Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Binance is under threat

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 80 posts

Re: Binance is under threat

#51

Post by rglullis »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #44
rglullis wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop equating crypto with Bitcoin. This is one of the worst straw-men used by dishonest people.

I don't understand. If I say choose to use a German Shepard to represent dogs is that a dishonest straw-man? Bitcoin isn't all crypto, but it is a type of crypto, and just like how there are valid criticisms of German Shepards that can be used to expand to all dogs, the same can be done with Bitcoin, can it not?

The problem and the dishonesty is that the criticism raised does not apply to all crypto.

Re: Binance is under threat

#53

Post by rsynnott »

kkielhofner wrote: post #41
rglullis wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop equating crypto with Bitcoin. This is one of the worst straw-men used by dishonest people.

I always hear this and I'm interested where the point of view comes from. Can you elaborate? Fair warning I am one of the people who thinks it's all the same. Even though I have a lot of experience in the space when you zoom out a tiny bit for the average person it starts to look a lot like us arguing vi vs emacs - religion and meaningless and esoteric distinctions to the 99.999%.

As a very long-term crypto-sceptic (it's a marvellous spectacle; I started watching in 2012 just before the pirateat40 Ponzi collapsed, and then got to see MtGox go), I used to think it was all the same, but in fairness, Ethereum, with its smart contracts, allows even more ridiculous nonsense than Bitcoin, and is thus a welcome addition to the space. With just bitcoin, the DAO chaos of the last few years would never have happened, and where would be the fun in that?

Re: Binance is under threat

#54

Post by uhhhhhhh »

rglullis wrote: post #48
kkielhofner wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always hear this and I'm interested where the point of view comes from. Can you elaborate? Fair warning I am one of the people who thinks it's all the same. Even though I have a lot of experience in the space when you zoom out a tiny bit for the average person it starts to look a lot like us arguing vi vs emacs - religion and meaningless and esoteric distinctions to the 99.999%.

Compare with Ethereum and you can quickly be disabused of this notion that they are at all similar. - Ethereum uses PoS, and you can run a validator with commodity hardware which costs a couple of hundred dollars. - All the validators online at this moment consume a fraction of electricity used by all current videogame consoles in stand-by . - Ethereum's value is not derived from the expectation that it is a "store o…

None of this addresses control of code base, limited exchanges handling the majority of traffic, or the scam aspect.

Sure eth solved some of bitcoins issues, it also increased the scope of crypto scams to a whole new level.

The fact that a crypto 'currency' is supposedly operating at prices irrelevant to it's value is not an argument that helps you in any way in this situation.

Re: Binance is under threat

#55

Post by kkielhofner »

rglullis wrote: post #48
kkielhofner wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always hear this and I'm interested where the point of view comes from. Can you elaborate? Fair warning I am one of the people who thinks it's all the same. Even though I have a lot of experience in the space when you zoom out a tiny bit for the average person it starts to look a lot like us arguing vi vs emacs - religion and meaningless and esoteric distinctions to the 99.999%.

Compare with Ethereum and you can quickly be disabused of this notion that they are at all similar. - Ethereum uses PoS, and you can run a validator with commodity hardware which costs a couple of hundred dollars. - All the validators online at this moment consume a fraction of electricity used by all current videogame consoles in stand-by . - Ethereum's value is not derived from the expectation that it is a "store o…

So vi vs emacs then.

I understand your points (I stayed up to watch the switch from PoW to PoS on my Ethereum nodes as one example) but no one else does, and that's my point. If anything you mentioned offered value other than "trade vs USD" there would be adoption - like oil and consoles.

All you have to do is take a quick look at a block explorer, dappradar[0], tokens, etc to discover very quickly no one (0.5% of global internet users - literally) uses any of this stuff other than gambling. Horrible "play to earn" games, NFTs, tokens, DEXes to swap tokens around (more gambling and criminality), etc. The only thing the improved technology of Ethereum has done is continue the "crypto way" of inventing new ways to gamble and scam people.

