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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

#871

Post by valleyer »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #659
phplovesong wrote: post #363

The original promise of crypto was lost a LONG time ago. Instead of being a true rival to FIAT, it became a thing with a toxic-as-hell commumity, fraud, and basically its nothing more than a high risk stock. The risk is NOT only "will this go up or down" but you have a high risk of being robbed, as have happened to millions of people. Maybe there will be a better alternative in the future, but right now bitcoin is no…

Yeah... say what you will about FIAT currencies, but at least they can be used as currencies. I always chuckle at people who insist their transactions on exchanges are secret. With the "Know Your Customer" rules, FINCEN knows what you're doing (or at least has the option of looking into what you're doing.)

Folks, the word "fiat" is not an initialism, unless you're referring to the car brand.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fiat

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#872

Post by PKop »

lawlessone wrote: post #789
PKop wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both supporters and critics approach it too religiously. Yes 99% is scams and rugpulls. The rest of the higher profile coins are, at the very least, tools to make money. Why emotionally sell all your crypto vs holding some higher quality as insurance with potential upside? Or even, ride the periodic bulls and take profits, rinse and repeat? If it's full of scammers, why not take some of their money? Does this require…

>The rest of the higher profile coins are, at the very least, tools to make money. Make money from what?

Trading it, obviously. Buying low, selling higher. Riding the repeated boom and bust cycles and getting in and out during some portion of the boom. What I'm saying is one can do this even if they have zero "belief" in crypto and know it's full of scams, scammers, and religious zealots.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#873

Post by PKop »

wat10000 wrote: post #869
PKop wrote: post #859

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Yes since you can extract a gain within some small portion of its bull market that's compressed into a shorter period of time relative to some other assets like gold. It means you aren't holding for as long.

Crypto rises harder and falls harder. For traders, this is very useful.

Of course I know you were just riffing, but the particular terrible nature of the assets you compared it to was worth pointing out. Since you did ask how they were any different.

Different asset classes have different uses. A thing that doesn't move around much for a long time is not so great to trade, maybe to invest. Crypto is a great sponge for liquidity.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#874

Post by AnthonyMouse »

munificent wrote: post #784
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, this solves the wrong problem. Spending money usually involves getting a good or service in return, which inherently requires "trust" (as does any human interaction). Your fancy blockchain is not going to help you if you order something with Bitcoin and no package arrives. That problem already has solutions. The problems cryptocurrency is supposed to solve are, I want to buy subversive literature fro…

> You're not worried about a restaurant stealing your money because by the time you pay them you've already eaten. But the restaurant is worried about you stealing their food and dashing off without paying. Any transaction requires some level of trust to function. Crypto is a pipe dream for people who want to participate in society without confronting their pathological aversion to trusting and depending on others.

> But the restaurant is worried about you stealing their food and dashing off without paying.

Except that they serve you before collecting payment regardless of which payment method you use.

And even if they didn't, having the customer pay at the same time they receive the food isn't a trust problem for the restaurant or the customer, because the customer gets the food before the restaurant gets the money but the restaurant gets the money before the customer eats the food. And if someone comes into your kitchen to steal food without paying, that isn't really a payment system issue to begin with.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#875

Post by AnthonyMouse »

triceratops wrote: post #600
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, tell me how I buy something over the internet without tying the purchase to my government ID. Your argument seems like "only criminals want privacy" which is a no.

Use a pre-paid Visa gift card purchased with cash.

They ask you for your social security number when you try to activate it.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#876

Post by AnthonyMouse »

kotaKat wrote: post #829
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, tell me how I buy something over the internet without tying the purchase to my government ID. Your argument seems like "only criminals want privacy" which is a no.

I used to mail money orders to people to buy things over the Internet as a kid, before I had access to a bank account. Before you could just buy Pocky at any old Walmart in the US, I remember mailing Celga[1] a money order to purchase some directly from Japan… [1] https://www.celga.com/

Mailing them something isn't "over the internet". You might as well say you could get on a plane. How do you do it as a digital transaction that doesn't take a week to go through?

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#877

Post by torginus »

kwar13 wrote: post #730
torginus wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

regardless of the true merit of crypto, crypto articles have the tendency to fill the HN comment sections with the most unbearable people. It's honestly kind of amazing, I never thought a person could be so intellectually condescending and smug while trying to sell you their shit at the same time.

I'm not trying to sell anything. I don't even work in crypto and have never had a full-time job in it. I am not even talking about crypto here whatsoever. The whole point of the article IS to distinguish between "cryptocurrency" and "blockchain".

Sorry I didn't mean you in particular, but even though we are way past the golden days of crypto, we still have people in this comment section trying to push their particular brand of digital snake oil

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#878

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Lio wrote: post #437
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, the argument is crypto is primarily used for crimes. Which is true. The argument is right here: > Outside of buying sex and drugs the only uses for cryptocoins are, and always has been, ransoms, scams and gambling. It doesn't contain the word "primarily" which indeed makes it false, and the rebuttal to your different claim is this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46190260 > Also, if you want privacy, d…

>> Also, if you want privacy, don't use crypto. > Can you tell me another way of buying something over the internet without tying the purchase to a government ID? Isn't the real question more, does crypto actually allow you buy things without tying the purchase to a government ID? I'm no expert but I regularly see articles about de-anonymisation. This leads me to be sceptical about claims to privacy, certainly given…

Go to any retailer and buy any in-demand product with the same market value as what you want to buy. Sell it on Craigslist or similar for cryptocurrency using a new wallet. Buy whatever you wanted to buy, never use that wallet again. Alternatively, mine the cryptocurrency yourself, again using a separate wallet for each purchase.

The deanonymization comes from tying any transaction performed by a particular wallet to your identity and thereby deanonymizing all of the other transactions. Which doesn't work if the wallet only ever has two transactions and neither of them are tied to your identity.

That's assuming traditional chains. Privacy coins also exist.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#880

Post by more_corn »

ecocentrik wrote: post #672
saalweachter wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My advice is always: invest in the assets I hold, and never sell. It really makes the value of my holdings rise.

My advice: There's always at least one crypto scammer telling you to hold through the dip.

I hear there’s always money in the banana stand.
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