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This article conflates NFTs with cryptocurrency, in a way that looks to me to be intentional in order to bolster his argument that crypto is for rich people to

This article conflates NFTs with cryptocurrency, in a way that looks to me to be intentional in order to bolster his argument that crypto is for rich people to conspicuously consume and to pump and dump on the plebs. NFTs aren't money, or currency and just because they can be created on some blockchains doesn't make them so. I also don't see a genuine effort from the author to really understand why proponents think that this technology will positively change the world. You might not agree with them, but at least then rebut their arguments instead of creating straw men. Bitcoin is open source, the original founder is nowhere to be found, there were no VCs involved in its creation or in the distribution of the coins and the entire network is run out in the open. The Bitcoin network is a commons. The permissionless, decentralized, p2p and stateless aspect of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is as revolutionary as it was 12 years ago, and in these 12 years "normal" (i.e. non-rich) people had access to them as much as anyone else. Heck, 10 years ago there were faucets that would hand out 5 bitcoins if you solved a captcha. The people who are today involved in the creation and distribution of fiat money have incredible power, a power which is largely hidden from view, but which actually drives and shapes a lot of what we see. Of course these people won't take an open source competitor lying down.

Synaesthesia 5y ago
What has happened in those 12 years has been a great deal of scams, get rich quick scheme a and instability. Bitcoin has also become dominated by a few major players and is a power structure in itself, not really benefitting ordinary people much at.
- WinstonSmith84 5y ago
  the ecosystem from 12 years ago is radically different from what it is now. Heck, it's radically different from what it was just 2 or 3 years ago. And well, it benefits (smart) ordinary people. That is, those who have invested or are investing. Smart money is here - and small investors are here too. And I'm saying purposefully "investing" as opposed to "trading". The former doesn't require any technical skills. As for "ordinary people" not versed into technologies doing what their government is telling them to do (bans, warnings, hackers, criminals, murderers, ...), well... I'm feeling sorry for them, but crypto cannot just replace local country currencies without government consent. Now think again: who is to blame?
  - boh 5y ago
    Yeah 12 years ago people actually thought they'd be using Bitcoin as it was intended: as a currency. Now most people know better than to do anything but trade it.
    - WinstonSmith84 5y ago
      oh come on. - defi? - Twitter introducing tips in crypto? .. personally speaking I'm paying every day with a crypto card (which gives me a few % cashback ..). But that's ok, you seem to purposefully want to miss the train, can't help people against themselves I guess :shrug:
      - imtringued 5y ago
        You do know you're missing the train by spending your crypto?
        shashasha2 5y ago
        Spending does not prevent stacking… The more you spend sats, the less you need Fiat… Also velocity will get rid of volatility !
        boh 5y ago
        And value. One of the reasons Bitcoin is so expensive is bcs most of it isn't being traded. If people actually start using it and loosen the supply, value goes down.
        WinstonSmith84 5y ago
        who says I'm spending my crypto? I'm spending my Euros moved over to my Crypto account...
        boh 5y ago
        lol
- jcbrand 5y ago
  Bitcoin is NOT dominated by a few major players. A few years ago when some large commercial players wanted to increase the block size, they weren't able to do so because a majority of nodes on the network rejected their code. The Bitcoin network has stayed remarkably stable and it's still possible to run a node on a raspberry pi, which is done exactly because the Bitcoin community value the ability of normal people to participate and be able to verify their transactions and that of the whole chain. Concerning scams. Let's look at another relatively open technology. Email. The vast majority of emails are actually spam, and a lot of those are scams (phishing, Nigerian princes etc.). In the beginning a lot of people fell for email scams, many still do, but by and large people are aware they exist and are able to use email productively without constantly falling victim to scams.
  - boh 5y ago
    Most people who have Bitcoin don't spend it, only trade it. If you're only trading it, then your only interaction with Bitcoin is via exchanges. A handful of exchanges control most of the trades.
    - scrubs 5y ago
      Well said.
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
    Exactly the opposite has happened: most players, including the lead developers, wanted block size to increase, because of the insane fees. But a small minority, who happened to hold the passwords to some major sites like bitcointalk, bitcoin.org and /r/bitcoin succeeded to wrangle control over and through bans and censorship took over the bitcoin project. They promised to deliver a solution to the problems of fees in the form of Lightning network, but it failed - still doesn't work reliably after all these years. Now that governing body gave up on Bitcoin development and advance their own projects based primarily on Tether. As a result, Bitcoin development has stagnated compared to competition, which is reflected in its market share diminishing.
CynicusRex 5y ago
You need to buy crypto“currencies” to get into NFTs as far as I know; there's no conflating.
dpedu 5y ago
> Bitcoin is open source, the original founder is nowhere to be found, there were no VCs involved in its creation or in the distribution of the coins and the entire network is run out in the open. The Bitcoin network is a commons. Hmmm. You've conveniently danced around any suggestion or mention of the fact that the "creator" of bitcoin mined 1.1 million - 1/20th of all bitcoins that will ever exist(!) - coins in private before launching bitcoin publicly and holds them to this day.
