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You Can Forget About Crypto Now

theatlantic.com

221–230 of 238 posts

Re: You Can Forget About Crypto Now

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh the privilege of not living under an authoritarian government combined with the arrogance to believe your government will never turn on you... Crypto is no more of a Ponzi Scheme than Fiat currency is, the big difference is Fiat currency is back by threats of violence (aka government).

> Crypto is no more of a Ponzi Scheme than Fiat currency is, the big difference is Fiat currency is back by threats of violence (aka government). "Fiat" currency has a lot of people overseeing it, and armies protecting it. I'll take that over SBF any day. Even with fiat's issues--for example, with a stroke of a pen, Biden can print and confiscate money and transfer it to privileged college borrowers, causing inflatio…

>> is slowing the process down

>>>

Fact Check: False.... not slowing down at all... US Government spending is still extreme irresponsible and fast approaching insolvency... but hey the courts stopped a 0.0000015% increase so yea.....

Re: You Can Forget About Crypto Now

#222
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since day one, honestly. Otherwise most people here would have stuck $100 in to BTC at $10.

> Otherwise most people here would have stuck $100 in to BTC at $10. Bwahahaha! You guys really need some humility, you'd think the stock market and by extension your collective portfolios, but particularly tech growth stocks losing +60% (including FAANGS) would do it, but until you guys get rolled into the mass tech layoffs and get a taste of what living precariously due to extermal economic crisis' is like will you…

You describe the current entrenched system with such horror which… well, a bit one sided but not complete wrong either.

The only problem is that it’s displacement by a market resembling the crypto one currently in collapse would be worse in every single way.

Just take investment portfolio loss that you mention: a tech heavy portfolio that lost 60% this year, if the investor is long anyway, may recover a bit or completely by the time they need to cash out. I’m far ahead of any temporary losses over the decades.

In contrast, even a portfolio long on crypto is still irrevocably (mostly or completely) gone if it was held at the FTX exchange.

Turns out “too big to fail” may actually be a bit of a bug and a feature, while crypto has, for the foreseeable future, demonstrated it’s simply not worth saving. Considering the contagion FTX will have, it should be concerning that Binance might simply not have been stable enough itself to step in. It should concern anyone with holdings with Binance that they made such a big deal about stepping in and then backed out, possibly just could handle it on top of their own shaky foundation.

Maybe some current coins should have a future but the entire ecosystem surrounding them is rotten and needs to be torn down, the ground salted, and then filled with people less blinded by hype and shiny tech and more understanding of how a financial system interfaces with a real world economy and, the masses of people live in it every single day.

Re: You Can Forget About Crypto Now

#223
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DEX are working nicely and constantly improving. Today, CEX are only useful for on/off ramp of fiat.

The high fees made DEX impractical

there are cheap networks. Solana seems nice (except their developer documentation is so godfuckingly shitful, that I haven't seen anything this bad and I'm doing this shit for 10+ years, and even OpenStack, early Kubernetes and whatnot was easier to understand and better documented).

Re: You Can Forget About Crypto Now

#224

I can't imagine this ageing well. It doesn't feel different. The evangelists will hurt and the whole crypto industry is set back, the cynics gloat and revel in the schadenfreude and claim for the 748th time that crypto is dead... Until 12 months later when we do it all over again. It's not the biggest, it's not the first, it won't be the last, it's nowhere near the most catastrophic. At least let the dust settle befo…

when we do it all over again.

I think that by itself undermines you all on its own. There are some unique aspects here— crypto had been getting a bit more mainstream credibility and it will take long to rebuild than it did to build, but, as you said, the cycle will only repeat, and every time the collapses get bigger. Totalling up the last few months is topping $2Trillion.

If something is going to change there needs to be a fundamental reassessment of both the tech and the philosophy driving things.

