121–130 of 242 posts
I concur with this article quite a bit, but let's also talk about solutions instead of just problems. Projects need to get funded to pay people salaries. The current VC alternative solution to this is to form a DAO. Recent example of a fairly successful DeFi DAO: https://medium.com/badgerdao/badgers-in-the-sett-a-dao-treas...
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Don't go and claim the vast majority of top projects are essentially scams, that's just spreading false information.
Name any major project and I can tell you why it's a scam. Bitcoin: Uses the electricity of a country to process 2 transactions per second. Layer 2 solutions such as Lightning Network have some significant drawbacks which make them unpractical and vulnerable to multiple attacks. They've been trying and talking it up for years - No results. Ethereum: Doesn't scale. The entire ecosystem (including all ERC20 tokens) tog…
By way of analogy, I remember the ruby on rails really struggled with scalability for a long time, and it was a big problem that lots of people, both proponents and opponents, talked about a lot. Nonetheless it turned out to be quite useful and definitely not a scam. I saw similar dynamics in both AngularJS and React. I'm trying to think of a good example on the other side, something that was hyped but criticized and didn't really succeed due to its criticisms being right ... maybe something like Meteor, it seemed promising but flawed and never really overcame its flaws. But none of these were "scams", just different flawed projects that succeeded or failed despite or because of their flaws.
By my lights, the top two you mentioned (I don't know enough about the third to say) fit very much into this same mould, I think they are flawed projects that will succeed or fail despite or because of widely recognized flaws which are or aren't eventually overcome. But not scams.
I think scams have to have a component of intentionality, that all effort at appearing legitimate and promising is conscientiously only for show. Contra that, I think lots of people are making a good faith effort to make bitcoin and ethereum useful. They may very well fail, but I don't think most people involved are conscientiously doing the work just for show.
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Except those "exotic derivatives, structured products, etc" do have real investments at the heart of them. What is at the heart of those "DeFi" investments? It seems to mostly be criminal and criminal-like behavior (this includes transferring money in ways the local government doesn't approve of which can admittedly be great if the local government is oppressive).
>>Except those "exotic derivatives, structured products, etc" do have real investments at the heart of them. Hmm...2008 housing crash and the recession that followed beg to differ.
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Purchasing items on NewEgg with USD is simple, easy, and very fast. If you are using a credit card, you get additional benefits and protections. Additionally, per the link you provided, there are a number of restrictions on using crypto on NewEgg. What is the benefit to using crypto vs using a credit card?
Assuming you have USD (you might not be a US citizen, exchange rates, yada yada), assuming you have a credit card, etc. etc. Proof of payment is basically instant, is globally accessible and I don't have to jump thru the 'verified by visa' bullshit. Also, no spending limits - I've ordered equipment from newegg and payed for next day delivery, only to have the equipment show up late because my visa 'helpfully' twigged…
I was assuming US persons doing a transaction in the US. If you are in another country, there will be other retailers that offer services in your currency. Also NewEgg supports transactions in many currencies.
you might not be a US citizen
Citizenship is not relevant to purchasing items for online retailers.
assuming you have a credit card
Debit cards can be used just as easily. Fewer protections, but it works just fine. Also PayPal, etc.
Proof of payment is basically instant, is globally accessible
This is true with credit card, debit card, paypal, etc.
I don't have to jump thru the 'verified by visa' bullshit
This is hardly an issue. Takes a few seconds, a total non-issue for 99% of people who just want to purchase something.
Also, no spending limits - I've ordered equipment from newegg and payed for next day delivery, only to have the equipment show up late because my visa 'helpfully' twigged an 'unusual purchase'
Yes, there are fraud detection features for credit cards. I'm pretty sure this occurs very rarely. If you don't like this, use a debit card or paypal with a bank account.
I've also had banks tell me there are daily spending limits on debit card that are too low to buy a high end system
I have never run into this because I never use my debit card, ever. However, it seems this be fixed by calling your bank and raising your limit permanently.
Bottom line is - one size doesn't fit all...
That's right. Crypto might be right for you. But 99% of consumers who want fast, easy, and simple mechanism for purchasing items at any retailer, credit or debit will be the best choice.
