Crypto needs to solve a problem. I think cryptocurrencies should focus on making a cheap currency that people can actually use. requirements: - low transaction costs - low volatility - many places where you can pay with it - secure - privacy - no tax problems - fast transactions - handle fraud - scalable If a crypto currency can solve above points by cutting out the middle man and making transactions virtually free i…
Card payments are expensive for multiple reasons, the biggest one is that it involves multiple trusted peers that will refund your money if anything goes wrong.
And to be fair, EU regulations have very successfully brought these fees to about half of the typical market-driven price we see in other parts of the world. I'm not saying they cannot be decreased even further, and the EPI was created specifically for that, but you cannot deny the situation in Europe isn't too bad.
Providing one-way, immutable money transfers is inherently cheap. Even SEPA transfers, which are reversible in some cases, are incredibly cheap. As you listed yourself, if you need to handle fraud with low transaction costs, that instantly discards permissionless blockchains; you're essentially going back to a centralized, federated network of trusted peers.
Easily the best take posted here in a while. These are money games. And if you think this will be a minor sector of the economy, look at Wall Street - there is huge demand for these types of games, and that's when only people with $1+ million in net worth can really play. Now anyone can play, at the same time that traditional paths to wealth are stagnating or closing off completely.
> Now anyone can play, at the same time that traditional paths to wealth...
the association of wealth with "playing" is very much a metastasis of the old system masqeurading as some sort of innovation. this is not wealth creation, this is zero sum games robbing orphans and widows. be my guest "playing" and feeling smug about it, but lets not rewritte the meaning of words
actually that strongest hint that crypto as it stands is an ugly distraction is that there is no real wealth creation associated with it. as in: a real economic activity (that is kosher) that has been enabled by it while it was prevented by fiat currency systems
Just like that, “fix” production? Wow, glad to know you have the global carbon emissions problem in hand! Back in the real world, until we have actually got that problem in hand, PoW cryptocurrencies are a huge extra amount of consumption, where we already have more consumption than green energy producers can keep up with. And now crypto miners are bringing decommissioned fossil fuel plants back on line in some place…
I’m not a fan of the fossil power plants coming online, but this is one small example. Many fossil fuel plants actually increased production during the pandemic too. Nuclear plants were taken offline too. But this is not cryptocurrency to blame. The fundamental disconnect here is that you want to tell people how they can and can’t use energy. That’s authoritarian nonsense and I reject your wishes. I am saying use it…
Green and crypto are incompatible ideas. You don't waste for the sake of wasting when you're looking to be green.
I don't understand how any take on crypto can not mention that it is now the de-facto currency of online black markets, from pornhub to silk road 9.0 or whatever version we're up to. This is crypto's utility and the only thing I've seen crypto being used for seriously that isn't speculation. Cryptocurrency is disrupting the black markets the same way amazon/ebay/online shopping disrupted the retail markets. Crypto is…
Speculation is a use case and a market too
How easy is it to convert gains back into fiat though?
Governments collected taxes on cash and non-fiat for millenia (and still do so), they will have no issues taxing crypto if they need to.
But at much lower rates. Taxes as a % of GDP didn't exceed 10% in the USA until WW1: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Federal%... You can see other spikes related to other wars. Wars sure are great if you want to expand Government power and taxation over your own citizenry!
Also if you want to build and maintain infrastructure and social services.
50% of healthcare costs are incurred in the final 5 years of life, and in much of the world private healthcare is accepted and efficient. I'd rather euthanize myself at age 80 and pay much lower taxes throughout my adult life than die at age 85 in a gold-plated Government hospital. Sanitation and public transport can be directly charged to end-users based on usage. Education can be funded with land value taxes. Feder…
> in much of the world private healthcare is accepted and efficient. It is accepted in many parts of the world, unfortunately, but in what part of the world is it "efficient"? Can you give an example? Is "basic medicine costing $500 (see insulin) to the few that can afford it and the rest dying because they can't access it" what you define as efficient? > I'd rather euthanize myself at age 80 and pay much lower taxes…
> So the rich should get clean streets and running water while the poor walk on their own shit?
That's a pretty accurate depiction of the US. Seattle at least
Ethereum uses pow. Their pos mechanism doesn't work and is a perpetual coming soon promise
The transition is not straightforward, and with what's at stake they absolutely need to take their time to get it right; they only get one chance. I don't really use Ethereum, but I commend the devs for recognizing the problem years ago (before I was even aware of it) and taking steps to remedy the situation. In the short-term, yes, it is incredibly wasteful (though recent changes have disincentivized mining somewhat…
They need a working theory for how this PoS will work first. Wishful thinking and handwaving does not equal theory. PoW is the only tech that has solved the problem so far. Many things were tried before bitcoin with no results
Crypto needs to solve a problem. I think cryptocurrencies should focus on making a cheap currency that people can actually use. requirements: - low transaction costs - low volatility - many places where you can pay with it - secure - privacy - no tax problems - fast transactions - handle fraud - scalable If a crypto currency can solve above points by cutting out the middle man and making transactions virtually free i…
Card payments are expensive for multiple reasons, the biggest one is that it involves multiple trusted peers that will refund your money if anything goes wrong. And to be fair, EU regulations have very successfully brought these fees to about half of the typical market-driven price we see in other parts of the world. I'm not saying they cannot be decreased even further, and the EPI was created specifically for that,…
I Agree that the situation in Europe is not too bad. Still I can see a situation where some cryptocurrency pushes transaction prices down for regular payments (maybe without handling fraud, because it is a smaller problem with smaller transactions?).
But none of the cryptocurrencies are there yet, and maybe it will never happen.
Easily the best take posted here in a while. These are money games. And if you think this will be a minor sector of the economy, look at Wall Street - there is huge demand for these types of games, and that's when only people with $1+ million in net worth can really play. Now anyone can play, at the same time that traditional paths to wealth are stagnating or closing off completely.
> Now anyone can play, at the same time that traditional paths to wealth... the association of wealth with "playing" is very much a metastasis of the old system masqeurading as some sort of innovation. this is not wealth creation, this is zero sum games robbing orphans and widows. be my guest "playing" and feeling smug about it, but lets not rewritte the meaning of words actually that strongest hint that crypto as it…
Sure, I see you saying there’s no “real value” here. I get where you’re coming from, there’s no clear output of value the way we think about it sometimes. For years, even owning tokens, I was torn by this dichotomy. There’s no real value being produced…yet they’re transacting millions of dollars, and now billions, and now trillions. It was hard for me to reconcile that. What gives? I would ask you to consider your definition of real value. If you also advocate for the shuttering of high frequency trading firms, investment banks, and quant desks the world over, then fine, I respect your take. But people want to speculate and play zero sum games. Is what Wall Street does “real” to you? I don’t mean giving out loans. I mean the rampant trillions of dollars worth of speculation that is the real bedrock of what they do. Why does something have to provide “real value” to exist? Close all the poker tables, lotteries, casinos, stock exchanges. What this whole saga has actually made me think is, what is “real value”? Why does this feel different to you? It took me some time to recognize, this is real for many people. That’s all the value that’s needed. Again, the article points that out pretty well I think. And finally, the usage of the phrase “widows and orphans” feels a bit extreme.
I've just read the intro, but imo the PRIMARY reason for the hype is simply money. People got rich off of crypto. Rich people that want to get richer simply pay people to hype up crypto (and stonks). And like the 2016 elections, this hype ended up having a snowball effect with people who do not get paid for it hopping onto the hype train to generate more hype. I'm not saying crypto is some fad or whatever, I'm just n…