91–100 of 244 posts
I'm glad. Bitcoin hasn't done anything good, except become an outlet for criminals, Ponzi schemes, gambling, and poor financial decisions.
That is just a lie. Bitcoin is an easily accessible deflationary instrument. And while it can be used for illegal things, so can USD or any other currency.
Crypto is increasingly looking like a Ponzi scheme to me. I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion on HN but it's no less true. The fact is that blockchain solves a problem for almost nobody. The primary use seems to be to avoid real or threatened government intervention. These uses are largely illegal, by definition (eg bypassing capital controls in China). Now you can argue the morality of such laws but that…
Unpopular? What you've written is a summary of the orthodoxy on HN.
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Wrong.
Could you please argue how it is wrong? The logic seems pretty simple to me. A currency has value as long as it is exchanged, if government restricts exchanges, the currency drops in value.
Money like everything is a market. There is a supply of money and a demand for money. If the demand remains constant but the supply is curtailed in some way I could see the value of the good exchanged going up. Now if you make the argument that this action would decrease the demand then yes the value should go down?
Crypto is increasingly looking like a Ponzi scheme to me. I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion on HN but it's no less true. The fact is that blockchain solves a problem for almost nobody. The primary use seems to be to avoid real or threatened government intervention. These uses are largely illegal, by definition (eg bypassing capital controls in China). Now you can argue the morality of such laws but that…
This is really a popular opinion on HN. It is kind of self evident too. Defi, NFT, Crypto all have Ponzi features. The people who win are early investors and the ones who lose are those who are late to the game. So, we invent "new" schemes like NFT, Defi etc. There is no product. Nobody uses Defi to "borrow". 99.999% of the people want to put their crypto in and magically get some crazy XY.ABC% APR on their crypto. E…
I mostly "use" crypto to keep USDC in DeFi sites like Aave for ~3-10% APY and some on Gemini for a FDIC insured 8% APY. This money primarily gets lent out for other people margin trading, but you don't really need to take on any of that risk for yourself.
Crypto is increasingly looking like a Ponzi scheme to me. I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion on HN but it's no less true. The fact is that blockchain solves a problem for almost nobody. The primary use seems to be to avoid real or threatened government intervention. These uses are largely illegal, by definition (eg bypassing capital controls in China). Now you can argue the morality of such laws but that…
>Proof-of-stake is basically a fantasy [...] hand-waving. It having not happened yet is pretty good evidence of this being a fantasy. This couldn't be further from reality. Blackcoin (2014), Peercoin, Decred, etc... Eth 2.0 is running, right now, with billions in value. The whole of Eth is planned to move to 100% PoS quarter 1 of 2022.
I have heard this so so many times. ETH moving to PoS fully in X months. I'll believe it when it happens.
And I'm glad they plan on making it happen cause there way too many things harming the environment already. A major cryptocurrency reducing their environmental impact is welcomed.
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In this case, no legitimate seller would be allowed to sell you physical goods for cryptocurrencies - you'd have to buy some physical goods abroad and then import them or the money (India does not have free movement of capital across the border).
Just checking possibilities here. Let's say you want to buy my house and I want to sell it to you. We are in India. You transfer crypto to my wallet then I, in return, donate my house to you. Would this donation work on the legal papers today? I suspect that in Brazil, where I live today, it would.
How would that work? Can't you just not donate the house, after they have given you their crypto?
Crypto is increasingly looking like a Ponzi scheme to me. I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion on HN but it's no less true. The fact is that blockchain solves a problem for almost nobody. The primary use seems to be to avoid real or threatened government intervention. These uses are largely illegal, by definition (eg bypassing capital controls in China). Now you can argue the morality of such laws but that…
I just want to respond to this:
>Proof-of-stake is basically a fantasy of how we'll solve PoW problems with a lot of hand-waving. It having not happened yet is pretty good evidence of this being a fantasy.
PoS is bog standard for new chains. Every "up and coming" chain is essentially a clone of Ethereum with some scalability improvements and proof-of-stake for consensus. See: Harmony, Luna, Avalanche, &c
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Worst case is to buy some physical goods and sell it. A bit cumbersome, but not impossible.
How are you supposed to trust the person who you are buying goods from will deliver once they receive the payment. As they will anyways be illegaly selling the goods for crypto there will be even more mistrust. If you do payment after delivery then the other side needs to be trusted.
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This isn't true if your objective is just to protect wealth long-term. If bitcoin is "banned" in India (you can't exchange it for INR on an exchange), you can still "use" it in the sense that you can acquire it illegally or overseas and then hold onto it. Your liquidity is limited but this is a small downside long-term.
This isn't true if your objective is just to protect wealth long-term. I said illegality constrains the usefulness of cryptocurrency. Long-term gains is one of the remaining hypothetical uses but other uses are limited. So your claim doesn't refute my point. With fewer practical uses, we might see bitcoin's long terms value decline but that's speculation.
That said, you're right that ability to actually spend bitcoin probably shows up in any PDE that accurately models its market dynamics. If 90% of countries on earth ban bitcoin, and those bans are well-enforced, bitcoin probably won't be very valuable.