Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer
401–410 of 411 posts
Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer
#402I won't pretend I'm a computer genius or anything, but I feel like I understand tech at least more than the average Joe - at least, I'm the designated IT guy for computer problems faced by anyone I know. The fact that, despite having it explained multiple times by multiple sources multiple ways, I still can't seem to wrap my head around how crypto functions... Makes me suspicious. It feels like the whole idea is to o…
"I don't understand it, therefore there is something suspicious about it" is a very dangerous way of reasoning. We burned innocent people because of this not long ago. Anyways, I find the Bitcoin paper very approachable. You may need to read it a bunch of times until everything clicks into place. But it's all there, in just 8 pages.
Right...
Anyways, the golden rules of investing is to not invest your money into something you don't understand.
Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer
#403This article conflates NFTs with cryptocurrency, in a way that looks to me to be intentional in order to bolster his argument that crypto is for rich people to conspicuously consume and to pump and dump on the plebs. NFTs aren't money, or currency and just because they can be created on some blockchains doesn't make them so. I also don't see a genuine effort from the author to really understand why proponents think t…
Not really a revolution when most people just trade it (mostly via fiat money). The original idea was for Bitcoin to be a currency, unfortunately the "hodlers" won, now its only reason to exist is to be more expensive. Boosters are still milking the original premise as some revolution they're supporting, when of course, if you ask how much of their crypto assets they've actually used/spent, the typical answer is 0%.…
1. At least so far, Bitcoin and the rest do indeed let you and anyone send or receive money regardless of what political institution, corrupt government or censorious, politically pressured private company prohibits or selectively permits (think Visa/mastercard/paypal and their bullshit arbitrary restrictions on all kinds of things they or some politician decided to call "immoral")
2. Anybody can access the BTC blockchain and most other blockchains with minimal cost, extremely minor technical knowledge that they could easily pick up, and use them for money transfers. Playing along with the pump and dump bullshit or falling victim the bubbles is strictly optional.
In these things, it is indeed revolutionary in a quiet but important way, and I have a hard time understanding the sheer amount of snarky, hateful commentary from so many people on this site. Where the goddam fuck did the scrappy, freedom-loving respect for technologies that help individuals avoid arbitrary rules go?
Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer
#404Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can use Bitcoin to safely, reliably and conveniently send money to people/organisations the US government doesn't like - eg, Wikileaks. It is hard to understate how radical that is. Such an act of quiet resistance against the powers that be was somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible in 2005.
You can pretty much make the same case for the Internet. "Before I couldn't do X, bcs repression, mass media elite etc. but then the internet etc." The "quiet resistance" narrative is overshadowed by its primary function to make people money.
Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really a revolution when most people just trade it (mostly via fiat money). The original idea was for Bitcoin to be a currency, unfortunately the "hodlers" won, now its only reason to exist is to be more expensive. Boosters are still milking the original premise as some revolution they're supporting, when of course, if you ask how much of their crypto assets they've actually used/spent, the typical answer is 0%.…
Then there are cases like this, one example among many in which there is a genuine case to be made for bitcoin and crypto. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28453256 . This is not to mention all the others that are possible and have been the case. For example, how do you think Sci-hub continues to function financially?. Regardless of how certain whales and other speculators use bitcoin et al to pump and dump, or h…
Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer
#406Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can pretty much make the same case for the Internet. "Before I couldn't do X, bcs repression, mass media elite etc. but then the internet etc." The "quiet resistance" narrative is overshadowed by its primary function to make people money.
And so what if it does make some people money? Its other use cases all work just the same and as the points above mention, it can be used for a number of good things.. Does criminals using house purchases to invest laundered money make buying a house evil? It does not, but the hate just keeps getting dumped on bitcoin by people who should know better.
Sounds great btw, amazing product, can't wait to sell it to my friends and neighbors.
Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that Bitcoin is a complete failure as a currency is why it's not practical to keep all of your assets in it even as a targeted person.
Complete failure adopted by a nation state: https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1441846960332361730?s...
Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There are controls in place to stop them from stealing it al. If someone just transferred it to their own account, I could use the courts to get it back. What if it's taken thorough wrongful civil forfeiture? Will you be able to afford to navigate the courts to get your assets back after they've been seized?
Not always, but wrongful civil forfeiture is just one of many possible ways to steal. In other cases using the court system will be possible. With bitcoin, it is never possible.
Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer
#409Earlier quoted context omitted.
And likewise, whenever someone downplays/criticizes cryptocurrency, it is almost always for their personal gain, directly or indirectly.
I want poor people to stop losing their money to scammers. This is primarily who loses money in pump and dumps. Rich people pump the currency, recruit, then dump. FOMO hits the poor way harder than it does the rich. Rich people have lots of places to invest their money that give good returns and they don't need to "get rich quick". I want cryptocurrencies shut down so they stop using insane amounts of power so that p…
Telemarketing scams inflict a lot more damage than naive crypto speculation.
Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you see value in rare baseball cards selling for millions of dollars? That's the same, but the card's authenticity can be verified cryptographically rather than through complex means like radionuclide analysis and such.
Physical goods would still need the same authentication if they were tied to an NFT, and may be rare as a consequence of their nature. What's the value of pretending an easily duplicated digital thing is rare? I realize that an NFT minted on a given chain is unique, but so what, that doesn't make it unique and interesting they way a baseball card might be.