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The End of My Childhood

vitalik.eth.limo

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Re: The End of My Childhood

#11

Post by mkatx »

dartos wrote: post #6
mkatx wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inherently so, it is not. But nice try to lower your buy in price.. ;)

I’m not against crypto as a technology, but as a financial tool, how is it not a greater fools game? Broadly speaking, you can’t live on crypto alone. Most people aren’t able to buy food and shelter with it. So the goal, in those majority of cases, is to buy in low for the exact purpose of waiting for a “greater fool” to purchase it from you for more.

No one buys stocks for the hell of it, it is 100% a financial instrument used to profit by the buyer and the seller. If you couldn't sell to someone for a higher price, no one would buy them. If that's your bar, then cryptocurrencies are as legit as stocks as far as a financial tool is concerned. Stocks may arguably have more utility, but for the buyers/sellers, they aren't much more that a speculation instrument.

If someone will take Pokemon cards for a pizza, or a house, whatever, then it has some utility. If someone collects pokemon cards, and has enough for a house, they might (probably) need to exchange them for some real currency to complete that transaction. But pokemon cards are not inherently a scam.. just because the price can go up and down.. they are probably considered a collectable.

Now cryptocurrencies are not collectibles, and they are not currencies, but they have attributes of both I'd propose. They are entirely speculatory in nature, but can sometimes be used as a currency. So, in some ways, I argue, they should be treated like pokemon cards, in other ways, regarding regulation, they might need to be considered a currency to be able to regulate the industry in such a way that protects investors, just like private transactions (selling collectibles) and financial investing (trading stocks/etc) have regulations.

Although this is nuanced, and cryptocurrency is not currency or a collectible entirely, it is not inherently a 'greaters fools game' any more than trading stocks or Pokemon cards.

It's just another thing that needs to be regulated, and if people didn't use it for something, it would just go away, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Re: The End of My Childhood

#12

Post by tomrod »

underlipton wrote: post #10
smackeyacky wrote: post #3

The author sums up everything that is wrong with crypto in two sentences: > I was getting excited about every new cryptography protocol, and economics too seemed to me to be part of that broader worldview: it's the mathematical tool for understanding and figuring out how to improve the social world. No, it isn't. This kind of hubris is what hides what Crypto is, which is a game of greater fools and nothing more.

No, that quote is correct. Let me restate it in a way that may appeal more to pessimists: Money is a form of mind control. You use money to get people, groups, institutions, to do what they normally wouldn't. Economics is the study of manipulating that power. Cryptocurrencies would then be, or was supposed to be, about radically resetting economic priorities, in part by washing away the old incentives (by cutting the…

> Economics is the study of manipulating that power.

Hello! Your friendly neighborhood economist here. Economics is the study of resource allocation under scarcity.

In your comment, I think you actually mean Game Theory and Mechanism Design, which are about assessing strategic behavior (Game Theory) and about creating mechanisms that align with strategic behavior to result in preferred outcomes (Mechanism Design, sort of the opposite approach to Game Theory).

Alternatively, based on your comment here:

> The potential to have people value things differently because the means underlying that valuation had changed was there.

you might find your thoughts more appropriately align to sociology and social psychology than economics, as economics doesn't care where your valuation or preferences come from--just that you have them.

Up, up, and away!

Re: The End of My Childhood

#13

Post by IntelMiner »

tough wrote: post #8
throwawaycities wrote: post #5

The cool thing about Vitalik’s blog is that it is decentralized. The blog uses decentralized storage (IPFS) and uses a decentralized ENS domain (vitalik.eth). If you use a web3 browser like brave browser vitalik.eth resolves natively in the browser without the need to use the ENS+IPFS (eth.limo) gateway.

ty for the tidbit never really found an excuse to install brave before

Given the CEO's "history" [1] I'd heavily recommend against installing Brave

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich

Re: The End of My Childhood

#14

Post by roenxi »

smackeyacky wrote: post #3

The author sums up everything that is wrong with crypto in two sentences: > I was getting excited about every new cryptography protocol, and economics too seemed to me to be part of that broader worldview: it's the mathematical tool for understanding and figuring out how to improve the social world. No, it isn't. This kind of hubris is what hides what Crypto is, which is a game of greater fools and nothing more.

Bitcoin has been around for 15 years at this point and there is absolutely no confusion about the technical underpinnings. It has handily survived attempts at government shutdowns in China and serious interest rate hikes. Numerous scams have come, gone and had no impact on hodlers.

At this point it is no longer reasonable to just claim it is a greater fools game without an argument for why. The evidence right now seems to put it in a similar category to gold in that people generally don't like that it has value, but nonetheless value is present.

