4 ms·

> arguments about technology, economics or freedom are not just wrong but very often the exact opposite is true. Care to elaborate? What exactly are the argum

> arguments about technology, economics or freedom are not just wrong but very often the exact opposite is true. Care to elaborate? What exactly are the arguments that are wrong?

leokennis 5y ago
Basically, crypto and especially Bitcoin is exchanging generally well regulated (central) banks with shady parties operating from extremely power hungry ASIC sheds in China or Iceland. To be honest, I do not spot the upside for crypto here.
- cookieswumchorr 5y ago
  not really, though its sad to see the power imbalance grow in crypto, they still have way less power than a central bank that can just make the money printer go brrr. Yes, some systems are stable, but many others are not; And most of the criticism applies to POW crypto. Which will hopefully be outpaced by POS soon.
  - leokennis 5y ago
    The difference is this: * "Plain old banks" might have more power over money creation (i.e. unlike Bitcoin, money creation technically has no fixed limit). But they are severely restricted (by regulations and restrictions) from using that power in a too bad way. * Bitcoin miners have less power over this, but can wield it without restriction as without their power hungry ASIC rigs, Bitcoin will stop working for all practical intents and purposes.
    - cookieswumchorr 5y ago
      regulations and restrictions do not always work; Most of the worlds population live in places where regulations and restrictions are applied by the state on its citizens, not vice versa
MereInterest 5y ago
Not the OP, but this has been my experience as well. * "This will decentralize ownership of a currency." Nope, it will move from having government control to having oligarchic control. * "A strict limit on the number of tokens means that the value isn't stolen away by inflation." If the supply of currency doesn't keep up with demand, the price skyrockets. This discourages investment, since you get more value just by holding onto it. * "These are anonymous transactions." On a public ledger, the most you can do is pseudonymous. Just like TOR, you only need to monitor the exit nodes to map pseudonyms to actual people. * "Irreversible transactions are a feature." They're definitely a bug. If I buy a TV with a credit card, and receive a box of rocks, I can do a chargeback. If I make that same transaction with cryptocurrencies, I'm SOL unless a fraudster suddenly decides that they really want to make good on it. * "We don't need banks anymore." is absolutely hilarious when coupled with "Off-chain transactions solve the throughput limits." If there's an organization that holds money in their on-chain accounts on behalf of others, manages a balance of those off-chain accounts backed by deposited assets, and facilitates transactions between those off-chain accounts, that sure sounds like a bank to me. * "Sure, there's a high electricity cost, but compare it to the entire banking system that it's replacing and it's minimal." This one manages to be both inaccurate and false. A proof-of-work cryptocurrency must at all times expend energy proportional to the value represented by the cryptocurrency, or else be vulnerable to attack. As such, the more it expands in usage, the more much be expended to secure it. We've seen how Bitcoin alone now dwarfs entire countries, let alone the banking sector. And even if the statement were true, it is misleading to compare a payment processor to the entire banking sector. Even if the entire banking sector ran on cryptocurrency, you'd still need somebody to underwrite loans and mortgages. Overall, every single time I've looked into cryptocurrency over the past decade, I came away thinking that it's a really neat idea, but there are so, so many downsides. In practice, cryptocurrencies are worse than Ponzi schemes, because at least Ponzi schemes only screw over people who invest in them. Cryptocurrencies also screw over anybody who wants to use GPUs for productivity/entertainment, anybody who has higher electricity costs due to increased demand, and anybody downwind of (or on the same warming planet as) coal power plants being reactivated to run transaction validation. Bitcoin delenda est.
- DEADBEEFC0FFEE 5y ago
ajuc 5y ago
bitcoin is better than central bank in the same way that mafia is better than police :)
- danuker 5y ago
  The mafia is violent and illegal. Bitcoin in itself is neither.

> arguments about technology, economics or freedom are not just wrong but very often the exact opposite is true. Care to elaborate? What exactly are the arguments that are wrong?

leokennis 5y ago

Basically, crypto and especially Bitcoin is exchanging generally well regulated (central) banks with shady parties operating from extremely power hungry ASIC sheds in China or Iceland. To be honest, I do not spot the upside for crypto here.

cookieswumchorr 5y ago
not really, though its sad to see the power imbalance grow in crypto, they still have way less power than a central bank that can just make the money printer go brrr. Yes, some systems are stable, but many others are not; And most of the criticism applies to POW crypto. Which will hopefully be outpaced by POS soon.
- leokennis 5y ago
  The difference is this: * "Plain old banks" might have more power over money creation (i.e. unlike Bitcoin, money creation technically has no fixed limit). But they are severely restricted (by regulations and restrictions) from using that power in a too bad way. * Bitcoin miners have less power over this, but can wield it without restriction as without their power hungry ASIC rigs, Bitcoin will stop working for all practical intents and purposes.
  - cookieswumchorr 5y ago
    regulations and restrictions do not always work; Most of the worlds population live in places where regulations and restrictions are applied by the state on its citizens, not vice versa

MereInterest 5y ago

Not the OP, but this has been my experience as well. * "This will decentralize ownership of a currency." Nope, it will move from having government control to having oligarchic control. * "A strict limit on the number of tokens means that the value isn't stolen away by inflation." If the supply of currency doesn't keep up with demand, the price skyrockets. This discourages investment, since you get more value just by holding onto it. * "These are anonymous transactions." On a public ledger, the most you can do is pseudonymous. Just like TOR, you only need to monitor the exit nodes to map pseudonyms to actual people. * "Irreversible transactions are a feature." They're definitely a bug. If I buy a TV with a credit card, and receive a box of rocks, I can do a chargeback. If I make that same transaction with cryptocurrencies, I'm SOL unless a fraudster suddenly decides that they really want to make good on it. * "We don't need banks anymore." is absolutely hilarious when coupled with "Off-chain transactions solve the throughput limits." If there's an organization that holds money in their on-chain accounts on behalf of others, manages a balance of those off-chain accounts backed by deposited assets, and facilitates transactions between those off-chain accounts, that sure sounds like a bank to me. * "Sure, there's a high electricity cost, but compare it to the entire banking system that it's replacing and it's minimal." This one manages to be both inaccurate and false. A proof-of-work cryptocurrency must at all times expend energy proportional to the value represented by the cryptocurrency, or else be vulnerable to attack. As such, the more it expands in usage, the more much be expended to secure it. We've seen how Bitcoin alone now dwarfs entire countries, let alone the banking sector. And even if the statement were true, it is misleading to compare a payment processor to the entire banking sector. Even if the entire banking sector ran on cryptocurrency, you'd still need somebody to underwrite loans and mortgages. Overall, every single time I've looked into cryptocurrency over the past decade, I came away thinking that it's a really neat idea, but there are so, so many downsides. In practice, cryptocurrencies are worse than Ponzi schemes, because at least Ponzi schemes only screw over people who invest in them. Cryptocurrencies also screw over anybody who wants to use GPUs for productivity/entertainment, anybody who has higher electricity costs due to increased demand, and anybody downwind of (or on the same warming planet as) coal power plants being reactivated to run transaction validation. Bitcoin delenda est.

DEADBEEFC0FFEE 5y ago

ajuc 5y ago

bitcoin is better than central bank in the same way that mafia is better than police :)

danuker 5y ago
The mafia is violent and illegal. Bitcoin in itself is neither.