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Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

stephendiehl.com

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Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#501

Post by HDBaseT »

eudamoniac wrote: post #490
ElijahLynn wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you realize what is happening it can take 20 years to get out... It is predatory. Especially to hook teenagers on them at a young age.

It would be surprising to hear that someone obtained such a high line of credit that it took 20 years to pay off, while not understanding how credit works, but I guess that is possible

Disclaimer: I've never used a Credit Card and have no intention to do so.

I don't really see the complexity/confusion with credit cards and I struggle to see how people get into poor financial positions with them.

Credit Cards are effectively mini-loans. You spend $100 here, $200 there, they get bundled on a credit card which had an interest rate applied to whatever you purchase if not paid back by the defined date.

You can "win" on credit cards by always paying it back and reaping some of the rewards (discounts, points, etc).

You can "lose" on credit cards by paying it back late (incurring the interest+if applicable, late fees).

Am I missing something? That seems like the principal behind credit cards. People who get wrapped up in the credit system likely already are in a poor financial state, since they use credit to "get by".

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#502

Post by coldtea »

Retric wrote: post #494
coldtea wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US, “unintentional poisoning deaths numbered 75,761 in 2023” So you agree that hard drugs are poison (or even worse than poison, about 75K vs about 100K deaths / year). > A single substance vs all drugs including prescription, over the counter, and hard drugs while including suicide etc is hardly the support you think it is. "but, hey, poison also kills people" is is hardly the counter argument you think it…

A flawed argument doesn’t mean the position is incorrect, only that the person making the argument failed. > So you agree that hard drugs are poison (or even worse than poison, about 75K vs about 100K deaths / year). Read my first post. I never said hard drugs were good for you, just that being poison alone does not inherently warrant anything past a warning label. And again that 100k number you want to use isn’t lim…

>A flawed argument doesn’t mean the position is incorrect, only that the person making the argument failed.

But let's skip the generic/philosophical pedantry and stick to the discussion at hand? I mean, I already argued against the position, which implies I consider it incorrect. So a failed argument doesn't do anything to convince me, on the contrary...

>I never said hard drugs were good for you, just that being poison alone does not inherently warrant anything past a warning label.

Inherently maybe no. Practically? Given the outcomes we want to see practically, and also from the moral standpoint of what's "good" i.g. regarding things a society should encourage vs discourage?

> And again that 100k number you want to use isn’t limited to hard drugs.

It includes what else, weed overdoses?

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#503

Post by cduzz »

rglullis wrote: post #498
cduzz wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I offered a pretty concrete example of a real situation and how the imagined utility of crypto magic isn't actually all that helpful. Now, perhaps what you're suggesting is "I've got millions of units of money that I've acquired through locally illegal means and I want to transport that money someplace else and I don't feel like renting a private airplane and diamonds up my prison wallet are uncomfortable and…

How is the view from your imaginary moral high horse? Try this: you are a paralegal working with translating/notarizing documents from Spanish to English in Argentina. You have clients in the UK - a wine importer. You send an invoice for your work, it's circa GBP 500, about 1 million Argentinian Pesos. Then, you tell them about the payment options: - pay via SWIFT. will have a 30% surcharge to account for difference…

Sorry; one final edit:

What you're describing is "bank" where the financial organizations settle transactions using a private media ("the crypto"); but each individual is still dealing with "a bank". In "crypto" you trust "the math" and you don't need to worry about the counterparty absconding with the money. In your scenario, the Argentine service provider is in a position where they trust "the app" not "the math"

Banking is fine; I'm okay with banking. Crypto is also fine, if you're doing one of the 3-4 things "crypto" is good at (mostly crime, but whatever).

But what you're describing is "bank, with settlement not using SWIFT"

Anyhow; my original statement is:

Which shitcoin or shitcoin network is "cryptocurrency" ? Do you mean you're just pushing fiat through stable coins into an exchange? Is the exchange even converting from one cryptothing to another? Are you just asking the peer to shovel bits into a some shitcoin address? If you're just putting fiat into an "exchange" and then pulling fiat out, congratulations, you've invented a pretty ordinary financial service.

You're not describing an actual financial exchange; you're making up some vague situation.

You're probably also breaking some laws around paying taxes unless someone's going out of their way to actually report these activities.

Regardless, please be specific about "pay via cryptocurrency" otherwise you may as well say "pay via paypal" or "pay via putting dollars into a bank of america account I keep open since I was a student abroad."

"cryptocurrency" is doing a lot of work here. I don't see where there's some magic "crypto ledger" in your getting paid for a service. Just an internet service that promises to transmit money from one place to another.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#504

Post by Nursie »

michaelscott wrote: post #182
Nursie wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or a service like Wise which is cheap and takes a few minutes most of the time. Never had much of a need for other services when transferring across the globe.

