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Crypto Fooled Us Once. It Will Fool Us Again

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Re: Crypto Fooled Us Once. It Will Fool Us Again

#11

Post by notamy »

ferfumarma wrote: post #5

Crypto does have utility, but there's only room for one: bitcoin. Everything else is just a me-too derivative that can add nothing except the possibility of central control (like the "digital dollar"). The ability to instantly transmit the hardest asset known to man (harder than gold, in the sense of inflation resistance) does have utility, regardless of what critics say. It has downsides too: the ability to be lost…

> People on HN are smarter than me, and they all seem to hate bitcoin with passion, but I haven't yet understood why. I think it might be harder to recognize its value when it's part of your implicit cultural background: the dollar is money.

Because if BTC is going to be my money for transactions, I actively do not want any of the speculation on its price. It’s not useful for normal transactions if the price can swing as much as 50-100% within a year — some quick searching says BTC started the year around $17k/BTC and is currently around $27k/BTC. BTC currently acts like both a currency and a speculative store of value, and only one of those is really useful if it’s supposed to be the future of money. Otherwise it’s just a more-volatile speculative bet than stocks or bonds or etc that people hope to eventually trade for USD.

Re: Crypto Fooled Us Once. It Will Fool Us Again

#12

Post by k__ »

ferfumarma wrote: post #5

Crypto does have utility, but there's only room for one: bitcoin. Everything else is just a me-too derivative that can add nothing except the possibility of central control (like the "digital dollar"). The ability to instantly transmit the hardest asset known to man (harder than gold, in the sense of inflation resistance) does have utility, regardless of what critics say. It has downsides too: the ability to be lost…

In my opinion, Bitcoin was just the low hanging fruit.

Proof of Work is probably the way to go, but please make it useful work.

Re: Crypto Fooled Us Once. It Will Fool Us Again

#13

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

ferfumarma wrote: post #5

Crypto does have utility, but there's only room for one: bitcoin. Everything else is just a me-too derivative that can add nothing except the possibility of central control (like the "digital dollar"). The ability to instantly transmit the hardest asset known to man (harder than gold, in the sense of inflation resistance) does have utility, regardless of what critics say. It has downsides too: the ability to be lost…

The main problem with bitcoin is it's fundamentally a terrible currency. With a transaction time of between 30 minutes and 16 hours, throughput of 7 transactions per second, and an energy consumption comparable to a medium sized country, it's an obviously awful currency for anything other than selling large quantities of drugs, ransom payments, or gambling.

Re: Crypto Fooled Us Once. It Will Fool Us Again

#14

Post by dghlsakjg »

ferfumarma wrote: post #5

Crypto does have utility, but there's only room for one: bitcoin. Everything else is just a me-too derivative that can add nothing except the possibility of central control (like the "digital dollar"). The ability to instantly transmit the hardest asset known to man (harder than gold, in the sense of inflation resistance) does have utility, regardless of what critics say. It has downsides too: the ability to be lost…

You say it is inflation resistant, but after a period of massive deflation, it has seen inflation rates that would make an African dictator blush, and now it is back to deflating.

Things that are inflation resistant don’t rise AND fall wildly in relation to gently inflating assets like USD. They have a pricing curve which would be completely flat when priced in real (inflation adjusted == real) dollars. Bitcoin is not that

Re: Crypto Fooled Us Once. It Will Fool Us Again

#15

Post by pixl97 »

ferfumarma wrote: post #5

Crypto does have utility, but there's only room for one: bitcoin. Everything else is just a me-too derivative that can add nothing except the possibility of central control (like the "digital dollar"). The ability to instantly transmit the hardest asset known to man (harder than gold, in the sense of inflation resistance) does have utility, regardless of what critics say. It has downsides too: the ability to be lost…

>and they all seem to hate bitcoin with passion, but I haven't yet understood why

The dollar buys drugs, it buys guns, it buys terrible things. But it also buys bread and pays your rent.

The interface a large portion of us has had with bitcoin is speculation and cybercrime. "Your computer has been encrypted, please insert X bitcoin to continue" is not a great interface for making someone have a good feeling about a product.

>We lack the perspective of our great grandparents, who lived through the great depression, and understand that the dollar has no intrinsic value, either.

