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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

#41

Post by scotty79 »

potatototoo99 wrote: post #12

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…

The thing they describe as the box is literally a Ponzi scheme. You put in some money and you get high guaranteed return.

You have money, and you even can cash out some unless too many people try to cash out at the same time. Then it turns out there's no money to cover the returns.

Key innovation that further obfuscates this is that instead of cashing out directly you might use IOUs from the Ponzi scheme as a collateral to borrow some money and never pay it back leaving your Ponzi collateral with person that borrowed you money.

Noone has an incentive to cash out direclty to not endanger percieved valuability of Ponzi box. And everybody has incentive to push as much IOUs to as many new people as possible in exchange for hard currency.

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

#42

Post by cypress66 »

csee wrote: post #3

> I can also assure you perpetual futures would not be allowed to trade on any exchange inside the legitimate financial system. I don't disagree that the point of perpetual futures on crypto exchanges is primarily to facilitate speculation and gambling, but they're just delta 1 derivatives (track the underlying 1:1) in the form of a CFD, different in mechanism but no different in use case to regular futures, which th…

I never understood gambling addicts (me having gone to the casino and found it boring).

But when I did some YOLO trades with insane leverage I felt what addicts feel. So I never touched leverage again except maybe 1.5x at most.

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

#43

Post by immigrantheart »

hnews_account_1 wrote: post #34
hardmoney99 wrote: post #13

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…

There are economists with deep understanding of finance and economy that disagree with you.

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

#44

Post by Rerarom »

hnews_account_1 wrote: post #34
hardmoney99 wrote: post #13

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…

What do you think of the endogenous money theory that is being promoted from time to time?

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

#45

Post by immigrantheart »

hardmoney99 wrote: post #20
iLoveOncall wrote: post #18

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

This is the single most important paradigm that will set crypto believers vs non believers. Either you get it or not. There is nothing in between.

If non believers don't get this one, then there is no point in explaining.

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

#47

Post by JumpCrisscross »

hardmoney99 wrote: post #13

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 a financial freedom tool

Usually when describing something in the face of scrutiny, one describes a use case. If someone questions the validity of hammers, the solution isn't to say "we call this a hammer." It's to show how hammers are used.

I doubt most crypto folks have any idea of credit markets or central banking. What they have expertise in is the manipulation of money. Bitcoin, and all of crypto, is Wall Street's love interest for a reason.

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

#48

Post by NoticeMeSenpai »

immigrantheart wrote: post #43
hnews_account_1 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are economists with deep understanding of finance and economy that disagree with you.

Who? And disagree about what exactly?

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

#49

Post by JumpCrisscross »

sshine wrote: post #8
piva00 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were pretty popular on HN, always been. I know because I participated in a lot of discussions the past years here about all the stupidity going around the cryptocurrency space. Don't let your biases write your comments.

Cryptocurrency criticism was prevalent for years on HN, yes. But the popularity of the criticism is increasing with its recent price drop.

> the popularity of the criticism is increasing with its recent price drop

This is how theories are proposed, vetted and adopted [1]. Bitcoin was proposed as a solution to a set of problems. Over time, the null hypothesis was refined. We're now seeing, with the tide going out, strong evidence to support it. So people are switching sides, or taking a side for the first time.

In Kuhn's words, a paradigm shift was experimented with and appears to be in the process of being rejected.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Re...

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

#50

Post by throwawash »

immigrantheart wrote: post #43
hnews_account_1 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are economists with deep understanding of finance and economy that disagree with you.

Where can I read their points of view? Can you provide some links by any chance?
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