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I have read this book. David Gerard & Amy Castor who has commented on this thread are both what I would I consider to be targeting the niche of Bitcoin doubters

I have read this book. David Gerard & Amy Castor who has commented on this thread are both what I would I consider to be targeting the niche of Bitcoin doubters or "no-coiners". I like to get a balanced view of crypto but I have grown to find these so-called no-coiners really insufferable. I might get heavily downvoted but I would rather criticize Bitcoin from the perspective of how can we make this better, rather than oh this is a useless ponzi scam rhetoric, which their audience loves. It's not nice to say but I honestly believe many of these people just dont want to see something they missed out on succeed, this is coming from someone who has lurked in their communities for a long time. FWIW Bitcoin is not perfect. And many of it's biggest promoters are self serving scammers but I don't appreciate, or lets say grew tired of people who just like to bash something without offering a solution.

35fbe7d3d5b9 5y ago
The problem is that any utility that cryptocurrency may have is obscured by the incredible amount of fraud and grift used to keep the bubble intact.
verdverm 5y ago
My issue is I fail to see how the public-permissionless paradigm will ever work with our social expectations, compliance with laws, and the UX expectations of users. The constant insistence that this is going to "change the world" is tiresome. Humans will keep being humans as the cryptosphere demonstrates quite nicely.
- rawtxapp 5y ago
  > I fail to see how the public-permissionless paradigm will ever work But it is working! Bitcoin has hundreds of thousands of transactions per day on the main chain alone where it settles 2B+$ in value, eth has tons of really useful defi projects that people actually use (maker, compound, aave, uniswap, etc).
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    Use for _what_, though? As far as I can see, largely speculation.
    - rawtxapp 5y ago
      The same things that normal financial systems enable you, but without a central authority. It's trustless, permissionless, completely transparent, uncensorable, borderless open financial system. If you think that all of that is just pure speculation, I don't know what to say. Just go through github, whitepapers and technical discussions to see the serious side of the industry, rather than being stuck to the surface level of fraudsters/speculators promising 100x money returns on social media.
      - lottin 5y ago
        DeFi is crippled by design. It can't really do anything useful, because it doesn't support property rights. Any serious discussion about DeFi should start by acknowledging this basic fact.
      - plywoodtrees 5y ago
        "uncensorable" is a euphemism for "enables fraud, black markets, money laundering, and extortion". Although there are some cases under oppressive regimes where black markets may be a moral good, on the whole enabling financial crimes is, in my value system, bad. Furthermore I think regulatory systems will eventually move against this - in fact you see it starting. See https://doomberg.substack.com/p/a-stablecoin-applies-to-become-a https://doomberg.substack.com/p/a-stablecoin-applies-to-beco...
        miracle2k 5y ago
        Child pornographers everyday use encrypted messaging and Tor to get away with their crimes. Meanwhile, normal users have no practical benefit from either. Why is this different?
throwaway77770 5y ago
The other side of that coin is, obviously, coiners who deduce that anyone opposing Bitcoin must be angry about being poor. It's possible to dislike Bitcoin for its waste of its energy, centralization one step removed or economic policy without being "the guy who bought at the top".
- keymone 5y ago
  waste is subjective
  - lottin 5y ago
    Waste is not subjective. If the minimum cost to achieve a goal is X, and it costs you Y (where Y > X) to achieve it, you're wasting Y - X.
    - keymone 5y ago
      sure, but it is subjective what is the goal and what is it's value.
      - lottin 5y ago
        What the goal is is not subjective either, and its value is irrelevant for the purposes of this calculation.
        keymone 5y ago
        how is goal not subjective? do you know what my goal is without me telling you? demonstrate please.
        lottin 5y ago
        Somebody's goal is not a matter of taste or personal opinion, but a fact. If my goal is X, then this what my goal is, and that is independent of opinions and perceptions.
trabant00 5y ago
> these people just dont want to see something they missed out on succeed There is no missing out though. There is buying when it's lower and selling when it's higher and you can do that starting now as you always could. Or buy and hold if you think that's what you should do or whatever. I really have no dog in the fight and don't really care one way or another. Just for the sake of the argument though: something can be complete shit with no redeeming qualities. It is not a must that it's good but imperfect and that it requires a solution to make it better. So the opinions of "no-coiners" are not inferior by default. You have to actually prove that they are with some form of argument or evidence.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  > There is no missing out though. There is buying when it's lower and selling when it's higher and you can do that starting now as you always could. And that can also be true of pyramid schemes with no redeeming qualities, Bernie Madoff style fraud, or of sheer random gambling. You have to actually prove that blockchains are not in those categories.
- rawtxapp 5y ago
  > There is no missing out though. If you were aware of Bitcoin when it was worth a couple hundreds of dollars and you wrote it off as a fad or whatever and turns out you were completely wrong about it, you would definitely feel like you missed out, no? Sure, better late than never, but you still can't change that feeling.
  - paulgb 5y ago
    In the same way, we could say there were people who “missed out” on buying Pets.com stock and selling it before it peaked. It doesn't invalidate the point of view of people who were Pets.com skeptics on the ride up. Of course, the question then becomes whether Bitcoin will be more like Pets.com or whether it will climb higher. I have a guess, but I don't claim to know for sure.
    - rawtxapp 5y ago
conradev 5y ago
As someone who also tries to form a balanced view of crypto, the detractors are right about one thing: Bitcoin uses an awful lot of energy. It’s also pretty fundamental to Bitcoin, to the point that I think it is at odds with the world’s goals to decarbonize electricity generation. The fact that Ethereum is tackling the energy use problem head on with proof of stake and and doing so within the next year makes it incredibly appealing.
- davidgerard 5y ago
  Buterin's just put ETH2 back to the end of 2022, keeping PoS perpetually 18 months in the future, where it's been since 2014. So I would recommend counting this chicken when it's hatched, and not a moment before. https://tokenist.com/buterin-explains-why-ethereum-2-0-upgrade-wont-arrive-until-late-2022/ https://tokenist.com/buterin-explains-why-ethereum-2-0-upgra...
  - FabHK 5y ago
    Conclusion: Fusion energy will be available a fixed number of years after ETH PoS.
  - conradev 5y ago
    Ethereum actually pushed the sharding portion of ETH2 back to end of 2022, not proof-of-stake: > Originally, the plan was to work on shard chains before the merge – to address scalability. However, with the boom of layer 2 scaling solutions, the priority has shifted to swapping proof-of-work to proof-of-stake via the merge. My ETH is already staked as ETH2, and it looks like the plan is still to do the merge in “2021/2022”. https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/merge/ https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/merge/
  - miracle2k 5y ago
    As sibling points out, this is not correct. Unfortunately there are a number of sections in your book where you engage in a similar kind of misdirection as this.
    - 5y ago
gkilmain 5y ago
> these people just dont want to see something they missed out on succeed Missed out on what profit? I've just started reading about Ethrereum and its still a baby. No one really knows what its going to grow into. But it reads much bugger than coins / NFTs when you start peeling back the layers. But people love blood and theres a lot of it in the coin / NFT space.
davidgerard 5y ago
for those wondering who that is, everyone should read Amy Castor's blog: https://amycastor.com/ https://amycastor.com/ she's been in crypto journalism for years, and knows her stuff thoroughly, and where the bodies are buried.
lucidlife 5y ago
Try my podcast. It’s as balanced as I could make it. Start from the bottom. Thanks! https://pointbite.podbean.com/ https://pointbite.podbean.com/

