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Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

stephendiehl.com

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Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#291

Post by turblety »

bberrry wrote: post #273
codegeek wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"could genuinely work under certain circumstances" Ok I will be that guy. Not trolling. But after more than a decade, isn't it clear that crypto as a whole has failed to live upto the promise. The idea of decentralization is awesome but doesn't work in practice especially for payments. I am not necessarily dismissive of crypto but increasingly, it is becoming difficult to see any real practical applications. Almost e…

Ransomware was made possible by crypto so.. uhm.. there's that.

Ransomware has been happening long before [1] crypto existed. Maybe a similar, but also ridiculous, statement would be:

> Ransomware was made possible by computers so.. uhm.. there's that.

1. https://www.crowdstrike.com/cybersecurity-101/ransomware/his....

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#292

Post by epistemer »

rvz wrote: post #235
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…

He makes some good arguments and is certainly better read in economics than the youtube conspiracy theory video level/back cover summary of the Creature from Jekyll Island economics most crypto enthusiast stochastic parrot back as truth.

The 24/7 crypto is a scam community is extremely odd though. I can't stand the sport of NASCAR but I can't imagine enveloping my entire thought and identity around how much I think NASCAR is a bullshit sport and trying to convince people to stop watching NASCAR.

Finding an anti-passion to that degree seems extraordinarily unhealthy mentally.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#293

Post by zirgs »

naasking wrote: post #183
jqpabc123 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

with no middle men or central authority. The exchanges are both --- the middle men *and* the central authority. They set the "financial value" of crypto. They mint their own "stable coins" at will without any verifiable backing and use it to trade against their own "customers" --- because there is nothing to prevent it. And yes, I am aware of the peer-to-peer exchanges --- which provide no real, practical alternative…

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.

Yeah, I remember when cryptobros talked about self-contained crypto economy. In that ideal scenario exchanges aren't necessary. But 14 years have passed and nothing has come of it. Off-ramps are still necessary.

Exchanges that deal with real money have to abide by rules and regulations of their jurisdiction. Governments can tell them what to do.

Crypto exchanges that deal with crypto only can indeed hide from governments, but if they steal your money - there's nothing you can do.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#294

Post by jillesvangurp »

fredley wrote: post #74
jillesvangurp wrote: post #67

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…

> The fallacy in this argument is that there's something special in crypto that makes this more likely to happen. I think this goes without saying: money and financial systems are regulated—to some degree—everywhere in the World. They are regulated by Governments, and there are real penalties for evading those regulations and getting caught. Many of these regulations were put in place to prevent the kind of shenaniga…

Crypto can also be regulated and it probably will get regulated.

Regulation always comes after the fact. The history of the "modern" banking system is that merchants at some point got bored getting robbed of their gold while traveling from A to B. Also, moving around tonnes of gold is actually expensive and tedious. So, they started sending each other bank notes underwritten by bankers who kept the gold in their vaults. Out of that modern banking and eventually central banks emerged. The notion of keeping gold in a vault became optional some time later. The regulation we have resulted from robbery getting more sophisticated. Initially all of this was unregulated. Regulation just happened as a reaction to all the inevitable bad stuff that happened.

What's a bank: a ledger of value denominated in currencies and a promise to account those ledgers correctly. Why do banks need regulation? Because ledgers are manipulated by people that can and will cheat if they can get away with it.

What's a blockchain: a tamper proof, shared ledger. If that sounds like a useful tool to have in a bank that would be because it is. You need a bit less regulation to keep the ledger correct. But you still need some regulation to ensure bankers use them properly and appropriately. Technology doesn't fix their tendencies to not do that.

Using an unregulated blockchain is not a whole lot different from using bank accounts in dodgy jurisdictions to evade taxes and oversight. Popular with the same types of people for the same types of reasons.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#295

Post by throwaway98797 »

fellerts wrote: post #155
throwaway98797 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Just wondering, what's your point? Are you saying that deflation is inherently a bad thing?

thank you for engaging in good faith

it’s more that using fluctuations is bad logic for both crypto and fiat

being a user of US currency over the last 100 has been generally good for all involved

i’d say the same is true for ethereum (i’m a bit eth maxi with small holdings of other crypto)

if you are at all actually curious i wouldn’t read anything about crypto since the writing is so polarizing (crypto =scam or crypto is saving the world).

neither is true but no amount of words will give conviction.

download metamask, buy $500 of eth, swap it into usdc on uniswap, buy a shitty nft on opensea. then see if you like it. do not treat the $500 as investment. treat it like education.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#298

Post by bberrry »

turblety wrote: post #291
bberrry wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ransomware was made possible by crypto so.. uhm.. there's that.

Ransomware has been happening long before [1] crypto existed. Maybe a similar, but also ridiculous, statement would be: > Ransomware was made possible by computers so.. uhm.. there's that. 1. https://www.crowdstrike.com/cybersecurity-101/ransomware/his... .

Seems I hit a sore spot to provoke such a pedantic reply.

Obviously the cryptography was not enabled by crypto currencies, but the possibility to accept ransom payments at scale with little risk. Are you going to argue that crypto didn't facilitate the absolute boom in ransomware we've seen the past few years? The article you link says it did.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#299

Post by louwrentius »

capableweb wrote: post #260
louwrentius wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people in countries like Libanon or Venezuela have to survive by “dumping a barrel of oil each day in the ocean”, and this is basically the only “legitimate” use case for “oil” this is clearly not a vindication for the existence of oil. It’s just all bad, there is no justification for “oil” to exist.

If you could somehow get money by dumping a barrel of oil into the ocean and you had no money at all with a hungry family, you'd find it hard to argue against dumping that barrel quickly.

You may (deliberately) miss the point: that people survive this way doesn’t mean it vindicates oil existing.

If I have to eat human flesh to survive does this vindicate canibalism?

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#300

Post by acdha »

luckylion wrote: post #283
acdha wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That says you shouldn’t use PayPal, just as the billions locked or stolen by cryptocurrency exchanges says you should be careful about who you entrust with large amounts of money.

> That says you shouldn’t use PayPal So you shouldn't use non-crypto convenient near-realtime payments? Stripe seems to have similar events regularly judging by the "Support HN" posts. It's an issue that seems to arise from misaligned incentives, and regulators are looking the other way, as they do on many things in banking.

PayPal is one of company of many. If you want bad customer service, they've been delivering that for a couple of decades but that's a problem specific to them and there are better alternatives available.

It is definitely an area where regulation can help but the point is that you don't need to wait to give your business to someone else.

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