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> Then they will find themselves with a pile of debt and no way to pay it off, just as many have before when 'investing' in hokey schemes and outright scams. O

> Then they will find themselves with a pile of debt and no way to pay it off, just as many have before when 'investing' in hokey schemes and outright scams. Oh, you mean like the rest of the entire banking and financial markets that led to all of the bailouts in the first place? And enriched and further consolidated the power of the 'too big to fail' institutions that continue to be rewarded for their corruption. I'm not going to engage with the same tired arguments we had last time, and I don't doubt the scenario above happening either now that the Federal Reserve essentially got Carte Blanche to buy up so many loans should they go bad from the Banks, but given the current situation you have to at least see the BLATANT irony in your statement. The SEC shuts down the mainly algo-trained, bot-trading driven stock market because they're taking on too many loses and you're decrying Crypto as the hotbed of malfeasance and manipulation? If you can't see regulatory capture when it stares at you in the face this way, maybe you should really be looking at another more pertinent axe to grind.

gridlockd 7y ago
Whataboutism does not strengthen your own position. Cryptocurrencies still suck as currencies and they are always just one regulatory action away from becoming practically useless for non-criminals.
- NhanH 7y ago
  I don't care much about cryptocurrencies, but everything is always just one regulatory action away from becoming practically useless for non-criminals.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    Isn't that backward? Regulation doesn't affect criminals. Look at 'gun control' attempts.
- Melting_Harps 7y ago
  > Whataboutism does not strengthen your own position. Granted, but what you may fail to see is that Cryptocurrency is reactionary to the blatant corruption that has been normalized, the very same beahviour that the poster decries is plaguing Cryptocurrenices without providing much of an argument. When in reality, currencies like Bitcoin continue to follow the Network's protocol that it derives its value from and has not detracted from it, despite the continuous polemics and external threats and attacks. Sucks in what way exactly? Because this is always a point of contention for most of its detractors. They aggregate all Cryptocurrencies into a single group, which is absurd. Telling me how easy it is to lose a private key, thus your ability to move your funds, may be a valid point to your argument as functional (read: entirely fool-proof) key storage is still why I think its not ready for global mainstream use, in my opinion; but telling me about how a celebrity influencer Marketed alt/ICO didn't 1000x overnight as projected and instead crashed and burned as the creators absconded with the money that you read a blurb on techcrunch's twitter account is not. Because from where I'm standing: I continue to have access to a low cost, friction-less token on an immutable ledger operating on the World's most secure Network on my phone, that I can use anywhere with wifi, and I can pay anyone who currently accepts Bitcoin and it operates 24/7 without anyone's permission. And I can program it to do various things on top of that should I need it to, with built in trustless systems; and is also one that I can use to divide my unit of currency to 8 decimal points and still be able to operate on said network(s). All of which incentivizes not only fair commerce and a real usecase for triple bottom line accounting, as it spurs on renewable energy as its main source as it continues to grow but also allows for previously marginalized/undocumented people into an economic system to be on boarded; unlike the exclusionary, war and fossil fueled driven fiat based system that is used to props up the Institutions I think we all know have outlived their purpose.
  - Nursie 7y ago
    The 'fiat' system of floated currencies is able to adapt and change to changing economic circumstances, and be managed to keep the economy ticking over, preventing either the under or over abundance of currency by managing the supply. In contrast cryptocurrency is fixed, static and inflexible, hampers new entrants to the economy in favour of those with established wealth, and would likely lead to the same stunted, constrained economic circumstances we can see from history, worsen crashes, and generally create the same conditions that lead to abandonment of systems like the gold standard in the past.
Nursie 7y ago
Quick! Look over there! It's huge distraction! Cryptocurrency is indeed a hotbed of malfeasance and manipulation. Nothing you've said even addresses that point, let alone refutes it.
- Melting_Harps 7y ago
  You always use that red herring tactic, rather than make a cogent argument--mainly because I don't think you have an actual argument but rather sensationalist knee-jerk reactions masquerading as one--but look below: I actually outlined how and why I think it is a system can actually combat the very pitfalls I listed with current features. Will corrupt actors use this technology to steal/scheme, sure, of course that much is inevitable of any technology; but condemning the entire protocol and aggregating them altogether as a collective failure because of that is about as useful as saying the Internet should be seen as nothing more than a den of thieves, child pornographers and counter-fitters: when we clearly know it is much more than that.
  - Nursie 7y ago
    They are a collective failure, particularly the places in which they are traded which is what we are talking about here. You are the one throwing around red herrings and handwaving frantically about corruption elsewhere. Talking about the value derived from the bitcoin protocol in this situation is absurd - the protocol itself is largely irrelevant, the corruption and manipulation are at the exchanges. The 'value' of your tokens derives more from their manipulation and hype than anywhere else, which is trivial to show because cryptocurrencies are not used anywhere else (besides the dark markets I guess, and even they have moved towards privacycoins). Your bleating about renewable energy and trustlessness is also bullshit. The claims to use of renewable energy are based on conjecture amd estimation, not measurement. As a counterpoint there is a fossil fuel plant in upstate new york that has recently been kitted out for mining. Secondly there is no such thing as 'trustless' with cryptocurrency - you must place all trust in people you are transacting with, rather than using a trusted intermediary. I trust established banks far more than J Random Retailer on the web. Neither is there any compelling case that cryptocurrency has any effect on "banking the unbanked". "The unbanked" have no way to get into the system in the first place, nor the tech stacks to use it. Your entire post, your entire worldview on this is wishful thinking and practically a set of coiner memes with no basis in reality.

gridlockd 7y ago

Whataboutism does not strengthen your own position. Cryptocurrencies still suck as currencies and they are always just one regulatory action away from becoming practically useless for non-criminals.

