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Bitcoin Is a Hideous Monstrosity Made Out of Computers and Greed

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Re: Bitcoin Is a Hideous Monstrosity Made Out of Computers and Greed

#31

Bitcoin is the solution to the fundamentally broken debt-driven economy. Critics don't get it because they lump it together with "cryptocurrency". While technically a cryptocurrency, Bitcoin does not exhibit any of the ponzi, scam-like shenanigans that are easily observable in shitcoins. Yes, there is a lot of crazy stuff happening with wash trading - but this is a byproduct of lack of regulation and has nothing to d…

>Bitcoin is the solution to the fundamentally broken debt-driven economy. Sorry this is all too vague. How do you define "broken" and what does this post-debt-driven economy look like? >They don't need articles like this one to tell them why their needs are unmet by the traditional finance system. Whats the use case here exactly?

>Sorry this is all too vague. How do you define "broken" and what does this post-debt-driven economy look like?

Look up % of world population living in hyperinlationary environments to get your answer. The post-debt driven economy is one where a handful of people cannot devalue your labor with a press of a button.

> Whats the use case here exactly? Freedom from corrupt governments that debase your currency into oblivion, only to adopt another currency which suffers from the same ultimate fate. Financial inclusion is the use case. It's broad, it's ambitious and ultimately to entrepreneurial interpretation.

Re: Bitcoin Is a Hideous Monstrosity Made Out of Computers and Greed

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin does not exhibit any of the ponzi shenanigans Really? How do you call something where there is no underlying product generating value, and you need to have someone else put money in to get your money out? It's literally the definition of a ponzi pyramid.

Bitcoin is voluntary. The goal is better money. If you take on that big of a challenge, you kinda need people to participate with their "old" money. It's called adoption. Just like internet would have no value if nobody participated, bitcoin has no value if nobody participates. Do you send email to yourself? No. Do you shop from a non-existing platform? no.

>Bitcoin is voluntary

Scams can be voluntary.

>The goal is better money

There is no clear path to that goal.

>If you take on that big of a challenge, you kinda need people to participate with their "old" money.

"Old" as in the USD?

>Just like internet would have no value if nobody participated, bitcoin has no value if nobody participates.

Unlike the internet you can only trade bitcoins. You cant use them for anything else.

Re: Bitcoin Is a Hideous Monstrosity Made Out of Computers and Greed

#33

Humans are so funny. Blaming the flawed tools we create for the problems caused by using them in all of our flawed manners. Bitcoin is a tool, like any other. Tools can be used constructively or destructively. The ease and affordability of transferring remittances internationally is the single most useful case for Bitcoin. In those instances value is not kept in BTC except for the duration of the transfer so it is no…

> In the US

Problem identified.

Re: Bitcoin Is a Hideous Monstrosity Made Out of Computers and Greed

#34

Bitcoin is the solution to the fundamentally broken debt-driven economy. Critics don't get it because they lump it together with "cryptocurrency". While technically a cryptocurrency, Bitcoin does not exhibit any of the ponzi, scam-like shenanigans that are easily observable in shitcoins. Yes, there is a lot of crazy stuff happening with wash trading - but this is a byproduct of lack of regulation and has nothing to d…

I have a deep understanding of all of the latter. I work in capital markets daily. I do not know anyone serious with my level of experience in the actual markets who thinks bitcoin is the answer.

There are several issues with tradFi. Pointing that out is like saying the sun will rise tomorrow. In some cases, people are working on a fix. In other cases, the inefficiency and criminal activity is not ceasing because the scale is too small for overburdened regulators to care about.

Not one of these uses bitcoin as a fix. Whoever is building it has almost never been in finance. They think tech bros can easily understand finance cos numbers! Except finance is extremely advanced. It’s like trying to join a full ML team after running a single random forest regression or something. The consequence of such hubris is sentences like this:

> Bitcoin is the solution to the fundamentally broken debt-driven economy.

The debt driven economy is by design. It’s not a fucking flaw like the hard money idiots listening to Peter Schiff daily want to believe. Sometimes it goes to excess and we get 2008. Doesn’t mean the older idea was better. There is no wealth distribution in a hard money paradigm that makes sense.

