Live data from Hacker News

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

wired.co.uk

291–300 of 326 posts

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

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wire costs 40€ from my bank which I didn’t want to pay.

But once you're in Wise, you have a US acct/routing number (from Evolve, iirc).

I just went straight to the "transfer" button and ended up with this form: https://imgbox.com/QY8GQFhQ

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

#292
post #96
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…

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…

Email was a massive hit from day 1 on the Arpanet.

Whereas crypto still struggles to do anything novel or get popular with anyone outside of speculation.

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

#293
post #96
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…

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…

> Building a secure, scalable, sufficiently decentralized distributed computer system is hard.

Yep. This blockchain/PoW/PoS way they’ve come up with to do it, with a built in cryptocurrency, doesn’t really cut it.

The trade offs to be “sufficiently decentralized” make it slow, expensive and unscalable. Making it effectively useless for real-world applications. The whole of Ethereum has as much power as a raspberry pi.

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

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only "goal" of crypto is to make money. Anything else is just worn as a mask for promotion because, "Lie, cheat, steal" isn't a great set of principles for a new economic universal ledger. What crypto has become has showed just how wrong Satoshi was about people. Crypto COULD have been everything he hoped for. It could have been a system where everyone participated, with millions of nodes. Instead it became somet…

> The only "goal" of crypto is to make money. Anything else is just worn as a mask for promotion because, "Lie, cheat, steal" isn't a great set of principles for a new economic universal ledger. This is exactly why generalizing doesn't work. The most visible parts of the crypto space (exchanges, VC-funded blockchain, etc...) are there simply to make money. If you meet some of the longer-term devs, you'll see a comple…

Vitalik is not motivated by money. He decided to create a supra-national computer system no government can touch when “Blizzard removed the damage component from his beloved warlock’s Siphon Life spell.”

https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/22709126/ethereum-creat...

Joe Lubin, the guy behind him, is of course all about the money.

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

#295

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…

What the crypto promoters continue to fail to understand is that ownership ultimately is enforced by the state and its laws, not by code. This will never change. Given that reality, centralized ledgers will always be cheaper for every use case than decentralized trustless ledgers.

Yeah. The centralized enforcers of the system may as well maintain the ledger themselves. Using a normal database at a fraction of the cost.

If they want to be dishonest about things there is no decentralized magic tech that can prevent them doing so.

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

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sophisticated investors generally do not want "decentralized and permissionless" assets. They want government and legal protections. Maybe you thing they are wrong for wanting that, because maybe you think the government is a threat to their wealth, and that is fine to have that opinion but the market for "decentralized and permissionless" isn't very big, which is why you don't see much money going into crypto anymor…

No, I understand why investors want legal guarantees. Actually, the endorsement and legal guidelines by the government for crypto would send its price soaring. Being decentralized means no single party controls it, and thusly no single party can debase it or prevent its distribution. You need to understand why gold is still used as a store of value, and the role of government bonds as safe havens in the modern econom…

>> Being decentralized means no single party controls it

I suggest you have a look at how many people are allowed to merge bitcoins PRs in github

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

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I understand why investors want legal guarantees. Actually, the endorsement and legal guidelines by the government for crypto would send its price soaring. Being decentralized means no single party controls it, and thusly no single party can debase it or prevent its distribution. You need to understand why gold is still used as a store of value, and the role of government bonds as safe havens in the modern econom…

>> Being decentralized means no single party controls it I suggest you have a look at how many people are allowed to merge bitcoins PRs in github

Its true, any specific open source project will have a limited and influential contributor base. But the fact that its open source code also allows it to be fluid and dynamic; ie. you and anyone who has different ideas about the direction of said project can build their own forks. You can convince people to support your network.

And then your network will compete with all the other open networks and protocols. And may the better ones win.

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

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sophisticated investors generally do not want "decentralized and permissionless" assets. They want government and legal protections. Maybe you thing they are wrong for wanting that, because maybe you think the government is a threat to their wealth, and that is fine to have that opinion but the market for "decentralized and permissionless" isn't very big, which is why you don't see much money going into crypto anymor…

No, I understand why investors want legal guarantees. Actually, the endorsement and legal guidelines by the government for crypto would send its price soaring. Being decentralized means no single party controls it, and thusly no single party can debase it or prevent its distribution. You need to understand why gold is still used as a store of value, and the role of government bonds as safe havens in the modern econom…

This is exactly what I was talking about earlier in the thread. Crypto people bring up gold out of no where. I have never invested in gold. You are projecting the idea that I don't understand why USD and Gold are bad investments.

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

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I understand why investors want legal guarantees. Actually, the endorsement and legal guidelines by the government for crypto would send its price soaring. Being decentralized means no single party controls it, and thusly no single party can debase it or prevent its distribution. You need to understand why gold is still used as a store of value, and the role of government bonds as safe havens in the modern econom…

This is exactly what I was talking about earlier in the thread. Crypto people bring up gold out of no where. I have never invested in gold. You are projecting the idea that I don't understand why USD and Gold are bad investments.

Why does gold have a $13tr USD market cap?

Why do governments hoard billions of dollars of gold bars in military protected bunkers?

Does it have something to do with store of value, and difficulty in debasing gold?

Post reply on HN