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[I'm not particularly pro or anti cryptocurrency--having a strong opinion on this strikes me as odd. But a few things in your post seem worth noting.] > I hope

by md_ 5y ago

[I'm not particularly pro or anti cryptocurrency--having a strong opinion on this strikes me as odd. But a few things in your post seem worth noting.] > I hope you will research some more. This is sort of a snarky way to start a post. :) Maybe they know something you don't know? > Cryptocurrency is about democratization of money. I never can figure out what this means. By some point of view, all money is democratic; it only has value if other people assign it value, and it has value roughly in proportion to how much value people assign it. This is extremely democratic! (Arguably, if you're a chartalist, then most "fiat" currency only has value because governments assign it value, but I think this is a bit of a silly perspective; even if it is true, it's like saying "when you cast your vote, it only has value because governments assign it value", which, like, yes? That's the point? But also, strict chartalism doesn't really make a lot of sense; people are often keen to buy Swiss Francs even though the tax base for Francs is quite small, after all.) > Removing intermediaries for holding and exchanging money digitally. I don't think this has anything to do with the definition of "democratic." Maybe you mean disintermediated? Grassroots? Distributed? But none of those adjectives suggest quite the normative value that "democratic" does. Why do I care if my money is disintermediated? > The typical way for digital monetary exchange is a credit card transaction, which is completely obsolete. "Obsolete" is an odd way to describe something used by hundreds of millions or billions of people on a regular basis. > It's like giving away the key to your cryptocurrency wallet every time you make a transaction. This is perhaps your least well-founded statement. First, it isn't: if you give away your cryptocurrency wallet, anyone can steal your money without recourse. But if I give you my credit card number--which I'm not inclined to do, I admit--the worst case is I have to call my credit card company and get a new number. This is wildly different than the cryptocurrency analogy. (Now, it is true that all that fraud detection, insurance, chargebacks, etc, are all paid for, directly or indirectly, by transaction fees. But the average BTC transaction fee is about $8, which would be break-even with a ~2% credit card transaction fee when the transaction exceeds $400--not very efficient either, and with far fewer consumer protections!) But more to the point, and what strikes me as especially ludicrous about your argument: every time you do a transaction online, be it with BTC or Visa, what do you do? You go to a site with "https". Who are you trusting to help you validate that HTTPS identity? Some certificate authority. Bitcoin doesn't exist in a "zero trust" world. There's no such thing. I do think shipping around static credit card numbers is kind of bad, and we're gradually seeing more secure replacements (EMV in the real world, online systems like Apple Pay in the virtual). But the idea that cryptocurrency is somehow immune to this reliance on trusted third parties is just wrong, and the suggestion that for practical usage it's actually better for consumers is just laughable. I do disagree with the parent poster--cryptocurrencies serve a (currently) legal and (in most social systems) "legit" purpose: as a store of wealth and speculative asset. But they don't serve as the basis for regular consumer transactions, because most cryptocurrencies are just really bad for that.

