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Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

economist.com

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Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#101

Post by rollcat »

swalsh wrote: post #49
rollcat wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying cryptocurrency remains a solution in search of a problem?

clearly, that is not what I said. What I said is there is a very big problem (closed ecosystem of incompatible credit systems) that can be solved using this technology that does payments really well.

Can I go to any grocery shop, check out, and pay by sticking my watch to a terminal for one second? Can I go to any website, have my browser fill in the credit card details, and click "pay"? Can I submit a dispute if I get charged incorrectly?

Because that's my bar for "does payments really well".

Sure, I can't spend my Amazon gift cards for my Warframe platinum. Yeah, Amazon could strike a deal with Digital Extremes. And maybe I could even use that platinum on Fortnite skins. But their respective deals will happen in dollars, not dogecoins.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#102

Post by cherryteastain »

ecocentrik wrote: post #76
cherryteastain wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sending money without government interference to relatives living in countries with strict foreign exchange controls (Argentina, Lebanon, Turkey...) is one quite legit use case.

Cryptocurrency also empowers kleptocrats, dictators and warmongers to bypass sanctions and international banking controls, making it more likely that politically and economically oppressive states will thrive and persist for longer. The benefit to the individual is marginal compared to the benefits to actors that might limit that individual's other freedoms. Also, foreign exchange controls aren't the only form of tax…

Kleptocrats, dictators and warmongers have been around for way longer than crypto. If sanctions worked, the likes of Kim family or Iran's ayatollahs would have fallen in the 90s or 2000s.

Crypto allows my family members to bypass arbitrary restrictions set by one such kleptocrat right now so the benefit is very much more than marginal.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#103

Post by Spooky23 »

keiferski wrote: post #38

The history of crypto is pretty much a story of technical people creating something interesting with a cyberpunk/ open ethos - then the financial industry realizing it can be exploited to make money in ethically dubious ways, while simultaneously destroying the philosophy behind it. The bitcoin paper is still one of the most elegant technical documents I’ve ever read, a decade+ since it was published. I’m not sure wh…

Crypto is the way it is because there are behaviors that are driven by perceived anonymity. We’ve seen it time and time again and fail to learn or understand the lessons.

I’m a child of the 90s. The exuberant promise of the wonders of free access to information really fell short and transformed the world in odious ways. We gave access to a vast swath of human knowledge, but instead consume gambling, porn and think the world is flat.

Crypto is no different. We created a means to transfer wealth like the modern financial system without any controls… and shocking… we created a fertile environment for cons and criminals of all stripes to operate at greater scale than ever before.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#104

Post by sigwinch »

keiferski wrote: post #94
trustsafe wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure that cyberpunk is dead, it's just that Billy Idol has better things to do with his time than try to co-opt something his manager read about in WIRED. The broken-circuit-boards-and-leather NiN aesthetic lasted for so long that it can't really be revived, which is 100% fine. I think now that a ten year old laptop that can run Linux, tor, and i2p is worth $20 means that now is more cyberpunk than ever.

Maybe a better way to rephrase my point: money won and took over other sources of value. Technology became the biggest section of the economy. Case in point: this site is called Hacker News and it’s run by a venture capital investment firm. Those two things (hacker/cyberpunk culture and VCs) would probably have seemed almost antithetical in the 90s.

Your original point is clear. In the 90s, these technologies and movements did not mandate supplication to authority, which meant some area where punk could still breathe. And atrophied.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#105

Post by sigwinch »

swalsh wrote: post #23
rcxdude wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but a) this doesn't require blockchain, and b) there's no incentive for the various players to make credits portable.

I'm tired of the "this doesn't require blockchain" argument. The alternative is a centralized entity that controls payments. Is that REALLY your preferred solution?

Yes, I’d rather start a bank chartered with my own rules that leverages regulation, and only use the existence of crypto as an odorous alternative when negotiating service fees with Visa.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#106

Post by trustsafe »

keiferski wrote: post #94
trustsafe wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure that cyberpunk is dead, it's just that Billy Idol has better things to do with his time than try to co-opt something his manager read about in WIRED. The broken-circuit-boards-and-leather NiN aesthetic lasted for so long that it can't really be revived, which is 100% fine. I think now that a ten year old laptop that can run Linux, tor, and i2p is worth $20 means that now is more cyberpunk than ever.

Maybe a better way to rephrase my point: money won and took over other sources of value. Technology became the biggest section of the economy. Case in point: this site is called Hacker News and it’s run by a venture capital investment firm. Those two things (hacker/cyberpunk culture and VCs) would probably have seemed almost antithetical in the 90s.

I think money won some thousands of years before cyberpunk showed up.

Hippie and punk were really the same thing, with different haircuts. Both were useless beyond selling lifestyle.

"cyberpunk" always carried an aesthetic baggage that accomplished nothing, but there was still something there, and it is still there, if you know where to look. I think the deterioration of the political situation in the US and Europe has people dusting off their cyberpunk inclinations. I know that it has lit a fire under me.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#107

Post by TrackerFF »

I've followed crypto since late 2011, and the ideology today is completely detached from what it used to be. Back in the day you had crypto maximalists that mainly viewed it as freedom from authority, regulations, and traditional banking. No more expensive fees for sending cash, no more third parties like PayPal to charge fees and potentially freeze your money. Detaching your wealth from political systems.

Yes, a lot of techno anarchist and ancaps were part of the scene - with grand dreams of defi taking over the world.

These days it has just evolved into play money for finance bros and hedge funds, and more lately, a mechanism for circumventing corruption for the powerful and wealthy.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#108

Post by lostmsu »

swalsh wrote: post #77
jhunter1016 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://x402.org

that's neat

IMO the website is terrible. Instead of putting what actually is transmitted up and front it just tells you to use their wrapper libs as middleware with 0 reference to the wire protocol.

What HTTP headers are used? What's the body of the HTTP 402 response? The docs don't say any of that, they just say `npm install x402`.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#109

Post by Hilift »

The next logical step is US Treasury Bonds to be redeemed in Crypto. The current administration is proposing a 2026 budget that adds $5 trillion in new debt (more spending than revenue). Jerome can't print money that fast.

Even the Fed is counting on the "economy to grow faster than the debt". It's like a fiction world. I fully expect a "crypto equivalence" executive order for things where the US can muscle trade partners.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#110

Post by ggandv »

keiferski wrote: post #94
trustsafe wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure that cyberpunk is dead, it's just that Billy Idol has better things to do with his time than try to co-opt something his manager read about in WIRED. The broken-circuit-boards-and-leather NiN aesthetic lasted for so long that it can't really be revived, which is 100% fine. I think now that a ten year old laptop that can run Linux, tor, and i2p is worth $20 means that now is more cyberpunk than ever.

Maybe a better way to rephrase my point: money won and took over other sources of value. Technology became the biggest section of the economy. Case in point: this site is called Hacker News and it’s run by a venture capital investment firm. Those two things (hacker/cyberpunk culture and VCs) would probably have seemed almost antithetical in the 90s.

I’m not so sure that’s a valid dichotomy. The cypherpunks were heavily anti-government libertarians and probably overlap a lot with the local VC crowd over a certain age. The cypherpunk I remember best was a horrible person who used to rant incessantly about gassing Jews on ba.foods and other usenet groups. To cast them as anti-capitalist altruists or even slightly left leaning is not very accurate.
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