Re: You Can Forget About Crypto Now

#225
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point made in this article applies to your first point - companies like FTX playing fast and loose can tank your value even if you are playing as your own bank. Not using their custody doesn’t fully protect you from their actions. Cryptocurrency does not settle instantaneously, in fact credit cards are usually faster. Nobody is “waiting” for settlement. The transaction is done very fast. Defi collateralised loans…

> Not using their custody doesn’t fully protect you from their actions. Sure, but this is market risk, not counter-party risk, and is unmitigated in traditional markets as well. Just look at how Apple stock was affected by Lehman Brothers’ failure. > Cryptocurrency does not settle instantaneously, in fact credit cards are usually faster. Come again? If you pay me for goods using crypto, I can spend that money immedia…

> market risk

Yep, but with cryptocurrency the entire market is a shitshow. Unless you can somehow prevent these folks from playing their games, you haven’t improved upon the situation you complain about.

> Can a merchant spend its customers’ money immediately after running the credit card? No.

I see you’ve never used Square, the answer is “Yes”

> Particular cases

There was the near-collapse of Solend, and shenanigans around it earlier in the year. Looks like they had another problem with bad debt due to oracle manipulation recently too. BendDAO, had issues earlier in the year.

Moola Market and Mango Market both experienced some sort of collateral manipulation attack that drained reserves.

New Free DAO lost a million or so in a flash loan attack… There have been a lot.

Re: You Can Forget About Crypto Now

#227

I can't imagine this ageing well. It doesn't feel different. The evangelists will hurt and the whole crypto industry is set back, the cynics gloat and revel in the schadenfreude and claim for the 748th time that crypto is dead... Until 12 months later when we do it all over again. It's not the biggest, it's not the first, it won't be the last, it's nowhere near the most catastrophic. At least let the dust settle befo…

There's a limit though. All ponzi schemes eventually collapse because there's simply not enough people to scam again.

Re: You Can Forget About Crypto Now

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Otherwise most people here would have stuck $100 in to BTC at $10. Bwahahaha! You guys really need some humility, you'd think the stock market and by extension your collective portfolios, but particularly tech growth stocks losing +60% (including FAANGS) would do it, but until you guys get rolled into the mass tech layoffs and get a taste of what living precariously due to extermal economic crisis' is like will you…

You describe the current entrenched system with such horror which… well, a bit one sided but not complete wrong either. The only problem is that it’s displacement by a market resembling the crypto one currently in collapse would be worse in every single way. Just take investment portfolio loss that you mention: a tech heavy portfolio that lost 60% this year, if the investor is long anyway, may recover a bit or comple…

> You describe the current entrenched system with such horror which… well, a bit one sided but not complete wrong either.

Because one should, how we went from the 90s Cypherpunk culture taking over SV to this is abysmal situation is stark and it can be attributed to this vile outlook on 'the other' who in their view didn't work hard enough to get to the right university, learn o code and get the right degree to paper signal mega corps or time the many financial crisis that makes their economic outlook as bleak as it is--especially for millennials and gen z who were sold a lie about what university would entail and have so much unpayable debt regardless of the outcome.

> Just take investment portfolio loss that you mention: a tech heavy portfolio that lost 60% this year, if the investor is long anyway, may recover a bit or completely by the time they need to cash out. I’m far ahead of any temporary losses over the decades.

First, it's +60%, netflix is still the loss leader in FAANG and hit a low of -72% from it's ATH in the early summer; there is nothing good to say about META either or the rest. Since other than Apple, who really should suffer more from perpetual zero covid policy uncertainty in Schenzen, should also be hurting by now since the Chips being made in the US will likely require higher end costs for their devices, but some how isn't...proving that the stock market can stay irrational longer than one individual can stay solvent.

> In contrast, even a portfolio long on crypto is still irrevocably (mostly or completely) gone if it was held at the FTX exchange.

