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Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

stephendiehl.com

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

#461

Post by ElijahLynn »

pjc50 wrote: post #22
thrownawaysz wrote: post #2

>Meet Mike. Mike is a college freshman who is exposed to crypto through social media. He downloads Coinbase, buys ten dollars of CumRocket because his friend group is in on it, watches the price move, and feels for the first time the dopamine rush of gambling on non-economic random walks. By his sophomore year he is onto harder drugs: 0DTE options on triple-leveraged single-stock ETFs he does not understand, traded o…

This is a "vice" thing. Vices are things which match this pattern like alcohol or drugs: - many people don't indulge at all - many people indulge occasionally to no real harm - some people indulge in a way that makes a short term recoverable mess - a few people get addicted and are unable to stop. May or may not also be harmed at this point, but this tends to lead to cumulative harm - a few people really mess up trag…

We have a socially acceptable, predatory, regulated vice: credit cards with 30%. These ruin many lives.

I'm finally almost out and I'm 45. Nobody taught me in school not to use them as they are harmful. Nobody taught me how much money they will actually charge me and how much money I will lose because of them. Whereas if I had just saved my money and bought the thing out right I wouldn't have to pay any extra money.

My school failed me.

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

#462

Post by hansonkd »

handle584 wrote: post #251
zmgsabst wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use crypto for exchange between friends (US + EU) and myself (SE Asia). Our options are IBAN (slow!), WesternUnion (fees, denials, hassles) or crypto (10min, cheap). We chose crypto - because it’s the practical path from their bank to mine. CashApp and Coinbase interface with my actual bank accounts, on my end. If you don’t do international banking, then much of the utility is diminished — so I’m not surprised by y…

This actually applies to the US as well. Anytime you need to send $1k+ to a stranger the process is a pain in the ass. > ACH, most bank does not allow send to stranger, and it takes 1~3 days for settlement among those which allow. > Wire, expensive ~$30 per transaction. > Paypal/Venmo/CashApp, Schrödinger's fraud trigger you never know it's gonna work or not. Plus they report to IRS so more paperwork during tax seaso…

I guess Zelle is the replacement. I've sent thousands to strangers with it with zero problems or fees. I don't like it at all because it is private and in my view a way for banks to avoid accountability.

But also zelle isn't really an option if you are anything bigger than a single person business.

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

#463

Post by Dylan16807 »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #412
bigfishrunning wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like I sold something and therefore made money! glad to hear my business is doing well.

Sure, but at what cost? Maybe you made $10, by doing so did you enable musk to do $9 of harm to you, or was it $11?

Almost certainly less than $1.

What kind of harm do you have in mind here?

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

#464

Post by cduzz »

rglullis wrote: post #454
cduzz wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's talk; You're in Crimea right now. You want some gasoline. You have some magic numbers in your magic rock. It needs you to cast a spell to transmit those magic numbers to someone else. I guess it probably also needs ... some electricity and some network access and some time to make those magic numbers update in the gas station's magic number. In what way is this actually going to help you in a total collapse? Le…

If your only idea of "institutional collapse" is "living in a war zone", then I envy you and your sheltered life.

Can you describe a "society collapse" where your cold wallet _can_ get you out of trouble, and why that particular situation isn't subject to "I will shoot your corgi." coercion?

If you're dealing with a peer you can't trust (like the US government) that will ask for your passphrase and then not torture you for it if you refuse, I'd suggest you're not really in a situation where society has broken down.

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

#465

Post by dang »

testfrequency wrote: post #13

[flagged]

Can you please not post like this to HN? It's against quite a few of the site guidelines, including:

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."

"Please don't fulminate."

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

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

#466

Post by testfrequency »

dang wrote: post #465
testfrequency wrote: post #13

[flagged]

Can you please not post like this to HN? It's against quite a few of the site guidelines, including: " Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. " " Please don't fulminate. " If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

Ack. Apologies.

Crypto crowd makes me irrationally upset, shouldn’t air my feeling out on HN.

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

#467

Post by svobodovic »

warkdarrior wrote: post #282
mock-possum wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious - under what circumstances are you exchanging $1k-$10k with friends internationally?

They send me packages with contents I distribute to my friends and neighbors.

I know we're not on Reddit, but have to say - username checks out.

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

#468

Post by coldtea »

Retric wrote: post #347
coldtea wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People rarely die from taking bleach (except when they want to). About 100,000 die annually from drugs in the US alone. And people "high" on bleach never killed or injured anybody.

In the US, “unintentional poisoning deaths numbered 75,761 in 2023” > About 100,000 die annually from drugs in the US alone. A single substance vs all drugs including prescription, over the counter, and hard drugs while including suicide etc is hardly the support you think it is. Further actually using the correct numbers and then trying to justify US drug policy based on hard drug overdoses fails when you look at ha…

>In the US, “unintentional poisoning deaths numbered 75,761 in 2023”

So you agree that hard drugs are poison (or even worse than poison, about 75K vs about 100K deaths / year).

>A single substance vs all drugs including prescription, over the counter, and hard drugs while including suicide etc is hardly the support you think it is.

"but, hey, poison also kills people" is is hardly the counter argument you think it is...

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

#469

Post by cryptoisgrift »

I worked in Web3 for 2 years after getting poached from a very vanilla non-crypto tech role. Everyone here is talking about the scams and crime but I haven’t seen anyone mention how disinterested everyone is in the tech. Talking about it is a game, how long can they keep the conversation going before you hit the BS bedrock. Once you do its masks off, no it’s not decentralised, no it can’t scale, no it will never be fixed.

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

#470

Post by EliRivers »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #447
mech998877 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But nowadays, most loans are for zero-sum ventures... That's an enormous claim and I really doubt it.

All I can say is that I've been trying and trying to find work that actually solves a problem, and each time I become familiar with a business it seems like we're actually causing most of the problems we solve. The exceptions to this pattern that I've come across don't have enough money to be hiring people. Maybe I've just been unlucky.

each time I become familiar with a business it seems like we're actually causing most of the problems we solve.

Do you mean, in general, as a society/culture, or are you just having an incredible run of jobs where each time that business is the problem?

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