Crypto scammers piggybacking Trump’s Twitter, cloning Medium, stealing crypto • Hacker News Board

Re: Crypto scammers piggybacking Trump’s Twitter, cloning Medium, stealing crypto

#11

Post by MichaelBurge » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #6

coldpie wrote: post #2

So cryptocurrency is dead, right? After some brief interest around the middle 2010s, where some vendors actually did accept it, they seem to have all revoked their support for it. All that it seems to be used for now is scams, ransomware, and pump-and-dump schemes.

BTC is currently $11.5k USD, market cap $200 billion+. This is a valuable asset.

At 72.61 terawatt-hours/year and an average electricity cost of 13.19 cents/kilowatt-hour, that's an asset that loses 9.6 billion per year. And if you ever stop wasting electricity, your bitcoin become less valuable.

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/

Re: Crypto scammers piggybacking Trump’s Twitter, cloning Medium, stealing crypto

#12

Post by leppr » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #7

seibelj wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTC is currently $11.5k USD, market cap $200 billion+. This is a valuable asset.

Yeah but like, what's it valuable for ? It seems like commodity trading, except the commodity that is being traded is who gets stuck holding the bag when it all collapses. There's no real value there.

It's money not controlled by any single government or entity. It can be exchanged almost as easily as cash. If you don't see the use in that, then good for you, your needs must be met by the existing financial services.

Personally, I used it to buy electronics in Japan, worked well. Also used it to sell my VR headset in person, because Paypal and our banks didn't allow the transfer. I use it to tip and donate to various online creators with no fuss. It's really quite simple, no need to overthink it.

Sure, maybe one day the price will crash or the peg fail, but for most intents and purposes it works fine. Monitoring crypto prices and fundamentals is not so bad compared with traditional finance folks having to read through hundreds of all-caps tweets to know how much value the USD will lose this month, or sifting through reddit WSB troll posts to know which stock to buy.

Re: Crypto scammers piggybacking Trump’s Twitter, cloning Medium, stealing crypto

#13

Post by aokiji » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 2:24 PM UTC

Loving the army of shills attacking the use of crypto. I wonder if the changes that were imposed on Jack Dorsey's (and his ability to stay in the board of) Twitter were just aimed at subverting the propagation of crypto.

The central banking mafia runs deep.

Re: Crypto scammers piggybacking Trump’s Twitter, cloning Medium, stealing crypto

#14

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 2:25 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #2

So cryptocurrency is dead, right? After some brief interest around the middle 2010s, where some vendors actually did accept it, they seem to have all revoked their support for it. All that it seems to be used for now is scams, ransomware, and pump-and-dump schemes.

[deleted]

Re: Crypto scammers piggybacking Trump’s Twitter, cloning Medium, stealing crypto

#15

Post by cryptica » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 2:27 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #2

So cryptocurrency is dead, right? After some brief interest around the middle 2010s, where some vendors actually did accept it, they seem to have all revoked their support for it. All that it seems to be used for now is scams, ransomware, and pump-and-dump schemes.

I was a Bitcoin skeptic for years so I understand this point of view. This point of view makes sense if you assume that the financial system works properly which is what the vast majority of people still assume.

The vast majority of people are wrong. The financial system doesn't work; it's easy to exploit. It's no coincidence that many cryptocurrency enthusiasts are hackers; they found vulnerabilities in the system and are exploiting it. In the context of our corrupt, dysfunctional system, the value is solid and price will always go up in the long run.

Corporations are also exploiting the financial system using many of the same tricks, but cryptocurrencies have the advantage of being completely faceless and totally unaccountable. It's the next phase in the evolution of corporate personhood; which was a horrible but very successful idea. It's all about reducing liability. Whatever financial instrument is best at reducing its liability will win.

Re: Crypto scammers piggybacking Trump’s Twitter, cloning Medium, stealing crypto

#16

Post by trident1000 » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 2:35 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #2

So cryptocurrency is dead, right? After some brief interest around the middle 2010s, where some vendors actually did accept it, they seem to have all revoked their support for it. All that it seems to be used for now is scams, ransomware, and pump-and-dump schemes.

