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Why All Cryptocurrency Should Die in a Fire

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Re: Why All Cryptocurrency Should Die in a Fire

#231

Post by polygamous_bat »

basisword wrote: post #113
wlll wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm rather mistrustful of people that are this forthy about being against a new technology. I don't really give a crap about what people do or don't do with new technology, ultimately what people want to spend their time and money on is up to them. However, "Crypto" is different. If all it was was just the unbelievably irritating crypto bros rug pulling, ponzi scheming, wash trading, ugly NFT shilling and hacking a…

>> 1) a very serious climate crisis 2) a cost of living crisis where people can't afford energy to cook and heat (in the UK at least) and 3) a war that would likely be brought to a stop sooner if we could phase out Russian gas sooner. All of these things are the result of bad governing, not crypto. Maybe banning crypto would help them (I don’t believe that) but banning lots of other things would also help. What we re…

> The vitriol in some of the replies to this is fascinating. Did you all just lose a fortune in the crypto crash or something

Ah, the "have fun staying poor" argument of "y'all are salty you missed out". Is it really inconceivable for you that some people may have (a) concern for a massive, energy guzzling Ponzi scheme (b) that just this week was revealed to cause "billions" in losses in others in their society (c) that they have been calling out for months and have only gotten vitriol for?

No, their pockets must have been directly hurt to be this salty. It's not like people are capable of having intelligence, empathy, or a desire to build a better world if it doesn't line their pockets, right?

Re: Why All Cryptocurrency Should Die in a Fire

#232

Post by charcircuit »

>you cannot store cryptocurrency on an internet-connected computer. Because what will happen is, if your computer ever gets compromised, all your money gets stolen and there’s nothing you can do about it.

This is the point of having a hardware wallet. Someone has to push a physical button in the real world to sign a transaction.

>And [ransomware] only exists because people can pay in Bitcoin.

The concept of ransoms predates cryptocurrency and would still exist without it.

>And my gain is not just the difference between what I bought it for and what somebody else bought it for, but that plus the benefit of all the dividends and interest.

Stocks aren't guaranteed to just go up. If your stocks even pay dividends that might not even cover your losses.

>So the stock market and the bond market are a positive-sum game.

The stock market isn't positive sum. Someone is going to be holding the bag when a company goes out of business.

>but [Tether] does have the potential for bank runs causing collapse, because it’s unbacked.

This is false. See https://tether.to/en/transparency/

>Tether tokens, loans them to their big colleagues in the cryptocurrency space

See the above link. Their reserves aren't made up those kinds of loans.

>The cost of a transaction in cryptocurrency systemically is the amount being used to protect it.

This isn't true. If I charge $100 per transaction that doesn't mean that $100 of that goes towards protecting it.

>So let’s do programs that cannot be updated that handle mone

This isn't true. Smart contacts get updated all of the time.

>There’s no mechanism to fix problems if they occur. There’s no undo button. In fact, there’s often no way to upgrade at all.

This is just plain wrong. You can even make upgrades which are delayed that you can potentially cancel to prevent from being applied.

Re: Why All Cryptocurrency Should Die in a Fire

#233

Post by polygamous_bat »

fsociety999 wrote: post #169
wlll wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm rather mistrustful of people that are this forthy about being against a new technology. I don't really give a crap about what people do or don't do with new technology, ultimately what people want to spend their time and money on is up to them. However, "Crypto" is different. If all it was was just the unbelievably irritating crypto bros rug pulling, ponzi scheming, wash trading, ugly NFT shilling and hacking a…

> All things that could be alleviated if "Crypto" and it's so-far intangible benefits were to dissapear. This is pretty shallow thinking. I’m sure the traditional banking system uses orders of magnitude more energy than crypto, but you don’t hear about that cause the “studies” about crypto energy use are funded by people who benefit from maintaining the status quo. In fact, you will notice most of the studies critica…

> If anything, crypto will actually help SOLVE the problem sooner by creating real economic incentives to use cheaper and cleaner energy.

Do you understand how markets work? What's disincentivizing the current energy users from seeking out cheaper and cleaner energy? Why would we have to invent a new coal-chugging[1] ponzi scheme to kick off that search?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/18/bitcoin-m...

Re: Why All Cryptocurrency Should Die in a Fire

#234

Post by MerelyMortal »

binarymax wrote: post #100
lordofgibbons wrote: post #10

I will gladly stop using Monero if someone can tell me how to privately transact over the internet without CC companies (and others) spying on me and selling my data. Until there is a better solution, I'll keep using it.

The privacy is a myth, if you want to actually use the cryptocurrency to pay for things in the real world. If you pay fiat to get monero, the exchange has your info. If you cash out monero for fiat to buy something, the exchange has your info. The wallet and transaction in chain are permanent in the ledger. So where is the privacy?

