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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

#271

Post by roncesvalles »

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…

To understand why crypto became popular requires understanding that there was a massive anti-America (and by extension, anti-USD) sentiment in the 00s and 10s, mostly on the heels of America's various wars in the Middle East. For some brief period of time, America was the evil imperialist global enemy number one, even in the eyes of many American people. There was practically a patriotism crisis in America around when Trump first came to power.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine completely hard-flipped this overnight. America once again became the good guys of the world, and with it died any serious movements to disrupt the USD and greater financial status quo. More critically it also started the narrative that China might do to Taiwan what Russia is doing to Ukraine. It basically brought the world back into the late-20th-century good guys in the West versus bad guys in the East bipolarity.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#272

Post by lawn »

nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote: post #203
Jamustico wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Most of networks nowadays are faster or as fast and cheaper than normal credit card and banking systems.

Not really. Credit cards are immediate. Bank transfers can be quick but also can be slow so fair point there. I dont experience much friction paying for things though so I dont feel I need crypto for that.

Credit card payments may seem immediate for you, the customer. But for the business owner it's not always so since the customer than issue a recall and many people abuse this to great cost for the businesses. See "chargeback fraud".

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#273

Post by bawolff »

globular-toast wrote: post #180
bawolff wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because no solution is perfect doesn't mean we should adopt a solution worse than the status quo.

The thread is "I don't understand Bitcoin".

Or you know, people understand bitcoin fine they just disagree.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#274

Post by KaiserPro »

HaZeust wrote: post #235
tsimionescu wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Others have shown why most of your other points are wrong or don't need blockchain, but this is also important: > ANYONE can calculate the sums, anyone can verify and proof hashes This is completely false. In fact, at the scale of a country, almost no one can actually do this. 95+% of the population doesn't have the knowledge required to do something like this and understand why it works. And while in principle they…

>"Others have shown why most of your other points are wrong or don't need blockchain" Answered them. Introducing 0 knowledge proofs was a good point but blockchain can still be a medium to utilize these possibilities. I don't believe a conventional database or transparency log can meaningfully substitute the decentralized nature of blockchain for such an operation, though; and I said as much in my replies. >"This is…

> cryptography to the electoral system can be rooted in the pragmatic AND be abstracted to a layman

what you're arguing for is a system that you understand and can verify, but not other people.

You're also missing the bigger issue which is that voting systems vary by state, which means to do what you need to do would require federal/constitutional change.

Plus how do you verify and guarantee the terminals are not tampered with (especially as they are all going to be digital, and securing hardware in remote locations is fucking hard. )

Much as its not fun, paper votes with local counting stations are harder to corrupt universally (unless you have government collusion)

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#275

Post by bawolff »

charcircuit wrote: post #264
bawolff wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most states have in fact invented bank transfers for that purpose.

The decentralized nature of banks makes it hard to offer a good payment experience to consumers and businesses.

Only in America. The rest of the world figured it out.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#276

Post by kaon_2 »

littlestymaar wrote: post #258
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."

Is Atlas Shrugged really that bad? Heh, I started reading the fountainhead in my mid 30ies. The natural way you get introduced to new characters is great, but man I got so angry with the unrealistic robotic personalities I kept putting the book away and after 200 pages I really just could not continue. So Atlas Shrugged is similar? What a disappointment!

Anybody here that loved the books and would care to elaborate it speak to them so much?

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#277

Post by wisty »

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.

The issue isn't that it solves the wrong problem.

The issue is that crypto boosters (including a few already here) claim it solves a whole host of other problems without thinking things through, kind of like some communists. Then if you argue enough they'll point out that things can be fixed ... but bitcoin is now indistinguishable from any other currency, other than its payment system that will no longer be widely used.

Like, you can make it easy to use if there are banks. And those banks will be subject to regulations. Boom, now you have banks and regulations.

You can get a loan from those banks. Now there's fractional reserve banking, with something like a virtual gold standard.

If it ever gets big enough, the fed can write bitcoin denominated bonds, and it's now prerty much a fiat currency, not even virtual gold.

Yes you still have a shadow sector where you can use bitcoin to buy drugs or dodge the taxman. But all the other supposed benefits have gone.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#278

Post by idkfasayer »

blackjack_ wrote: post #247
aeternum wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also confiscate those hard-to-copy tokens if you acquire a sufficiently large quantity and attempt to leave the country with them.

I see a lot of hand wringing about this; but for 99.99% of people the banking layer and bureaucracy of modern monetary systems is a feature that protects them from fraudulent transactions, people stealing their credit card number, and businesses charging them and not delivering goods. These are generally good things. Yes it is possible for the state to inflict violence on you, and if the state wants to, it probably w…

[dead]

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#279

Post by Ekaros »

pfortuny wrote: post #254
serial_dev wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cash is not completely anonymous, but hard enough and not enough parties track it. Bills are serialized and you could take photos of coins and likely identify them based on scratch patterns.

Still, whole thing is saved by not enough people actually tracking it to that level.

And on other side, BTC tracks every single transaction ever. Which is also detriment, that is we keep everything stored forever in lot of places... Which kind seems massive waste.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#280

Post by LikesPwsh »

lmm wrote: post #192
vachina wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your funds are clean there is zero reason for the (unfounded) anxiety. Just follow through the motion. A local agent on a flat fee will probably make things easier.

> If your funds are clean there is zero reason for the (unfounded) anxiety. Nonsense. Your funds can be frozen with no recourse even if you're innocent. No-one will tell you what you supposedly did wrong. Everyone who hears about your predicament will make up reasons to believe that you'd done something wrong because they want to believe that the system doesn't make mistakes.

Most token holders use exchanges, where freezing accounts and just keeping the tokens is a daily occurrence.

That's not something solved by cryptocurrency in its current form.

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