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Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

stephendiehl.com

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Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#121

Post by ernst_klim »

aNoob7000 wrote: post #77
djha-skin wrote: post #52

OP's arguments: - Like indulgences, crypto made value out of thin air - Indulgences were a scam so crypto is a scam - Crypto doesn't fit with Keynesian economics and is therefore false I am not Catholic, but his tone implying that anyone who is religious is a fool feels more like an ad hominem attack than anything. As to the veracity of Keynesian economics, I am less than convinced he got everything right. That said,…

At this point, crypto is useless. Are people making money trading it? Yes. Can regular people do anything with it? No. With as much money that has been poured into crypto related businesses, I still can't easily send or transact business with it.

> Can regular people do anything with it? No.

It's used a lot in the third world. In Georgia you can buy a burger paying crypto via NFC terminal. I also know people who get their salaries in crypto. And it's used a lot for donating to opposition where it's illegal, like in most dictatorship.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#122

Post by dmitriid »

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.

very few countries are as bad as crypto

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#123

Post by cirgue »

viktorcode wrote: post #99

Let me just point out how incredibly poor the word "scam" is defined in that dictionary. By that literal definition a lot of different things become scams because they are "clever", dishonest and are about making money.

“Dishonest and profitable” is a usable definition of fraud. What’s the issue here?

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#124

Post by tootie »

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote: post #120
tootie wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean, it's an expression. If you own coins when they crash then you are "holding the bag". If you sold at the peak then you robbed everyone at the bottom.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#125

Post by jjtheblunt »

nivenkos wrote: post #46
jjtheblunt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t the public ledger extreme monitoring, when a bit of correlating of addresses is layered on? I mean aren’t there even services used by law enforcement for such?

But many exchanges dodge KYC so you can't tie an address to a person necessarily.

KYC is a legal requirement, so to your point i think you’re saying exchanges outside the law?

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#126

Post by ly3xqhl8g9 »

naasking wrote: post #118
ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, but no one expects that the 25K they have in their savings account to be worth tommorrow 250K. With crypto that could be a possibility, it more certainly could be 0, but a possibility nonetheless. I just don't think a society should have a gambling mechanism as a large scale economic operator.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#127

Post by TomGullen »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #35
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…

Gambling. Crypto is globalized gambling. It's a money laundering vector, for sure, but for the same reasons crypto competes poorly in the transaction market it's close to a last resort for high-volume launderers.

Notably unregulated gambling available without oversight and also readily available to addicts and children. Helpful in smashing down that redundant bureaucratic red tape the gambling industry so desperately is in need of at the small price of destroying, debilitating or general increase in suffering in peoples lives.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#128

Post by LatteLazy »

acdha wrote: post #86
LatteLazy wrote: post #4

>Similarly, the “crypto as currency” and “crypto as investment” narratives have been thoroughly debunked because the truth value of these statements is predicated on factual claims that are demonstrably falsifiable. It must be nice to be able to just state something is thoroughly debunked and not have to give any evidence, despite billions of people not knowing, and be magically right...

People also say things like “the US dollar is stable” without citing economics papers because it’s reasonable to assume the audience isn’t a saucer full of aliens who just arrived and have no prior knowledge. Even bitcoin proponents no longer claim it’s a currency - many of them even pretend never to have claimed otherwise when it interferes with the sales pitch - and the investment claims have been similarly defined…

If an economist wrong an article that's title was "the usd is stable", he would either need to show that, or it would be a rather pointless article wouldn't it? Similarly, an article whose title and whole content is just "Crypto Is All a Scam" should probably actually contain something more than "because we all agree, don't ask questions"...

And if such an economist were challenged on whether the USD is stable, he would presumably be able to cite decades of data of inflation rates, FX etc.

It would be a bit crazy to write a whole article about one thing, but say nothing because the thing is obvious and widely accepted (so why write it)...

Plus, "Crypto Is All a Scam" is the claim here. So if people making claims are the ones obliged to support them then...

As I say elsewhere, I am not some crypto evangelist. I am just tired of both sides being so vacuous and relying on prejudice and publishing such poor materials...

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#129

Post by acdha »

naasking wrote: post #75
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 This seems like a good example of the just-world fallacy. The current system absolutely has many arbitrary restrictions. The problems those restrictions allegedly solve don't have only one possible solution, but that's what we got stuck with.

Is it really accurate to call things “arbitrary”? Usually if you look at any safeguard you’ll find a real historical problem it was designed to reduce. Sometimes that’s something best solved otherwise – the drug war provides many examples of that - but I’d usually describe those as ineffective rather than arbitrary.

The distinction matters because it raises the question of that process repeating again. Since it’s not random, the same forces will push in the same direction unless those problems can be recognized and countered in a different means.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#130

Post by orange_fritter »

_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…

You are right, the stupidest part of this is ignoring the fact that real-world use would cause the currency to appreciate. I would say there is value in whatever path led you to investigate a "revolutionary" technology during its infancy.
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