I don't mind the company I'm buying an item from to know my name and where I live to send it to me. I do mind if they have the ability to look up my address balance or past transactions to other entities.

(Why I support Monero over Bitcoin.)

Re: Why All Cryptocurrency Should Die in a Fire

#235

Post by dathinab »

ur-whale wrote: post #184
stefano wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> three to seven transactions per second, but with a centralized trusted entity The byzantine generals problem doesn't apply when you have trusted entities.

> when you have trusted entities. Except for the minor detail that you never do.

No, from a legal/state POV you do have enough trust.

Perfect solutions do not matter.

The only thing which matters is good enough solutions.

For a state (i.e. most states in the current world) federated validators are good enough.

And systems which go beyond that (wrt. byzantine generals problem) have properties states tend to not want.

(I'm not judging if it's ethical good or bad.)

Re: Why All Cryptocurrency Should Die in a Fire

#236

Post by polygamous_bat »

fartcannon wrote: post #175
noasaservice wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're the ones buying abandoned oil wells and coal power plants and starting them back up for more shitcoin. Of course, the externality is shoved on ALL of us with worsening environment, climate crisis, higher cost of electronics to do *real* work (no, your 10^15 hashes where -1+10^15 are thrown out IS NOT REAL WORK). I hope EVERY shitcoin peddler loses everything.

Sounds like a good reason to ban oil and coal eh.

I agree! Let's start with the most useless "use" first, AKA crypto, and then once we have precedent we move into more and more uses.

Re: Why All Cryptocurrency Should Die in a Fire

#237

Post by MerelyMortal »

gassit wrote: post #90
McDyver wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good you live somewhere where hiding your sexuality is not an issue. But, for argument's sake let's say you can be put in jail or killed for your sexuality. You want to buy something from a specific store that caters exclusively to your sexual preferences. The CC company sells that to your government (or another entity wanting to enforce that), then you are arrested or killed, or you family harassed.

A very serious concern and I completely agree. However, it also seems like the kind of government that would have you arrested, killed or family harassed for shopping at a particular store probably wouldn’t permit that kind of particular store? Again, it’s a valid concern but the GP was about real world use cases and it seems that’s not really one? And if this is the concern why not use cash or monero or whatever for…

Perhaps you were visiting a nearby state our country when you shopped at that store.

Perhaps the person didn't realize it would be an issue. Perhaps they bought something ancillary and they're not that store's main target customer.

Re: Why All Cryptocurrency Should Die in a Fire

#238

Post by seanhunter »

civil_engineer wrote: post #154
ephbit wrote: post #149

> WEAVER: Yes. So let’s take the cost of a transaction. The cost of a transaction in cryptocurrency systemically is the amount being used to protect it. I could build a system that would have the same throughput as Bitcoin, three to seven transactions per second, but with a centralized trusted entity. In fact, not even a centralized trusted entity. Ten trusted entities, only six of which need to be honest, because I…

You could substitute “trusted entities” for “banks”. Get ten banks on board, buy them each a raspberry pi, and you are up and running.

How do get the banks on board? Remember you only have the energy of a lightbulb between all of them and no way to pay them without incurring structural transaction fees of the sort the FA is claiming are solvable by this solution. Also remember the banks actively distrust each other and spend literally all day every day in every one of their businesses trying to beat each other in every possible legal/ethical way (and also sometimes some illegal/unethical ones). It seems somewhat implausible that out of the goodness of their collective hearts they will all decide to run your raspberry pi, play nice with one another and do the right thing.

Some problems are super easy to handwave away in theory but actually pretty difficult to solve in practise.

Re: Why All Cryptocurrency Should Die in a Fire

#239

Post by kkfx »

My own personal opinion on cryptos is that they are a tentative by some GAFAM to overtake banks at their own game, considering that as actual "fiat" money cryptos are "virtual values, substrate of anything" witch appear to be free but due to their mechanics are bound to network and computing power witch means to some IT-enabled subjects, so in practice as free as fiat currencies these days for their "end users", and "a bit more free" for "real owners".

However as any "money" concept rooted on "money is the value" instead of "money is just an unit of measure of some substrate" are no more scam than actual currencies, should face the same fate anyway.

Re: Why All Cryptocurrency Should Die in a Fire

#240

Post by MerelyMortal »

aww_dang wrote: post #84
McDyver wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good you live somewhere where hiding your sexuality is not an issue. But, for argument's sake let's say you can be put in jail or killed for your sexuality. You want to buy something from a specific store that caters exclusively to your sexual preferences. The CC company sells that to your government (or another entity wanting to enforce that), then you are arrested or killed, or you family harassed.

"There's nothing wrong with creeping authoritarianism because I currently agree with the authorities." "There's no need for privacy because I have nothing to hide."

or "I agree with the current authorities."
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