[dead]
Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset
141–150 of 162 posts
Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset
#142Crypto was a huge mistake. It should have been rigorously regulated right out of the gate to the point of being unusable for anyone. I have yet to see a use case that doesn’t amount to buying drugs or defrauding rubes.
> I have yet to see a use case that doesn’t amount to buying drugs or defrauding rubes Russian here. My forgotten Bitcoin stash saved my ass multiple times by providing a way to transfer money to a friend abroad who then paid for my western expenses (hosting, VPNs etc.) using his Visa / MC cards. Also, a lot of programmers who emigrated from Russia to countries such as Georgia in 2022 were using USDT as a way to rece…
And also it helps your government to transact with Iran, India, and China in convenient currencies, bypassing US-imposed sanctions and prolonging current war and planning for the future ones.
Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ideological capture is something that any system inevitably faces once it becomes large enough. But the point is to evolve and grow, not stagnate on a fixed concept. Personally, I think Solana does the best at balancing the original cypherpunk ethos while ultimately driving towards the future with crypto being the rails for natively programmatic global commerce.
There is no cypherpunk ethos in a 100% premine.
The FTX collapse of 2022 was a blessing disguised as a curse. All of the VCs and speculators offloaded their SOL during the bear market.
You have to remember that for about a year and a half, everyone thought Solana was dead / doomed to fail.
Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
A tired old debate devoid of facts. The chains I advocated for are proof of stake, and AI is a useful system worth the energy it uses. Should we not consume energy at all?
> A tired old debate devoid of facts. You are advocating for more fucking cryptocurrency. You don't get to ignore any response as "a tired old debate devoid of facts".
He wasn't ignoring anything, he was pointing out that that criticism is based on outdated information. Almost all modern blockchain designs (from the past ~10 years) do not promote energy waste via PoW.
It's fine to point out the energy waste of more traditional PoW chains (particularly Bitcoin, which accounts for the bulk of PoW), but to frame that as a problem with blockchains in general is misguided.
Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A tired old debate devoid of facts. You are advocating for more fucking cryptocurrency. You don't get to ignore any response as "a tired old debate devoid of facts".
He wasn't ignoring anything, he was pointing out that that criticism is based on outdated information. Almost all modern blockchain designs (from the past ~10 years) do not promote energy waste via PoW. It's fine to point out the energy waste of more traditional PoW chains (particularly Bitcoin, which accounts for the bulk of PoW), but to frame that as a problem with blockchains in general is misguided.
A problem of cryptocurrencies.
Blockchains are useful and need less power.
Bitcoin is still the biggest player in the cryptocurrency world, so still a lot of wasted energy.
Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset
#146The 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 th…
Further crypto is slower, less efficient and a way less convenient to use than centralised systems powered by traditional databases.
So while the regular internet might be host to Wikipedia as well as social media, the ONLY people switching to crypto payments are those who are willing to take the hit to evade the authorities.
Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset
#147I'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…
It’s the natural result of the technology’s original goal to be “unstoppable” and beyond regulation or laws.
Makes it a perfect place to run investment frauds, scams, Ponzi schemes and other activities that would be illegal in the regular financial sector. Also attracts criminals, tax evaders and money launderers.
Meanwhile it’s slow and cumbersome enough that anyone not seriously motivated to operate beyond the reach of the law stick with existing systems for convenience.
Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset
#148I'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…
I'm not sure the evolution you're describing is as much of a change as it might superficially appear to be. The modern crypto participants may look different than the original enthusiasts, but the philosophy of being free from authority and regulations is still 100% there. It's just that instead of it being about scrappy cypherpunk rebels, it's about billionaires who want to use their wealth to supplant governments a…
Yeah. It reveals the basic truth that if we have no government, laws or regulation we ultimately end up with the rich and powerful controlling things and doing what they want.
Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset
#149That's the thing where if you have significant assets your family members get kidnapped until you irreversibly transfer those assets to criminals, right? I'm not sure how crypto continues to gain mainstream adoption in the face of that , no matter how much excitement there is for it in the current US administration. My previous argument was that a technology where losing your password means you lose your net worth wa…
Kidnapping and ransom existed before crypto
Yeah but “being your own bank”, keeping all your savings under the mattress, makes your house a lot more inviting target.
Likewise being able to ransom people half way across the world and knowing there is an irreversible way you can get them to transfer the money across borders makes ransomware possible.
Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's sort of the point, I think. It's like buying an index tracker in the underground economy.
eh, it was fair to say that 8 years ago... now it's way easier to track public blockchain transaction chains on Bitcoin, Ethereum and the like than it is to track bank transfers across countries
Sure but you skip across borders, use mixers, over the counter trades and dodgy offshore exchanges.
It’s not that hard to cover your tracks. And sometimes it doesn’t matter if your beyond the reach of the authorities in the country the crimes were committed.