821–830 of 1001 posts
The death of crypto was written endlessly on HN. The investor activity is much more bullish over last 6 months. I think the only hot VC right now in all of tech is AI and blockchain. Now a lot of people here will be investing in Bitcoin without even knowing it, as their passive fund investments begin accumulating. The sweet victory against the no coiners.
This fight only exists in your head.
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Gold was a currency and a store of wealth for a long time for multiple societies (even when most of those use cases you listed didn't exist). If only they had the knowledge and wisdom of epolanski from 2024 they wouldn't have made this mistake...
Pretty sure that every society that unilaterally adopted gold used it for jewellery first, and only started using it as a currency and store of wealth once its value had already been established.
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The US is not at war with Russia and no US forces are engaging Russian forces. This is actually an important distinction. It's much less of a conflict than the Iraq war. It does show two things: US hegemony over certain European countries that might want to take Russian money and gas is weak, and the US foreign policy coherence is weak as Ukraine policy is at risk from cranks.
If they can't win the not-war they're fighting against Russia, what is their huge military stockpile supposed to do? If it isn't useful here, they can't use it.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12040
• 39 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS);
• 12 National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS); 1 Patriot air defense battery; other air defense systems; and 21 air surveillance radars;
• 31 Abrams tanks, 45 T-72B tanks and 186 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles;
• 300 M113 and 189 Stryker Armored Personnel Carriers;
• 2,000+ Stinger anti-aircraft missiles;
• 10,000+ Javelin and 90,000+ other anti-armor systems;
• Phoenix Ghost, Switchblade, and other UAS;
• 198 155 mm and 72 105 mm Howitzers and artillery;
• 227 mortar systems;
• Remote Anti-Armor Mine (RAAM) Systems;
• 9,000+ Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire- Guided (TOW) missiles;
• High-speed anti-radiation missiles (HARMs) and laser- guided rocket systems;
• 35,000+ grenade launchers and small arms;
• communications, radar, and intelligence equipment; and
• training, maintenance, and sustainment.
(What's NOT on that list? Aircraft. What's the US doctrine way of winning a war, such as OIF? Air power.)
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No way. I came for the gains but I'm staying for the revolution. It doesn't take resolve, only 100s of hours of learning and contemplation. I'll die on this hill, and there's many more like me.
Your money, your call. But I'm wondering - why wouldn't you invest in business? Business are, after all, the drivers of economy. While cryptocurrencies could theoretically grow to "infinite" (finite supply and all. combined with fiat monetary policies), there must be some realistic limit to the growth, where the price starts to converge. For BTC, that price is somewhere in the single digit millions. Could make a long…
The only reason it's not already $10M/BTC is that noone understands what it is - many people think they do, but they don't. As someone who has studied the subject for 100s of hours, I haven't come across a single valid argument for why it won't absorb all the stored value in the world over time. The hardest part is just being patient while everyone figures it out.
The supply halving every 4 years helps to bring it to their attention :)
Regarding potential value, this article offers food for thought: https://t.co/eLqJCYeCKW
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The state of bitcoin mixers was also very primitive back then, especially given this volume. Today, criminals can use things like the defunct ChipMixer, which distributes private keys funded in advance. So by definition there is nothing in the blockchain to follow, because the handover is done off chain. The fact that ChipMixer was busted in an international law enforcement operation should indicate to you the nature…
I disagree with pretty much every point here, wow. ChipMixer provided a little bit of disconnect, but there was a research paper a while back that ran something like 5 transfers through it and managed to identify their mixing transactions with 90% precision. Law enforcement is most likely constantly tracking those, similar to how the NSA runs some significant percentage of Tor entry/exit nodes. Second, recognize the…
As long as nothing moves on the blockchain, and the trust requirement you mention is fulfilled, I hope you agree that, save from some bug in the implementation, you will have no idea what private keys were received by the original owner of A. It's logically impossible, since CM has already pre-deposited many more other funded private keys (in fact, the entire previous volume of their laundry) and by the definition you don't know which ones of those were disclosed to the client A. The number of combinations is a factorial of the number previous clients, the vast majority you won't know.
So the attack scenario has to be more convoluted than that, perhaps the client immediately consolidates his received keys into a single address, perhaps we assume the attacker has perfect information over all amounts A deposited, which is clearly not practical etc. But that's another discussion altogether that deals with breaking a certain implementation of finding a launderer with a certain behavior. Research papers always make bold claims to raise interest, and often deliver crypto style failures, that require "only" 2^64 attempts, so the system is "broken".
But the issue we debated above - address pseudoanonymity enabling untraceable off chain asset swaps - is already settled if you agree to the second paragraph.
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Why would you expect anyone to waste time making any substantive arguments against silly claims like "Bitcoin is money"..
"Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context.[1][2][3] The primary functions which distinguish money are: medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value and sometimes, a standard of deferred payment." I have purchased items and payed off loans using BTC. So have mil…
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THCX the cannabis ETF went from $230 to $16. Maybe it was not known to be risky, but it was a massive rug pull. Does that qualify?
I should've added this comment from the SEC, the entity that just authorized this ETF: """ Though we’re merit neutral, I’d note that the underlying assets in the metals ETPs have consumer and industrial uses, while in contrast bitcoin is primarily a speculative, volatile asset that’s also used for illicit activity including ransomware,[4] money laundering,[5] sanction evasion,[6] and terrorist financing.[7] """ - htt…
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No way. I came for the gains but I'm staying for the revolution. It doesn't take resolve, only 100s of hours of learning and contemplation. I'll die on this hill, and there's many more like me.
You sound like you are in a cult.
Personally I think it's one of mankind's most important discoveries. It will improve the world more than most people could imagine. And it's going up forever.
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As a hedge of what against what? > if the Feds keep on printing USD under political pressure Have you looked at the economy in the last two years? The Fed has been burning USD at an unprecedented rate!
Have you looked at the economy in the last 80 years? The fed and other central banks have been stealing purchasing power non-stop from the people.
Access to a risk-free investment vehicle that preserves your purchasing power perfectly across decades is not a universal right.