35fbe7d3d5b9 5y ago

The problem is that any utility that cryptocurrency may have is obscured by the incredible amount of fraud and grift used to keep the bubble intact.

verdverm 5y ago

My issue is I fail to see how the public-permissionless paradigm will ever work with our social expectations, compliance with laws, and the UX expectations of users. The constant insistence that this is going to "change the world" is tiresome. Humans will keep being humans as the cryptosphere demonstrates quite nicely.

rawtxapp 5y ago
> I fail to see how the public-permissionless paradigm will ever work But it is working! Bitcoin has hundreds of thousands of transactions per day on the main chain alone where it settles 2B+$ in value, eth has tons of really useful defi projects that people actually use (maker, compound, aave, uniswap, etc).
- rsynnott 5y ago
  Use for _what_, though? As far as I can see, largely speculation.
  - rawtxapp 5y ago
    The same things that normal financial systems enable you, but without a central authority. It's trustless, permissionless, completely transparent, uncensorable, borderless open financial system. If you think that all of that is just pure speculation, I don't know what to say. Just go through github, whitepapers and technical discussions to see the serious side of the industry, rather than being stuck to the surface level of fraudsters/speculators promising 100x money returns on social media.
    - lottin 5y ago
      DeFi is crippled by design. It can't really do anything useful, because it doesn't support property rights. Any serious discussion about DeFi should start by acknowledging this basic fact.
    - plywoodtrees 5y ago
      "uncensorable" is a euphemism for "enables fraud, black markets, money laundering, and extortion". Although there are some cases under oppressive regimes where black markets may be a moral good, on the whole enabling financial crimes is, in my value system, bad. Furthermore I think regulatory systems will eventually move against this - in fact you see it starting. See https://doomberg.substack.com/p/a-stablecoin-applies-to-become-a https://doomberg.substack.com/p/a-stablecoin-applies-to-beco...
      - miracle2k 5y ago
        Child pornographers everyday use encrypted messaging and Tor to get away with their crimes. Meanwhile, normal users have no practical benefit from either. Why is this different?

