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On anti-crypto toxicity

blog.mollywhite.net

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Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#531

Post by pjc50 »

reedjosh wrote: post #505
n_io wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the money in your bank account a real store of value? Do you not notice what’s been happening to it at an accelerated pace over the last 30 years? I’m not arguing for bitcoin either way. But I implore you to take a hard look at your definition of real value in a system with inherent inflation that forces you to speculate in order to preserve any “real value.”

> inherent inflation that forces you to speculate in order to preserve any “real value.” Wow, also this! Say inflation is 8.5%, and you're holding an ounce of gold, then that gold raises by 8.5% in kind, you are still losing value as now you have to pay taxes on the 8.5% gained even though you didn't really gain anything.

That's not usually how capital gains tax works.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#532

Post by 1ris »

Capira wrote: post #197
1ris wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin being deflationary helps us move away from the mentality of a throw-away society. No, it does not. How could it? It does nothing but encourage hoarding. Not only that, but also a economy where everything is more scare tomorrow than today, is a economy in perpetual decline. >You can use the Lightning Network to use Bitcoin as a currency. It's almost instant and free. That does not side step the proof-of-wast…

> everything is more scarce tomorrow than today No, in terms of Bitcoin everything is cheaper tomorrow than today. That's the opposite of more scarce. Bitcoin mining accelerates the transition to renewables. https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/can-bitcoin-mining-sa...

No it doesn't. And you are moving goalposts. But still, it's a obvious and transparent lie. It wastes electricity that could have been put to good use, like power2(gas|ammonia|syngas|heat|cooling) or just normal, dispatchable consumption in a Wide area synchronous grid, a thing that exists pretty much everywhere where electricity generation is a thing.

And bitcoin does not use electricity, it just flat out wastes it. And that's not because bitcoin in itself is useless (it is), but due to the design of the Proof-of-Waste. Electricity use implies that electricity is converted into something. Every iPhone uses X Wh. If you dail up the usage, the output increases. It's not perfectly linear, but that's a reasonable approximation. Bitcoin is different: More electricity will never produce a better service, more bitcoins or whatever. Bitcoin will not ever get better by using more. And yet it is designed to waste a amount of electricity proportional to it's price. Oh, and it is only profitable to mine if you use a below-average electricity price. E.g. use the laxes regulations, the most polluting or the most illegal sources of electricity.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#533

Post by atchoo »

Nevermark wrote: post #352
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bootstrapping a new cryptocurrency where 90% of the coins go to relatively few early adopters is the worst possible way to fix financial inequality. The crypto holders would love if the world switched to using the cryptocurrency they’re invested in because it would make them extraordinarily wealthy relative to the average person buying in late. I don’t understand how anyone can honestly suggest that a gradual changeo…

Are you distinguishing equality & inequity? As I understand it, “equality” in a society refers to people’s equal access and treatment in some aspect of society (health, education, financial, legal, …) Whereas “inequity” in a society refers to different outcomes for people (billionaires vs the indebted unemployed, for instance). Outside of scams and fraudulent or deceptive launches, crypto seems to be very equality su…

Inequality leads to inequity. Inequity leads to inequality. For wealth inequality the hair-splitting difference between equity and equality is a matter of the time frame you are looking at. As for Crypto gains being an equal opportunity - no, not in the least - access to capital to invest in crypto schemes is not equal.

Even if everyone had equal access to capital, we would still be talking about the equality of restructuring economies to wildly benefit a minority who gambled and got lucky. Should a single currency gamble "win", it will be in no small part due to heavily invested and politically powerful people making that happen.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#534

Post by dmitriid »

rglullis wrote: post #424
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you haven't seen it, you were not interested in looking and I doubt that any "evangelist" is going to change your mind This is disingenuous. (Also, ENS appears to be functionally similar to App.net [1]. I'm open to being challenged on this.) One thing pervasively lacking from Web3 is compelling fiction. Not "this and that trustlessly," but a functional narrative of someone doing something useful or compelling they…

[flagged]

> It's much easier to "sell" web3 to someone that has lived with dysfunctional institutions and has faced one of its many problems, whether it is hyperinflation that leaves poor people with no perspective to save, or systemic corruption that shuts the citizens of any quality service

I have lived in such countries (Moldova, in the 90s; Turkey, early 2000s). I wouldn't touch this web3 shit with a 1000-ft pole. All this narrative about "poor people" and "dysfunctional institutions" usually comes from relatively wealthy people in stable countries whose idea about "poor people" comes from watching a Netflix overproduced dramatic documentary.

web3 is more unstable and volatile than the absolute vast majority of existing countries (including most of the "dysfunctional" countries), and its only modus operandi is "pay to play" which surely makes wonders for the "poor people".

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#535

Post by mr_spothawk »

kuschku wrote: post #519
mr_spothawk wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to not talk past people about these things... i'm really struggling to understand what you're trying to communicate. Are you saying that keeping some amount of bitcoin tied up in a LN channel is painful? Or are you saying that holding bitcoin for 1-30 days is "regular usage" ? Also, you completely ignored the point about running a node.

> Or are you saying that holding bitcoin for 1-30 days is "regular usage" ? Holding money for 1-30 days is regular usage. You get paid, you spend it over a month on wages and expenses. Bitcoin originally promised to be usable for that. Some companies actually paid you in BTC, some stores actually allowed you to pay with BTC. The original goal was to use BTC like a checking account. Lightning is great at replacing the…

> Holding money for 1-30 days is regular usage.

