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Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

drewdevault.com

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Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#51

Post by yui43 »

rjmunro wrote: post #42
yui43 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Basically the same bridge” is such a hilarious oversimplification that it makes your blame of the Federal Reserve even more amusing. No, absolutely no improvements in engineering, materials, process, or design in sixty years. No added overhead for environmental studies and other regulations. It’s all the Fed. Hacker News discussing economics is like arguing geopolitics with someone on peyote.

The thing is that "improvements in engineering, materials, process, or design" should make it cheaper, not more expensive. That's how it works in other industries. Although I don't think it's fair to put all the blame on the Fed. The same thing has happened in the UK and many other places.

> The thing is that "improvements in engineering, materials, process, or design" should make it cheaper, not more expensive.

Only if you’re optimizing for cost, which public infrastructure very obviously isn’t. It’s optimizing for safety.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#52

Post by shkkmo »

argvargc wrote: post #28
spir wrote: post #19

Cryptocurrency is not an abject disaster. Drew is right that proof of work mining is expensive and has serious negative externalities. Drew is also right that cryptocurrency, via its growth, hype, and decentralized and self-sovereign nature, is often an ideal vehicle for certain kinds of criminal activity, including pump-and-dump fraud or ransomware. Drew is right (perhaps indirectly) that many or most well-meaning c…

I can't imagine why you're being downvoted, for a well-balanced, educative post with full disclosure. No wait, I can - and it sucks.

I did not learn anything from that post, it mostly read as an advertisement for ETH and the linked websites. If you are going to toute the actual legitimate use cases for blockchain, please name at least one.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#53

Post by argvargc »

knorker wrote: post #11
cies wrote: post #2

It's in it's infancy. In two decades we will know what it means to us as mankind. Cars were also dangerous, unregulated, expensive and excessively polluting. It got a lot better on all these points, and not all due to the cars: some of it was a mind shift that mankind had to make. Same will hold true for cryptocurrency.

But cars had value. They have value. They had value from day 1. Cryptocurrencies just don't. It's all smoke and mirrors, where everything would be better without the blockchain. Without irreversibility. Without everything about it. There are whole books about how terrible and useless it is. And please do what the article said: How much of your own money is dependent on you selling the lie of cryptocurrency or smart c…

The US government has been using cryptocurrencies to deliver aid direct to Venezuelans, for whom previously traditionally bank-wired funds were been pilfered by local (government-controlled) banks.

The aspect of direct "peer to peer" electronic cash, coupled with plausible deniability of ownership and no need for trusted parties, are tremendously positive characteristics in poor, corrupt and developing nations where everyday crypto adoption is running high.

There is nothing else available to solve many of these problems, hence Bitcoin and others filling the void.

There are many other potential positives too, but to say there are none - even right now - is ill-informed.

https://decrypt.co/49088/us-government-use-usdc-stablecoin-b...

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#54

Post by cle »

reducesuffering wrote: post #34
shrubble wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now do the Federal Reserve. 1955 Tappan Zee bridge: $55 million. 2013 Tappan Zee bridge: $4 billion for basically the same bridge. Due in part to the destruction of the USD caused by the Fed.

TFA says "Hey! If you write a comment about this article online, disclose your stake in cryptocurrency." Otherwise I think we can safely ignore it. Stake: 0.05 BTC, 1.2 ETH

And what do we do if someone has a large stake? Ignore their arguments? Should we do the same if they have no stake and are criticizing it? How much stake is enough, given a particular argument, to consider it on its own merits and not reject it based on cui bono? If someone doesn't disclose their stake, should we assume the worst, the best, the average? What if they're lying?

(I have no stake in anything crypto related, so hopefully my argument won't be dismissed. But maybe I'm lying.)

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#55

Post by acdha »

knorker wrote: post #44
acdha wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But cars had value. They have value. They had value from day 1. This is so true: cars have massive externalities but the 20th century was spend rebuilding the world around them because they were useful. You saw that immediately and the true costs only became more apparent years later. Cryptocurrency is as if Robert Moses had redesigned NYC around pet rock warehousing on the theory that someone would later find a us…

Even if the costs had been obvious from day one, unlike cryptocurrencies they also had value. Many things do. Cryptocurrencies don't.