Sure, but that is like saying that the entire model behind investing in publicly traded companies is entirely worthless because Robinhood wouldn't let you buy Gamestop; when the culpability lies solely wit Robinhood or FTX and similair custodial exchanges in this specific case. The mantra is and always has been in the Bitcoin community that you can only own those tokens if you are in sole possession of the private keys, and the entire history of exit scams has proven why.

Evey new adoption phase has people who get into these things headlong without asking why/how they function, most get burned in the process but learn the value of monetary sovereignty in the process it's like a stupid tax of sort among those ready to take personal responsibility and it's who who ultimately benefit the most from this. Yield farming was the most blatantly criminal since ICOs and it's actually good that they're being destroyed, whether it was 3-arrows, Celsius, or now FTX.

Hell, I'm probably more critical than you as I want YC backed Coinbase to get destroyed, too because of how bad practices they have and what a net negative they have been in all but maybe the first years of their existence and have been mired with a legacy of perpetual incompetence and maliciousness.

> Turns out “too big to fail” may actually be a bit of a bug and a feature, while crypto has, for the foreseeable future, demonstrated it’s simply not worth saving. Considering the contagion FTX will have, it should be concerning that Binance might simply not have been stable enough itself to step in. It should concern anyone with holdings with Binance that they made such a big deal about stepping in and then backed out, possibly just could handle it on top of their own shaky foundation.

That's at best conjecture on your part, and I'm pretty sure you benefited from these bailouts if you feel that way, most of us didn't so maybe you can see why we hold such views. CZ is a conman, and if he says 'fundus are safu' and you believe it because you wanted to keep your funds on there for trading purposes that is YOUR fault, not anyone else's, much less the networks that still remain functional despite the increase or decrease of market volatility.

> Maybe some current coins should have a future but the entire ecosystem surrounding them is rotten and needs to be torn down, the ground salted, and then filled with people less blinded by hype and shiny tech and more understanding of how a financial system interfaces with a real world economy and, the masses of people live in it every single day.

Personally speaking, other than Bitcoin and a few privacy coins like Monero I don't see anything worth much in the crypto currency ecosystem, ETH and Vitalik have been running the same scam as FTX due to cult of personality; but that is fine if we believe in truly free-markets, experimentation in the market place of ideas is critical for innovation, which means many will fail. You make it sound like VC isn't playing the same same where 99% of all startups fail.

My main contentions is that the way most of you see FTX as a 'crypto bro' who pontificates about saving the World by yield farming, when most of us told people it's the stupidest way to get rug-pulled, is ironic because that is who most of the non-tech World views Silicon Valley. Hence the the 'making the World a better place' meme when the Valley is the utter epitome of the dystopic techonocracy that cyberpunk genre is based on: in short, FTX and SBF is a tech bro more than he ever was a valued member of the Bitcoin or any crypto currency community for that matter. Like I said, I thought he was going to end up in a CIA/FBI black-site when he got involved in lobbying politicians before I was informed of his family's connections, at which point it was clear the ilk that makes for Stanford-ites.

Re: You Can Forget About Crypto Now

#229
post #67

When they say "crypto", what do they mean. No, I understand that it's something to do with cryptocurrencies; but, confusingly, they must mean something more specific than that; because isn't bitcoin the OG of cryptocurrencies? And doesn't it still hold the promise of a parallel peer-to-peer non-inflationary currency, suitable for self-custody, which is totally orthogonal to the meltdown of a cryptoexchange? Does The…

> And doesn't it still hold the promise of a parallel peer-to-peer non-inflationary currency, suitable for self-custody, which is totally orthogonal to the meltdown of a cryptoexchange? The meltdown of FTX is not orthogonal to bitcoin, it's an outright vulnerability of the system. You can't have a crypto exchange crash without underlying crypto tokens, period. If you're going to argue the merits of the design of cryp…

> You can't have a crypto exchange crash without underlying crypto tokens, period.

It seems like it's missing a word to me: without underlying crypto tokens what? Being used, getting lost, being stolen. If they're just there then I don't understand.

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