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Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

defector.com

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Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#131

Post by streamofdigits »

Cryptocurrency was a broken concept from the very start. It assumed that you can build a financial system by engineering "trust" in purely technical terms.

Trust is something between humans. If you cannot find an arrangement of checks and balances that gives people comfort that the "system" is not ripping them off there is no amount of cryptoaccounting that will solve it for you.

The very anonymity of the bitcoin founder(s?) shows this was never an honest-to-goodness project. Its not surprising then that crypto never solved any real economic problem. As in: making any economy a tiny bit healthier, more resilient, less unequal. Not a single one.

But had it stayed a failed financial reform project would have been one thing. It is heartbreaking to witness the amount of fraud, waste of resources and manipulation it unleashed. Its ongoing amoral adoption by the formal financial system as "yet another asset class offering diversification to our customers" is a fitting closure.

The chicken came home to roost.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#132

Post by k__ »

TomGullen wrote: post #84
marban wrote: post #5

The whole NFT craze lost me when tech founders I once highly respected started pushing and showing off their ugly gifs and trading cards on Twitter. Bad taste of the bored rich is not a new thing, but I hope NFTs won't become a noble tradition.

I must be getting old because I just don't get NFT's. They look stupid and I don't get why anyone would buy them. Declining tech companies and startups seem to be trying to crowbar them into their products much like Blockchain when it was new and shiny. Perhaps younger me would of seen something I can't anymore.

NFTs can be anything.

I don't get the art focus.

They can be a degree, a concert ticket, a driving license, a permission to a API service, equity to a company.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#133

Post by mywittyname »

BTCOG wrote: post #127

Here's your seemingly month reminder that there is only one cryptocurrency. Bitcoin. NFTs are epitome of tulip mania. Bitcoin, while it does increase in value due to low supply, is the only secure and actually fair escape hatch to the global monetary system and holds value globally. Proof of Stake, and every single coin below Bitcoin, copied from Bitcoin, are similar to fiat and centralized. Ethereum is the worst of…

Let's accept your premise for the sake of argument.

Why do you thinik the contagion from other crypto scams imploding won't bring down BTC? Will people still trust BTC if they lose trust in other crypto?

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#134

Post by rchaud »

TomGullen wrote: post #84
marban wrote: post #5

The whole NFT craze lost me when tech founders I once highly respected started pushing and showing off their ugly gifs and trading cards on Twitter. Bad taste of the bored rich is not a new thing, but I hope NFTs won't become a noble tradition.

I must be getting old because I just don't get NFT's. They look stupid and I don't get why anyone would buy them. Declining tech companies and startups seem to be trying to crowbar them into their products much like Blockchain when it was new and shiny. Perhaps younger me would of seen something I can't anymore.

The only implementation of NFTs I've come across that doesn't look like a fly-by-night operation is NBA's Top Shot, where you can buy video NFTs of special moments in NBA history.

At the very least, you can buy a piece of IP directly from the IP holder, and receive a package that's nicely presented.

It's still totally overpriced, but I can see at least some value. It still needs to go a step further technologically. Like a special app that allows you to view the NFT with AR features artificially implemented. Or displaying it in a holographic form, especially for moments captured with 360-degree cameras.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#135

Post by anonporridge »

21eleven wrote: post #100
TomGullen wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must be getting old because I just don't get NFT's. They look stupid and I don't get why anyone would buy them. Declining tech companies and startups seem to be trying to crowbar them into their products much like Blockchain when it was new and shiny. Perhaps younger me would of seen something I can't anymore.

The thing about NFTs is that many people who buy them "don't get NFTs". All an NFT is is a token that represents ownership, like if the title to your car or house deed was on a blockchain. NFTs have some sane use causes like designating the owner of a valuable asset or creating electronic tickets that can be resold or transferred without some centralized entity like ticketmaster. Prior to NFTs existing, would you pur…

Here's an NFT which is the best description I've ever seen of what NFTs actually are, https://foundation.app/@visualizevalue/nfts-explained-12012

It sold for 74 ETH.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#136

Post by a_rustacean »

HelixEndeavor wrote: post #81

I won't pretend I'm a computer genius or anything, but I feel like I understand tech at least more than the average Joe - at least, I'm the designated IT guy for computer problems faced by anyone I know. The fact that, despite having it explained multiple times by multiple sources multiple ways, I still can't seem to wrap my head around how crypto functions... Makes me suspicious. It feels like the whole idea is to o…

"I don't understand it, therefore there is something suspicious about it" is a very dangerous way of reasoning.

We burned innocent people because of this not long ago.

Anyways, I find the Bitcoin paper very approachable. You may need to read it a bunch of times until everything clicks into place. But it's all there, in just 8 pages.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#137

Post by overlaid »

oyf wrote: post #95
voidray wrote: post #49

If you take every long-refuted criticism of Bitcoin along with cherrypicked examples of cringe celebrities endorsing it, and you combine that with misinformed neo-Marxism and an unquestioning acceptance of government officials, you get this article. If your average sports writer actually wanted to understand the space, they could read something with real data: https://nydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/NYDIG-Bitcoi…

> Since 1920, at least 55 hyperinflation events have taken place, destroying savings and creating economic hardship... Bitcoin offers the world an alternative – a sound monetary system outside the control of governments and central banks. The paper you linked doesn't exactly get off to a good start, considering there are ~1600-2200 dead/worthless cryptocurrencies (see below) and Bitcoin itself is incredibly volatile.…

BTC specifically has seen it's volatility drastically reduced. It's not hard to find several stocks with a much higher volatility in the last month, particularly the last week.

Many other cryptocurrencies still experience extreme volatility on par with BTC's early history.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#138

Post by BTCOG »

mywittyname wrote: post #133
BTCOG wrote: post #127

Here's your seemingly month reminder that there is only one cryptocurrency. Bitcoin. NFTs are epitome of tulip mania. Bitcoin, while it does increase in value due to low supply, is the only secure and actually fair escape hatch to the global monetary system and holds value globally. Proof of Stake, and every single coin below Bitcoin, copied from Bitcoin, are similar to fiat and centralized. Ethereum is the worst of…

Let's accept your premise for the sake of argument. Why do you thinik the contagion from other crypto scams imploding won't bring down BTC? Will people still trust BTC if they lose trust in other crypto?

The rest are completely irrelevant.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#139

Post by TomGullen »

21eleven wrote: post #100
TomGullen wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must be getting old because I just don't get NFT's. They look stupid and I don't get why anyone would buy them. Declining tech companies and startups seem to be trying to crowbar them into their products much like Blockchain when it was new and shiny. Perhaps younger me would of seen something I can't anymore.

The thing about NFTs is that many people who buy them "don't get NFTs". All an NFT is is a token that represents ownership, like if the title to your car or house deed was on a blockchain. NFTs have some sane use causes like designating the owner of a valuable asset or creating electronic tickets that can be resold or transferred without some centralized entity like ticketmaster. Prior to NFTs existing, would you pur…

Can't understand "Ownership of a Tweet" as Twitter owns them - or at the very least they can destroy them whenever they want.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#140

Post by TomGullen »

k__ wrote: post #132
TomGullen wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must be getting old because I just don't get NFT's. They look stupid and I don't get why anyone would buy them. Declining tech companies and startups seem to be trying to crowbar them into their products much like Blockchain when it was new and shiny. Perhaps younger me would of seen something I can't anymore.

NFTs can be anything. I don't get the art focus. They can be a degree, a concert ticket, a driving license, a permission to a API service, equity to a company.

Permission to an API service maybe, the rest of the examples create more problems than they solve.
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