ilaksh 5y ago
You are clearly anti-cryptocurrency and there are lots of reasons to have a strong opinion about it. I explained some of what I meant by "democratization". For another example, people without banks may find it harder to get debit cards to make digital transactions. The fundamental technology is like giving away the key. The fraud protection and everything is largely there due to the poor structure of the technology. This was not about BTC specifically so that fee discussion is a straw man. Being completely immune to trust is another straw man, I never claimed that. But it's objectively true that auditable public ledgers using cryptography require less trust. You think it's laughable, but that isn't an argument, it's just a baseless characterization. The fact that a practical cryptocurrency for transactions hasn't been widely deployed doesn't mean that doesn't exist or could not happen very soon or change the underlying technical argument. The basic idea is that we are not going to give away the actual numbers that enable someone to make a transaction on our behalf. It's just objectively an outdated approach. You suggest something like Apple Pay. We cannot audit the operation of a private payment entity, but it will probably be based on something like credit card numbers or something less secure. And also the principal is the ability to control one's own money and transfer it without a private intermediary. You just sort of throw out Apple Pay like it's automatically going to be as good as or better than some cryptocurrency without argument. Which is just your bias against cryptocurrency.
- md_ 5y ago
  > You are clearly anti-cryptocurrency and there are lots of reasons to have a strong opinion about it. I'm glad you know my opinions better than I do. :) > The fundamental technology is like giving away the key. Which fundamental technology? EMV is not, nor are the delegated payment models of PayPal/Apple Pay/Google Pay, nor the similar models supported by some European banks. Static credit card numbers are indeed, but this isn't fundamental to centralized payments; if your primary goal is to eliminate shared-secret payment schemes, Bitcoin is overkill, obviously. Conversely, if what you think is great about cryptocurrency is that it avoids shared secrets, you're really missing the key innovations and advantages. :) > This was not about BTC specifically so that fee discussion is a straw man. Sure, but POW has an inherent economic requirement that workers get paid, either via fees or via currency devaluation. Can you name a POW scheme where what I said is not true? > You just sort of throw out Apple Pay like it's automatically going to be as good as or better than some cryptocurrency without argument. No, I threw it out as a specific payment technology that supports online payments without giving payees an ability to impersonate payers. Am I wrong? > Which is just your bias against cryptocurrency. I think you may have misunderstood me. That being said, "cryptocurrency" isn't a protected class. You can't be "cryptocurrencyist". However, I do tend to think that, like Jesus, a lot of cryptocurrency's biggest fans don't actually know how it works or what it's all about, and they tend to be among the loudest on online forums, sadly. ;)

by md_ 5y ago

ilaksh 5y ago

You are clearly anti-cryptocurrency and there are lots of reasons to have a strong opinion about it. I explained some of what I meant by "democratization". For another example, people without banks may find it harder to get debit cards to make digital transactions. The fundamental technology is like giving away the key. The fraud protection and everything is largely there due to the poor structure of the technology. This was not about BTC specifically so that fee discussion is a straw man. Being completely immune to trust is another straw man, I never claimed that. But it's objectively true that auditable public ledgers using cryptography require less trust. You think it's laughable, but that isn't an argument, it's just a baseless characterization. The fact that a practical cryptocurrency for transactions hasn't been widely deployed doesn't mean that doesn't exist or could not happen very soon or change the underlying technical argument. The basic idea is that we are not going to give away the actual numbers that enable someone to make a transaction on our behalf. It's just objectively an outdated approach. You suggest something like Apple Pay. We cannot audit the operation of a private payment entity, but it will probably be based on something like credit card numbers or something less secure. And also the principal is the ability to control one's own money and transfer it without a private intermediary. You just sort of throw out Apple Pay like it's automatically going to be as good as or better than some cryptocurrency without argument. Which is just your bias against cryptocurrency.

md_ 5y ago
> You are clearly anti-cryptocurrency and there are lots of reasons to have a strong opinion about it. I'm glad you know my opinions better than I do. :) > The fundamental technology is like giving away the key. Which fundamental technology? EMV is not, nor are the delegated payment models of PayPal/Apple Pay/Google Pay, nor the similar models supported by some European banks. Static credit card numbers are indeed, but this isn't fundamental to centralized payments; if your primary goal is to eliminate shared-secret payment schemes, Bitcoin is overkill, obviously. Conversely, if what you think is great about cryptocurrency is that it avoids shared secrets, you're really missing the key innovations and advantages. :) > This was not about BTC specifically so that fee discussion is a straw man. Sure, but POW has an inherent economic requirement that workers get paid, either via fees or via currency devaluation. Can you name a POW scheme where what I said is not true? > You just sort of throw out Apple Pay like it's automatically going to be as good as or better than some cryptocurrency without argument. No, I threw it out as a specific payment technology that supports online payments without giving payees an ability to impersonate payers. Am I wrong? > Which is just your bias against cryptocurrency. I think you may have misunderstood me. That being said, "cryptocurrency" isn't a protected class. You can't be "cryptocurrencyist". However, I do tend to think that, like Jesus, a lot of cryptocurrency's biggest fans don't actually know how it works or what it's all about, and they tend to be among the loudest on online forums, sadly. ;)