Why I’m Cryptophobic • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#261

Post by yellowapple » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 6:21 PM UTC

noirbot wrote: post #251

yellowapple wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't really make much of a difference; "only give your banking info to those you highly trust and only if it's absolutely necessary" has been common sense for longer than the Internet has existed.

Is it? Cause a lot of stuff still happens by check even now, which literally has your name and your account and routing numbers just printed on it, which you used to order by sending all of that information via the mail to a random printing company. I already have to trust my power company, most of my credit cards, my ISP, my gas company, and my landlord with my bank info, all of which are probably less secure and tr…

Sure, but a check is at least ostensibly ephemeral (even if there's nothing preventing someone from jotting down the account/routing number), and there are legal protections against using that info for transactions other than that consented to on the check (hence the signature and memo line and such).

Contrast that with explicitly authorizing PornHub to withdraw from your account at their discretion, as is the case when you're giving them your account/routing number on a web form. That info then gets stored in some database.

And no, I don't give utility companies or landlords or what have you such authorization, either. I mail them a check (thereby not giving them cause to store the account info long-term and not giving them consent to auto-withdraw), or I use a credit or debit card (which I can dispute or change far more easily than I can a bank account). If they accepted cryptocurrencies, then I'd pick that over either of those options.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#262

Post by datadata » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 6:24 PM UTC

bendtheblock wrote: post #254

datadata wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever this comparison is drawn, it must also be pointed out that after the speculative bubble, the Netherlands has remained for centuries the center of a profitable and stable flower industry that was born in that time. The collapse was real and the speculation was real, but the emergence of a new industry was also real. This is also similar example to the dot com bubble.

nice rebuttal - but the "profitable and stable flower industry" is the trade of an underlying commodity with utility value i.e. the flowers. there is no such underlying asset with crypto. the part that is parallel is the rife speculation that left many bust.

Flowers were not a commodity before there was a market for them. Internet did not have commercial value before the speculative wave, in fact very little profits were made even by the end of the dot com boom. Agree there is rife speculation in crypto, but rife speculation does not prove that there won't be future sustained value. When dot com boom imploded it was because people similarly thought there was no value in the internet.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#263

Post by uoaei » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 6:25 PM UTC

tablespoon wrote: post #243

mjburgess wrote: post #4

There needs to be some basic economics here.. Money has value because of the value of the economic transactions in which its conducted. Government-backed currencies are forced to have value in the sense they force people to use it for their taxes. The US, additionally, forces the world to use it for oil trades. Value is in those economic transactions. A currency is just a "liquifying" of that value, to make it easier…

> The US, additionally, forces the world to use it for oil trades. That is not true. The US isn't forcing anyone to use the dollar, e.g.: https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-considers-acceptin...

Trusting the WSJ on this is like trusting Fox News to say that angry people on primetime TV with reactionary rhetoric doesn't have any effect on political discourse.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#264

Post by wmf » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 6:27 PM UTC

cowtools wrote: post #115

tromp wrote: post #36

> And similarly, crypto rewards its early followers and doesn’t promise an expanded pie, but a changing of the guard. Nearly all crypto does indeed concentrate wealth onto early adopters, by emitting the majority of supply in the first few years (or even all at launch). But fixing the block subsidy avoids such concentration, leaving most supply to later generations, much like gold. Such a purely linear emission deter…

I completely agree. Another thing I've been thinking about is this: What if, instead of creating inflation by adding new coins, you create "inflation" by directly decreasing the value of transaction outputs, and you just keep the coinbase reward constant? Depending on the model, you could make it so that outputs eventually go to zero, so they won't need to be recorded on the ledger forever. The old outputs just get g…

What if you create "inflation" by directly decreasing the value of transaction outputs

This is called demurrage and it's been discussed a few times. People find it very confusing when their wallet balance magically goes down but they find it less confusing when their balance stays constant but prices increase.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#265

Post by TrapLord_Rhodo » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 6:27 PM UTC

bendtheblock wrote: post #252

TrapLord_Rhodo wrote: post #238

The reason why me and my friends use crypto is simple. In the current financial system i give you ALL of my info and hope you don't rob me blind. In crypto i sent you money. Small distinction, but one that will be increasingly more important as we modernize.

