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Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

stephendiehl.com

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Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#211

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

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?

Faster? It's been 4 days since I sent a wire to my family in another country and it's not there yet. I have been waiting for 2 weeks recently for an ACH transfer between my two accounts in the US.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#212

Post by mabbo »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #173
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?

Have you ever paid for anything substantial with real money? It's a huge pain in the ass. I have to go into a bank, even during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. I have to pay outrageous fees to transfer money & participate in something called a "wire". Where my money will simply be magically transferred to another party somehow. There are a zillion steps, none of which are disclosed to me. It should work fine, bu…

There's three arguments there:

1 - Banks can make mistakes.

2 - Banks can be slow.

3 - Banks making it really hard to do transfer large sums of money.

I can't solve 1, but I can tell you that crypto definitely doesn't solve it. Because making a mistake with crypto is irreversible. The money is just gone. Mom forgot her password because she's getting old? Well, too bad, now Mom is broke and her money is gone forever.

Two is a solvable problem and it's getting better over time. It used to be even slower.

But 3, I'm in favour of. I want it to be hard for me to transfer away my life savings. I want there to be many steps in which my ID is checked and people look me in the eye and verify that yes, this is the thing I want to do. Because I am an idiot, and if you give me a gun I will shoot myself in the foot. I don't want it to be easy to accidentally go broke.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#213

Post by welshwelsh »

valdiorn wrote: post #117
cypress66 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The western system sucks too. In the US it's still federally illegal to buy weed and it can be very difficult to get abortion pills depending on your state. Darknet markets are desperately needed

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#214

Post by dmantis »

atdrummond wrote: post #179

Be grateful you live in the EU or the US and don’t need crypto. It has been a major lifeline for my family and friends in Lebanon and Venezuela, both of which lack fully functioning financial services. I can send Bitcoin just fine though!

As well as thousands of Russians outside of Russia got their banks accounts blocked and sanctions restricted our money to be 100_000 EUR max per person.

Hundreds of years of liberal ideas of individual rights just crushed below collective responsibility idea for some dictator actions.

People moved billions out of Russia with bitcoin and other currencies. They saved their money after sanctions with passports based discrimination and their whole country actions against them. But rich people from first world country will still push these ideas, that's it all scams and casinos.

And the only alternative they provide as "real money" is something like "give all your money to our banks, sign some contract with humiliating visa conditions, pay us 40% taxes and pray we won't take it back". Yeah, sure, thank you very much!

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#215

Post by naasking »

ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #126
naasking wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Arguably a big part of crypto's volatility is because it isn't widely used enough. If as many people traded in Bitcoin as currently traded in USD, I think that would average out most fluctuations.

I'm also not sure how you delineate between speculation and gambling. Are you for the current system of speculative trading of regular currencies?

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#216

Post by marssaxman »

danaris wrote: post #112
marssaxman wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Perhaps that's not what I was talking about.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#217

Post by Veen »

zmxz wrote: post #36
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…

Crypto allowed regular mortals to conduct the state-level scam that was exclusive only to governments. I can understand the appeal, but I do find it amusing how we (humans) instantly abuse anything if modicum of abuse is possible :)

E.O. Wilson once said of communism, 'Great idea, wrong species.' Whether or not that was true of communism, it seems true of crypto. It has brilliant technical ideas and clever solutions to problems with traditional currencies, but the result is a system that doesn't work in practice because of how human individuals, communities, and social systems function.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#218

Post by zirgs »

rawoke083600 wrote: post #188
graybies wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also props up a large part of the international drug market in addition to money laundering.

ohh please....You think the USD is not being used for this ?

USD is used for a lot of things. Most of them are legal. Can't say the same about bitcoin.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#219

Post by DonHopkins »

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

I think weaving tampons into your hair expresses your unique individuality and shows strong character, and you should definitely go for it, especially if you will be attending weddings, funerals, speaking in public, going on a blind date, receiving an award, sitting for an oil painting, or giving an acceptance speech for being elected to public office. Just stay out of the rain!

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#220

Post by leesalminen »

vlunkr wrote: post #209
atdrummond wrote: post #179

Be grateful you live in the EU or the US and don’t need crypto. It has been a major lifeline for my family and friends in Lebanon and Venezuela, both of which lack fully functioning financial services. I can send Bitcoin just fine though!

Yes, if your definition of “just fine” involves long waits, transaction fees, and fluctuating value. All symptoms of the fact that bitcoin and crypto in general is a giant casino for 99% of users. Certainly it’s a valid way to send money, but it’s not hard to see the faults.

The Lightning Network is being used to send BTC with instant confirmation & near zero fees.

I just used it to pay someone from a US bank account to a Costa Rican bank account. $1000 payment, it reached their bank account in 12 seconds (we counted) and we paid a total of $1.80 in total fees (18 basis points).

I can’t think of a faster or cheaper way to pay internationally.

On the US side, I used the Strike app so my balance is in USD and I’m not exposed to the fluctuating value of BTC.

On the CR side, they used an instant off-ramp converting the BTC to CRC instantly, also limiting their exposure to BTC volatility.

No scam involved. It’s just the cheapest, fastest, easiest way I’ve found to send money from the US to countries with lackluster banking infrastructure.

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