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It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

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Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#271

Post by wmf »

meowkit wrote: post #64
skrebbel wrote: post #50

These two resonated with me: > A lot of intelligent observers look at cryptocurrency, see that it makes no sense, and reasonably infer that they must be missing something profound on the technical level. Tech culture has a nice tradition of not deriding new ideas, but we need to break it here and speak out > [non-tech people] don't see the huge silent majority of tech people who know it's a scam. That's on us It is o…

> I'm pretty sure it's nothing but a pyramid scheme, but I always gave the enthusiasts the benefit of the doubt. So go find out? I’m quoting you here for the “pretty sure” part. Do a deep dive. I’be done deep dives on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, Monero, Nano, Iota, Hyperledger, BSC, Uniswap, Tether, Chainlink and cursory glances at dozens of other coins/tokens. I’m a tech guy. I work on an operating system/embedded s…

I'm a tech guy. I've spent years experimenting with crypto and it isn't fit for any legitimate purpose.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#272

Post by zzzeek »

meowkit wrote: post #107
skrebbel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't the tech be neat/super cool and primarily be used to run a scam? I mean bittorrent is neat tech as well but it's still primarily used for piracy. Doing a deep dive into how bittorrent works doesn't suddenly change the fact that 99.9% of torrents out there are violating somebody's intellectual property. All I'm saying is, there's lots of super neat tech out there that's primarily used for not-so-super-neat s…

I disagree with the characterization that the primary use is a scam. That’s like saying the primary use of email is to receive ads and phishing mail.

it depends on how you count. if you measure "primary use of email" by number of emails, then yes spam wins out, but that's only because a tiny fraction of human users are sending out tens of millions of spams. if you measure "primary use of email" in terms of users, the vast majority of people who use email use it for useful, non spammy purposes. The same can't necessarily be said for cryptocurrencies, as far as trying to prove that cryptocurency has a large userbase that is not there just for speculation/inflation and/or illicit use cases.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#273

Post by idlewords »

c01n wrote: post #180
idlewords wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the author of the thread. For what it's worth, I grew up as a refugee whose mother had to find incredibly inventive ways to send USD to family back home, where it was illegal to possess. What I don't understand about the crypto remittances argument is how the people sending and receiving them are supposed to convert them into spendable currency. My hunch is that a lot of the value of cryptocurrency in those count…

> What I don't understand about the crypto remittances argument is how the people sending and receiving them are supposed to convert them into spendable currency. The final goal is not to be able to convert crypto to fiat, the goal is to keep everything in crypto. Do you think all this infrastructure is being build just to convert it back to fiat, what cypherpunks want is to destroy fiat.

I understand the final goal, but if I want to send my relative in Venezuela half my paycheck this week, how does she spend it on groceries and at the pharmacy before the Crypto Revolution comes?

Inevitably the answer is "some trusted third party" that turns it into a vanilla remittance.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#274

Post by synesso »

The Bitcoin whitepaper brought together a few existing technologies into something that had never before existed in the world - decentralised digital scarcity. This lead to a Cambrian explosion of new developments, most of which are pyramid schemes. But at its core, the invention is world-changing.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#275

Post by idlewords »

icelancer wrote: post #223
idlewords wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the author of the thread. For what it's worth, I grew up as a refugee whose mother had to find incredibly inventive ways to send USD to family back home, where it was illegal to possess. What I don't understand about the crypto remittances argument is how the people sending and receiving them are supposed to convert them into spendable currency. My hunch is that a lot of the value of cryptocurrency in those count…

>> What I don't understand about the crypto remittances argument is how the people sending and receiving them are supposed to convert them into spendable currency. For all the harsh words you posted without evidence, thankfully you've at least admitted you don't understand much. Your premise is that cryptocurrency is not "spendable currency" which is simply false. I pay people in hyperinflationary environments in cry…

How does their direct purchase work? How do I buy a pizza on the blockchain in a hyperinflationary country?

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#276

Post by lottin »

chrisco255 wrote: post #232
ashtonkem wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something being wrong with the economy doesn’t preclude Bitcoin from being a scam. That’s a false dilemma you’re proposing.

This, this is a scam: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL Notice the 5x supply increase without a corresponding 5x in economic efficiency. Bitcoin is what it is. It's worth what people think it's worth. Just like gold. Gold has minimal practical use in real life but it was used as a type of money off and on for 5000 years.

All money is worth what people think it's worth. Next question.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#277

Post by alkonaut »

ashtonkem wrote: post #69
char8 wrote: post #62

Seems lobsided. Sure Bitcoin suffers from high fees, but it serves well as a savings account. We've also started accepting litecoin payments on our site: I set it up once, and forgot about it. With Paypal it's a never-ending rigamarole. I've recently closed my bank account, and started using something a bit more up-to-date (Revolut). I believe Bitcoin is the single biggest innovation driver in the tech sector right n…

> I believe Bitcoin is the single biggest innovation driver in the tech sector right now Not gonna lie, I laughed at this.

I needed that too.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#278

Post by coliveira »

This is not even touching the fact that bitcoin and similar currencies are a danger for the environment. They spend huge amounts of energy that are helping destroy the planet. The longer this scam goes on, the more damage will happen to the world.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#279

Post by fleddr »

skrebbel wrote: post #50

These two resonated with me: > A lot of intelligent observers look at cryptocurrency, see that it makes no sense, and reasonably infer that they must be missing something profound on the technical level. Tech culture has a nice tradition of not deriding new ideas, but we need to break it here and speak out > [non-tech people] don't see the huge silent majority of tech people who know it's a scam. That's on us It is o…

This huge silent majority that know it is a scam doesn't exist.

Crypto is so large, complex and fast-moving that it takes thousands of hours to grasp.

If I'd make a list of 100 questions regarding crypto, an exam so to speak, I am reasonably sure that this silent majority can't even answer 5% of the questions.

Because they don't know crypto. At all.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#280

Post by yannoninator »

tzumby wrote: post #247
xpe wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is unclear. > What is surprising is how large the number of techies who don’t get this. What do you mean by "this"? Do you mean all of the points made by the author in the tweets? Or do you mean "the following" instead of "this", referring to what you think is most innovative about Bitcoin?

If you don’t believe that there is value in a distributed self replicating Byzantine tolerant state machine, that’s fair, everybody is entitled to their opinion.

what? english please?

edit: why the flagging? do I seriously need to go get a PhD from MIT to understand this and why this is important?

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