- toomim 5y ago
  And he never spent them. It's the most selfless act I've witnessed in my life.
  - flipbrad 5y ago
    Might not be especially hard to use them as collateral for a loan, though. Live like a king and then eventually sell them, repaying the loan from the (now rather generous) proceeds.
    - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
      This absolutely is not the case, as any collateralize loans require you to transfer custody to a 3rd party making the loan. Otherwise, you could just steal the coins straight after handing over the private keys. And even if that wasn't the case, the loaner will want exclusive control and move them to another key they control anyway. If it was a loan, you would have blockchain records of movement of Satoshi coins. This can be proven not to be the case, and so we can be quite confident there was no loans to Satoshi.
      - flipbrad 5y ago
        Not sure I understand. Why couldn't you just escrow the private key with a mutually trusted third party, and back the whole thing with a contract. You know - with a traditional bank, that has a contract with you, knows your identity, and can report you to the authorities - and sue you - if you default or sell the collateral you've provided for the loan?
shkkmo 5y ago
I don't see any such conflation, nor do I see any rejection of cryptocurrency's future potential. This article is primarily about what is happening with cryptocurrency right now: > Whatever cryptocurrency might someday be For All Mankind, it is most urgently and avidly in this moment something that people tell weird lies about in hopes of getting richer. You seem intent on spreading such get rich quick and utopian dreams on cryptocurrency. How much do you have invested in the ecosystem? Edit: In my opinion, people who genuinely care about the revolutionary potential of Bitcoin need to avoid feeding the hype train that helps normalize the sketchy lieing behavior in the ecosystem and simply work on building that future instead.
- jcbrand 5y ago
  > You seem intent on spreading such get rich quick and utopian dreams on cryptocurrency. Please point me to where I spread get rich quick dreams in my comments.
boh 5y ago
Not really a revolution when most people just trade it (mostly via fiat money). The original idea was for Bitcoin to be a currency, unfortunately the "hodlers" won, now its only reason to exist is to be more expensive. Boosters are still milking the original premise as some revolution they're supporting, when of course, if you ask how much of their crypto assets they've actually used/spent, the typical answer is 0%. Satoshi is dead, the dream is dead, people are just trading the corpse
- leppr 5y ago
  L2s and decentralized stablecoins keep the dream of a free decentralized economy alive. It's a smaller community for sure (as most pretend enthusiasts aren't actually interested when there's no Ponzi in it for them, and most detractors would rather focus on easier strawmen), but it exists and it's thriving.
  - arisAlexis 5y ago
    Stable coins do not solve the money printing problem at all. Their existence is mostly for avoiding tax events when speculators sell tops and buy dips. Also they are as centralized as it gets.
    - leppr 5y ago
      The term "decentralized stablecoins" itself precludes the USD-pegged voucher tokens you're referring to. I'm talking about things like Reflexer's RAI[1], which is designed to have stable value independently of any singular currency, and whose most centralized component is price oracles (so not very centralized). [1]: https://reflexer.finance/ https://reflexer.finance/
      - arisAlexis 5y ago
        Are you sure that if the dev team will ababdon the project tomorrow it will b existent and people will trust it 5 years for now? If not, it's centralized. Also, how can it be a stable coin if there is nothing explicitly stated as peg?
KorematsuFredt 5y ago
May be I am too old but completely fail to see any value in the notion of NFT. I do see value in Bitcoin. Bitcoin has basically thrown a wrench into all government controls on cross border payments. I don't know if Bitcoins will be very successful or not, but I am pretty sure the concept will last very very long. NFTs on other hand appears to be equivalent of selling Golden gate bridge to tourists.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
  Do you see value in rare baseball cards selling for millions of dollars? That's the same, but the card's authenticity can be verified cryptographically rather than through complex means like radionuclide analysis and such.
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    Physical goods would still need the same authentication if they were tied to an NFT, and may be rare as a consequence of their nature. What's the value of pretending an easily duplicated digital thing is rare? I realize that an NFT minted on a given chain is unique, but so what, that doesn't make it unique and interesting they way a baseball card might be.
    - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
      Unfortunately, it is impossible to cryptographically sign a physical object (like what, enumerating all of it's atoms and their positions?). NFT is only valuable if the creator promises she will never sign any more identical objects in the future. And she is incentivized to do so by way of receiving royalties on all future resales.
  - KorematsuFredt 5y ago
    Yes. A rare baseball card (physical one) might be worth some non zero money to many people. But only as long as it is physical card. Any digital asset that represents it would be valuable to if it is NFT. This is nearly same as holding some bits of data in your bank account. Those numbers are valuable because they map to real world currency which the bank is holding for me.
didntknowya 5y ago
yea bitcoin is open sourced, but with a substantial stake already mined by the founder (anonymous and which could also be an individual, VC, country etc who knows) so while the most popular is not exactly the best defense of the blockchain tech.

