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This is hindsight. He would have been best off staying the fuck away. As I mentioned a billion times cryptocurrencies (which are not currencies either) have zer

by chx 9y ago

This is hindsight. He would have been best off staying the fuck away. As I mentioned a billion times cryptocurrencies (which are not currencies either) have zero legal real world use cases, currently the two uses are illegal money transfers out of China and hype. It's the worst sort of gambling: you do not even know the odds.

CyberDildonics 9y ago
People keep saying things like this but reality does not support this is any way. There are many thousands of places that take cryptocurrency.
jchw 9y ago
>zero legal real world use cases I pay my VPN using bitcoin. Also have a GPU bought with bitcoin. Just saying.
- astrodust 9y ago
  Yeah, and people have bought pizza, too: http://uk.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-pizza-day-passes-2000-20-million-2017-5 http://uk.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-pizza-day-passes-2000-...
stale2002 9y ago
Crytocurrencies transactions are significantly cheaper than wire transfers. That's a real world use case.
- chx 9y ago
  LOL! Congrats to HN for going 24 days without bringing this up. I have written it up last time in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14563751 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14563751 so let me copy > Every time I ask, people come and say but... but... international transfers! and I point it out that for that transfer the sender needs to buy bitcoins, transfer and the receiver needs to sell them because there is no legal, useful application of it :) And this is untenable, you can't have the receiver go through hoops to receive money. And when I compare this to how Transferwise combines a fantastic user experience with favorable rates (which I actually compared to an FX company not to a bank) then I am a Transferwise shill despite it's usually not me who brings up the transfer argument so I now I did just so we don't need to have that conversation again and again.
  - dang 9y ago
    Please don't do this here.
    - chx 9y ago
      Don't do what? Someone needs to advocate against this bullshit. People are cheering this crap because they hold coins and when ordinary people get burned they shrug and say "you shouldn't have done that". Ordinary banking systems have a number of brakes built in so that people do not lose their money in an instant -- at least not that easily. As an example, more than one person made the mistake of typing in an Ethereum address instead of copy-pasting and losing their money in the process. Or when someone's account on an exchange get hacked and thieves walk away with the money the usual answers are "why you didnt have 2fa" or "why did you leave money in the exchange". If someone hacks my online account they can't do an outgoing transfer to a new address without verifying a code first -- that's 2FA -- and more likely than not, there'll be a daily/per transfer limit I can report to the police, contest the wire and so forth. There are remedies. If it's crypto"currency"? Sorry for your loss! When I say, legit uses, and people say, VPN, I am like sure you want to do a public service of seeding Linux images and your evil ISP stops torrenting so you need to use a VPN. I get it. The fact that you are using an anonymous way to pay has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the traffic you run through this VPN is breaking the law. Surely No True Scotsman or in this case No True Hacker News Reader would do such a thing! When I say, legit uses, and people say, various businesses accept Bitcoin, no, they absolutely don't, they integrate the separate sell your bitcoin step into the checkout, the moment Bitpay dropped Canadian dollars, Newegg Canada dropped Bitcoin without a second's hesitation. No business wants Bitcoin on their books, that's a horror bookkeeping / accounting wise. I maintain: all there is illegal money transfer out of China and more than a little hype with the occassional Ponzi and other scams thrown in. Just because sometimes VCs are on top of a pyramid scheme it doesn't cease to be a pyramid.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - dang 9y ago
- sireat 9y ago
  Cryptocurrencies are not always cheaper. They used to be but not anymore. In Europe, I split a 0.36 Euro SEPA fee for a 1000 Euro transaction between two different banks in two different countries. Bitcoin would have cost me $3-5 if not more.
ruste 9y ago
Neither does a beautiful hand-crafted glass bong, but there are many people willing to spend thousands of dollars on them and those dollars a perfectly legally useful.
deleted 9y ago
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deleted 9y ago
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jerrylives 9y ago
>zero legal real world use cases Except for paying people for services and goods with bitcoin? There are plenty of legal venues to use bitcoin. >It's the worst sort of gambling: you do not even know the odds. So...like all investing? lol. Like seriously dude what the fuck do you know? Can you please take your blowhard bullshit somewhere else?

