One correction. Crypto is not zero sum. It is a potential minus 100% sum for all the players involved. Maybe with exceptions of the folks making cash from the transaction fees.
The miners and asic makers need to be paid.
I wasted years of my life in crypto
201–210 of 1001 posts
Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto
#202> your bank account would just hold USDC or Bitcoin, and you could send a billion dollars to anyone in the world in a few seconds. That belief is powerful and I still ascribe to it. These statements still surprise me to this day. If you're a good person engineer, why does sending money in seconds need blockchain? There's parts of the world where this is commonplace and free as well. I don't believe cross border was t…
The cross border not about technical capacity but legal control. For example if you are a refugee you might not be able to pull your bank savings and liquid stock with you from your home country to another without it being seized or taxed, but your crypto is always yours as long as you are the only holder of the keys. This scenario is one of the rare real world utilities I see with crypto.
Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto
#203Considering the transaction time and cost, crypto never made sense. As fast as I can tell, it's been pure speculation since its inception.
What? Most of networks nowadays are faster or as fast and cheaper than normal credit card and banking systems.
Not really. Credit cards are immediate.
Bank transfers can be quick but also can be slow so fair point there.
I dont experience much friction paying for things though so I dont feel I need crypto for that.
Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto
#204> your bank account would just hold USDC or Bitcoin, and you could send a billion dollars to anyone in the world in a few seconds. That belief is powerful and I still ascribe to it. These statements still surprise me to this day. If you're a good person engineer, why does sending money in seconds need blockchain? There's parts of the world where this is commonplace and free as well. I don't believe cross border was t…
You are questioning the method when people just see the need.
If you're an engineer, no matter what you say about the method, you know a country at war will make you lose all your savings. Or if you're a foreign citizen in a country that will seize your assets, even "by accident".
Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love watching the HN comment hivemind speedrun the history of blockchain innovation every time this comes up. You just reinvented smart contracts on Ethereum, keep going :-)
Smart contracts can only enforce things which happen on the chain. No smart contract can prove you were not actually delivered your goods without trusting someone else.
Yes, it's called an oracle on the blockchain.
Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto
#206https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/01/31/end.html#section...
Vitalik touched upon this briefly in an other-wise long and wide-reaching essay. I think its a good treatment of the topic that the author is talking about. He categorizes the ecosystem broadly into 4 cohorts- [token holders] (which includes investors, speculators, etc.), [pragmatic users] (actual end-users who spend crypto to buy stuff), [intellectuals] (who give the vision and ideology), [builders] (of blockchains, apps, etc.) - These 4 groups come together but with different motivations and there is a gap in understanding between them. Indeed, there is even resistance against trying to reach an understanding - one which plays out in the comments section of every crypto-related post on hn. The author of this twitter-post clearly falls under [intellectual, builder] and has been disillusioned by the speculators from [token-holders]. Yet the [token-holders] are a vital component (as are the other groups) as they fund most of the development and adoption. Ultimately these 4 groups have more in common than not. The challenge going forward is to balance the occasionally conflicting needs of all the 4 groups, which includes checking the excesses of each group, while try to achieve a consensus. (Vitalik provides a nice diagram that maps out what that would look like). Crypto is an experiment in economics and economics is a science as well as a social-science. Anyone looking for a good solution must seek to understand and address the psychology of all the actors involved.
Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto
#207Wait until you learn how much of life is gambling + entertainment. Is working for one of the many SV SaaS companies really that much different?
Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto
#208Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Bitcoin was just a waste of talent and resources. What happens when a country's banking system fails.
> What happens when a country's banking system fails. The people who looted it transport their ill-gotten gains away via Bitcoin, often enough.
What should the average citizen of that country do in that case?
Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto
#210I've never understood the initial arguments about Bitcoin, no matter how many times they've been explained to me. The block chain is, and always was, an extremely inconvenient database. How anyone, especially many intelligent people, thought it was realistic to graft a currency on top of such a unwieldy piece of technology is beyond me. Maybe it goes to show how few people understand economics and anthropology and ho…
TLDR: to understand bitcoin you have to see the problem it's solving - most people are blind to it even though it affects their lives terribly.
https://x.com/saylor/status/1878154748353818932
> "The block chain is, and always was, an extremely inconvenient database. How anyone, especially many intelligent people, thought it was realistic to graft a currency on top of such a unwieldy piece of technology is beyond me."
The answer to your question is humans' inability to resist printing money out of thin air if it's possible to, and the disastrous effects it has on the world. Bitcoin is money that can't be printed out of thin air by anybody. The only way to obtain it is by providing work of equal economic value.
Look up the M2 money supply over the decades and realise that each time it doubles, the value of your wages, savings and pension are halved. Worse still, that value is stolen, sucked out into the hands of the people above you in the fiat pyramid scheme (see the Cantillon Effect).
It's one of the most important inventions in the history of mankind. This is because it shuts down the biggest scam in the history of mankind - central banking. Bitcoin's positive effect on the world is to restore power to the people and end their monetary-based enslavement - the changes will be profound.