They're not available everywhere, and the neo-banks in general are tightening their processes to a point where they're becoming difficult to use. I've had multiple situations now where Revolut denied things like a tap payment at a restaurant in NYC because it was an "unknown recipient". Of course they don't notify you of it, leading to an awkward 5 mins with the waiter while I rummage through the app to figure out wh…

Wise isn’t a neobank though, it’s a transfer service.

Personally, given that story, I’d stop using Revolution!

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#505

Post by thephyber »

louprado wrote: post #256
over_bridge wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or if you read Sapiens you'll know money is a story we tell each other. You can't literally do much with a coin or bank note or numbers on a screen but as long as we all believe it has value, it does. It becomes part of the culture, as you say. Crypto also has to tell a story about why it's valuable. There was a lot of anti government rhetoric and fear mongering (from libertarians) but the public never really believe…

"but as long as we all believe it has value, it does". Would one argue that an airplane is a _story_ ? If no one believed in the technology and lost faith in all pilots no one would fly. But that doesn't change the reality of the technology and competence of the pilots. I get the sentiment, but I am not sure _story_ is the right word.

No, an airplane is a physical thing we interact with which has intrinsic value, physical transportation. This is a perfect example of what money is not.

Money is not the token (the coin or paper bill), but the component of the ledger the token represents. Sometimes there is no physical token, only an entry in a ledger (eg. digital transfers after fractional reserve banking). The intrinsic value of the metals in the dime are (usually) worth less than the face value of the denomination, hence the discussion that the _story_ is more important than the physical _token_.

The author of Sapiens is a very famous speaker on many topics HNers like. He’s worth a listen.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#506

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #476
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was about creating a rules based monetary system. It made engineering sense to start with a mimic of a system that was already known to be consistent (gold), but the feeling I got was that it was much more about letting the people choose which rules they wanted to follow, and less about favoring any particular ruleset (i.e. ones that create scarcity).

rules based? arguably the entire point is to break the existing rules based, heavily-regulated monetary system. like that was the point, now you're not talking to banks and paying taxes and following regulations; it's why Monero is still a thing

The existing monetary system isn't rules-based, it runs on threats and favors.

You can do whatever you want, you just have to worry about the IRS punishing you for it after the fact. Piss off the wrong people and you'll have your accounts frozen. Do favors for the right people and taxpayer money will be diverted to bail you out. Have the wrong kind of business and no bank will touch you.

Sure, there are rules written down somewhere, but it's an out-of-band thing to be enforced by whoever cares enough and has a big enough stick. Exceptions will be made to boost or suppress your activity based on whether you're friend or foe to those in certain powerful positions. Like when congress forgave all of the covid loans they had taken out , or when they shut down wikileaks donations, or the bank bailout in 2008 that motivated bitcoin in the first place.

There's a bunch of awful stuff in crypto, plenty of cases where hard forks are used to break the rules that are baked into the protocol. But none of that changes the fact that baking the rules into the protocol so they're followed by default is a good idea, and that enforcing them in the ad-hoc way that the traditional system does is incredibly wasteful.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#508

Post by Retric »

coldtea wrote: post #502
Retric wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A flawed argument doesn’t mean the position is incorrect, only that the person making the argument failed. > So you agree that hard drugs are poison (or even worse than poison, about 75K vs about 100K deaths / year). Read my first post. I never said hard drugs were good for you, just that being poison alone does not inherently warrant anything past a warning label. And again that 100k number you want to use isn’t lim…

> A flawed argument doesn’t mean the position is incorrect, only that the person making the argument failed. But let's skip the generic/philosophical pedantry and stick to the discussion at hand? I mean, I already argued against the position, which implies I consider it incorrect. So a failed argument doesn't do anything to convince me, on the contrary... >I never said hard drugs were good for you, just that being po…

> It includes what else, weed overdoses?

People intentionally committing suicide is one of the big issues, but also people who die from any drug from Tylenol to prescription drugs.

That 75k includes accidental poisoning from drain cleaner etc and OD on hard drugs but excluded cases believed to be suicide.

> Given the outcomes we want to see practically, and also from the moral standpoint of what's "good" i.g. regarding things a society should encourage vs discourage?

Given those things are important you need to look at strategies that actually work, clearly the US fails here by an almost comical degree.

https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/drug-use/...

And not being pedantic that’s an actual argument you can attack on the merits of that argument. Such as using rates rather than absolute numbers when America is such a large country and adjusting for age related risks etc.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#509

Post by UncleMeat »

mech998877 wrote: post #439
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the perspective that our current systems are based on. And back when the majority of the problems that people were up against had to do with there being not enough of something to go around--when it took half of us working in the fields just to feed the rest of us--then the system worked relatively well. 9 times out of 10, when somebody got a loan (which is the event that injects dollars into the system) it ha…

>But nowadays, most loans are for zero-sum ventures... That's an enormous claim and I really doubt it.

The financialization of the US economy is well documented. A huge amount of labor is going not into creating something of value for the public but instead to moving money around more cleverly than other people so you can extract some of it at the expense of others.
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