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I wasted years of my life in crypto

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Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#251

Post by fpoling »

nout wrote: post #99
Nextgrid wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because in practice services like TransferWise solved this problem using fiat currencies with fees low enough not to make it worth bothering with crypto.

For larger amounts it makes sense to use the bitcoin rails for international transfers. I'm doing bank to bank international transfers and using bitcoin saves around 3% compared to Wise and you get the money immediately (or within 1hr, depending on what you use).

Few years ago I needed to transfer a big sum from a Scandinavian country into Euro. The official bank exchange rate plus fees was worse than Wise’s. But I asked the bank and the bank gave me an exchange rate that was like 0.1% better than one from wise.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#252

Post by dimensional_dan »

ikt wrote: post #67
TrackerFF wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for me, the big selling point was being able to send money fast and relatively cheap. Back then you either had PayPal, or wire transfer. PP could easily freeze and hold your money over whatever issues, while bank transfer was slow. And, mind you, I only purchased/sold legal stuff.

Yep, that's what I thought nano had done: https://nano.org/en instant, fee's a fraction of a cent, I thought this was it, international payments that don't rely on visa/mastercard! and then it just went no where :\

Turns out nobody is actually interested in transacting with crypto otherwise Nano would have been a winner. I also love Banano, a Nano fork where you mine by folding proteins. Work that has actual value.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#253

Post by tormeh »

spicyusername wrote: post #9

I've never understood the initial arguments about Bitcoin, no matter how many times they've been explained to me. The block chain is, and always was, an extremely inconvenient database. How anyone, especially many intelligent people, thought it was realistic to graft a currency on top of such a unwieldy piece of technology is beyond me. Maybe it goes to show how few people understand economics and anthropology and ho…

I think block chains are inherently fine. The issue with bitcoin is that it isn't inflationary. Yes, yes, the supply increases over time, but that's also true for gold, and I've yet to hear anyone call gold inflationary. If a declining unit value is not guaranteed over time then it cannot be used as a currency and just becomes a savings vehicle / speculative asset. This is why all central banks aim for inflation. Try telling the true believers this and they'll reply with something about "sound money", seemingly nostalgic for the gold standard or something. It's rather disheartening.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#254

Post by pfortuny »

serial_dev wrote: post #43
spicyusername wrote: post #9

I've never understood the initial arguments about Bitcoin, no matter how many times they've been explained to me. The block chain is, and always was, an extremely inconvenient database. How anyone, especially many intelligent people, thought it was realistic to graft a currency on top of such a unwieldy piece of technology is beyond me. Maybe it goes to show how few people understand economics and anthropology and ho…

Blockchain is a very inconvenient database, for sure, but there is a good reason Bitcoin uses it. It had to solve to double spend problem and create a trustless p2p digital cash, while being censorship resistant and having no central authority. Some people around a decade ago started using blockchain for everything where a SQLite db would have been better, because blockchain was the buzzword around that time, and the…

It may be money, but it is definitely not cash. Cash is completely anonymous, BTC is not.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#255

Post by stavros »

GRiMe2D wrote: post #237
solumunus wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can send a billion dollars to someone in Uganda with no intermediary or oversight. This was not only impossible before but most likely would never have been a possibility. Being able to hold massive amounts of value in the ether and control it from anywhere, you don’t find that impressive? Sure, this is mostly used for nefarious activities, but let’s not pretend it’s solving no problems. It’s incredibly difficult t…

Okay, let's image that I've sent you 100 BTC. Now, can you tell me how exactly you would convert the "money" I've sent you into bread and milk? Because, most of the time people say that just in the context of the blockchain. In that sense I can also say that you can control vast majority of money by just having knife and glove skins in Steam (for the game Counter Strike). You also can trade/send/receive. But the mome…

Yes, you convert them into bread and milk the same way you convert little pieces of paper into bread and milk: You find someone who's willing to give you bread and milk in return for them.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#256

Post by spankibalt »

> "I was a politically motivated person when I was a teenager. Of all the books that radicalized me, it was the Aynd Rand books (Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged) that did."

