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Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

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Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#211

Post by mekdoonggi »

graemep wrote: post #206
alehrs wrote: post #50

I've been deep into crypto for years and I was a big stablecoin supporter. I was fascinated by the tech and I still am. But everything outside the tech itself is just trash, scams, and gambling. I've come to believe that "pure" decentralization is neither practical nor particularly convenient. The only real use case that makes sense to me is giving people in developing countries access to a stable currency they can a…

When people in a developing country cannot hold foreign currency it is a result of a deliberate decision by their government. That creates a number of issues. They may well be breaking the law holding stable coins. It means practical difficulties in buying stable coins (they need someone who will sell stablecoins in their currency).

The fact that governments might not be able to stop people from using stablecoins affects the laws, though.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#212

Post by sunshine-o »

ses1984 wrote: post #79
sfmz wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An emerging use-case is a bank account for AI agents. I read that Coinbase 'Base' Ethereum layer2 is popular for AI banking.

Or you could just give your agents a debit card number loaded with only as much money as you specify.

I believe with x402 and USDC you can pay as low as $0.000001 per HTTP request with no fees.

The existing "credit card" infrastructure is not designed to compete with that.

Now some actors like Paypal could have come up with an HTTP 402 standard and implementation 25 years ago but they never did. I am not sure why.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#213

Post by JeremyNT »

rglullis wrote: post #55
alehrs wrote: post #50

I've been deep into crypto for years and I was a big stablecoin supporter. I was fascinated by the tech and I still am. But everything outside the tech itself is just trash, scams, and gambling. I've come to believe that "pure" decentralization is neither practical nor particularly convenient. The only real use case that makes sense to me is giving people in developing countries access to a stable currency they can a…

Exactly. Cryptocurrency is useful as as a backup system against failing/weak institutions. Just that. Like insurance, it was not there to make anyone's lives better but simply to become a safeguard to avoid complete collapse.

> Exactly. Cryptocurrency is useful as as a backup system against failing/weak institutions. Just that. Like insurance, it was not there to make anyone's lives better but simply to become a safeguard to avoid complete collapse.

Meh, it's arbitrage against slow moving financial regulations.

There are times when financial regulations are "bad" in a way that this trait is desireable - i.e. your failing institutions use case - but in many cases these regulations are, actually, there for a reason.

And now in practice crypto transactions for "normal" people are performed by bank-like institutions who log every transaction anyway, so this characteristic is really only valuable to the people deeply involved in the crypto world who are using it mainly to do "normal" crimes.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#214

Post by rglullis »

dboreham wrote: post #198
rglullis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Cryptocurrency is useful as as a backup system against failing/weak institutions. Just that. Like insurance, it was not there to make anyone's lives better but simply to become a safeguard to avoid complete collapse.

Except it requires institutions in order to work.

Yes, but the institutions don't need to be performing their function particularly well.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#215

Post by leoedin »

mothballed wrote: post #141
close04 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP added the "by the justice system" where OP only said "can be taken away". Both digital and fiat currency can be taken away from you through courts, legislation, trickery, or coercion. Crypto is surrounded by vast amounts of misinformation, misdirection, or misunderstanding. So you get these myths and generalization propagated through lack of education. "I heard crypto is completely anonymous", "I heard crypto can'…

If you toss a bag of cash in a hole buried under a grave in Timbuktu, or toss a bitcoin seed phrase in there. Cover it up, leave Timbuktu back to your western country. Then vow to die before giving up the location (you can claim torture or whatever works, but many people in history have decided to be tortured to death without giving up the information). You can be essentially 100% assured it will never be taken. Poss…

If you're being detained for the rest of your life while your money languishes in a hole in Timbuktu, it has been taken from you. Money is only valuable because it has utility. If you can't use it, it's not yours.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#216

Post by giancarlostoro »

alehrs wrote: post #50

I've been deep into crypto for years and I was a big stablecoin supporter. I was fascinated by the tech and I still am. But everything outside the tech itself is just trash, scams, and gambling. I've come to believe that "pure" decentralization is neither practical nor particularly convenient. The only real use case that makes sense to me is giving people in developing countries access to a stable currency they can a…

> neither practical nor particularly convenient

My only take away with crypto is, think of that one movie "In Time" but instead of the whole time = currency concept and the arm clock, what if crypto could be applied to a physical piece of e-paper like thing, where it says what its worth, and its worth what it says, you can transfer it on a whim from the paper to your phone (to a wallet) and back and forth.

If anyone figured that out, fully seamlessly, fault tolerant, that alone imho would be worth investing time and attention into.

Basically make the crypto real and physical, something fluidly tangible to where everyone can hold it and understand it.

No one can hack your wallet if all your "crypto" is not in it. You can spin up new wallet on a whim.

The only real way I can think is something like how monero works, where whoever owns a coin can "decrypt" said coin (or that's my limited understanding of how monero works).

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#217

Post by JeremyNT »

fn-mote wrote: post #67
himata4113 wrote: post #45

Cryptocurrency is very much a double edged sword, on one hand it enables people to transact monetary value bypassing for-profit operators such as western union and paypal as well as hinders corrupt government institutions from confiscating or otherwise devaluing what you own. Of course this also allows people with harmful intentions to do the same, bypass centralized systems that keep fraud in check, mitigate theft a…

I’m ignorant of this but it seems wrong. 30% lost in fees?? Can they not manage to open a dollar-backed account somewhere? Also: > being stored in a currency that might lose a majority of its value overnight I for sure put crypto in this same category. “Stablecoin” or not.

> Can they not manage to open a dollar-backed account somewhere?

If you want to do financial crimes and fraud, you can't (or at least, shouldn't) really do this.

Unspoken by the parent poster is that in practice these people are usually using crypto to break the law in some way, which is why it's valuable to them.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#218

Post by graemep »

l23k4 wrote: post #191
dragandj wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The global poor already had ways to store value in dollars. They could simply exchange whatever meager savings they had into... real dollars! And they have been doing that for decades. I don't know whether anyone in the west really believes in this bullshit of cryptocurrencies that give the global poor options.

I suggest you go outside sometimes, you'll see that the real world looks rather different than whatever crypto-obsessed bubble you live in. I really don't think I need to explain the obvious difference between physical US dollar notes and USDT. I'll point out that in most of the world a $100 note is only worth $100 if it's in basically mint condition, the value falls rapidly as condition degrades.

What? I have never come across that. No problem with notes in many currencies with folds a creases, even small tears.. In my experience bank notes last for ever anyway. I have various notes from countries I have travelled to decades ago in good condition.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#220

Post by secretsatan »

I read "that is not worth reporting on anymore because it's barely the craziest thing this week" and just immediately thought that this is all just part of the plan to flood the zone. So much corruption, crimes, lies, insanity is coming out of this admin, it's impossible to keep track of, the depravity of it all is still unrealized as we just go numb to it all.
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