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The Meaning of Bitcoin

maraoz.com

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Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#31

Post by [deleted] »

righthand wrote: post #14
throwaway22032 wrote: post #6

The author describes precisely my reason for being interested in Bitcoin. Things which other people seem to readily accept, such as ATM's having limits, the nature of card payments being inherently asymmetric, the middlemen, "know your customer", etc. All of that stuff just seems insane to me. It's as if someone were standing at my door, telling me that I can't take more than seven items out of my house per day, aski…

How does crypto solve any of that if its future is just more regulation pressing it into the molds of already established systems? I can’t pay my moving guy in crypto, I have to convert it to cash and all that “protection” is easily surmountable.

[deleted]

Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#32

Post by raincole »

eterpstra wrote: post #13
yaybitcoin wrote: post #5

Argentina may have serious monetary problems, but does the USD? Do we really need financial innovation to move at the "pace of programmers?" Is "bitcoin" really money when you can't use it to buy anything without converting it to money first?

No. If you're happy with USD, then use USD. If you are Argentinian (or Venezuelan, or Iraqi, or Zimbabwean) and your currency is getting devalued to nothing and the government is restricting access to your funds and preventing you from holding USD, then Bitcoin or Stablecoins are a pretty good option. The attitude I see a lot (mostly by Americans and Western Europeans) is that "Crypto is not useful to me, therefor it…

> by Americans and Western Europeans

Exactly this. People in these countries really don't know the problems from the rest of the world.

When an international fintech player get into market (TransferWise, PayPal, etc) they always optimize the experience for users from the US and western EU first. I doubt many people know you can't send money to Ukraine via Paypal unless you mark the transaction as "for Friends or Family", which means you lose all the customer protection. Paypal is worse than crypto in almost every aspect in this case.

Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#33

Post by eterpstra »

imabotbeep2937 wrote: post #4

"I've seen people get rich off crypto" and I've seen hundreds of gambling addicts lose their house and put their family on the street when the bet didn't go right. Even when you're talking about serious coins, ignoring the rug pulls. That money comes from somewhere. Who's holding the bag? Crypto people tend to have an infinite dose of "f** you got mine" even if they didn't get theirs.

It's unfortunate that the loudest advocates of crypto in the US and Europe are screeching libertarians and grifters/scammers. They drown out the everyday users in far off places like Argentina and Nigeria that nobody (in the US and Europe) seem to care about.

Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#34

Post by lxgr »

cantSpellSober wrote: post #25
lxgr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re making it sound like there’s a uniform blob of unreflected hate, when it’s really specific criticisms for many different aspects. I feel like a steelman argument for Bitcoin specifically is somewhat easier to make than one for NFTs or quasi-investment share tokens, in that it’s at least not a transparent Ponzi scheme by its issuers (one might argue it is one by its current holders, though). The problems of Bit…

A decentralized "Ponzi scheme?" Do you understand what Charles Ponzi or Bernie Madoff did ?

Yeah, Ponzi sold quasi-currency issued by somebody other than him to people for a promise of large profits! Why do you ask?

Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#35

Post by throwaway22032 »

pavlov wrote: post #28
throwaway22032 wrote: post #6

The author describes precisely my reason for being interested in Bitcoin. Things which other people seem to readily accept, such as ATM's having limits, the nature of card payments being inherently asymmetric, the middlemen, "know your customer", etc. All of that stuff just seems insane to me. It's as if someone were standing at my door, telling me that I can't take more than seven items out of my house per day, aski…

Money isn’t like your house. It’s like the roads and other infrastructure that connects your house to other places. You can’t drive at 100mph on the wrong side of the road. You can’t mess with the plumbing and electricity in ways that would affect the grid, even if you do it on your own property. There are of course places in the world that are so empty or so undeveloped that you can make your own rules off-grid. But…

I can transact with people who choose to use it and convert to fiat currency when needed. I have been doing this for over ten years now.

It works. What's the problem?

Are you saying that me merely using Bitcoin endangers others and is akin to driving into oncoming traffic?

edit: Sure, driving into oncoming traffic is bad. So let's criminalize and punish that, rather than banning vehicles because I could drive on the pavement and cause havoc.

Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#36

Post by pavlov »

eterpstra wrote: post #27
righthand wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does crypto solve any of that if its future is just more regulation pressing it into the molds of already established systems? I can’t pay my moving guy in crypto, I have to convert it to cash and all that “protection” is easily surmountable.

Different countries have different regulations and differing levels of permeation within society. Nobody in the US will take crypto as payment (other than a few niche retailers), but it's a pretty popular payment option in places like Argentina, Estonia, El Salvador, Vietnam, India, Singapore, and Nigeria. So popular in Nigeria, in fact, that it's displacing the local currency and the government is (unsuccessfully) t…

I’ve been to Estonia a lot, and have never seen any retail business that would accept crypto.

I’m sure there’s a niche somewhere. But when you say “pretty popular payment option”, it sounds like it’s a rival to Visa and Mastercard, and that prices would be listed in crypto instead of euro. That’s absolutely not true.

Re: Nigeria, anecdotally my few friends from the country tell me that the crypto boom is primarily about local influencers promoting their own coins as investments, not actual payments.

Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#37

Post by lgrapenthin »

mjburgess wrote: post #10

Hmm.. the government effectively owns the network, the land, and the police force. The idea that the government cannot stop a monetary transaction is woefully naive; the only reason they haven't in the case of BTC is that it isnt money. If it came anywhere close to rivalling a state-backed currency, you'd be undermining the monetary and financial ability of a democratically elected government to exercise its economic…

There is a multitude of governments involved in Bitcoin with different incentives and strategies. If you claim "The government can do X to Bitcoin" you should explain which government(s) and how exactly that would work. When was the FED a "democratically elected government", by the way?

Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#38

Post by eterpstra »

maraoz wrote: post #18
imabotbeep2937 wrote: post #4

"I've seen people get rich off crypto" and I've seen hundreds of gambling addicts lose their house and put their family on the street when the bet didn't go right. Even when you're talking about serious coins, ignoring the rug pulls. That money comes from somewhere. Who's holding the bag? Crypto people tend to have an infinite dose of "f** you got mine" even if they didn't get theirs.

Did you read the post? making money is not even mentioned... sigh

Sir, this is the internet. Nobody reads past the headline before spouting their opinion.

Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#39

Post by floundy »

XorNot wrote: post #22
mjburgess wrote: post #10

Hmm.. the government effectively owns the network, the land, and the police force. The idea that the government cannot stop a monetary transaction is woefully naive; the only reason they haven't in the case of BTC is that it isnt money. If it came anywhere close to rivalling a state-backed currency, you'd be undermining the monetary and financial ability of a democratically elected government to exercise its economic…

You're thinking too far ahead: governments define the currency that can be used to extinguish debts, particularly to the state (taxes). You can't pay your taxes in Bitcoin: you can only use Bitcoin to buy enough local currency to pay your taxes from someone else who has some. Which they get from the state. While the endpoint of this is jail and the monopoly on violence of government, it's also just regular economic r…

Somewhere in the rabbit hole of delusion that is "buying in" to crypto is the idea that:

1. "Bitcoin is inevitable" and governments will be forced to buy it as "digital gold" to prevent a collapse of the world financial system.

2. Governments are already sneakily stockpiling BTC as insurance against a collapse of the world financial system.

Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#40

Post by eterpstra »

realusername wrote: post #24
eterpstra wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. If you're happy with USD, then use USD. If you are Argentinian (or Venezuelan, or Iraqi, or Zimbabwean) and your currency is getting devalued to nothing and the government is restricting access to your funds and preventing you from holding USD, then Bitcoin or Stablecoins are a pretty good option. The attitude I see a lot (mostly by Americans and Western Europeans) is that "Crypto is not useful to me, therefor it…

> and the government is restricting access to your funds and preventing you from holding USD, then Bitcoin or Stablecoins are a pretty good option. If your government is going as far to prevent you to own USD, they aren't going to view cryptocurrencies any more favorably anyways.

Exactly, but the value proposition of crypto is that it's *very* difficult to disrupt. See Nigeria for a current example of a national government trying and failing to get its population to give up on crypto.
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