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Name any major project and I can tell you why it's a scam. Bitcoin: Uses the electricity of a country to process 2 transactions per second. Layer 2 solutions such as Lightning Network have some significant drawbacks which make them unpractical and vulnerable to multiple attacks. They've been trying and talking it up for years - No results. Ethereum: Doesn't scale. The entire ecosystem (including all ERC20 tokens) tog…
So Stellar, Cardano and XRP are all scams? > Polkadot: They claim everywhere to have 'Parachains'. The reality is that this feature doesn't exist yet. So it's a scam because it doesn't exist yet and it's planned on the roadmap? That's like saying Ethereum 2.0 is a scam because it doesn't exist yet. It's extremely easy to call projects scams when you're not the one doing the work.
When Stellar started, they were all about 'Quorums'; trying to imply that this was the secret sauce which would allow it to scale unlike any other blockchain. I initially thought that quorums were like separate shards but after asking around years ago, I found out that it was not the case; all transactions pass through all nodes; exactly the same as a plain old blockchain. These days they barely even mention the concept of a 'quorum' because it was never anything more than a scammy marketing tool.
I don't know too much about Cardano so I won't criticize too much but when I skim-read their whitepaper about 1 year ago, it sounded over-complicated. This is a red flag for me. Also, they are yet to implement smart contracts; so there is a long way ahead. I don't like that they keep bragging about their all-PhD team. In my experience, PhDs aren't good at delivering good developer experiences or limiting the amount of complexity.
I wouldn't say that XRP/Ripple is a scam; but only because they don't make it a secret that they are essentially a centralized crytocurrency with multiple nodes for redundancy. But some could argue that they are a scam based on the fact that they don't solve any of the problems that a cryptocurrency is meant to solve (this critique pretty much applies to all top cryptocurrencies BTW; they don't solve any significant economic problem aside from upholding the status quo; the opposite of what they claim to do).
>> So it's a scam because it doesn't exist yet and it's planned on the roadmap?
It's scammy because they sell it as if it already exists, but it doesn't.
Everyone wants to talk about the future of crypto in terms of how it can be used. Not enough people are talking about the fact that a single breakthrough in computing could undo the encryption that these currencies are reliant upon, instantly driving the value to zero. This is a vulnerability that does not have an analogue in any other currencies, securities or stores of wealth. Because of that, crypto is and will be…
This is such a fucking lazy criticism for a supposedly technically literate community. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Quantum_computing_and_Bitcoin#Mit...
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> there really are not a lot of real world use cases. It's effectively just one. To make illegal transactions. That's a long list of things: drugs, hiding wealth, evading currency controls, extortion, and so on. Otherwise, existing currency and transfer mechanisms are more or less available and convenient.
Huh - so lets see... NewEgg accepts(1): Doge, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin cash, etc. Telsa may or may not accept Bitcoin depending on Elon's mood. And El Salvador just made bitcoin legal tender. Yep - those are all illegal transactions. Your argument boils down to "Only criminals use Tor"... Not very useful. 1) https://kb.newegg.com/knowledge-base/using-crypto-on-newegg/
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>>Except those "exotic derivatives, structured products, etc" do have real investments at the heart of them. Hmm...2008 housing crash and the recession that followed beg to differ.
Regulatory capture is still a possible problem on the other end of the spectrum that needs to be countered with effort.
But we should just throw out new systems like crypto because they still have issues that need "to be countered with effort" ?
I'm not claiming any system is perfect, but it seems odd to shrug at the issues in one system and demonize another system for having issues...
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Name any major project and I can tell you why it's a scam. Bitcoin: Uses the electricity of a country to process 2 transactions per second. Layer 2 solutions such as Lightning Network have some significant drawbacks which make them unpractical and vulnerable to multiple attacks. They've been trying and talking it up for years - No results. Ethereum: Doesn't scale. The entire ecosystem (including all ERC20 tokens) tog…
These are all great criticisms, but I struggle to agree with you that they make these projects "scams". By way of analogy, I remember the ruby on rails really struggled with scalability for a long time, and it was a big problem that lots of people, both proponents and opponents, talked about a lot. Nonetheless it turned out to be quite useful and definitely not a scam. I saw similar dynamics in both AngularJS and Rea…