I also draw people's attention to the parallel with something like a RAID array - it is possible to make robust systems out of unreliable parts. The abundance of scammy and scummy operators in the crypto space is quite consistent with the similar prevalence in traditional finance. The system is robust regardless.

Re: The End of My Childhood

#15

Post by mkatx »

dartos wrote: post #6
mkatx wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inherently so, it is not. But nice try to lower your buy in price.. ;)

I’m not against crypto as a technology, but as a financial tool, how is it not a greater fools game? Broadly speaking, you can’t live on crypto alone. Most people aren’t able to buy food and shelter with it. So the goal, in those majority of cases, is to buy in low for the exact purpose of waiting for a “greater fool” to purchase it from you for more.

On another note, there is a lot of fud on cryptocurrency right now.. and let me say this.. there are farms of individuals, soon to be llm's, flooding the Internet with all this negativity on crypto in every conceivable public forum.

100%, this is politics now, when you see people online with a certain perspective, you tend to at least consider it. This is the psychology of influence on the net, everyone's brains are connected to this same network, and business and government know it. If they can even suggest that individuals give any credence to a random post online, they will make that post, and to their ends. So now, we have entire buildings of people filling the net with their 'opinions', in the name of influencing.

There are so many 'people' online that totally call cryptocurrency an inherit scam (which is pretty much impossible, inherently so, that the idea is itself a scam, and not just able to be used to scam.. cmon, the distinction is there), that I'm convinced that many of the anticrypto posts are simple persuasion,because either the riches want to buy in, or they are scared of what it can do (as far as replacing the status quo).

Now I'm sure I'm that crazy internet crypto dude all of a sudden, but listen closely, cause we will all see in the next decade or two, and neither you nor me know the future. Remember me either way. :)

Re: The End of My Childhood

#16

Post by [deleted] »

smackeyacky wrote: post #3

The author sums up everything that is wrong with crypto in two sentences: > I was getting excited about every new cryptography protocol, and economics too seemed to me to be part of that broader worldview: it's the mathematical tool for understanding and figuring out how to improve the social world. No, it isn't. This kind of hubris is what hides what Crypto is, which is a game of greater fools and nothing more.

[deleted]

Re: The End of My Childhood

#17

Post by latchkey »

> Your personality can completely change in 10 years.

This was kind of a revelation to me a long time ago. When you're 20, you're a totally different person than when you're 10. When you're 30, different than 20. Just like the linked article suggests, you really tend to underestimate how much you're going to change in the future. At 10, you can't really consider how you're going to be when you're 20.

Re: The End of My Childhood

#18

Post by Dalewyn »

tomrod wrote: post #12
underlipton wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that quote is correct. Let me restate it in a way that may appeal more to pessimists: Money is a form of mind control. You use money to get people, groups, institutions, to do what they normally wouldn't. Economics is the study of manipulating that power. Cryptocurrencies would then be, or was supposed to be, about radically resetting economic priorities, in part by washing away the old incentives (by cutting the…

> Economics is the study of manipulating that power. Hello! Your friendly neighborhood economist here. Economics is the study of resource allocation under scarcity. In your comment, I think you actually mean Game Theory and Mechanism Design, which are about assessing strategic behavior (Game Theory) and about creating mechanisms that align with strategic behavior to result in preferred outcomes (Mechanism Design, sor…

Put another way, money is a method for purchasing time.

We pay money to use other people's time, and we sell our time to get paychecks.

Remember the old saying: Time is money.

Re: The End of My Childhood

#19

Post by mkatx »

mkatx wrote: post #4
smackeyacky wrote: post #3

The author sums up everything that is wrong with crypto in two sentences: > I was getting excited about every new cryptography protocol, and economics too seemed to me to be part of that broader worldview: it's the mathematical tool for understanding and figuring out how to improve the social world. No, it isn't. This kind of hubris is what hides what Crypto is, which is a game of greater fools and nothing more.

Inherently so, it is not. But nice try to lower your buy in price.. ;)

You know, I'm trying to have honest, intelligent discussion, care to explain why I deserved a down vote?

If you disagree, comment!! Let's discuss!

I guess I apologize for the little joke at the end if that's the problem.. sorry everyone!

Also, sorry for my opinion! Darn, it does just happen to be contrary to some of y'all's, I'll be more careful!!

Re: The End of My Childhood

#20

Post by thepasswordis »

IntelMiner wrote: post #13
tough wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ty for the tidbit never really found an excuse to install brave before

Given the CEO's "history" [1] I'd heavily recommend against installing Brave [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich

You really hate javascript that much?
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