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Funds of every Trust Wallet browser extension could have been stolen

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111–120 of 186 posts

Re: Funds of every Trust Wallet browser extension could have been stolen

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel exactly the opposite- “At some point there won't be any more suckers left. That's when banking will really collapse.” The news every day sends the message more urgently that a global hard money that can never be debased by money printing and that is free from the whims of governments and dictators is sorely needed.

> debased by money printing Why is this a bad thing? This is repeated by the crypto people as some kind of root of all evil, and it puzzles me. I see monetary policy - including the ability of devaluing a currency - as a powerful tool central banks have to keep the economy working. I fail to see how "hard money", which normally comes peppered with some vague desire for a deflationary economy as desirable. In my view…

Central banks aren’t needed to keep the economy running, you really just need some areas of law (contract, commercial, etc) and an effective court system for that. The economy ran on its own prior to the Federal Reserve being created in 1913.

Central banks may be useful in preventing banking crises every ~20yrs as happened back in the 1700s and 1800s. But even that’s not a certainty since the two most severe banking crises in history - the Great Depression and Global/Great Financial Crisis - happened under the watch of central banks. Some even argue the latter occurred because of the central bank keeping interest rates too low too long.

One benefit of central banks is to depoliticize monetary policy by moving it away from the Executive Branch, and giving it a consistent, Congressional mandate that it must prioritize in its policy and operations - low inflation and high employment. That’s probably one of the few indisputable advantages they have.

As for whether inflationary or deflationary money is better, I don’t know. Both have their pros and cons. The more I go down rabbit hole on each of these, the less decisive I am about it. But this website makes a comprehensive case for deflationary money, fwiw: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

Re: Funds of every Trust Wallet browser extension could have been stolen

#112
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be annoyed if you owned shares of a company and the company prints new shares to dilute the value of your holdings?

Shares in a company is not currency. It's not supposed to be used as currency. It is not a means of exchange. And companies sometimes dilute the value of shares. It's part of the risk in investing in a company.

I wouldn't even say sometimes dilute shares - isn't this pretty much what happens every single time there is a new round of investing?

On the other hand, companies can use buybacks for the exact opposite effect.

Re: Funds of every Trust Wallet browser extension could have been stolen

#114
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I? Either the company's board and leadership are trustworthy (i.e. are acting in the best interest of all, not just majority or voting, shareholders), in which case they'll have carefully weighed the cost (dilution) and benefits (additional capital) of issuing new shares. Or they aren't – in which case dilution is one of many problems and it's questionable why I'd want to continue owning shares in that comp…

You’ve just connected the hypothetical question to the current behavior in play on the global scale. USD is still technically the worlds reserve currency, meant to be the base unit of all petroleum transactions. Countries have been motivated to keep USD on hand for decades for that reason. In 2009 and 2021, the USD’s “board and leadership” has shown it’s willing to massively inflate its existing liabilities to help i…

> It’s very questionable why any country with large trade surpluses would want to hold US treasuries at this point.

Fair point – then maybe they shouldn't!

But I'm not a large country; I need to pay for rent and food in USD, and my highest priority for the USD accordingly is short and medium term price stability for those two things. For long-term savings, there's other assets.

If the USD continues falling short on short term price stability as well, I agree that that would be a major problem.

Re: Funds of every Trust Wallet browser extension could have been stolen

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that is wrong. If you keep your money as cash or in a bank deposit then you lose several percents every year because Western governments maintain a certain inflation rate. But inflation is basically stealing from everyone who has cash or bank deposits. You had 100 dollars and next year they become equivalent to 98 dollars. Cryptocurrency is different. No government is able to steal your Bitcoins by printing…

Do you really think inflation is the government's way of stealing from the population?

It's rate is not arbitrary, it is maintained at specific level, as they say, for better economy development. But it is unclear whether you will win from that or somebody else, what is certain that you lose money every year because of this. You had 100 dollars and year later they are only worth 98 dollars. What is it if not stealing?

Re: Funds of every Trust Wallet browser extension could have been stolen

#117
More than anything else, this is why I stay out of crypto: It shifts your trust from public institutions and the rule of law, to your own understanding of the security of the algorithms that implement the system (since there is often no public backup). And I don't trust myself to be able to identify such deep vulnerabilities.

Re: Funds of every Trust Wallet browser extension could have been stolen

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be snarky, but this sounds real convenient. Why don’t we just admit these tools are just fundamentally broken?

They’re broken b/c they’re having difficulty doing something no other electronic payment even attempts to do?

They’re making up for the fact that the history of every transaction input is public, something no other payment system even attempts to do.

Re: Funds of every Trust Wallet browser extension could have been stolen

#119
post #46

> Creating good randomness is a daunting task - Ledger devices rely on dedicated silicon logic in our certified smartcard chips that have been the gold standard of secure industries for the past 40 years to guarantee high quality randomness and tamper resistance. Which is worthless and entirely irrelevant when they keep leaking their customers' personal and purchase data (which they claimed not to collect or keep, an…

These data leaks are indeed very bad, but in what way do they make the actual core product and its security goals "worthless and entirely irrelevant"?

Re: Funds of every Trust Wallet browser extension could have been stolen

#120
I’m not sure why there is such fascination with this tech when it’s complex to understand and implement, prone to break in a thousand different ways, and has an ecosystem which is absolutely crammed with bad actors. This requires a deep understanding of cryptography to even understand if you’re safe. Why do people take the risk? Is it because they like to feel smart?
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