You also lack the perspective that if the economy collapses, particularly a large economy like the US economy your "unpinned" bitcoin is going to behave like it is very much pinned to that dollar.

Re: Crypto Fooled Us Once. It Will Fool Us Again

#16

Post by KasianFranks »

The days of the tired overblown mantra among certain software engineering camps, many of which are funded by public capital markets, continuing to beat the drum of "all crypto is a scam" are over. Having an understanding and appreciation of how public capital markets work is key. Not many have this understanding and appreciation. The capital markets were designed to enable a company to raise capital aka funding. Crypto now represents a truly global capital marketplace accessible to all, not just to accredited investors in the US. Bottom line.

Key points to remember:

1. Crypto is not a currency, it's a trading vehicle similar to a stock, junk bond, debenture, options or futures contract.

2. Regulated security tokens/crypto that represent equity ownership in a company with real products and with real revenue generating capability is the future of crypto.

It's important to realize the advantage of a truly global capital marketplace represented by regulated security tokens connected to the equity of a company/startup which provide a company/startup the ability to raise funding, create jobs, get salaries paid, fund operations in science and techology in any indusrty which provide a return on investment capital (ROIC) to stakeholders and shareholders at the same time.

Re: Crypto Fooled Us Once. It Will Fool Us Again

#17

Post by sandworm101 »

k__ wrote: post #12
ferfumarma wrote: post #5

Crypto does have utility, but there's only room for one: bitcoin. Everything else is just a me-too derivative that can add nothing except the possibility of central control (like the "digital dollar"). The ability to instantly transmit the hardest asset known to man (harder than gold, in the sense of inflation resistance) does have utility, regardless of what critics say. It has downsides too: the ability to be lost…

In my opinion, Bitcoin was just the low hanging fruit. Proof of Work is probably the way to go, but please make it useful work.

Revise SETI@home. A bitcoin for every earth-sized exoplanet your GPU can discover in a given day. Ten bitcoin if it finds intelligent life.

Or a darker proof of work concept: Forget the big data centers, the NSA could hand out bitcoins to GPUs who help them brute force enemy encryption.

Re: Crypto Fooled Us Once. It Will Fool Us Again

#18

Post by TestingTest5 »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #3

Crypto and NFTs are the ultimate scam. It's wooden nickels, the Brooklyn Bridge and Bernie Madoff all taken to their ultimate logical conclusion --- something with no intrinsic value whatsoever (electrons) is being exchanged for real functioning currency. But what really sets the crypto scam apart is the fact that no is really lying about the fundamental nature of the transaction. No one is hiding the fact that by bu…

What's also incredible is the lack of government action on crypto. I mean, if something like crypto happened in the 60s, you can bet countries like the US would've banned "owning it" just like they did with gold.

Re: Crypto Fooled Us Once. It Will Fool Us Again

#19

Post by pfisch »

pixl97 wrote: post #15
ferfumarma wrote: post #5

Crypto does have utility, but there's only room for one: bitcoin. Everything else is just a me-too derivative that can add nothing except the possibility of central control (like the "digital dollar"). The ability to instantly transmit the hardest asset known to man (harder than gold, in the sense of inflation resistance) does have utility, regardless of what critics say. It has downsides too: the ability to be lost…

>and they all seem to hate bitcoin with passion, but I haven't yet understood why The dollar buys drugs, it buys guns, it buys terrible things. But it also buys bread and pays your rent. The interface a large portion of us has had with bitcoin is speculation and cybercrime. "Your computer has been encrypted, please insert X bitcoin to continue" is not a great interface for making someone have a good feeling about a p…

People don't really buy things on a daily basis with gold either, and 99% of its valuation is based on speculation.

Re: Crypto Fooled Us Once. It Will Fool Us Again

#20

Post by fastball »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #3

Crypto and NFTs are the ultimate scam. It's wooden nickels, the Brooklyn Bridge and Bernie Madoff all taken to their ultimate logical conclusion --- something with no intrinsic value whatsoever (electrons) is being exchanged for real functioning currency. But what really sets the crypto scam apart is the fact that no is really lying about the fundamental nature of the transaction. No one is hiding the fact that by bu…

Solving double-spend in a distributed / decentralized system sounds like a guarantee to me?
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