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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

#151

Post by topranks »

dlubarov wrote: post #144
surgical_fire wrote: post #93

Earlier 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He wasn't ignoring anything, he was pointing out that that criticism is based on outdated information.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.

PoS is sort of hard to bootstrap. ETH moved to it which was quite an achievement, but it’s difficult to see how it might have started that way.

If Bitcoin fails then it seems to me the bottom will fall out of all of crypto So all of it still depends on PoW propping up BTC.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#152

Post by topranks »

cherryteastain wrote: post #7
rimbo789 wrote: post #4

Crypto 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.

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

Breaking the law in other words.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#153

Post by safety1st »

okr wrote: post #113
safety1st wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone who had a passion for journalism and wanted to become a journalist when I was in high school at the end of the '90s, these days I am comfortable with that industry being completely eradicated. How did we get here? The Telecom Act of 1996 legalized cross-media ownership and an unprecedented degree of consolidation across all forms of media, news and otherwise. Those rules existed to promote local j…

Commerce subsidizes journalism. Or art. Or any other "hobby", where i do something, that feels right for me. I have time on the side, because working for the man gives me the freedom to do things other than surviving. Long lives commerce and capitalism.

This comment obscures/deflects from the issue. The issue is not that journalism is commercial.

The issue is that journalism is monopolized. The industry was restructured into an anti-competitive cartel.

It is oligarchic now, not capitalistic (it is no longer a free market).

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#154

Post by survirtual »

rollcat wrote: post #89
survirtual wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's regulate mathematics. No, it isn't enough...let's regulate physics itself. If we could just control when molecules are allowed to form, we could make it so mean molecules don't exist unless they're allowed to exist by our Council of Very Good People Who Have The Most Money. Since they have the most money, they know better than everyone else. /s Did you know in some countries, a good loan for someone with perfec…

> Only fools would speak about crypto so confidently without doing a minimal investigation into its utility. Only fools would speak about a technological solution without understating the reality, that technology still leans on society, power structures, and ability to enforce laws. Civil disobedience works as a means to shift the rules, the balance of power; you can't maintain it perpetually. P2P eventually shifted…

Look, I know it is hard for an ego to hear the things I say and the way I say them sometimes. For that, I am sorry. But I am not arguing with you, I am informing you.

Challenging media empires was child's play compared to challenging the world's financial system. Bitcoin has successfully illustrated a new and better way. Presidents have been killed for less. Civil rights activists have been killed for less.

Bitcoin and the crypto economy is now inevitable, just as gasoline vehicles became inevitable, and a nuclear armed world became inevitable. The world is changing, please do not let your self-identity interfere with the reality of this.

When a new and revolutionary invention becomes part of the human mental strata, you cannot take it back. This has never been done before since the knowledge of building a campfire or sharpening rocks. It doesn't matter how powerful, stable, beneficial, or otherwise the old system was. It has been super-ceded by something that outcompetes it.

That's reality. I hope that you and others like you realize it and have a prosperous life.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#155

Post by munksbeer »

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?

Are you talking about a stablecoin crypto? Because why would I buy tokens on a chain where the value of the tokens can change wildly from day to day? How do the services that accept those tokens value them and charge appropriately?

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#156

Post by dlubarov »

topranks wrote: post #151
dlubarov wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

PoS is sort of hard to bootstrap. ETH moved to it which was quite an achievement, but it’s difficult to see how it might have started that way. If Bitcoin fails then it seems to me the bottom will fall out of all of crypto So all of it still depends on PoW propping up BTC.

I wouldn't say there any major technical hurdles to bootstrapping PoS, the project just has to decide where the initial tokens should go - insiders, ICO, airdrops, etc. Many modern chains have been PoS from the start, like Cardano, Solana, Algorand, Avalanche, NEAR, etc.

Or do you mean in the sense that (some argue) the most fair way to do an initial token distribution is PoW with no premine?

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#157

Post by rollcat »

survirtual wrote: post #154
rollcat wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only fools would speak about crypto so confidently without doing a minimal investigation into its utility. Only fools would speak about a technological solution without understating the reality, that technology still leans on society, power structures, and ability to enforce laws. Civil disobedience works as a means to shift the rules, the balance of power; you can't maintain it perpetually. P2P eventually shifted…

Look, I know it is hard for an ego to hear the things I say and the way I say them sometimes. For that, I am sorry. But I am not arguing with you, I am informing you. Challenging media empires was child's play compared to challenging the world's financial system. Bitcoin has successfully illustrated a new and better way. Presidents have been killed for less. Civil rights activists have been killed for less. Bitcoin a…

I am not denying the transformative value. I am denying "inevitability".

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#158

Post by sigwinch »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #121
sigwinch wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not so sure I buy that. Do nondecreasing counts of NFTs and meme coins account for the psychological source of inflation?

Can’t say for the memecoins and NFTs — but when it goes from just bitcoin to hundreds of different competitive legit coins, that does seem like inflation of money supply.

Do Camel Cash and Marlboro Miles count toward inflation?

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#159

Post by int_19h »

topranks wrote: post #152
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.

Breaking the law in other words.

Yes. The point is that sometimes the law needs to be broken. Depending on where you live, this may even be true more often than not.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#160

Post by rimeice »

ionwake wrote: post #95
rimeice wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Probably the easiest and quickest way to get a read on everything that’s going on outside of tech and therefore understand the global context our industry sits in…

I prefer my own curated news sources that never required me to pay. I dont think Ive ever paid for an online newspaper.

Honestly, I would start. If we don’t support good journalism all we’ll be left with is twitter. God forbid.
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