by chx 9y ago

CyberDildonics 9y ago

People keep saying things like this but reality does not support this is any way. There are many thousands of places that take cryptocurrency.

jchw 9y ago

>zero legal real world use cases I pay my VPN using bitcoin. Also have a GPU bought with bitcoin. Just saying.

astrodust 9y ago
Yeah, and people have bought pizza, too: http://uk.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-pizza-day-passes-2000-20-million-2017-5 http://uk.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-pizza-day-passes-2000-...

stale2002 9y ago

Crytocurrencies transactions are significantly cheaper than wire transfers. That's a real world use case.

chx 9y ago
LOL! Congrats to HN for going 24 days without bringing this up. I have written it up last time in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14563751 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14563751 so let me copy > Every time I ask, people come and say but... but... international transfers! and I point it out that for that transfer the sender needs to buy bitcoins, transfer and the receiver needs to sell them because there is no legal, useful application of it :) And this is untenable, you can't have the receiver go through hoops to receive money. And when I compare this to how Transferwise combines a fantastic user experience with favorable rates (which I actually compared to an FX company not to a bank) then I am a Transferwise shill despite it's usually not me who brings up the transfer argument so I now I did just so we don't need to have that conversation again and again.
- dang 9y ago
  Please don't do this here.
  - chx 9y ago
    Don't do what? Someone needs to advocate against this bullshit. People are cheering this crap because they hold coins and when ordinary people get burned they shrug and say "you shouldn't have done that". Ordinary banking systems have a number of brakes built in so that people do not lose their money in an instant -- at least not that easily. As an example, more than one person made the mistake of typing in an Ethereum address instead of copy-pasting and losing their money in the process. Or when someone's account on an exchange get hacked and thieves walk away with the money the usual answers are "why you didnt have 2fa" or "why did you leave money in the exchange". If someone hacks my online account they can't do an outgoing transfer to a new address without verifying a code first -- that's 2FA -- and more likely than not, there'll be a daily/per transfer limit I can report to the police, contest the wire and so forth. There are remedies. If it's crypto"currency"? Sorry for your loss! When I say, legit uses, and people say, VPN, I am like sure you want to do a public service of seeding Linux images and your evil ISP stops torrenting so you need to use a VPN. I get it. The fact that you are using an anonymous way to pay has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the traffic you run through this VPN is breaking the law. Surely No True Scotsman or in this case No True Hacker News Reader would do such a thing! When I say, legit uses, and people say, various businesses accept Bitcoin, no, they absolutely don't, they integrate the separate sell your bitcoin step into the checkout, the moment Bitpay dropped Canadian dollars, Newegg Canada dropped Bitcoin without a second's hesitation. No business wants Bitcoin on their books, that's a horror bookkeeping / accounting wise. I maintain: all there is illegal money transfer out of China and more than a little hype with the occassional Ponzi and other scams thrown in. Just because sometimes VCs are on top of a pyramid scheme it doesn't cease to be a pyramid.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - dang 9y ago
sireat 9y ago
Cryptocurrencies are not always cheaper. They used to be but not anymore. In Europe, I split a 0.36 Euro SEPA fee for a 1000 Euro transaction between two different banks in two different countries. Bitcoin would have cost me $3-5 if not more.

ruste 9y ago

Neither does a beautiful hand-crafted glass bong, but there are many people willing to spend thousands of dollars on them and those dollars a perfectly legally useful.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jerrylives 9y ago

>zero legal real world use cases Except for paying people for services and goods with bitcoin? There are plenty of legal venues to use bitcoin. >It's the worst sort of gambling: you do not even know the odds. So...like all investing? lol. Like seriously dude what the fuck do you know? Can you please take your blowhard bullshit somewhere else?