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Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

stephendiehl.com

311–320 of 396 posts

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#311
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, which country are you based in? Because for people based in countries with high inflation, crypto is a great tool to get paid in usd and reinvest it without being forced by their governement to convert it into their currency. Obviously, if you're based in a country with a strong currency and where all financial intstruments are available, that's not important.

“ Because for people based in countries with high inflation, crypto is a great tool to get paid in usd and reinvest it without being forced by their governement to convert it into their currency.” I hear this quite a lot. Do we have any figures that say it’s actually happening at any scale?

This is a good article about the situation in Argentina:

https://www.freethink.com/hard-tech/crypto-argentina-black-m...

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#312
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digital ownership is enforced by the code that’s interpreting the data, so the app publisher is the organization responsible for enforcing property rights. Tokens signed by an app-trusted key solve the problem with almost zero resource cost.

Digital ownership is enforced by laws and nothing else. There is no amount of code that can technically prevent me from copying any data that lands on my system. >Tokens signed by an app-trusted key solve the problem with almost zero resource cost. This ensures safety against access and not against copying. Of course I can not copy assets I don't have access to but the same is true for NFTs.

It can be enforced by hardware, and by not allowing the digital asset to be accessible on a system without hardware restrictions present.

As all things, technically, theoretically possible to circumvent, but you can make it exceedingly difficult.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#313

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

Fine - Which crypto critics do you take seriously?

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. No chance in hell. The only sustained market this technology has are illegal transactions/black market. To begin with: a regulated Blockchain is an oxymoron. The technology ceases to have any meaning if the government has the ability to regulate the chain. They'd be…

Surely you're not claiming that inferior tech has never won in all of history?

It happens, but generally only if the marketing of the weaker technology won out while both technologies were still growing.

This is not that kind of situation, the crypto hype train derailed ages ago and only one country attempted to switch to a crypto currency, which predictably ended in a disaster and turned out to be a money laundering scheme of the person that was driving the initiative.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What was policing money (gold and silver) for all those thousands of years before the fiat scam?

"power" policed every barter.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#316
post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they don't use cryptocurrencies per se. They pay people in us dollars aka fiat. Same as companies using offshore bank accounts for the same purpose, or paying out cash in envelopes. People getting paid in USDC of course still need to convert a large amount of it into local cash/cash-equivalent because they still have to pay rent, pay for food etc.

They use a blockchain to transact in USDC because it's more convenient that posting cash across borders. Freelancers usually don't have the financial means to open offshore companies.

> Freelancers usually don't have the financial means to open offshore companies.

So, "people in countries with high inflation"... is immediately reduced to just "freelancers".

I struggle to imagine how freelancers were paid before the advent of crypto.

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#317
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You keep strawmaning. Let me fix this for you:

Therefore, cryptocurrency can sometimes be used for moral good.

For example, anonymously supporting opposition in dictatorship regimes. Can you offer a better alternative than crypto?

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#318

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...

at least he's consistent to the scam

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 N…

It’s an extension of the culture war. Tons of right wing culture warriors got really rich off crypto without doing anything to deserve that wealth, so left wing culture warriors are naturally opposed to it. You check out /r/Buttcoin, they also hate GameStop (valid) and Elon Musk (much less so, he’s doing great work outside of Twitter despite his immaturity) for those same fundamental reasons. It’s more of the same so…

what you wrote in parentheses is enough to not like elon.

didn't he falsely accuse someone for being a pedo because they said his submarine would not have saved the people trapped in the Thailand cave?

Re: Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no alternative with the same level of convinience that crypto provide (KYC-less There is a legitimate argument for creating KYC-light rails for small global transfers. That argument is not advanced by crypto's wanton criminality.

> There is a legitimate argument for creating KYC-light rails for small global transfers Then let's do it! I keep hearing that we "should" fix regulation or we "should" improve global transfers. Competition spurs innovation. The global financial hegemony can now consider themselves competed against. The proper move is not to ban your competition, the proper move is to build a better product. If, for every citizen in…

> Competition spurs innovation. The global financial hegemony can now consider themselves competed against

This isn’t how politics works. Crypto threw a flaming lint ball of fraud at the rich world. Pleading that it’s also helping the disenfranchised doesn’t help advance a KYC-light discussion as much as a regulatory-vacuum one. It’s easy to ban (or heavily tax and erect stricter KYC guardrails at the interfaces between crypto and the fiat and real economies, what I’m concluding is the best middle path) and punt the “what did we learn” bit to a committee with a few years to write a report. Especially when the beneficiaries don’t vote for you.

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