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Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

stephendiehl.com

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Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#111

Post by naasking »

TimPC wrote: post #94
naasking wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say the same about stocks, but clearly this isn't a failure mode. Sometimes people need to actually buy things.

The difference is stocks have a reliable basis for going up based on an underlying asset that generates wealth. Most crypto is backed by nothing, some is backed by other crypto which is also in the end nothing.

Generates what wealth? Dollar "wealth" which is also backed by nothing.

There is no such thing as intrinsic value, value is only ever determined inter-subjectively. Crypto has value as long as people want it, just like every other asset or currency.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#112

Post by danaris »

marssaxman wrote: post #96
empthought wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Some laws are immoral; some regimes are oppressive. Helping to circumvent them can be virtuous.

Ah, yes; the immoral, oppressive rules of "I can't make as much money as I want by lying to people so they give me their money in exchange for nothing."

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#113

Post by nightski »

_cenw wrote: post #50
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".

I bought a new video game in 2011 with BTC and whenever I tell the story the crypto bro in the room laughs at me for not holding on to what amounts to something like half a million dollars now. Sort of like people keep bringing up the guy who bought pizza 2 years prior. How dare I use a self-proclaimed currency as a currency. I lost all interest once I realized very few people actually want it to be a currency and th…

The exact same logic is applied to USD all the time. You know, if you just skip the Starbucks you'll have hundreds of thousands!

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#114

Post by Ygg2 »

j16sdiz wrote: post #108
psychlops wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Governments will do it as they need a regional monopoly on their fiat scam. The new centralization and financial tracking are features.

Fiat money is protected by the government, military, etc... with gun and power. What is policing crypto?

Crypto Anarchists and Crypto Moguls.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#115

Post by thecupisblue »

rom-antics wrote: post #57
valdiorn wrote: post #27

Crypto absolutely has value, and the price of Bitcoin will never go to zero. NFTs are useful. That's because the value these things provide is money-laundering, bypassing of international financial regulations and tax fraud. Yeah that's a superb value proposition right there, and definitely something we want to keep free and available /s The current system is flawed in many, many ways, but none of it happened arbitra…

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3942181 > For example, illegal transactions, scams and gambling together make up less than 3% of volume. Note that: 1. This quote is talking specifically about bitcoin, not crypto overall 2. This paper is written by a notable crypto skeptic, so he's not using bro logic. He found the main usage by volume is speculation, with very little illegal activity. In fact, the…

A few problems here:

1. >flows to addresses which have been identified as illegal

These are only identified as illegal. First off, only a small number of adressess has been marked as illegal, since it doesn't make much sense to have everyone know the dirty deals you're making, most of the real illegal traffic is not there. Also a large number of DN markets uses 1-time wallets, so it's impossible to identify those.

2. Most of the traffic analysis is based on private to/from exchange and exchange to/from exchange data. As exchanges require a KYC, it can be assumed that most of the exchange routed transactions aren't illegal, or first go into a mixer if they are coming from an exchange, decreasing the odds that it can be classified as illegal.

3. Analysis was done in a crypto bubble market, where everybody and their moms were trading it on a daily basis to earn money.

In conclusion - the paper is bull. Yes, a large amount of usage is speculation, but illegal activity is way larger than assumed in the paper. But also, when you remove trading/gambling for speculative profits, what usages remain? Mostly illegal ones, small amount of legal ones and a few believers.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#116

Post by nicholasbraker »

linuxftw wrote: post #48

Every now and then I read a press release from some organization about how they're using crypto or going to use crypto (aka blockchain) to solve some industry problem. For the life of me, I can't figure out how any of these ideas will ever bare any fruit. Does anyone know if companies are actually using blockchain for production, revenue generating business (real companies, not crypto companies)?

Quant Networks. The token is used as a license key for using the Overledger network. Clients pay in FIAT, Quant network uses this to buy the token and secure the use of the Overldger functionality. Overledger enables interoperability between distributed ledgers (permissioned and permissionless like BTC, ETH etc.) in use by banks today. IMHO this is a legitimate and specific use case and very very rare in the crypto world. The company Quant Networks is a legitimate company.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#117

Post by valdiorn »

cypress66 wrote: post #51
valdiorn wrote: post #27

Crypto absolutely has value, and the price of Bitcoin will never go to zero. NFTs are useful. That's because the value these things provide is money-laundering, bypassing of international financial regulations and tax fraud. Yeah that's a superb value proposition right there, and definitely something we want to keep free and available /s The current system is flawed in many, many ways, but none of it happened arbitra…

> The current system is flawed in many, many ways, but none of it happened arbitrarily; the restrictions we have are the because malicious actors abused the system. And from that you can tell you live in a nice country with reasonable laws. You can't fathom that not all countries are like that.

That is a fault of their own systems, not the system I live within.

If people in Venezuela want to use bitcoin, they can go ahead. That doesn't mean we should embrace is in the Western world. It's a net negative for us.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#118

Post by naasking »

ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #97
naasking wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say the same about stocks, but clearly this isn't a failure mode. Sometimes people need to actually buy things.

Yes, stocks are also an awful mechanism through which the East India Company fooled some "spice bros" to give them money for worthless papers. However, no Wall Street person will argue with a straight face if I want a bagel I just have to sell some BRK.A. One must stop once in a while and ask themselves: what are they are trying to achieve, do they really want to be an effector in maximizing the pain and suffering of…

> However, no Wall Street person will argue with a straight face if I want a bagel I just have to sell some BRK.A.

That's exactly what you're doing when you buy something: trading an asset (dollars) that can appreciate in value in a savings account for some good you want or need right now.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#119

Post by danaris »

_cenw wrote: post #56
empthought wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Some illegal activity is commonly considered a moral good.

Some illegal activity is considered a moral good.

Cryptocurrency is used for illegal activity.

Therefore, cryptocurrency is a moral good.

^ This is a classic logical fallacy called a false syllogism. The archetypal example is "All men are mortal. Socrates is mortal. Therefore, all men are Socrates."

I assure you that all cryptocurrency is neither a moral good, nor is it Socrates.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#120

Post by TEP_Kim_Il_Sung »

tootie wrote: post #29
capableweb wrote: post #18

> scam /skæm/ (noun): a clever and dishonest plan for making money This fits many projects in the cryptocurrency space. But what about the first successful cryptocurrency Bitcoin? Was it dishonest? What about Ethereum, is it also dishonest? Seems like yes, there are lots of scams in cryptocurrency. But there is also projects that are not, so in the end, the title ends up being clickbait, which I (just like you) fell…

I think it's hard to ascribe intent to Satoshi and it seems the Eth creators are sincere in their beliefs thus far. SBF also seemed sincere. I think that the author of the piece is lumping together acts of pure deception with acts of self-deception. Bitcoin may not be an explicit ploy by the creators to steal money but it's still a nonsense product destined to fail and leave everyone else holding the bag.

One of the nice things about crypto is that there is no bag. Bitcoin never moves, it sits firmly in a distributed blockchain.
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