines of "crypto should be made illegal".

The killer app for crypto is "KYC-less" which usually means "I can evade taxes or sell illicit goods". Otherwise, real money is faster, more scalable, and more resilient to users making mistakes. Nothing I do is illegal; I pay my taxes; sometimes I make mistakes. Why would I ever want to use crypto over real money?

Just out of curiosity, which country are you based in? Because for people based in countries with high inflation, crypto is a great tool to get paid in usd and reinvest it without being forced by their governement to convert it into their currency. Obviously, if you're based in a country with a strong currency and where all financial intstruments are available, that's not important.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#65

Post by capableweb »

zmxz wrote: post #45
capableweb wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin per se, no. Bitcoin as practiced, yes. I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean with "Bitcoin as practiced". "Bitcoin as practiced" made Bitcoin into a scam while it wasn't one before "it was practiced"?

Bitcoin as practised is a Ponzi scheme (I say it's valued $5 and if you want to join my cool buddies you need to pay $5 and we paid $0, the next person needs to pay $10 and so on and the value disappears if we don't get new people to our cool clique). The way it works (place data in a file, distribute file to everyone, use cryptography to verify that data in file placed by $someone is valid) is great.

If you want to sell me a Bitcoin with the promise that I'll be able to sell it for more in the future, then that'd be a scam. But if you just sell it to me without any promise of future profits, would it still be a scam in that scam?

None the less, it does sound like Bitcoin itself is not a scam in this scenario, but rather there are scammers who use Bitcoin to perform their scams. Not that Bitcoin itself is a scam. Would that be correct?

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#66

Post by birracerveza »

Then don't buy it. If it's a scam it will go to zero and be forgotten as it does not have any fundamental value, as you say. If it does have fundamental value, then it's not a scam. What a stupid hyperbole.

What's the point of making yet another article blasting it with the same old tired arguments that have been continuously repeated ad nauseam for the last 12 years or so? I'm honestly surprised the article does not link to the Line Goes Up youtube video...

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#67

Post by jillesvangurp »

You don't need crypto to run a scam. Financial scams are as old as money is.

The fallacy in this argument is that there's something special in crypto that makes this more likely to happen. There isn't. In fact, you could argue that the enormous activity of scammers in this space actually points to some inherent qualities that might be useful beyond just running ponzi schemes and other scams.

One of these qualities is that scammers are unusually aware and mindful that they might get robbed by people equally untrustworthy on the same platforms that they use. So, the notion that that isn't happening on popular blockchain platforms is useful to them, and others. Tamper proof ledgers are useful for all sorts of things. The history of money is basically increasingly elaborate measures to prevent theft, forgeries, and other abuse. People trying to abuse the system are a constant.

Blockchains and other cryptographic tools are just that: tools. I expect banks to gradually incorporate these tools into what they do. That's already happening. E.g. China rolled out the the e-yuan currency last year. Not a decentralized blockchain but it obviously incorporates some of the technology. Other countries are doing similar things.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#68

Post by angio »

empthought wrote: post #30
ShowalkKama wrote: post #16

I'd like to remind the readers that some people use crypto as a payment method and do not speculate. As far as I know there is no alternative with the same level of convinience that crypto provide (KYC-less and fast payments to anyone in the world with just one secret). Remember that next time you suggest something among the lines of "crypto should be made illegal".

> KYC-less Is your argument seriously that crypto shouldn't be illegal so it can remain a convenient method of payment for illegal activities?

You can do the same with cash, why not extend that to digital money? After receiving a cyrpto paying you can declare it to the goverment if it goes above the minimum required by law (exactly as with cash). It would be ridiculous if you had to KYC for a 200$ cash payment.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#69

Post by germinalphrase »

throwaway98797 wrote: post #53
mabbo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The killer app for crypto is "KYC-less" which usually means "I can evade taxes or sell illicit goods". Otherwise, real money is faster, more scalable, and more resilient to users making mistakes. Nothing I do is illegal; I pay my taxes; sometimes I make mistakes. Why would I ever want to use crypto over real money?

i wonder what you think of tampons and hair extensions

What an odd… insult?

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#70

Post by ly3xqhl8g9 »

ShowalkKama wrote: post #16

I'd like to remind the readers that some people use crypto as a payment method and do not speculate. As far as I know there is no alternative with the same level of convinience that crypto provide (KYC-less and fast payments to anyone in the world with just one secret). Remember that next time you suggest something among the lines of "crypto should be made illegal".

"crypto as a payment method"

1 BTC currently is 22,987 USD. "The 2023 Honda Civic has a base MSRP of $24,650" [1]. No sane person, i.e. person not having more money than they can count [2], wanting to buy a car would ever spend the 1 BTC today for a Honda Civic, maybe the 'market' will go up and they will be able to afford a 48K Mustang Mach-E, or maybe it will go really up and be able to afford a 250K Lucid Air Sapphire. Actually spending the crypto 'money' is irrational behaviour, from an economical standpoint: just wait a few months/years, maybe it will go up: crypto forces the users into typical pyramidal thinking, a forever delayed gratification.

[1] https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/honda/civic

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory

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