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I wasted years of my life in crypto

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Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#861

Post by expedition32 »

bangaladore wrote: post #825
darkwater wrote: post #809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not into cryptocurrencies and I hold exactly 0 of them but... Isn't basically how people make money out of gold?

Gold has a use case in the real world. We can't manufacture it, so every time it is used to plate a printed circuit board, or XYZ other real application someone needs to purchase it from someone else. Some amount gets recycled, but certainly some not. Crypto has zero fundamental use case in the real world.

In the 1960s and 70s European countries became nervous about the US economy and sent dollars to NYC in exchange for gold.

The US even dispatched some high ranking officials to Europe to stem the tide. It predictably had the opposite effect. So America had the option: stop printing money because gold reserves are finite or end the gold standard.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#862

Post by sigmarule »

monerozcash wrote: post #493
amelius wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to that, crypto is also a gift from heaven for criminals who need to receive ransoms.

It's nice and all, but the same people who are running the biggest ransomware operations now had no trouble receiving the billions of dollars they were stealing directly from US bank accounts before they pivoted to ransomware. Ransomware would still work just fine using regular bank transfers. Especially given that the payor has no incentive to stop that money from arriving at it's destination. But sure, using crypto…

Pre-crypto ransomware operations receiving billions through bank transfers is fantasy, or less euphemistically, a lie. Trying to hand wave away the absolutely-real logistical difficulties groups would be plagued by if they shifted to using global financial institutions instead of crypto is additionally dishonest.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#863

Post by sneak »

bangaladore wrote: post #850
anon7725 wrote: post #841

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation risk.

I think most people would accept inflation as less of a risk then 20+% swings of the crypto market on a fairly common basis.

If they’re that common, it’s easy to profit 20% from them.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#864

Post by sneak »

bangaladore wrote: post #822
sneak wrote: post #761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A normal savings account does not have zero risk.

What risk are you taking on with a normal savings account? If you are saying the global collapse of the financial system, crypto will be the first to fall in that case. Crypto like BTC is pretty much a more volatile market tracker.

Forcible illegal deportation is one.

ICE grabbed a US citizen friend of mine and threw her on a bus and drove her hundreds of miles away and was about to toss her over the wall to Mexico last week.

Civil asset forfeiture is another.

Tax warrants, which have zero burden of proof to be issued, are another.

I don’t keep money in banks, personally, after the third one bit me some years ago and I realized that storing money in banks makes it more likely to be stolen, not less.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#865

Post by wyck »

cwmma wrote: post #770
wyck wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you have a home on Airbnb , your guest sends you a payment, but its not directly to you, the payment goes through the payment rails stipulated and controlled by airbnb. This amounts to what is often 25-35% of your listening fee (payment charges, visa network, listing fee, etc, etc.) This is the middle men crypto is supposed to replace. Only a trustworthy network can replace the current system, it must be some…

In your example crypto would only replace the visa network. Most of the fee you are playing is to Airbnb for getting you the client in the first place.

Correct, but these fees are trending up and not down, its not uncommon in this space to see payment fees hitting 15%. Removing the primitives of payment requirements, rails which are hard to build and practicably a monopoly, would free the state, this would power end-users instead of building more monopolies.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#866

Post by freehorse »

embedding-shape wrote: post #41
Ekaros wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might have been for first few months. And then it kinda got into becoming rich or kings of future world...

Or a more charitable explanation; the ecosystem was initially filled with people caring about the ideology and technology, but as money got involved, people who cared more about accumulating money started taking over more and more of the ecosystem. The initial people still exist, although they are few compared to the money people who've infected the ecosystem.

People cared about money from the beginning, firstmost. You do not create such a new kind of currency if money is not what you care about.

As the original article says:

> The cypherpunk ethos attracted me. I was enamored by the whole idea of Bitcoin being a private bank for wealthy individuals. Being able to walk across the border with a billion dollars in your head is and always will be a powerful idea to me.

People sure had a "cypherpunk ethos" but they built cryptocurrencies, not tor network or signal. The author's dream was to be rich and untouchable. Imo the author is not that far away from the ethos of modern crypto as they think they are.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#867

Post by monerozcash »

sigmarule wrote: post #862
monerozcash wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice and all, but the same people who are running the biggest ransomware operations now had no trouble receiving the billions of dollars they were stealing directly from US bank accounts before they pivoted to ransomware. Ransomware would still work just fine using regular bank transfers. Especially given that the payor has no incentive to stop that money from arriving at it's destination. But sure, using crypto…

Pre-crypto ransomware operations receiving billions through bank transfers is fantasy, or less euphemistically, a lie. Trying to hand wave away the absolutely-real logistical difficulties groups would be plagued by if they shifted to using global financial institutions instead of crypto is additionally dishonest.

