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Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

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Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#91

Post by tomr75 »

phailhaus wrote: post #86
vvpan wrote: post #56

I send money across borders to friends an organizations via blockchain. And millions of other people do, especially in countries with volatile financial systems. I much prefer crypto to anything else in this case. Hearing "no legitimate use case" arguments is awfully annoying when you get objective use from the thing being criticized.

> I send money across borders to friends an organizations via blockchain. And that transaction is completely public, and can be traced back to both of you.

can send private transactions on ZK rollups https://railgun.org/

https://app.umbra.cash/

https://spillways.finance/

https://mystiko.network/

https://cyclone.xyz/

https://www.privacypools.com/

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#92

Post by EGreg »

drewbeck wrote: post #35
EGreg wrote: post #29

I reached out to Molly White to have her on our show, but she declined. Hi Molly. I was listening to Majority Report today and they had their old producer, Matt Binder on. He mentioned interviewing you about Web3 recently. I had been meaning to reach out. Like many people, I've occasionally popped onto web3isgoinggreat.com to see the latest cringefest in crypto and adjacent to it. Unlike many people, though, I run a…

I'm curious what you're trying to get at here, and your intent for posting this. Can you elaborate?

Sure, of course.

I wanted to show that Molly White doesn’t seem to be open to a discussion about the broader issues, and her blog is certainly very one-sided, which I actually appreciate (I love one sided stuff, because it tends to go out of its way to find the best arguments for its side, as long as you balance it with the other side). We are in a unique position to share our experience with her.

We spent years quietly building open technology to help people around the world stop relying on centralized entities which clearly is a problem.

We have been seeking out and engaging well-known people in substantive discussions around issues that really matter, — sociopolitical, economic, regulatory — etc.

There are tons of people around the world who engage with us. They would like to see things solved. Both on the left and the right. Here are just a few:

  David Harvey
  Noam Chomsky
  Patri Friedman
  Robert Murphy
  Sarah Hanks
  Richard Heart
  The original inventors of
    Freenet
    Kademlia DHT
    Ripple
  etc.
And then there is the anti-Web3 crowd who downvotes anything with the slightest positivity toward Web3 being useful or needed.

This crowd loves someone like Molly White to highlight everything wrong. I was inviting Molly White to come and have a real conversation about real issues, that I highlighted. She refused.

I see the same in, say, rabid democrats vs republicans, left vs right, with their and purity tests and shouting down of opposing views. I respect when the people who speak for them are willing to come and engage in a real discussion, and explore ideas. A few people, like Molly, would rather not.

For years, we have been rather welcoming and eager to find out the pitfalls and responsible solutions. I wish AI shops were like that. But on HN, there are a ton of activists who want to bury anything that is in favor of Web3 even slightly. They do it silently and avoid discussion. And if AI is criticized, they downvote that too.

The activists in the HN ”overton window” these days seem to think that there are no people that n tech working on real Web3 and Web5 projects outside their bubble. They will be proven wrong in 2024 but these trends on HN seems to drown out real substance.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#93

Post by Animats »

leashless wrote: post #9

I've crossed swords with Molly a couple of times. I was the release coordinator for Ethereum, and I've been active in the space a long long time. Here's what it boils down to: freedom is messy. The early days of the dotcom space were filled with carnage of a type which makes crypto look pretty normal. Amazon stock dropped >90% and a trillion and a half in value vanished from the market overall. https://en.wikipedia.o…

> The early days of the dotcom space were filled with carnage of a type which makes crypto look pretty normal.

Carnage, yes. I ran "downside.com" back then. (It's still up, but I stopped updating it around 2006.). In the first dot-com boom, everybody went public. So you could track their numbers from SEC filings. I just took their cash flow numbers and computed when the cash would run out as the "death date". That was surprisingly accurate.

But not as many out and out scams as in crypto. Most of the original dot-coms actually did something real. It might not have been profitable, but there was some utility. You could order from Webvan and the stuff would show up.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#94

Post by scottiebarnes »

gitfan86 wrote: post #50
scottiebarnes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mistake is in understanding that crypto (Bitcoin) isn't just a transmission network, it is protocol with a defined supply rate. Your payment pipelines become less valuable when nobody wants those Liras, Bolivars, Argentine Pesos, etc. transmitted over them. And if you don't think that the US dollar is at risk of debasing itself, you should qualify why.

The USD lost 98% of its value before bitcoin ever existed. The idea that sophisticated investors have been putting their money into USD and need crypto people to explain inflation to them is ridiculous. It is equally ridiculous that crypto people think that having a fixed supply of something makes it valuable. Oceanfront property in Miami is also limited, but crypto people are not pumping that because they are not in…

> The idea that sophisticated investors have been putting their money into USD and need crypto people to explain inflation to them is ridiculous.

"Sophisticated investors" never had access to an asset whose supply was predictable (resistant to debasement), but also decentralized and permissionless to participate in. "Sophisticated investors" should probably know their monetary history, including why gold evolved as a world standard until Bretton Woods. And the types of money societies used before that.

> It is equally ridiculous that crypto people think that having a fixed supply of something makes it valuable. Oceanfront property in Miami is also limited, but crypto people are not pumping that because they are not invested in Miami oceanfront property.

Not sure what you mean, the lead up to 2008 was a pretty interesting time for real estate developers, why would crypto people be talking about condos?

