301–310 of 684 posts
Bitcoin is money which provides sheltering services for wealth.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Bitcoin privacy" is a contradiction in terms, as has been repeatedly proven. You set up a scene of a refugee "storing their wealth in Bitcoin", but it begs the question: where are these refugees with substantial wealth they are looking to exfiltrate? Typical refugees are emigrating from locales where they were earning dollars per day. The use case of shielding hoarded wealth during a journey to a freer locale is a b…
this is not an accurate portrayal of refugees. i can’t be bothered to look for a source atm, but the first wave of refugees out of syria that caused a panic in Europe were not poor, unskilled laborers - they were middle and upper class families who could afford plane tickets. It costs many thousands of dollars to cross borders illegally by the way, so you’re likely to exhaust your savings trying to escape whatever yo…
> It costs many thousands of dollars to cross borders illegally by the way, so you’re likely to exhaust your savings trying to escape whatever you’re running from.
...and worse, often end up in debt along the way. Where is the room in that common situation for the need for exfiltrating funds via BTC?
A lot of the "Common Objections" relate to the REASONS people choose to own Bitcoin and how those cases make it a Ponzi. There are many different reasons to own Bitcoin, however the author seems to only view it through the lens of someone living in a wealthy and developed country with financial stability. The properties of it being difficult/impossible to confiscate and its privacy make it valuable in oppressive regi…
"Bitcoin privacy" is a contradiction in terms, as has been repeatedly proven. You set up a scene of a refugee "storing their wealth in Bitcoin", but it begs the question: where are these refugees with substantial wealth they are looking to exfiltrate? Typical refugees are emigrating from locales where they were earning dollars per day. The use case of shielding hoarded wealth during a journey to a freer locale is a b…
It remains to be seen whether it would have been practical to move money from Syrian liras to Bitcoin. No one wants to buy hyper-inflating currency.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it very manipulative to offhandedly dismiss the utility it provides to people suffering under oppression or unstable financial systems and to compare that to smoking. As the article states, check your financial privilege. And "tiny amount of people"? What's "tiny" here? Hundreds, thousands, millions? Do you know how many people use Bitcoin in this way?
> Do you know how many people use Bitcoin in this way? Do you?
Lol. Bitcoin is exactly comparable to gold. Plenty of people buy gold expecting it to appreciate...because other people use it as a hedge. Even if it were true originally that Gold's only purpose was as a hedge (protip: it's not), its very utility as a hedge would make it useful as a source of alpha for those wanting to bet on the demand for hedges.
This article is just stupid and pointless. It's attempting to take a label that has a strong negative valence, deconstruct its attributes and apply them to something else, and then port that valence over to the new thing. The negative valence ascribed to "ponzi scheme" is because it is a scam intended to defraud its investors. A ponzi scheme that is not an attempt to defraud its investors, even if it fits some "technical" description of a ponzi scheme, does not deserve to have the valence of "ponzi scheme" assigned to it.
I certainly don't believe Bitcoin meets the technical definition of a Ponzi scheme. But even if it did, this article would still be a stupid and pointless attempt at valence hijacking. An activity that the world already has far too much of.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is not the case with gold. Silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium, copper... Just as people have generally centered around gold, people have so far generally centered on Bitcoin. There's a great deal of other metals and a great deal of other cryptocurrencies, but if nobody really cares about them, then they are not relevant to the conversation.
You can't make new rare elements out of thin air though.
A lot of the "Common Objections" relate to the REASONS people choose to own Bitcoin and how those cases make it a Ponzi. There are many different reasons to own Bitcoin, however the author seems to only view it through the lens of someone living in a wealthy and developed country with financial stability. The properties of it being difficult/impossible to confiscate and its privacy make it valuable in oppressive regi…
I got involved in bitcoin after being blackballed from the (US) financial world while for 2-3 months while I was "investigated" in the most dystopianly opaque way possible. One day I lost the ability to transact. A few months later I got it back. Had it not been for good friends who could cover my expenses, I could have easily ended up homeless. And the most shocking part of it all, was that I was merely collateral d…
It made me realize how fragile our access to bank accounts and identity actually are.
I have as such setup a portion of my wealth in crypto-assets with a dead mans switch and recovery methods covering fire, amnesia, identity loss, or death, while ensuring the majority can't be seized by a government or rubber hose attack without the consent of myself and a quorum of people I trust around the world confident I am not under duress. As long as I have the freedom to communicate and some time I can recover.
The market value of crypto-assets may not be predictable, but I prefer to be able to count on never losing access to it, and having theft protections no bank can offer.
It's clear that the HN crowd does not like Bitcoin. So why keep reiterating similar arguments all over?
There is zero utility in the article shared. It states some anti crypto views and that's it. Even the author concedes that this is according to his own definition and not based on real life legal tests (which have of course shown that Bitcoin is not a ponzi).
Just let Crypto users be. I get it. You don't like Crypto, but at this point it's not like an opinion piece can change the their views.
Users transacted in the trillions of USD over last month. Crypto got institutions, countries, wealthy individuals, poor individuals using it every day. It's clear it has some utility to them.
It's time to reflect and consider that your anti Crypto position might be wrong.
Edit: clarity