It's neither fantasy, nor a lie. You shouldn't throw around accusations like that without actually familiarizing yourself with the topic.

Banking trojans were doing just that, and receiving that money is obviously far more challenging than ransom payments because the owner will tend to notice pretty quickly and want it back. Ransomware doesn't have this problem, they can just deliver the keys only after they actually have the money in their control.

BEC groups are stealing billions every year via bank transfers right now.

.ru crime forums are absolutely full of people who will handle the logistics for you. They'll provide you bank accounts to send the money to, and deliver you whatever is left after their cut. A regular customer with high volumes will get excellent rates. The logistics aren't a challenge because there is absolutely massive pre-existing infrastructure already available.

Ransomware isn't big because of crypto(currency), Winlockers were popularized well before crypto payments became common. Ransomware just happened to develop at the same time as crypto, not thanks to it.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#868

Post by KaiserPro »

HaZeust wrote: post #844
KaiserPro wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who validates the driver's license? How do you stop inauthentic licenses? Perhaps some sort of central authority? This is the main problem with most of the blockchain/crypto issues is that its all fine until a dispute, and then we all fall back to the state to sort it out (ie the legal system)

Same problems we have today. For the state, at an institutional scale, the incumbent can just have a government agency make up individuals born, or make up SSN numbers, or make up required parameters for one to have a valid voting ID in order to have a bunch of fake people issue fake ballots - because government agencies are currently responsible for instituting the legitimate ones, and its an unchecked procedure. An…

> make up required parameters for one to have a valid voting ID in order to have a bunch of fake people issue fake ballots

I would urge you to look at where the voter fraud takes place, I can't think of a place that spends that much time, money and effort to fake votes that way. Russia, Georgia, turkey and zim just use good old fashioned violence and lies. Its far far simpler.

Look I get that you are worried about vote counting and fraud, but seriously thats not how the mid terms are going to be swayed (if they are) The people that want to do fraud are lasy and not very clever. They'll just gerrymander and lie. Its that simple. Just look at the 2020 elections. Fraud was pretty evenly split, but miniscule and easy to spot. Yet, here we are, all it took was a constant stream of bollocks to news outlets and useful idiots to propagate it on the web.

I mean sure you _could_ print 20 million IDs/SSN/Drivers license, then pay a few hundreds of thousands of people to go and vote illegally. But thats expensive, take time, and leaves a massive massive paper trail back to you. its much easier to buy access to a dipshit billionaire and get them to force the bullshit down their network.

> Decentralization is empowerment

In some instances yes, but for things that backstop identity, its an opportunity for fraud (just look at the state of the internets)

> it innately builds a freedom of choice, forcing of transparency,

transparency requires a stronger authority to enforce. Be that monetary or legal.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#869

Post by wat10000 »

PKop wrote: post #859
wat10000 wrote: post #826

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why crypto? Why not one of the millions of other things you can invest in? Should I hold some onion futures as insurance with potential upside, or ride the periodic bulls of the Nepalese rupee and take profits?

Because of the returns, volatility and the liquidity obviously. This is a stupid question. I'm not even talking about "investing", it's a trading vehicle. Short term. Those other things you mentioned are less correlated directly to changes in global liquidity and overall risk assets, so in a sense even more risky and obscure. The fact that you even suggested "holding" onion futures means you're missing the point. Loo…

Sure, not everything is the same. My question is, why crypto over all millions of other things you could invest in? Are you suggesting it's a better choice because of the volatility?

(The onion futures thing was a joke. Onion futures trading is specifically illegal in the US.)

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#870

Post by lazide »

charcircuit wrote: post #853
lazide wrote: post #820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except I can literally pull up a full node and see a wallets current balance - which is because it traces all the transactions through the blockchain, verifying all of them. Literally the only way anyone can see their wallet balance is by doing this.

You can find your balance by looking at the UTXO set and seeing if your adress can spend it. There is no need to trace where those UTXO came from.

But every full node does, because it is required to validate the chain.

Near as I can tell, you just don’t know how Bitcoin actually works?

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