NhanH 7y ago
I don't care much about cryptocurrencies, but everything is always just one regulatory action away from becoming practically useless for non-criminals.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Isn't that backward? Regulation doesn't affect criminals. Look at 'gun control' attempts.
Melting_Harps 7y ago
> Whataboutism does not strengthen your own position. Granted, but what you may fail to see is that Cryptocurrency is reactionary to the blatant corruption that has been normalized, the very same beahviour that the poster decries is plaguing Cryptocurrenices without providing much of an argument. When in reality, currencies like Bitcoin continue to follow the Network's protocol that it derives its value from and has not detracted from it, despite the continuous polemics and external threats and attacks. Sucks in what way exactly? Because this is always a point of contention for most of its detractors. They aggregate all Cryptocurrencies into a single group, which is absurd. Telling me how easy it is to lose a private key, thus your ability to move your funds, may be a valid point to your argument as functional (read: entirely fool-proof) key storage is still why I think its not ready for global mainstream use, in my opinion; but telling me about how a celebrity influencer Marketed alt/ICO didn't 1000x overnight as projected and instead crashed and burned as the creators absconded with the money that you read a blurb on techcrunch's twitter account is not. Because from where I'm standing: I continue to have access to a low cost, friction-less token on an immutable ledger operating on the World's most secure Network on my phone, that I can use anywhere with wifi, and I can pay anyone who currently accepts Bitcoin and it operates 24/7 without anyone's permission. And I can program it to do various things on top of that should I need it to, with built in trustless systems; and is also one that I can use to divide my unit of currency to 8 decimal points and still be able to operate on said network(s). All of which incentivizes not only fair commerce and a real usecase for triple bottom line accounting, as it spurs on renewable energy as its main source as it continues to grow but also allows for previously marginalized/undocumented people into an economic system to be on boarded; unlike the exclusionary, war and fossil fueled driven fiat based system that is used to props up the Institutions I think we all know have outlived their purpose.
- Nursie 7y ago
  The 'fiat' system of floated currencies is able to adapt and change to changing economic circumstances, and be managed to keep the economy ticking over, preventing either the under or over abundance of currency by managing the supply. In contrast cryptocurrency is fixed, static and inflexible, hampers new entrants to the economy in favour of those with established wealth, and would likely lead to the same stunted, constrained economic circumstances we can see from history, worsen crashes, and generally create the same conditions that lead to abandonment of systems like the gold standard in the past.

Nursie 7y ago

Quick! Look over there! It's huge distraction! Cryptocurrency is indeed a hotbed of malfeasance and manipulation. Nothing you've said even addresses that point, let alone refutes it.

Melting_Harps 7y ago
You always use that red herring tactic, rather than make a cogent argument--mainly because I don't think you have an actual argument but rather sensationalist knee-jerk reactions masquerading as one--but look below: I actually outlined how and why I think it is a system can actually combat the very pitfalls I listed with current features. Will corrupt actors use this technology to steal/scheme, sure, of course that much is inevitable of any technology; but condemning the entire protocol and aggregating them altogether as a collective failure because of that is about as useful as saying the Internet should be seen as nothing more than a den of thieves, child pornographers and counter-fitters: when we clearly know it is much more than that.
- Nursie 7y ago
  They are a collective failure, particularly the places in which they are traded which is what we are talking about here. You are the one throwing around red herrings and handwaving frantically about corruption elsewhere. Talking about the value derived from the bitcoin protocol in this situation is absurd - the protocol itself is largely irrelevant, the corruption and manipulation are at the exchanges. The 'value' of your tokens derives more from their manipulation and hype than anywhere else, which is trivial to show because cryptocurrencies are not used anywhere else (besides the dark markets I guess, and even they have moved towards privacycoins). Your bleating about renewable energy and trustlessness is also bullshit. The claims to use of renewable energy are based on conjecture amd estimation, not measurement. As a counterpoint there is a fossil fuel plant in upstate new york that has recently been kitted out for mining. Secondly there is no such thing as 'trustless' with cryptocurrency - you must place all trust in people you are transacting with, rather than using a trusted intermediary. I trust established banks far more than J Random Retailer on the web. Neither is there any compelling case that cryptocurrency has any effect on "banking the unbanked". "The unbanked" have no way to get into the system in the first place, nor the tech stacks to use it. Your entire post, your entire worldview on this is wishful thinking and practically a set of coiner memes with no basis in reality.