No argument here: in the second decade, the only cash-positive usage is convincing other people to buy them. That’s a long time to have nothing to show despite such massive cash flow into the system.

TBL transformed the world in a few years for a tiny fraction of the cost despite much higher barriers to adoption.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#56

Post by knorker »

dTal wrote: post #16
knorker wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But cars had value. They have value. They had value from day 1. Cryptocurrencies just don't. It's all smoke and mirrors, where everything would be better without the blockchain. Without irreversibility. Without everything about it. There are whole books about how terrible and useless it is. And please do what the article said: How much of your own money is dependent on you selling the lie of cryptocurrency or smart c…

I have to say I am very impressed by your moral compass's sense of market timing!

I sold at the peak of a bubble, so I can be happy about that. Sure, it's higher now, but I also don't invest in payday loan companies for the same reason. I hear it's very profitable too, but it's just too evil.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#57

Post by eric_cc »

shkkmo wrote: post #52
argvargc wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine why you're being downvoted, for a well-balanced, educative post with full disclosure. No wait, I can - and it sucks.

I did not learn anything from that post, it mostly read as an advertisement for ETH and the linked websites. If you are going to toute the actual legitimate use cases for blockchain, please name at least one.

Not OP but the easiest one: De-Fi

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#58

Post by aeroheim »

The most alarming thing to me is how effective cryptocurrencies are in drawing out the inner greed of most people. It's created an obsession of quick wealth among a lot of otherwise normal people, hijacking their rationality and further propagating the viral nature of it. If you take a look at many of the online communities for cryptocurrencies online you'll notice a lot of disturbing behavior that's very cult-like.

I'm not even sure why there's still a pretense of innovation behind most coins these days - every time I hear or see any new fad of cryptocurrency I can already smell the greed from miles away, and the smell is unbearably intense. More recently there's been lots of obvious scams going around social media where bad actors are hacking accounts and replacing them with content shilling their coins and scamming people into sending them coins. When this shit starts invading your personal feeds you know things have started to get really bad.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#59

Post by jarym »

knorker wrote: post #35
kordlessagain wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we look at Lightning, it enables a full implementation of the 402 response code flow, which would allow for decentralized identity and payments in the use of machine learning networks for a wide variety of AI based systems. One such use case may end up being the "killer" use case for crypto and may make up for the speculative phase we're in now.

> One such use case may end up being the "killer" use case for crypto and may make up for the speculative phase we're in now. If I had a penny for every time someone said "X may be the killer use case for cryptocurrencies"...

Yep. So far crypto has been the killer use case for the problem of excess electricity. 100% no BS its true.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#60

Post by kemonocode »

I respect his opinion (especially if his biggest exposure to it was through CI abuse to mine Monero and other CPU-based PoW crypto, I won't even deny that's an extremely shitty situation many service providers have had to deal with these past months more than ever), even if I disagree with it.

It's not difficult to be negative on crypto when it personally brings you nothing but grief. Our point of views are unequivocally tainted by our personal experiences; I'm sure had I been born in a reasonably free country, with competent social structures and the means to actually own the fruits of my labor, I'd probably hold a different view on the entire ecosystem: I'd see nothing but grifters and scammers polluting the planet while taking advantage of gullible fools.

And as the article says, I'll disclose my stake (Even if I see it as pretty spiteful): I sold off the majority of BTC I had when it touched $60k but most of it is in stablecoins, so I'm still part of the ecosystem. A considerable part of my net worth is in cryptocurrency I've been slowly accruing over the years, converting however much I could save up in local currency to a minority in cold hard cash and the rest in crypto, and it wouldn't have been possible for me to save up otherwise. Yes, I am in one of those so-called "isolated examples of failed national economies" that maybe aren't nearly as isolated nor as uncommon as he seems to allude to.

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