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Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

stephendiehl.com

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Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#231

Post by birracerveza »

birracerveza wrote: post #66

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…

Oh dear lord I just had a look at the rest of his blog.

This guy has an unhealthy obsession against crypto, and paired with https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=34693042 I'd say it's either sour grapes or has some kind of agenda, even if it's a personal vendetta.

In any case he's not even worth the bytes used to receive the webpage.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#232

Post by naasking »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #197
naasking wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exchanges are not necessary for crypto. Not sure why you're conflating them. Also, there is no central authority telling exchanges how they have to operate, that they have to collect certain kinds of data or regulate certain kinds of transactions (in theory). If you don't like an exchange's rules you can move to another or create your own fairly easily. By contrast, consider how difficult it would be to start a bank.

Exchanges are not necessary for crypto. Yes they absolutely are. Without them, there would be no crypto *market* --- centralized or otherwise. Everyone turns to the exchanges to value their crypto --- even those doing peer-to-peer (DEX). Also, there is no central authority telling exchanges how they have to operate Exactly! In the absence thereof, they become the defacto "central authority" --- by the sheer weight of…

> Everyone turns to the exchanges to value their crypto.

Not everyone. And the fact that most turn to exchanges says nothing about crypto's dependence on them. If all exchanges were outlawed tomorrow Bitcoin would still not disappear.

Furthermore, the existence of multiple exchanges already refutes your claim that there is a central authority, de facto or otherwise.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#233

Post by davidguetta »

Money not based on gold standard, and which can be printed anytime the government feels like it, is also a scam.

However when many people agree of a price at a given time, anything, including a scam, can in turn become money.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#234

Post by shagymoe »

I mostly agree with this article about "crypto".

Bitcoin is not crypto.

In any case, you could make similar arguments about banks and the "Federal" Reserve being scams. In fact, quite a few well regarded politicians of old made exactly those arguments. The implicit agreement in this particular argument is that the scam we've accepted is somehow better.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#235

Post by rvz »

nic_wilson wrote: post #181

It may have already been noted elsewhere but it seems important to note that the author was (is?) the CTO of private blockchain start up and choosing to not disclose this in any of his crypto criticism seems very dishonest https://twitter.com/dystopiabreaker/status/14701269278180679...

I guess it would be embarrassing for him to admit that he tried to compete against Ethereum after Cardano destroyed his private blockchain startup.

Stephen Diehl is also no better than the crypto maximalists with his extreme absolutism. You won't see him debate and test his arguments with a balanced panel discussion so that you can easily see how extreme his arguments are. He has a book to sell and is full time, 24/7 tweeting the 'all of crypto is scam' chorus.

Not all cryptocurrencies, tokens will survive, but only a select few of them and their technologies will still be around to be used under regulations.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#236

Post by tossl568 »

nic_wilson wrote: post #181

It may have already been noted elsewhere but it seems important to note that the author was (is?) the CTO of private blockchain start up and choosing to not disclose this in any of his crypto criticism seems very dishonest https://twitter.com/dystopiabreaker/status/14701269278180679...

Yep, Stephen Diehl is not somebody to be taken seriously

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#237

Post by rom-antics »

thecupisblue wrote: post #115
rom-antics wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

The paper is not so simplistic as you make it sound.

1. They analyzed clusters of addresses, not individual addresses, so one-time addresses are accounted for (unless the vendor never collected their payment from the DN, in which case they gave away the drugs for free)

And anyway since 5 years ago all the DNMs use monero, not bitcoin, so talking about DNMs in the context of bitcoin is an anachronism. If you use a traceable currency with a public ledger for drugs, you're not very bright.

2. Volume associated with a mixer is classified as illegal in the paper, so it's part of the 3%. Bitcoin mixers are not plausibly deniable the way Tornado Cash is (because of UTXOs) - mixers still leave an obvious trail.

3. The analysis covers data from 2015-2021, so it covers two halving cycles.

> flows to addresses which have been identified as illegal transactions, scams, and gambling together make up about 4% of the volume at the beginning of our sample in 2015. By the end of of our sample in the middle of 2021, this fraction has fallen to less than 0.4%

Illegal activity is 0.4% in a bull market and 4% in a bear market. Overall it averages to the headline 3%. You can infer speculation volume goes up 10x in a bull market.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#238

Post by colesantiago »

shagymoe wrote: post #234

I mostly agree with this article about "crypto". Bitcoin is not crypto. In any case, you could make similar arguments about banks and the "Federal" Reserve being scams. In fact, quite a few well regarded politicians of old made exactly those arguments. The implicit agreement in this particular argument is that the scam we've accepted is somehow better.

Bitcoin IS crypto.

Please stop this delusional thinking trying to separate them, we both know that all of crypto is full speculation and you know it.

There is no difference, it doesn't matter if it was 'first'.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#239

Post by Felmioytfr »

gloosx wrote: post #227

I disagree with this, it seems to me that if you follow author's logic you can call US dollar scam too - a lot of it's value is same thin air called "debt"?. The problem with argumentation and particulary with church comparison is that in order for something to be called scam, as per definition provided in the article, someone must be there who planned it, who gets all the profits. But crypto has no central entity, n…

Houses are not nothing.

You don't just get into debt without anything on the other side

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