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#95

Post by EA-3167 »

rlt wrote: post #55
DannyBee wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt most of tech would appreciate being lumped in with crypto, which should be the first sign that your take is a little off. IE if you think you are just "tech being tech" but lots and lots of tech is like "uh, no, we aren't like you at all, please don't lump us in with you", that should tell you something. Beyond that, your take seems so divorced from reality i'm not even sure where to begin. I don't agree at a…

Of course “tech” isn’t a monolith, and neither is “crypto”. Many people into Bitcoin or crypto don’t appreciate being lumped into the very long tail of scams that are an inherent byproduct of permissionless money. It would be a bit like pre-internet engineers dismissing the internet because it’s the world’s best porn distribution mechanism.

Crypto sure seems like a monolith, albeit one with a dedicated force of apologists.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#96

Post by htormey »

chasing wrote: post #26
leashless wrote: post #9

I've crossed swords with Molly a couple of times. I was the release coordinator for Ethereum, and I've been active in the space a long long time. Here's what it boils down to: freedom is messy. The early days of the dotcom space were filled with carnage of a type which makes crypto look pretty normal. Amazon stock dropped >90% and a trillion and a half in value vanished from the market overall. https://en.wikipedia.o…

The Web hit the scene in 1991. By 2003 how we shopped, worked, consumed media, communicated with friends and family, and interacted with information was in the process of changing radically. A million "little ambitions" to replace catalogue shopping and how hotel reservations were made were transforming how the world worked. Bitcoin hit the scene in 2011. By 2023 crypto's mostly a failed get-rich-quick scheme with a…

I don’t think comparing the timelines of vastly different technologies like this is helpful.

Prior to the web, in the 1960s/1970s we had packet-switching networks, such as ARPANET which were the basis of modern computer networking.

The original ARPANET (precursor to the internet)was just used to connect computers at research institutions. I.e it wasn’t used by that many people relatively speaking.

It took another 20 years for the web to come along and more for it gain widespread adoption.

Is Bitcoin, a very low level protocol, more analogous to ARPANET or the web? Even if you dislike crypto, is this comparison really helpful?

All technology is built on the shoulders of previous giants. Building a secure, scalable, sufficiently decentralized distributed computer system is hard. I.e it’s going to take a long ass time. Hence I’m not surprised at how far we have come since BTC was released.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#97

Post by TimPC »

gitfan86 wrote: post #50
scottiebarnes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mistake is in understanding that crypto (Bitcoin) isn't just a transmission network, it is protocol with a defined supply rate. Your payment pipelines become less valuable when nobody wants those Liras, Bolivars, Argentine Pesos, etc. transmitted over them. And if you don't think that the US dollar is at risk of debasing itself, you should qualify why.

The USD lost 98% of its value before bitcoin ever existed. The idea that sophisticated investors have been putting their money into USD and need crypto people to explain inflation to them is ridiculous. It is equally ridiculous that crypto people think that having a fixed supply of something makes it valuable. Oceanfront property in Miami is also limited, but crypto people are not pumping that because they are not in…

Having a fixed supply does make something more valuable compared to a non-fixed supply. This has kind of been the story of the housing crisis in much of the Western world where NIMBYism and restrictive zoning have reduced the supply of housing in many desireable markets well below demand for housing. Canada has it much worse than the US as Canada has something like close to 50% of it's population in the GVA and the GTA which are both in the top 100 most unaffordable cities in the world on most lists (although on some lists Vancouver is only 103rd). Toronto prices will hopefully come down a little with EHON which seems to be an extremely good piece of legislation to allow gentle density.

Having a fixed supply doesn't make something intrinsically valuable. But restricting the supply absolutely does increase price when demand exists.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#98

Post by Animats »

bombcar wrote: post #37
chasing wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Web hit the scene in 1991. By 2003 how we shopped, worked, consumed media, communicated with friends and family, and interacted with information was in the process of changing radically. A million "little ambitions" to replace catalogue shopping and how hotel reservations were made were transforming how the world worked. Bitcoin hit the scene in 2011. By 2023 crypto's mostly a failed get-rich-quick scheme with a…

The most "legitimate" use for bitcoin and its friends is transferring funds electronically with people that others don't want you transferring funds with (e.g, avoiding payment processors, laws, etc). However, it remains to be seen if cryptocurrency could survive doing only that (e.g., without speculators) - because if there's no speculation how do you unload the currency? Only to others wishing to do the same. It's…

> The most "legitimate" use for bitcoin and its friends is transferring funds electronically with people that others don't want you transferring funds with (e.g, avoiding payment processors, laws, etc).

Yes. I way underestimated the size of the money-laundering industry.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#99

Post by this_user »

Krollifi wrote: post #68

Is crypto a briar patch that will fail or is it an ingenious technology that will kill traditional banking? Only time will tell. More competition is a good thing. Right?

Time has already told: it won't. Bitcoin isn't even a competitor to most of what banks do. At best it's a competitor to PayPal, and even there it is doing at terrible job.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#100

Post by bhaak »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #60
vvpan wrote: post #56

I send money across borders to friends an organizations via blockchain. And millions of other people do, especially in countries with volatile financial systems. I much prefer crypto to anything else in this case. Hearing "no legitimate use case" arguments is awfully annoying when you get objective use from the thing being criticized.

I send money across borders without blockchain. Without fees. Without having to wait 2 weeks for the transaction to be confirmed.

Found the SEPA user.
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