throwaway77770 5y ago

The other side of that coin is, obviously, coiners who deduce that anyone opposing Bitcoin must be angry about being poor. It's possible to dislike Bitcoin for its waste of its energy, centralization one step removed or economic policy without being "the guy who bought at the top".

keymone 5y ago
waste is subjective
- lottin 5y ago
  Waste is not subjective. If the minimum cost to achieve a goal is X, and it costs you Y (where Y > X) to achieve it, you're wasting Y - X.
  - keymone 5y ago
    sure, but it is subjective what is the goal and what is it's value.
    - lottin 5y ago
      What the goal is is not subjective either, and its value is irrelevant for the purposes of this calculation.
      - keymone 5y ago
        how is goal not subjective? do you know what my goal is without me telling you? demonstrate please.
        lottin 5y ago
        Somebody's goal is not a matter of taste or personal opinion, but a fact. If my goal is X, then this what my goal is, and that is independent of opinions and perceptions.

trabant00 5y ago

> these people just dont want to see something they missed out on succeed There is no missing out though. There is buying when it's lower and selling when it's higher and you can do that starting now as you always could. Or buy and hold if you think that's what you should do or whatever. I really have no dog in the fight and don't really care one way or another. Just for the sake of the argument though: something can be complete shit with no redeeming qualities. It is not a must that it's good but imperfect and that it requires a solution to make it better. So the opinions of "no-coiners" are not inferior by default. You have to actually prove that they are with some form of argument or evidence.

SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
> There is no missing out though. There is buying when it's lower and selling when it's higher and you can do that starting now as you always could. And that can also be true of pyramid schemes with no redeeming qualities, Bernie Madoff style fraud, or of sheer random gambling. You have to actually prove that blockchains are not in those categories.
rawtxapp 5y ago
> There is no missing out though. If you were aware of Bitcoin when it was worth a couple hundreds of dollars and you wrote it off as a fad or whatever and turns out you were completely wrong about it, you would definitely feel like you missed out, no? Sure, better late than never, but you still can't change that feeling.
- paulgb 5y ago
  In the same way, we could say there were people who “missed out” on buying Pets.com stock and selling it before it peaked. It doesn't invalidate the point of view of people who were Pets.com skeptics on the ride up. Of course, the question then becomes whether Bitcoin will be more like Pets.com or whether it will climb higher. I have a guess, but I don't claim to know for sure.
  - rawtxapp 5y ago

conradev 5y ago

As someone who also tries to form a balanced view of crypto, the detractors are right about one thing: Bitcoin uses an awful lot of energy. It’s also pretty fundamental to Bitcoin, to the point that I think it is at odds with the world’s goals to decarbonize electricity generation. The fact that Ethereum is tackling the energy use problem head on with proof of stake and and doing so within the next year makes it incredibly appealing.

davidgerard 5y ago
Buterin's just put ETH2 back to the end of 2022, keeping PoS perpetually 18 months in the future, where it's been since 2014. So I would recommend counting this chicken when it's hatched, and not a moment before. https://tokenist.com/buterin-explains-why-ethereum-2-0-upgrade-wont-arrive-until-late-2022/ https://tokenist.com/buterin-explains-why-ethereum-2-0-upgra...
- FabHK 5y ago
  Conclusion: Fusion energy will be available a fixed number of years after ETH PoS.
- conradev 5y ago
  Ethereum actually pushed the sharding portion of ETH2 back to end of 2022, not proof-of-stake: > Originally, the plan was to work on shard chains before the merge – to address scalability. However, with the boom of layer 2 scaling solutions, the priority has shifted to swapping proof-of-work to proof-of-stake via the merge. My ETH is already staked as ETH2, and it looks like the plan is still to do the merge in “2021/2022”. https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/merge/ https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/merge/
- miracle2k 5y ago
  As sibling points out, this is not correct. Unfortunately there are a number of sections in your book where you engage in a similar kind of misdirection as this.
  - 5y ago

gkilmain 5y ago

> these people just dont want to see something they missed out on succeed Missed out on what profit? I've just started reading about Ethrereum and its still a baby. No one really knows what its going to grow into. But it reads much bugger than coins / NFTs when you start peeling back the layers. But people love blood and theres a lot of it in the coin / NFT space.

davidgerard 5y ago

for those wondering who that is, everyone should read Amy Castor's blog: https://amycastor.com/ https://amycastor.com/ she's been in crypto journalism for years, and knows her stuff thoroughly, and where the bodies are buried.

lucidlife 5y ago

Try my podcast. It’s as balanced as I could make it. Start from the bottom. Thanks! https://pointbite.podbean.com/ https://pointbite.podbean.com/