181–190 of 268 posts
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If your definition of money = using something for goods and services, the crypto has certainly exceeded that definition.
Yes that's why they accept it at Amazon and Alibaba right?
Or do you mean "money is what you can use to pay your taxes"? That works to exclude crypto, at least for most of the world.
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The problem is HN is an exhausting circular firing squad when it comes to crypto. I could extol the benefits of private currency on philosophical and moral grounds but this won’t convince a lot of people. So I try to put it in more concrete terms and then it’s either criticized or brushed off. If you believe as I do that government control of money is a mistake for many different reasons, then crypto is a revolutiona…
Let's assume XMR takes over the world and is the only currency in use. Who pays taxes?
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A part from the fact the he cited eth, that makes him not Bitcoin maximalist: he’s right. Also because the arguments are always the same and in this same thread we have one of the most voted comments saying that the idea behind Bitcoin is “stupid”. Just that. But it’s fine since we’re in HN, isn’t it?
Again, there are no substantive arguments in his post or yours. I'm willing to listen to where he's wrong, but saying it's due to a lack of understanding ain't it chief.
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Let's assume XMR takes over the world and is the only currency in use. Who pays taxes?
Who pays taxes on cash income?
2. There is a cap on how much cash you can use in a transaction, in the West at least.
3. If XMR replaced fiat, ALL transactions would be anonymous.
Crypto recreates everything Bitcoin was supposed to prevent. 1. Tether: infinite money printer central bank 2. Exchanges: banks 3. Binance: too big to fail 4. BSC shitcoins: fully centralized currency
On the other hand, unlike the actual infinite money printer central bank, nobody forces you to use obvious scams like tether. You don't need to use a centralised exchange because smart contracts make it possible to use decentralised exchanges. Smart contracts allow you to do things on a small scale that would have required enormous institutions in the past. The ability for any individual to create their own tokens obviously allows institutions to do it too.
Since cryptocurrencies are more powerful than previous systems, it shouldn't be surprising that they support a superset of the scams that previously ran.
They also support an unprecedented level of programmability, default to open api access, a new spectrum of choices for trust, the ability to run transactions across financial products from different providers, faster settlement, are based on actually modern methods of cryptography (unlike bank accounts), and have injected a massive amount of energy into some extremely interesting zero knowledge cryptography.
It's actually pretty surprising to me that the majority of 'hackers' on 'hackernews' don't seem more excited about the ability to create programmable tokens of their own.
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I mean communism looks pretty cool on paper too, the actual idea. But we seem to have had a real hard time implementing it. Could crypto be like that?
Tbf, we dont have that many examples of people trying. Communism sucked in russia, but its not like they are that much better under capitalism.
Australia, Sweden, Norway have been much better examples. Though their secret has been to not call it Communism/Socialism but instead something like "liberal democracy" or "democratic socialism".
Agree there is propaganda war that has been waged to ensure communism looks bad... which is why it's potentially a good parallel for crypto, as I think (potentially even literally not just metaphorically) the same vested interests are against it.
The success of crypto is very strange/alien to me. The scam seems so obvious, and yet it "works". I guess that I tend to underestimate how many people love gambling with money and/or are attracted to get-rich-quick schemes. There is seemingly also a small fraction of true believers, idealists and evangelists who seem convinced that all of this could replace both states and banks without ending up much worse.
It always surprises me how a tech/startup oriented forum like HN is so negative towards crypto. I think it's insane that someone invented an algorithm to transfer value over the internet, without the involvement of a central party. Basically as soon as it has a tiny bit of value, you can transfer it, and so it has value. It goes so far that you could store the private key in your head, and therefore use your head as…
Maybe because people here are more likely to understand it?
Edit: added a missing quote
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I mean communism looks pretty cool on paper too, the actual idea. But we seem to have had a real hard time implementing it. Could crypto be like that?
Capitalism looks bad on paper and we are having hellish landscape in it and pretend it’s working. Cryptocurrencies current landscape is just same as the current financial system indeed. Cypherpunk ideals are long gone.
(Also just to point out, Communism isn't an "alternative" to capitalism, but actually the conclusion to it... on paper) - That is, even if you're right, Capitalism is required to achieve communism... so it seems "hellscape" is the only way.