A heartfelt "Thank you!" to Ken on account of having at least the courtesy of saving cool people's time by putting the Origin Story into the first sentences.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#257

Post by AnthonyMouse »

fsh wrote: post #59
spicyusername wrote: post #9

I've never understood the initial arguments about Bitcoin, no matter how many times they've been explained to me. The block chain is, and always was, an extremely inconvenient database. How anyone, especially many intelligent people, thought it was realistic to graft a currency on top of such a unwieldy piece of technology is beyond me. Maybe it goes to show how few people understand economics and anthropology and ho…

It's an ingenious solution to achieve a "trustless" currency that prevents double-spending without a central authority. Unfortunately, this solves the wrong problem. Spending money usually involves getting a good or service in return, which inherently requires "trust" (as does any human interaction). Your fancy blockchain is not going to help you if you order something with Bitcoin and no package arrives.

> Unfortunately, this solves the wrong problem. Spending money usually involves getting a good or service in return, which inherently requires "trust" (as does any human interaction). Your fancy blockchain is not going to help you if you order something with Bitcoin and no package arrives.

That problem already has solutions. The problems cryptocurrency is supposed to solve are, I want to buy subversive literature from someone I already trust not to rip me off, or for an amount I'm not worried about losing, without anyone requiring me to give them a government ID. Or I want to sell it to people without requiring them to give anyone an ID. I want to donate money to Wikileaks. I want to commission art or software from someone in South America who doesn't have access to US banks. I have the same name as someone on a list and I want a way to move money without the government ruining my life. I live in an oppressive country and I want to finance the rebellion, or buy contraception or some other thing which is banned by the baddies when it ought not to be.

It's for doing the things where the existing system fails you, not the things where it works. But it can do those things too. Cash works the same way. You're not worried about a restaurant stealing your money because by the time you pay them you've already eaten. You're not worried about Newegg sending you a brick with "lol" written on it instead of a GPU because they're a well-known company and if they did that it would cost them more in damage to their reputation than they'd gain from the theft and people would sue them independent of payment method.

You don't always need your trust in other people to come from the payment system when it can come from a dozen other things instead.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#258

Post by littlestymaar »

spankibalt wrote: post #256

> "I was a politically motivated person when I was a teenager. Of all the books that radicalized me, it was the Aynd Rand books (Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged) that did." A heartfelt "Thank you!" to Ken on account of having at least the courtesy of saving cool people's time by putting the Origin Story into the first sentences.

That John Rogers' quote hits the mark again: “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#259

Post by roncesvalles »

kaluga wrote: post #213

The most interesting insight here isn’t “crypto bad,” but how years in a speculation-first ecosystem warp your intuition for what real value looks like. When incentives reward casinos over products, even talented builders end up optimizing for the wrong game. That lesson applies far beyond crypto.

They optimized for the right game: making themselves as much money as possible.

There are builders and there are opportunists. The builder's goal is to build something useful. Often the most useful things that you can build are not going to earn you a single dollar, but a builder will still go ahead and build it.

The opportunist is just trying to make personal wealth, which could come from the pockets of end customers, or investors, or other speculators (the "greater fools").

A lot of people made a lot of money from crypto and blockchain, even if ultimately almost everything built in this ecosystem is inconsequential trash.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#260

Post by bialpio »

TrackerFF wrote: post #61
spicyusername wrote: post #9

I've never understood the initial arguments about Bitcoin, no matter how many times they've been explained to me. The block chain is, and always was, an extremely inconvenient database. How anyone, especially many intelligent people, thought it was realistic to graft a currency on top of such a unwieldy piece of technology is beyond me. Maybe it goes to show how few people understand economics and anthropology and ho…

At least for me, the big selling point was being able to send money fast and relatively cheap. Back then you either had PayPal, or wire transfer. PP could easily freeze and hold your money over whatever issues, while bank transfer was slow. And, mind you, I only purchased/sold legal stuff.

This is only a selling point in places like USA. Even before moving to the USA 13 years ago I was able to send money via wire transfer domestically for free, and it settled within 1 business day (to me that's fast enough). IIUC nowadays intra-EU wire transfers also are free (but I kinda view them as "domestic"), however I'm not sure how quickly they settle. The way how banking worked in the US was definitely one of the biggest culture shocks I've experienced when moving (and not in a positive way).
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