This is (roughly speaking) the description of a currency, isn't it? I would point out that as a store of value, bitcoin's up

> [BTC's] original task of matching or exceeding fiat money in actual day to day usability.

I don't think BTC was intended to serve in the way you're describing. I believe it was designed to neuter/obviate at-large Central Banks (e.g. money printers, debasers of currency, economic overlords). In this way, it's gone a long way towards the intended purpose. Furthermore, as a base-layer, it's been extended considerably to support day-to-day usability. Further, as a Store of Value, it's done a lot better than USD in almost every time-scale you can compare, and all the ones that matter.

Here's the quote from the release (via: http://satoshinakamoto.me/2008/11/01/bitcoin-p2p-e-cash-pape...)

>>> The main properties: Double-spending is prevented with a peer-to-peer network. No mint or other trusted parties. Participants can be anonymous. New coins are made from Hashcash style proof-of-work. The proof-of-work for new coin generation also powers the network to prevent double-spending. >>>

I would also like to add that the original point of money is not to support a month's worth of planning... the point of money is to support planning across planting seasons and lifetimes. Wages and wage-work came along long after money was invented.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#536

Post by BaseballPhysics »

malthaus wrote: post #183

Unfortunately, given: "How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services? How can we reduce the power that a small few currently hold over the web? How can we improve data privacy and ensure that people have control over their personal information? How can we create reasonable privacy in the financial system? How can we make information more available to everyone? How…

None of which is relevant to the core thesis of the post.

Ms. White's point, here, is that there shouldn't be so much toxicity directed at individuals taken in by the crypto hype in the desperate hope of getting ahead. That level of discourse should be directed at the influence peddlers and grifters who are drawing folks in in the first place.

The paragraph you quoted is intended to help set the stage for why folks who don't know any better might look at crypto as the answer to their financial fears and anxieties. Later she points out that "I don’t think they are a feasible solution, and in fact I think they will worsen many of the problems they ostensibly aim to solve, but they are certainly being sold as the solution, and a solution that people desperately need."

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#537

Post by mr_spothawk »

djur wrote: post #525
mr_spothawk wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fundamental means of valuation. Can you expound on the fundamental means of valuation for Fiat currency? It's my understanding that there is no fiat currency with any fundamental backing. I was pretty sure Khadaffi was killed for promoting an African currency backed by gold, in lieu of the USD hegemony. > The value of fiat currency is ultimately tied to the economics of global, and therefore provides an objective m…

You can use it to pay taxes, which means you can live, work, and do business in a particular country.

Do i understand correctly, then, that your point is:

"The fundamental value of fiat currency is its capacity to pay taxes to a regional entity?"

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#538

Post by dogman144 »

Traster wrote: post #46

I think toxicity from the anti-crypto crowd is basically inevitable at this point. It has been a decade of dumb claims and ridiculous assertions from the pro-crypto crowd. None of their claims have materially panned out. There's some promise in some places - mainly in the most nerdy corners of ETH, but it's still only promises. Meanwhile, this long protracted failure has been accompanied by a massive increase in stup…

> this long protracted failure

Have you seen the companies funding the pro-crypto crowd? The 3 people and a discord server projects get the most attention and generally act toxic, agreed.

For the rest of the space, plenty of Fortune 500's investing in it for the long haul/"humoring the same lie."

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#539

Post by SuoDuanDao »

falcolas wrote: post #300
koonsolo wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> society won't be worse off in the end. That is most definitely a political question. I think the article has a strange reasoning about crypto trying to "save the world". For me it's pretty clear: individuals can now store and transfer value on the internet using a consensus algorithm. Plenty of you claim that it's enough to have a democracy that controls a central bank. That way you also have some kind of consensus…

> But it's clear that cryptocurrencies try to live outside of governmental control, which is of course where most of the benefit comes from. I believe it’s naïve to expect that it will remain outside of government control. That it won’t get slammed with the same laws and regulations applied to fiat currencies. Governments live on money. As alternatives gain traction, the governments take notice and start regulating.…

I don't think it needs to be beyond government control in the way you mean to be useful. It just needs to be beyond the control of corrupt actors, in government or elsewhere. I don't mind the government being able to tax my crypto gains - I mind the people in it being able to bail out their golfing buddies when they gamble too aggressively on junk bonds.

It's counterintuitive to think that a financial instrument that increases transparency would make people more difficult to govern, and it would - unless the government is very corrupt.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#540

Post by DebtDeflation »

crypthrowaway1 wrote: post #523
HWR_14 wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see the difference between what I said and "Bitcoiners hate NFTs mostly because they give the whole space a bad rap." Anyway, you have your choice of what money to use. I prefer USD and Euro myself. And I really still don't understand any use case for someone in a first world country to use crypto. I grant that 3rd world countries without banking systems may, may need it, but I don't know why we just wouldn…

> And I really still don't understand any use case for someone in a first world country to use crypto. Hi. Here is a use case you can carry on to future discussions. There is a flourishing scene of dark net markets where people can purchase drugs using cryptocurrency. Merchants have reviews, products have reviews, and the whole process is much safer, secure, and convenient than meeting a drug dealer in real life with…

Except (at least in the case of BTC) that transaction will be permanently recorded on an indelible blockchain for everyone to see. Such security and privacy.
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