I don't follow the automatic assumption that giving the info to centralised entity like a bank is bad? What is that you are fearing? And why is that more likely than Crypto sinking or going to zero, you losing your wallet key or someone hacking your wallet? Code is law - so you're left with nothing.

My point is that the current financial system is not secure in any sense. Why would i have to give you my entire credit card information to make a payment. Why are you 'pulling' money from my account instead of me sending it to you. Why have we failed to implement a public/private key relationship with our financial data?

>giving the info to centralised entity like a bank is bad?

Well my first and prime example would be to talk to any greek citizen during 2008. The goverment took a percent of all the citizens money to pay their debts. Countless credit card scams have happened because i am trusting all of my data on the cybersecurity of (Upwork, linkedin, outlook, google, tinder, etc. etc.) as you go down the list of entities with your full name, address, & credit card information you start to realize that you have lost control of your financial self-sovernty.

I've played this game with my friends and it's a fun one; Give me your full name and i can buy your information on the darknet, including current/ past credit card info, Social Security number, past addresses, past-employers, tax information, etc.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#266

Post by wmf » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 6:31 PM UTC

fleddr wrote: post #84

That article is a whole lot of words where it never really becomes very clear what the big "fear" is about, until we finally arrive at this: "A feudal system in which the masses are duped into farming the lands of their crypto overlords." Sounds quite a lot like our current system, but I digress. This fearful scenario requires the so-called hyperbitcoinization scenario where all of the world's wealth will be absorbed…

Even if crypto bandits skim 1% off the economy, that's too much.

But yeah, we need to give people alternatives to being poor forever or winning the lottery.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#267

Post by bendtheblock » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

datadata wrote: post #262

bendtheblock wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nice rebuttal - but the "profitable and stable flower industry" is the trade of an underlying commodity with utility value i.e. the flowers. there is no such underlying asset with crypto. the part that is parallel is the rife speculation that left many bust.

Flowers were not a commodity before there was a market for them. Internet did not have commercial value before the speculative wave, in fact very little profits were made even by the end of the dot com boom. Agree there is rife speculation in crypto, but rife speculation does not prove that there won't be future sustained value. When dot com boom imploded it was because people similarly thought there was no value in…

Flowers are used for decoration, dies, teas, scents. Sometimes they may be overvalued.

Crypto doesn't have any underlying value. It's just greater fool investing, there is no underlying cashflow, asset or company. Future cash flow comes from greater fools buying in.

When you say "the internet" I think you mean the wave of web1 companies? Same as flowers above, there are real uses and value creation, which can be priced in many ways.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#268

Post by jrm4 » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

A great deal of the discussion here is surprisingly not smart because it's presuming that the current technical landscape is the forever technical landscape (i.e. mostly a presumption that looks like "Crypto, the entity, is just like BTC is today".).

I find it very strange because I feel like we've been able to do project out to "better working technology" quite well in the past. Supply and demand, y'all. Will at least some people have a use case for crypto? Yes. Can we use the example of bitcoin and other crypto's to relatively safely assume that in the future, there will be a cryptocurrency that more-or-less does what it says on the tin? I think it's silly not to.

START from that point in your discussions, because it's probably coming.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#269

Post by silentsea90 » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

Imagine a world where you live as a slave with your owner having rights over your time to the extent they'd like. That sucks. Well, fiat is that with the Govt stealing your productive time (since your time was spent on earning money) to the tune of 7-8% (officially) and likely 10-15% unofficially. This is in addition to 40% tax. You effectively spend 50% of your working time serving the Govt. Would you vote yes on sending troops to Iraq, funds to Ukraine, military industrial complex etc? That's how your time is "invested".

If a world where this is fixed invokes your phobia, good luck to you. Dare the Govt actually ask you for your money (instead of stealing it) for funding a war and we'll see how many wars we fight.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#270

Post by jrm4 » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #4

There needs to be some basic economics here.. Money has value because of the value of the economic transactions in which its conducted. Government-backed currencies are forced to have value in the sense they force people to use it for their taxes. The US, additionally, forces the world to use it for oil trades. Value is in those economic transactions. A currency is just a "liquifying" of that value, to make it easier…

Weird argument, you're presuming that it has no value today because it doesn't work YET. But, that's like the whole point of e.g. IPO's. People sometimes put money in something in the belief that it, or something related to it, will work later.