Theres people who use it for certain things, like PornHub just started accepting BTC payments.

But there has never been more institutional and high net worth interest in BTC than now as a value store and adoption for a global reserve currency (we can see this from the institutional gateway inflows). Some recent examples: Microstrategy invested $425 million in BTC over treasuries. Twitter bought $50 million the other week (and Jack Dorsey owns BTC personally). Paul Tudor Jones bought in with about 2% of his total assets. Its gaining traction in this area as a value store.

Re: Crypto scammers piggybacking Trump’s Twitter, cloning Medium, stealing crypto

#17

Post by SQueeeeeL » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 2:37 PM UTC

zeroxfe wrote: post #4

coldpie wrote: post #2

So cryptocurrency is dead, right? After some brief interest around the middle 2010s, where some vendors actually did accept it, they seem to have all revoked their support for it. All that it seems to be used for now is scams, ransomware, and pump-and-dump schemes.

The cryptocurrency space is quite alive, and is thriving. As much as people like to hate on it, the whole space rife with engineering, social, and economic challenges that attract geeks. Unfortunately, it attracts a lot of scammers too.

Sounds like magic the gathering card econ. Which is super fun! But personally, I definitely don't consider specing into Embercleave a meaningful societal mover

Re: Crypto scammers piggybacking Trump’s Twitter, cloning Medium, stealing crypto

#18

Post by SQueeeeeL » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 2:39 PM UTC

trident1000 wrote: post #16

coldpie wrote: post #2

So cryptocurrency is dead, right? After some brief interest around the middle 2010s, where some vendors actually did accept it, they seem to have all revoked their support for it. All that it seems to be used for now is scams, ransomware, and pump-and-dump schemes.

Theres people who use it for certain things, like PornHub just started accepting BTC payments. But there has never been more institutional and high net worth interest in BTC than now as a value store and adoption for a global reserve currency (we can see this from the institutional gateway inflows). Some recent examples: Microstrategy invested $425 million in BTC over treasuries. Twitter bought $50 million the other…

Wait, that sounds like fraud. The CEO of a company had the company he runs buy into a limited asset he also owns...

Gg society, the fact that we're talking this up like it's a good thing means most of us deserve to be poor af

Re: Crypto scammers piggybacking Trump’s Twitter, cloning Medium, stealing crypto

#19

Post by floatboth » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

leppr wrote: post #12

coldpie wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but like, what's it valuable for ? It seems like commodity trading, except the commodity that is being traded is who gets stuck holding the bag when it all collapses. There's no real value there.

It's money not controlled by any single government or entity. It can be exchanged almost as easily as cash. If you don't see the use in that, then good for you, your needs must be met by the existing financial services. Personally, I used it to buy electronics in Japan, worked well. Also used it to sell my VR headset in person, because Paypal and our banks didn't allow the transfer. I use it to tip and donate to vari…

It's "money" controlled by a few large electricity-wasting pools.

Re: Crypto scammers piggybacking Trump’s Twitter, cloning Medium, stealing crypto

#20

Post by trident1000 » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 2:42 PM UTC

SQueeeeeL wrote: post #18

trident1000 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres people who use it for certain things, like PornHub just started accepting BTC payments. But there has never been more institutional and high net worth interest in BTC than now as a value store and adoption for a global reserve currency (we can see this from the institutional gateway inflows). Some recent examples: Microstrategy invested $425 million in BTC over treasuries. Twitter bought $50 million the other…

Wait, that sounds like fraud. The CEO of a company had the company he runs buy into a limited asset he also owns... Gg society, the fact that we're talking this up like it's a good thing means most of us deserve to be poor af

Sounds a little dramatic (especially since 50 million isnt moving the price single handedly). Also stock buybacks are essentially the same thing (if you were to call it a conflict of interest) and almost every company in existence does that.