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tl;dr - "So in short, I think that cryptocurrencies provide nothing of value to society. They do however facilitate crime and contribute to climate change." Is
by elevenoh 7y ago
tl;dr - "So in short, I think that cryptocurrencies provide nothing of value to society. They do however facilitate crime and contribute to climate change."
Is this satire?
I'm wondering if this author covertly intends to strengthen the perceived utility of through this article.
Yes, near-free & instant to exchange, borderless, alternative to gov't, privacy-preserving, competitively evolving etc. digital money provides 'nothing of value'. /s
- StavrosK 7y agoAlso, "I don't need it right now, therefore nobody needs it ever".
- louwrentius 7y agoWhat is the actual value of that?
- StavrosK 7y agoBeing able to send money to a friend in the US from Greece has value to me. Currently, I can't do this without a lot of hassle, since there's no overlap between what banking methods we use in Greece and what they use in the US. The problem is that ~0 stores accept cryptocurrencies, so my friend can't do anything with it.
- louwrentius 7y agoSo the actual value is zero.
- StavrosK 7y agoYes, the actual value of everything is zero if you disregard its value.
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y agoWestern Union, Moneygram, Paypal, and so on?
- StavrosK 7y agoNowhere near as convenient, fast or cheap. I guess there's Transferwise, which is still more expensive and slower, plus they banned me as a user, which cryptocurrencies don't do.
- elevenoh 7y agoWhat is the 'actual value' of performing an ecommerce transaction with an asia-based merchant w/ crypto: near-zero fee & instant receipt (+ seconds for 'confirmation') vs. foreign exchange + payment processor fee - which can come to >5%, yes 5% + multi-day bank deposit wait time?
- louwrentius 7y agoYou mean the fee you pay when you covert cryptocurrency to something real and back?
- elevenoh 7y agoResorting to a loaded label fallacy, nice.
- louwrentius 7y agoBut no answer to my question. Damn.
- cliffy 7y agoYour comment reads like satire. I see no rebuttal of the points made. Maybe a better thesis would be that cryptocurrencies provide a net-negative value to society.
- bootlooped 7y agoI don't think a public ledger of every transaction is a privacy preserving feature.
- twomoretime 7y agoIt is when the transactions are pseudonymous and you can create as many addresses as you want.
- jariel 7y ago"near-free & instant to exchange, borderless, alternative to gov't, privacy-preserving" Cryptocurrencies provide none of this in practice.
- elevenoh 7y agoWould you be willing to attempt to disprove any one of these in a comment-reply?
- jariel 7y agoNo, you're making the bold claims, it's your job to demonstrate how cryptos have been materially valuable for and society or organization. Take some time to do it, because you might come to realize how fundamentally unpragmatic cryptos are. Also, you might discover that there are some existentially wrong assumptions regarding crypto that make it all moot: there is no such thing as a 'trustless decentralized currency' or store of value because currencies are inherently a form of the social contract. Crypto advocates, it seems, don't even know what a currency even is. There will be a place for digital currency but it will be much as you see it today, blockchain in currency and everything else will probably fade away. Cryptos are a neat idea and a meme, an intellectual fashion, like Uggs or Emo.
- louwrentius 7y ago> Also, you might discover that there are some existentially wrong assumptions regarding crypto that make it all moot: there is no such thing as a 'trustless decentralized currency' or store of value because currencies are inherently a form of the social contract. That's a good observation, thank you.