I wasted years of my life in crypto • Hacker News Board

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#371

Post by npoc » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 10:16 AM UTC

solumunus wrote: post #230

ryandvm wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto makes perfect sense if you just understand it's for doing illegal stuff. No moral judgement, but the only viable use case for the blockchain is doing things with money that the authorities don't want you to do. Other than that, no, there is no use for a distributed database because doing financial transactions with people you can't even trust to abide by the law is generally a bad idea.

This utility is what helps stabilise its value, but the side effect of that is that it is a good store of wealth. These two facts make BTC go up. People say Bitcoin isn’t used for anything when in reality it’s being used every day to store and move wealth between big financial players (many of them being organised crime). Why wouldn’t they continue using this useful technology and therefore why won’t its value hold/i…

You could also say that the bad guys are "piggy-backing" off the good people who hold it.

What should you do? Censor their transactions? Who gets to say who gets censored?

Like democracy, bitcoin is for everyone, including your enemies.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#372

Post by oytis » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 10:16 AM UTC

Did he at least make good money though? It's so strange to me that someone can get a sense of purpose from building something specifically for wealthy people tbh

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#373

Post by brohee » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 10:18 AM UTC

cryptonym wrote: post #335

mozarella wrote: post #206

https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/01/31/end.html#section... Vitalik touched upon this briefly in an other-wise long and wide-reaching essay. I think its a good treatment of the topic that the author is talking about. He categorizes the ecosystem broadly into 4 cohorts- [token holders] (which includes investors, speculators, etc.), [pragmatic users] (actual end-users who spend crypto to buy stuff), [intellectuals]…

In a casino you have - The gamblers spending a lot on the casino - The people coming in for the fun and spending little money - The owners/C-levels - The operational team Someone from the operational team just learned that business relies only on the first group to be successful.

You forgot the money launderers, in both ecosystems. Casinos are the original tumbler.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#374

Post by gloosx » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 10:19 AM UTC

bhickey wrote: post #307

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That problem already has solutions. The problems cryptocurrency is supposed to solve are, I want to buy subversive literature fro…

> I want to buy subversive literature from someone I already trust not to rip me off Subversive literature printed on blotter paper. Outside of buying sex and drugs the only uses for cryptocoins are, and always has been, ransoms, scams and gambling.

>Outside of buying sex and drugs the only uses for cryptocoins are, and always has been, ransoms, scams and gambling

That is a very shallow take. There are real non-criminal uses for crypto that people in stable, wealthy countries often overlook. Millions rely on it simply to move money between family members across borders when traditional banking is slow, blocked, or outright inaccessible due to politics. In several countries, people use crypto to buy food, medicine, or basic goods because their local currency is collapsing or their banking system is dysfunctional, or their entire nation has been cut off from the global financial system as a decision of few politics persons.

Its fine to criticise the scams and speculation — there is plenty of that — but pretending thats the only use case ignores the people who depend on it for everyday survival.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#375

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 10:20 AM UTC

4ndrewl wrote: post #360

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That problem already has solutions. The problems cryptocurrency is supposed to solve are, I want to buy subversive literature fro…

Fairly niche things for which the market size nowhere near bears the investment in the technology?

The investment in terms of speculation is primarily of interest to the speculators.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#376

Post by mirekrusin » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 10:21 AM UTC

phplovesong wrote: post #366

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…

Simply put: Bitcoin was to be an alternative to FIAT, but it ended up being nothing more then a meme-stock that consumes more energy than Poland or Argentina. Its sad really. But the greed in people turned it into shit.

I never understood why bitcoin is winning popularity/pricing over ie. ethereum - which doesn't burn energy anymore and you can actually do programming on it, not just moving money from a to b.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#377

Post by npoc » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 10:22 AM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #165

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…

> I've never understood the initial arguments about Bitcoin, no matter how many times they've been explained to me. Bitcoin has a great mythology associated with it. People over emphasize the technical aspects, i think its the "story" that made it succeed. Its about taking back "control" from the man. People love an underdog story, people love a rebellion story. Lots of people in the tech space are anti-establishment…

You say bitcoin is "so silly". Please give me an example of anything better for nation states to hold as reserves and to transact with other nations with.

I'll even allow you an imaginary thing as long as it's constrained by the real world.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#378

Post by fpoling » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 10:23 AM UTC

virgilp wrote: post #364

dist-epoch wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you only care about inflation, real-estate in desirable locations is also inflation-proof. You can't print more land in San Francisco, London or Hong Kong.

Yeah but you can also have a disaster strike in that place (say, a nuclear accident) that will obliterate your real-estate value. Or general society changes that will make a city much less desirable (see the "rust belt"). Of course, nothing is without risk - so in that sense, it's not surprising that real-estate has risks. But that's what I wanted to underline, nothing is "inflation-proof". There's no guaranteed way…

While there is no bulletproof way to preserve wealth real-estate is one of the most sound one compared to others. A nuclear accident can be insured and general social decline happens over many years or even decades that gives plenty of time to react.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#379

Post by jbstack » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 10:24 AM UTC

cherryteastain wrote: post #341

pas wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but there's no compounding interest. no dividend based on future cashflows. holding stocks of a diverse index seems better on the long run, no?

Check out how $100 put in bank deposits or S&P500 have done versus gold over the last 50 years. You will find that these do not generate real returns when measured against sound currency either.

I'm not sure how you reached this conclusion. I did as you suggested. $100 invested 50 years ago into gold would be worth $3000 today. $100 invested into the S&P500 50 years ago would be worth $6870.

https://www.macrotrends.net/2324/sp-500-historical-chart-dat... https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-...

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#380

Post by npoc » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 10:27 AM UTC

geremiiah wrote: post #57

globular-toast wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To understand Bitcoin you need to forget the technology and first understand the problem. You need to understand what caused the 2008 financial crisis and how it resulted in us collectively funnelling more value into the hands of useless bankers. You need to understand that there are people who are literally spending their days playing games with each other, trading bits of paper and making silly deals and bets. If y…

OK, suppose the whole world used a trustless digital cash. Now you cannot do monetary policy. Now booms are booms and busts are busts and we are back to the early 1900s. Great. Actually what would likely happen is that people would be incentivized to opt-in a digital currency with a monetary policy knob, and this would again become the de facto currency that everyone uses. The problem with 2008 was corruption not mon…

"Monetary policy" in reality simply means printing more money than is ever destroyed. It's human nature and always will be.

This means bitcoin's average price will go up forever when priced in fiat tokens. Or anything else for that matter - even gold's above-ground stock doubles every 35 years. How's that for an incentive?

The largest amounts of value will always settle in the best store of value for large amounts of value. Show me one with better fundamentals than bitcoin.