Synaesthesia 5y ago

What has happened in those 12 years has been a great deal of scams, get rich quick scheme a and instability. Bitcoin has also become dominated by a few major players and is a power structure in itself, not really benefitting ordinary people much at.

WinstonSmith84 5y ago
the ecosystem from 12 years ago is radically different from what it is now. Heck, it's radically different from what it was just 2 or 3 years ago. And well, it benefits (smart) ordinary people. That is, those who have invested or are investing. Smart money is here - and small investors are here too. And I'm saying purposefully "investing" as opposed to "trading". The former doesn't require any technical skills. As for "ordinary people" not versed into technologies doing what their government is telling them to do (bans, warnings, hackers, criminals, murderers, ...), well... I'm feeling sorry for them, but crypto cannot just replace local country currencies without government consent. Now think again: who is to blame?
- boh 5y ago
  Yeah 12 years ago people actually thought they'd be using Bitcoin as it was intended: as a currency. Now most people know better than to do anything but trade it.
  - WinstonSmith84 5y ago
    oh come on. - defi? - Twitter introducing tips in crypto? .. personally speaking I'm paying every day with a crypto card (which gives me a few % cashback ..). But that's ok, you seem to purposefully want to miss the train, can't help people against themselves I guess :shrug:
    - imtringued 5y ago
      You do know you're missing the train by spending your crypto?
      - shashasha2 5y ago
        Spending does not prevent stacking… The more you spend sats, the less you need Fiat… Also velocity will get rid of volatility !
        boh 5y ago
        And value. One of the reasons Bitcoin is so expensive is bcs most of it isn't being traded. If people actually start using it and loosen the supply, value goes down.
      - WinstonSmith84 5y ago
        who says I'm spending my crypto? I'm spending my Euros moved over to my Crypto account...
        boh 5y ago
        lol
jcbrand 5y ago
Bitcoin is NOT dominated by a few major players. A few years ago when some large commercial players wanted to increase the block size, they weren't able to do so because a majority of nodes on the network rejected their code. The Bitcoin network has stayed remarkably stable and it's still possible to run a node on a raspberry pi, which is done exactly because the Bitcoin community value the ability of normal people to participate and be able to verify their transactions and that of the whole chain. Concerning scams. Let's look at another relatively open technology. Email. The vast majority of emails are actually spam, and a lot of those are scams (phishing, Nigerian princes etc.). In the beginning a lot of people fell for email scams, many still do, but by and large people are aware they exist and are able to use email productively without constantly falling victim to scams.
- boh 5y ago
  Most people who have Bitcoin don't spend it, only trade it. If you're only trading it, then your only interaction with Bitcoin is via exchanges. A handful of exchanges control most of the trades.
  - scrubs 5y ago
    Well said.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
  Exactly the opposite has happened: most players, including the lead developers, wanted block size to increase, because of the insane fees. But a small minority, who happened to hold the passwords to some major sites like bitcointalk, bitcoin.org and /r/bitcoin succeeded to wrangle control over and through bans and censorship took over the bitcoin project. They promised to deliver a solution to the problems of fees in the form of Lightning network, but it failed - still doesn't work reliably after all these years. Now that governing body gave up on Bitcoin development and advance their own projects based primarily on Tether. As a result, Bitcoin development has stagnated compared to competition, which is reflected in its market share diminishing.

CynicusRex 5y ago

You need to buy crypto“currencies” to get into NFTs as far as I know; there's no conflating.

dpedu 5y ago

> Bitcoin is open source, the original founder is nowhere to be found, there were no VCs involved in its creation or in the distribution of the coins and the entire network is run out in the open. The Bitcoin network is a commons. Hmmm. You've conveniently danced around any suggestion or mention of the fact that the "creator" of bitcoin mined 1.1 million - 1/20th of all bitcoins that will ever exist(!) - coins in private before launching bitcoin publicly and holds them to this day.