For simple terms since you’re obviously not in the field, ask yourself where is money created? If you say central banks, go back to Econ 101 and study better this time.

Re: Bitcoin Is a Hideous Monstrosity Made Out of Computers and Greed

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bitcoin is the solution to the fundamentally broken debt-driven economy. Sorry this is all too vague. How do you define "broken" and what does this post-debt-driven economy look like? >They don't need articles like this one to tell them why their needs are unmet by the traditional finance system. Whats the use case here exactly?

>Sorry this is all too vague. How do you define "broken" and what does this post-debt-driven economy look like? Look up % of world population living in hyperinlationary environments to get your answer. The post-debt driven economy is one where a handful of people cannot devalue your labor with a press of a button. > Whats the use case here exactly? Freedom from corrupt governments that debase your currency into obliv…

>Look up % of world population living in hyperinlationary environments to get your answer. The post-debt driven economy is one where a handful of people cannot devalue your labor with a press of a button.

Ok so lets say the production costs increases and drives inflation. How does bitcoin make my life easier in this scenario?

Re: Bitcoin Is a Hideous Monstrosity Made Out of Computers and Greed

#36

Humans are so funny. Blaming the flawed tools we create for the problems caused by using them in all of our flawed manners. Bitcoin is a tool, like any other. Tools can be used constructively or destructively. The ease and affordability of transferring remittances internationally is the single most useful case for Bitcoin. In those instances value is not kept in BTC except for the duration of the transfer so it is no…

> The ease and affordability of transferring remittances internationally is the single most useful case for Bitcoin.

This is demonstratably false. The problem has been solved elsewhere in the world, much better than in the US, without any bitcoin or crypto at all.

> In the US it can still take days for a check or transfer to clear.

As noted, "in the US" is your problem. Also "hasty generalisation".

> In the future I expect to see BTC to mainly utilized for these types of financial transfers

wise.com is laughing. M-Pesa is laughing. EU SEPA is laughing.

Re: Bitcoin Is a Hideous Monstrosity Made Out of Computers and Greed

#37
post #9

I am someone from a developing country who regularly used crypto either to get paid, or to pay for things online. Does crypto have issues? yes. Is it good enough that in occasion it was my preferred payment method? yes. Crypto community and companies are maybe bad, but if you zoom out into IT overall there is a fair share of greed and misuse. The internet is full of scams, gurus selling courses with false claims, spa…

Did "gurus selling courses" have 3T market cap? Did "affiliate programs with 70% margin" emit more CO2 than New Zealand? Once the scam can cripple whole countries, it becomes dangerous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Civil_War

Doesn't spam email energy usage come in close to 50TWh? That's from memory.

Only decent link I can find on this is from 13 years ago with 33TWh:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...

Re: Bitcoin Is a Hideous Monstrosity Made Out of Computers and Greed

#39
post #9

I am someone from a developing country who regularly used crypto either to get paid, or to pay for things online. Does crypto have issues? yes. Is it good enough that in occasion it was my preferred payment method? yes. Crypto community and companies are maybe bad, but if you zoom out into IT overall there is a fair share of greed and misuse. The internet is full of scams, gurus selling courses with false claims, spa…

Did "gurus selling courses" have 3T market cap? Did "affiliate programs with 70% margin" emit more CO2 than New Zealand? Once the scam can cripple whole countries, it becomes dangerous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Civil_War

In both of your examples, crypto provides an advancement in live valuation that the other industries cannot.

Despite you making them rhetorical demonizations of crypto, the answers are actually “maybe? we don't know, what does Forrester and other market research firms say, do they have that data?”

(Other times when this is pointed out, people typically reveal that they view everything else as more useful than crypto - which naturally would then include gurus and affiliate programs - so their market size and country size emissions doesn't actually matter when this point is more accurately challenged. Just wondering if you had a more articulate argument or a more predictable one)

Re: Bitcoin Is a Hideous Monstrosity Made Out of Computers and Greed

#40

I usually brush aside these doomsday articles about crypto, but the linked article is really depressing: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-25/sam-bankm... I remember nicer days when crypto had some value, and yes exchanges were already shady and did a lot of washing, but there was clearly a closer approximation to market sentiment and real world use cases. Nowadays everything seems to be revolve around…

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