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Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

economist.com

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Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#31

Post by jsheard »

pawelduda wrote: post #13
simonw wrote: post #5

That's the thing where if you have significant assets your family members get kidnapped until you irreversibly transfer those assets to criminals, right? I'm not sure how crypto continues to gain mainstream adoption in the face of that , no matter how much excitement there is for it in the current US administration. My previous argument was that a technology where losing your password means you lose your net worth wa…

Kidnapping and ransom existed before crypto

So did pump and dump scams, but crypto brought in a new golden age of pumping and dumping. It's a matter of scale and ease of execution.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#32

Post by survirtual »

simonw wrote: post #5

That's the thing where if you have significant assets your family members get kidnapped until you irreversibly transfer those assets to criminals, right? I'm not sure how crypto continues to gain mainstream adoption in the face of that , no matter how much excitement there is for it in the current US administration. My previous argument was that a technology where losing your password means you lose your net worth wa…

That's the thing, fighting against kings and monarchs with a stranglehold on the colonies means you get invaded by a world superpower, right? Who would tolerate fighting for freedom if it means getting murdered? Such a short sighted pursuit that won't lead to anything better, it is foolish. Clearly we should bow down before the supreme authority and accept their benevolent ruling. /s

History has this way of repeating itself. And it seems the blind will never see. Those who can see, just keep working. Talk is cheap. We will drag humanity into the future kicking and screaming if needed, because we know what waits for us on the other side.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#33

Post by seaourfreed »

rimbo789 wrote: post #4

Crypto was a huge mistake. It should have been rigorously regulated right out of the gate to the point of being unusable for anyone. I have yet to see a use case that doesn’t amount to buying drugs or defrauding rubes.

WikiLeaks was persecuted. Their credit cards processing was turned OFF. Bitcoin saved them. There have been free speech social media sites BLOCKED by Stripe and all credit cards, and debanked. They switched to crypto. Marc Andressen on Joe Rogan personally knows many dozens of people personally debanked because they were persecured by the government & debanked. Not for drugs or fraud.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#34

Post by rollcat »

swalsh wrote: post #11

Crypto should be taking off in use in the AI age. Right now I have credits I paid open AI for so I can use their API. I have anthropic credits, I have some credits in a video generator app. A2A is becoming a thing, and now it's a realistic thing to potentially expose an agent on a public endpoint to do useful work. Agents working with agents is a very clear future direction. But everything is a closed ecosystem. But…

So you're saying cryptocurrency remains a solution in search of a problem?

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#36

Post by sigwinch »

BillinghamJ wrote: post #10
cherryteastain wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sending money without government interference to relatives living in countries with strict foreign exchange controls (Argentina, Lebanon, Turkey...) is one quite legit use case.

Legit from whose perspective though? Around an authoritarian government maybe widely viewed as reasonable/justified, but doesn't sound legitimate to those governments

Or, since it’s important to preserve the anonymity of my Turkish, Argentinian, and Lebanese relatives; it’s important to preserve the anonymity of the bigger users: ransomware C2 operators funding North Korean rockets.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#37

Post by mghfreud »

swalsh wrote: post #23
rcxdude wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but a) this doesn't require blockchain, and b) there's no incentive for the various players to make credits portable.

I'm tired of the "this doesn't require blockchain" argument. The alternative is a centralized entity that controls payments. Is that REALLY your preferred solution?

I am not following where (in your initial message) you stated that “centralized entity that controls the payments is not good”

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#38

Post by keiferski »

The history of crypto is pretty much a story of technical people creating something interesting with a cyberpunk/ open ethos - then the financial industry realizing it can be exploited to make money in ethically dubious ways, while simultaneously destroying the philosophy behind it. The bitcoin paper is still one of the most elegant technical documents I’ve ever read, a decade+ since it was published.

I’m not sure why this simple narrative isn’t more common, but one guess is that the media is largely dominated by institutional players (deeply plugged into finance) and the simultaneous “death” of cyberpunk & cypherpunk as original culture, rather than just a video game aesthetic. Makes me wish that Satoshi had released bitcoin in 1995 or 2005, when that culture was still alive.

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#39

Post by ionwake »

frainfreeze wrote: post #16
BillinghamJ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legit from whose perspective though? Around an authoritarian government maybe widely viewed as reasonable/justified, but doesn't sound legitimate to those governments

Wild argument

hes grasping at straws no idea why

Re: Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset

#40

Post by elif »

rimbo789 wrote: post #4

Crypto was a huge mistake. It should have been rigorously regulated right out of the gate to the point of being unusable for anyone. I have yet to see a use case that doesn’t amount to buying drugs or defrauding rubes.

You don't think 1000% returns over the last 5 years is useful to anyone? During the height of inflation?
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