521–530 of 1001 posts
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I disagree with the characterization that the primary use is a scam. That’s like saying the primary use of email is to receive ads and phishing mail.
Are there numbers on what the primary uses of cryptocurrency are? I would guess remittances, purchasing illegal things, purchasing legal things, and ransomware - but I'm not sure in what order.
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Actually, my understanding is that cryptocurrencies are having impact in developing countries. They can address hyperinflation, access to financial services, general friction in exchanging money etc.
But of course hyperinflation will never ever come to the first world
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You give convincing arguments in favor of BTC for folks living abroad in less-than-stable states. But these very arguments for which it is acclaimed have clear flip-sides that should be worrisome for those very same folks you claim it's suited for. Safeguarding hard physical cash is something most everyone, old and young, technically literate or technically illiterate, poor or rich, intrinsically knows how to do. And…
I agree, Bitcoin isn't zero risk. But compared to my experiences with banks and WU the risk is manageably low. I have to give someone my passport and home address in order to receive money via WU, so I'm exposed to the risk that buddies of the WU employees will rob my house later. I've had to pay a collection agency thousands for fees charged on a bank account that was empty and that I thought was closed. I've had my…
In comparison to getting your wallet compromised by viruses searching for it (and they will probably become more aggressive and adept as BTC usage increases), the chance of this happening I feel is exceedingly low. And avenues of recourse exist: there are clear leads to follow on for an investigative team.
> I've had my bank ATM card cloned by a skimmer on an ATM while I was traveling overseas
I know that my credit card covers me for this and I would get my money back if such a thing were to happen to me.
> I've had WU give me ridiculously unfavorable exchange rates, and there was nothing I could do about it
And BTC transaction fees are ever-increasing. And so is its environmental cost.
My grandma lives in .pk. I fear she would not be capable of understanding the concept of BTC or Trezor as she can barely understand how a TV remote works. She does very much grok the concept of cash money though, and is quite fond of exercising her freedom with it.
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In the case of the Internet, people were doing either new things, or existing things more efficiently (e.g. sending emails vs. postal mail and fax, or transferring files vs. swapping disk media or printouts). As the Internet progressed, efficiency increased. In the case of cryptocurrencies, people are doing existing things that can already be done quickly and efficiently vastly less efficiently, in a system that is p…
I can send unlimited amounts of money, anywhere on earth, for (at most) dollars in a few seconds. I don't need to rely on any government for any reason, and no government can stop me.
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> What I don't understand about the crypto remittances argument is how the people sending and receiving them are supposed to convert them into spendable currency. The final goal is not to be able to convert crypto to fiat, the goal is to keep everything in crypto. Do you think all this infrastructure is being build just to convert it back to fiat, what cypherpunks want is to destroy fiat.
I understand the final goal, but if I want to send my relative in Venezuela half my paycheck this week, how does she spend it on groceries and at the pharmacy before the Crypto Revolution comes? Inevitably the answer is "some trusted third party" that turns it into a vanilla remittance.
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This huge silent majority that know it is a scam doesn't exist. Crypto is so large, complex and fast-moving that it takes thousands of hours to grasp. If I'd make a list of 100 questions regarding crypto, an exam so to speak, I am reasonably sure that this silent majority can't even answer 5% of the questions. Because they don't know crypto. At all.
I'd be interested in seeing this exam!
This is always how cryptocoin nuts argue.
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> What are the fundamental flaws you're talking about? For a payments system, the fact that all transactions are final is pretty bad. I'd say this, by itself, makes the system unusable in the real world.
It's bad now, but in the future it might be great? With technology getting faster, I regret not mining a few coins. I even bought the sound cards? A life if regrets because I didn't follow my gut feelings, or let people sway my decisions? (Would I invest in Bitcoin now. Hell no, but years ago yes. It will deflate, along with NTF's, and the stock market soon.)
Not be able to reverse transaction is not a feature, it's a fundamental flaw. There is absolutely no advantage to the consumer or the producer to have all transactions immediately permanent.
The rest of your comment reveals your bias: You don't really care about it working technologically, you just wish you had made money on it.
“But it’s like the early Internet!” shouted the Emperor’s coinholders. “The Internet wasn’t yet useful a mere, um, thirteen years after its invention either.” I can see how people in their twenties would fall for this argument because they can’t remember. The reality is that the internet was immediately extremely interesting (either useful or fun) for practically everyone who got access. Email and ftp alone were kill…
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I'm a tech guy. I've spent years experimenting with crypto and it isn't fit for any legitimate purpose.
Stablecoins like USDC, if everything around it is legit, can be viewed as a programmable dollar... circumventing everything and anything bank-related to do the same work. That's pretty legit IMO.
I could waste a huge amount of time refuting the author's points, but will make it more of a meta comment. Crypto is vast, complex, and inherently not suitable for binary thinking. I've studied the space for months and have come to the conclusion that crypto is two-sided in almost every aspect. Many/most coins are speculative, which you can associate with words like "greed" and "casino". Yet also provide wealth savin…
It's a cliche at this point.