toomim 5y ago
And he never spent them. It's the most selfless act I've witnessed in my life.
- flipbrad 5y ago
  Might not be especially hard to use them as collateral for a loan, though. Live like a king and then eventually sell them, repaying the loan from the (now rather generous) proceeds.
  - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
    This absolutely is not the case, as any collateralize loans require you to transfer custody to a 3rd party making the loan. Otherwise, you could just steal the coins straight after handing over the private keys. And even if that wasn't the case, the loaner will want exclusive control and move them to another key they control anyway. If it was a loan, you would have blockchain records of movement of Satoshi coins. This can be proven not to be the case, and so we can be quite confident there was no loans to Satoshi.
    - flipbrad 5y ago
      Not sure I understand. Why couldn't you just escrow the private key with a mutually trusted third party, and back the whole thing with a contract. You know - with a traditional bank, that has a contract with you, knows your identity, and can report you to the authorities - and sue you - if you default or sell the collateral you've provided for the loan?

shkkmo 5y ago

I don't see any such conflation, nor do I see any rejection of cryptocurrency's future potential. This article is primarily about what is happening with cryptocurrency right now: > Whatever cryptocurrency might someday be For All Mankind, it is most urgently and avidly in this moment something that people tell weird lies about in hopes of getting richer. You seem intent on spreading such get rich quick and utopian dreams on cryptocurrency. How much do you have invested in the ecosystem? Edit: In my opinion, people who genuinely care about the revolutionary potential of Bitcoin need to avoid feeding the hype train that helps normalize the sketchy lieing behavior in the ecosystem and simply work on building that future instead.

jcbrand 5y ago
> You seem intent on spreading such get rich quick and utopian dreams on cryptocurrency. Please point me to where I spread get rich quick dreams in my comments.

boh 5y ago

Not really a revolution when most people just trade it (mostly via fiat money). The original idea was for Bitcoin to be a currency, unfortunately the "hodlers" won, now its only reason to exist is to be more expensive. Boosters are still milking the original premise as some revolution they're supporting, when of course, if you ask how much of their crypto assets they've actually used/spent, the typical answer is 0%. Satoshi is dead, the dream is dead, people are just trading the corpse

leppr 5y ago
L2s and decentralized stablecoins keep the dream of a free decentralized economy alive. It's a smaller community for sure (as most pretend enthusiasts aren't actually interested when there's no Ponzi in it for them, and most detractors would rather focus on easier strawmen), but it exists and it's thriving.
- arisAlexis 5y ago
  Stable coins do not solve the money printing problem at all. Their existence is mostly for avoiding tax events when speculators sell tops and buy dips. Also they are as centralized as it gets.
  - leppr 5y ago
    The term "decentralized stablecoins" itself precludes the USD-pegged voucher tokens you're referring to. I'm talking about things like Reflexer's RAI[1], which is designed to have stable value independently of any singular currency, and whose most centralized component is price oracles (so not very centralized). [1]: https://reflexer.finance/ https://reflexer.finance/
    - arisAlexis 5y ago
      Are you sure that if the dev team will ababdon the project tomorrow it will b existent and people will trust it 5 years for now? If not, it's centralized. Also, how can it be a stable coin if there is nothing explicitly stated as peg?

KorematsuFredt 5y ago

May be I am too old but completely fail to see any value in the notion of NFT. I do see value in Bitcoin. Bitcoin has basically thrown a wrench into all government controls on cross border payments. I don't know if Bitcoins will be very successful or not, but I am pretty sure the concept will last very very long. NFTs on other hand appears to be equivalent of selling Golden gate bridge to tourists.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
Do you see value in rare baseball cards selling for millions of dollars? That's the same, but the card's authenticity can be verified cryptographically rather than through complex means like radionuclide analysis and such.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  Physical goods would still need the same authentication if they were tied to an NFT, and may be rare as a consequence of their nature. What's the value of pretending an easily duplicated digital thing is rare? I realize that an NFT minted on a given chain is unique, but so what, that doesn't make it unique and interesting they way a baseball card might be.
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
    Unfortunately, it is impossible to cryptographically sign a physical object (like what, enumerating all of it's atoms and their positions?). NFT is only valuable if the creator promises she will never sign any more identical objects in the future. And she is incentivized to do so by way of receiving royalties on all future resales.
- KorematsuFredt 5y ago
  Yes. A rare baseball card (physical one) might be worth some non zero money to many people. But only as long as it is physical card. Any digital asset that represents it would be valuable to if it is NFT. This is nearly same as holding some bits of data in your bank account. Those numbers are valuable because they map to real world currency which the bank is holding for me.

didntknowya 5y ago

yea bitcoin is open sourced, but with a substantial stake already mined by the founder (anonymous and which could also be an individual, VC, country etc who knows) so while the most popular is not exactly the best defense of the blockchain tech.