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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

#81

Post by yeahsure »

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…

Not all of us have the privilege of having been born un Sweden. Your comment reeks of privilege and dissociation with the rest of the world, where things work very differently.

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

#82

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

macinjosh wrote: post #63
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ease and affordability of transferring remittances internationally is the single most useful case for Bitcoin. This is demonstratably false. The problem has been solved elsewhere in the world, much better than in the US, without any bitcoin or crypto at all. > In the US it can still take days for a check or transfer to clear. As noted, "in the US" is your problem. Also "hasty generalisation". > In the future I…

> wise.com is laughing. M-Pesa is laughing. EU SEPA is laughing. Not sure how SEPA helps an immigrant in the US trying to send money back home. Or a million other situations not involving places that have SEPA. Your other options are greedy corporations. Wise wants $7 to transfer 1000 bucks to Europe. Bitcoin will continue working if corporations fail, change policies, arbitrarily decide not to do business with you,…

> Or a million other situations not involving places that have SEPA.

And the way forward for those places is more like SEPA, than like bitcoin. That's the point. There exist better solutions to these than the US has, many commenters are oblivious, and these solutions don't look like Bitcoin.

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

#83

Post by tomputer »

hnews_account_1 wrote: post #34
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…

I have a deep understanding of all of the latter. I work in capital markets daily. I do not know anyone serious with my level of experience in the actual markets who thinks bitcoin is the answer. There are several issues with tradFi. Pointing that out is like saying the sun will rise tomorrow. In some cases, people are working on a fix. In other cases, the inefficiency and criminal activity is not ceasing because the…

> Except finance is extremely advanced.

Exactly. This is a problem. It can be so advanced that almost nobody understands it.

Now take a look at how advanced Bitcoin is:

  Total circulation will be 21,000,000 coins. It'll be distributed
  to network nodes when they make blocks, with the amount cut in half
  every 4 years.
  
  first 4 years: 10,500,000 coins
  next 4 years: 5,250,000 coins
  next 4 years: 2,625,000 coins
  next 4 years: 1,312,500 coins
  etc...
  
  When that runs out, the system can support transaction fees if
  needed. It's based on open market competition, and there will
  probably always be nodes willing to process transactions for free.

  Satoshi Nakamoto

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

#84

Post by [deleted] »

cypress66 wrote: post #42
csee wrote: post #3

> I can also assure you perpetual futures would not be allowed to trade on any exchange inside the legitimate financial system. I don't disagree that the point of perpetual futures on crypto exchanges is primarily to facilitate speculation and gambling, but they're just delta 1 derivatives (track the underlying 1:1) in the form of a CFD, different in mechanism but no different in use case to regular futures, which th…

I never understood gambling addicts (me having gone to the casino and found it boring). But when I did some YOLO trades with insane leverage I felt what addicts feel. So I never touched leverage again except maybe 1.5x at most.

[deleted]

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

#85

Post by KptMarchewa »

Grimburger wrote: post #37
KptMarchewa wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did "gurus selling courses" have 3T market cap? Did "affiliate programs with 70% margin" emit more CO2 than New Zealand? Once the scam can cripple whole countries, it becomes dangerous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Civil_War

Doesn't spam email energy usage come in close to 50TWh? That's from memory. Only decent link I can find on this is from 13 years ago with 33TWh: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...

And everyone agrees it's waste of time and energy, except actual scammers - spammers, right?

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

#86

Post by olalonde »

regularjack wrote: post #57
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?

The problem is that the cryptocurrency space is not a homogenous entity. It's like painting the web as a hideous monstrosity because you disapprove of online gambling, Facebook and that the NASDAQ index fell recently. The title refers to Bitcoin but the content relates to Tether, Binance, Terra/Luna, etc.

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

#87

Post by lolsal »

tossl568 wrote: post #80

Yeah yeah. Bitcoin is an open financial network that anybody can use and nobody controls and is secured by energy. What an amazing, historical feat of human ingenuity. It's neutral and just like the internet can be used by anybody. We're not going to apologise for its energy use.

>Yeah yeah. Bitcoin is an open financial network that anybody can use and nobody controls and is secured by energy. What an amazing, historical feat of human ingenuity. It's neutral and just like the internet can be used by anybody. We're not going to apologise for its energy use.

If you think the ends justifies the means, I suppose you could do anything.

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

#88

Post by olalonde »

hnews_account_1 wrote: post #34
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…

I have a deep understanding of all of the latter. I work in capital markets daily. I do not know anyone serious with my level of experience in the actual markets who thinks bitcoin is the answer. There are several issues with tradFi. Pointing that out is like saying the sun will rise tomorrow. In some cases, people are working on a fix. In other cases, the inefficiency and criminal activity is not ceasing because the…

Just for your interest, you just called a few recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economics idiots.

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

#89

Post by tossl568 »

lolsal wrote: post #87
tossl568 wrote: post #80

Yeah yeah. Bitcoin is an open financial network that anybody can use and nobody controls and is secured by energy. What an amazing, historical feat of human ingenuity. It's neutral and just like the internet can be used by anybody. We're not going to apologise for its energy use.

>Yeah yeah. Bitcoin is an open financial network that anybody can use and nobody controls and is secured by energy. What an amazing, historical feat of human ingenuity. It's neutral and just like the internet can be used by anybody. We're not going to apologise for its energy use. If you think the ends justifies the means, I suppose you could do anything.

Bitcoin disappearing tomorrow wouldn't make a dent in our current fossil fuel emissions. Bitcoin mining ASICs don't emit CO2. Take it up with policymakers who subsidize fossil fuels.

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

#90

Post by _aavaa_ »

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…

I disagree with you on the smart contracts being the problem. a) Bitcoin doesn't use them, b) none of the issues you raise are caused by smart contracts. ALL of those are caused by large exchanges luring people in on the promise of free money.

The margin lending, staking, and all the rest are not Bitcoin, but Bitcoin!TM [1]. This isn't a "real bitcoin hasn't been tried" argument. It's a "if you treat it as any other asset or stock and play the Wall Street game, then of course it will look like Wall Street".

[1]: https://www.epsilontheory.com/in-praise-of-bitcoin/

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