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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

#51

Post by peterlk »

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…

A family member started getting pretty deep in the crypto game, and went to one crypto conference. Afterwards, we hung out and he was really deflated. He just said, "none of these people understand what's going on. I asked what would happen when the underlying asset values went down, and they tied themselves in knots trying to unravel their own cleverness".

Crypto is interesting to me in the way that algotrading is interesting. Lots of interesting math doing fun things, but not worth really doing unless you have _massive_ resources. To me, there is 1 huge potential win for crypto - replacing clearing houses and banking infrastructure. Winning that is going to make a small number of investors extraordinarily wealthy.

There is 1 other interesting case for crypto, which is a common API that doesn't care who the winner is. But that's a questionable win.

Everything else in the crypto/defi/web 3.0 world is just a scaled MLM ecosystem.

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

#53

Post by olalonde »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #22
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…

So basically, criminals that love the idea of hiding their illicit transactions from government oversight so they can traffic humans and drugs.

Yes, same reason neo-nazis love the idea of free speech so they can spread their hateful ideology.

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

#54

Post by olalonde »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #16
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…

> fincial freedom tool for billions of people, the likes of which do not browse Hacker News. Citation needed (to put it mildly). How is Bitcoin improving on e.g. M-Pesa? Is there much adoption compared to M-Pesa, outside of fantasy? If you're not familiar with M-Pesa, then you don't know this subject at all. > Those people get Bitcoin instantly. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jun/17/jay-z-bitcoin-...

> How is Bitcoin improving on e.g. M-Pesa?

M-Pesa only works in some African countries? And it relies on the benevolence of Vodafone Group and governments?

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

#55

Post by piva00 »

macinjosh wrote: post #27

Humans are so funny. Blaming the flawed tools we create for the problems caused by using them in all of our flawed manners. Bitcoin is a tool, like any other. Tools can be used constructively or destructively. The ease and affordability of transferring remittances internationally is the single most useful case for Bitcoin. In those instances value is not kept in BTC except for the duration of the transfer so it is no…

> In the future I expect to see BTC to mainly utilized for these types of financial transfers and less as a long-term store of value.

I have, in Sweden, the options of Swish and SEPA to transfer money. Swish is internal to Swedish residents, so to anyone who has Swish tied to their bank account I can instantly send money knowing their phone number.

With SEPA Instant Transfer I can send money anywhere in the EU, up to 100,000€, and it's guaranteed it takes less than 10 seconds.

These have been solved elsewhere, look inside the US who benefits from the fees charged to you, look who controls the lobbying power to keep these fees being charged to you. Boom, you now know that in the US the biggest limitation is always who has more money than you and control the policies you live under.

It's the same in other parts of the world, of course, but so much worse in the US...

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

#56

Post by olalonde »

NoticeMeSenpai wrote: post #32
hardmoney99 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Scams can be voluntary. >The goal is better money There is no clear path to that goal. >If you take on that big of a challenge, you kinda need people to participate with their "old" money. "Old" as in the USD? >Just like internet would have no value if nobody participated, bitcoin has no value if nobody participates. Unlike the internet you can only trade bitcoins. You cant use them for anything…

> Scams can be voluntary.

I disagree, a scam must involve some level of deception.

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

#57

Post by regularjack »

olalonde wrote: post #46

Yet another "criticism" which is entirely focused on price and groups together a bunch of unrelated people, companies and cryptocurrencies...

I mean, yes? That's what the article is about, the cryptocurrency space. What subjects do you think it should discuss instead?

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

#59

Post by scotty79 »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #18
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 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.

Key factor of Ponzi is that it guarantees you high (height arbitrarily made up by scheme organizer) periodic return on your investment and promises you get your money back eventually.

Bitcoin makes no such promises. It routinely had >80% drops in price.

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

#60

Post by scotty79 »

piva00 wrote: post #55
macinjosh wrote: post #27

Humans are so funny. Blaming the flawed tools we create for the problems caused by using them in all of our flawed manners. Bitcoin is a tool, like any other. Tools can be used constructively or destructively. The ease and affordability of transferring remittances internationally is the single most useful case for Bitcoin. In those instances value is not kept in BTC except for the duration of the transfer so it is no…

> In the future I expect to see BTC to mainly utilized for these types of financial transfers and less as a long-term store of value. I have, in Sweden, the options of Swish and SEPA to transfer money. Swish is internal to Swedish residents, so to anyone who has Swish tied to their bank account I can instantly send money knowing their phone number. With SEPA Instant Transfer I can send money anywhere in the EU, up to…

SEPA takes 10 seconds? My bank only guarantees it'll reach recipient in 24h and I have strong suspicion they only mean business days.
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