Even the vast majority of people that interact with the space see ETH, BTC, etc as just another trade ticker they denominate value in fiat with. All of these trades operate on an order book in an exchange and has nothing at all to do with the underlying blockchain and whatever supposed differences/advantages/etc the technology has.

The entire underlying technology could disappear tomorrow and it would have meaningful impact to an even smaller group of people than your favorite text editor. No actual utility lost.

[0] - https://dappradar.com/rankings

Re: Binance is under threat

#56

Post by uhhhhhhh »

Analemma_ wrote: post #35
suckitsam wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, the NYAG/JPM report from a few years back almost explicitly said "this is totally criminal and entirely fraudulent, but it's too late to stop, because if we do, the entire global financial system will explode"

I think you're remembering incorrectly. Crypto is large, but nowhere near large enough to cause contagion risk, especially because nobody is stupid enough to lever against it as though it was a AAA asset (like they did for American mortgages). If every single cryptocurrency was zeroed tomorrow, the global economy would shrug and move on.

One almost hopes it happens solely to shut up the crypto bros that still refuse to accept the primary use case for crypto is scams.

Sure it can be a distributed concencus/ledger system/smart contract system almost no one important needs or will use, or will reuse the idea internally themselves if it's useful.

Anything important won't be built on something they can't control or manage. Crypto by definition is that. So you have to really consider what this built on it and who's profiting from it.

Re: Binance is under threat

#57

Post by kkielhofner »

MrRadar wrote: post #49

> One institutional trader told The Wall Street Journal that his company has conducted fire drills to withdraw its assets from Binance quickly in the event of a meltdown. If you think a crypto exchange you're doing business with is on shaky ground, the time to withdraw is now . So many crypto exchange collapses have shown that you need to withdraw before the "meltdown" if you want to ensure your assets are safe. If y…

> ensure your assets are safe

It's been demonstrated time and time again this isn't practical. In crypto your choice is either worry about an exchange collapsing or worry about losing your keys, having your wallet cleaned out by some scammer, etc.

The chances of either are very, very high. "Not your keys, not your coins" just as easily (or even more so) becomes "you don't have your keys" or "some scammer has your coins".

Cue twitter and reddit posts from crypto enthusiasts saying "Oh you should have engraved your seed on steel plates and buried them under the birdbath in your backyard. Sorry you lost everything but hopefully you learned your lesson. Now buy more and try again!".

Re: Binance is under threat

#58

Post by rglullis »

uhhhhhhh wrote: post #54
rglullis wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare with Ethereum and you can quickly be disabused of this notion that they are at all similar. - Ethereum uses PoS, and you can run a validator with commodity hardware which costs a couple of hundred dollars. - All the validators online at this moment consume a fraction of electricity used by all current videogame consoles in stand-by . - Ethereum's value is not derived from the expectation that it is a "store o…

None of this addresses control of code base, limited exchanges handling the majority of traffic, or the scam aspect. Sure eth solved some of bitcoins issues, it also increased the scope of crypto scams to a whole new level. The fact that a crypto 'currency' is supposedly operating at prices irrelevant to it's value is not an argument that helps you in any way in this situation.

- Ethereum has (last I checked) 9 different independent implementations of the client. No centralized development.

- Uniswap (one of the first decentralized exchanges running on the blockchain) has more transaction volume than Coinbase. All you need to use is an Ethereum wallet. No dependency on central exchanges.

As for scams: do you also blame Western Union for the billions of dollars they enabled?

Re: Binance is under threat

#59

Post by saalweachter »

rglullis wrote: post #51
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. If I say choose to use a German Shepard to represent dogs is that a dishonest straw-man? Bitcoin isn't all crypto, but it is a type of crypto, and just like how there are valid criticisms of German Shepards that can be used to expand to all dogs, the same can be done with Bitcoin, can it not?

The problem and the dishonesty is that the criticism raised does not apply to all crypto .

For the record, 'et al' means 'and others', not 'and all the rest'.

You're free to group your favorite cryptocurrency with Bitcoin, or not, as the criticism fits.

Post reply on HN