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You nailed it. Bitcoin is not some kind of panacea that will make everyone rich. It's just money that cannot be fucked with by central bankers, governments, dic

You nailed it. Bitcoin is not some kind of panacea that will make everyone rich. It's just money that cannot be fucked with by central bankers, governments, dictators or anyone else for that matter. That's it.

evilos 5y ago
Can't it still be fucked with via regulation? eg China banning it outright etc.
- IAmGraydon 5y ago
  Yep. That’s the thing that crypto supporters just seem to ignore: it requires an infrastructure that is owned and controlled by a higher power. Namely, the internet. In the end, the government has the power to easily shut this entire thing down. It only exists because they let it.
  - glenvdb 5y ago
    You think they're going to shutdown the Internet to kill Bitcoin? Even if they did, once the Internet was back up and running what would stop the Bitcoin network from continuing where it left off? There's thousands of people around the world running their own Bitcoin nodes, many also protected behind Tor [1]. In what realistic way could governments shut it down globally? They could go for centralised custodial businesses like the exchanges, but that doesn't stop the Bitcoin network itself. Also there are decentralised exchanges like Bisq that can't be shutdown. "Yes (you will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography.), but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years. Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own." — Satoshi Nakamoto "A lot of people automatically dismiss e-currency as a lost cause because of all the companies that failed since the 1990’s. I hope it’s obvious it was only the centrally controlled nature of those systems that doomed them. I think this is the first time we’re trying a decentralized, non-trust-based system." — Satoshi Nakamoto 1. https://bitnodes.io/dashboard/ https://bitnodes.io/dashboard/
    - IAmGraydon 5y ago
      No, I’m not talking about shutting down the internet. I’m talking about filtering its traffic. I also did not say they would do this. I said that they could do it and have the power to do it. My point is that if the US Govt really wants crypto to go away, it will.
  - christophilus 5y ago
    Not sure about the rest of the world, but if the US shut down it’s internet, we’d have an entirely new government in the next election, if not sooner.
hnbad 5y ago
Well, unless you can exert sufficient influence on the system itself from outside. Ask Tor how the whole "anonymity is guaranteed by decentralization" thing works out when individual actors control the majority of the nodes involved. To say nothing about rubber-hose cryptanalysis or simply banning crypto currencies an seizing assets. It also doesn't really matter if the person fucking with a resource is a state or an extremely rich individual or a company, except for ideological reasons. Diamonds (even natural ones) are fairly abundant and largely worthless but that doesn't stop De Beers from selling them at ridiculously inflated prices because they hold enough of a monopoly to be able to create artificial scarcity (and spend a lot of money on marketing to distinguish their "product" from the cheaper but higher quality artificial alternative). That crypto currencies aren't subject to the power hierarchies of the institutions you name in the exact same way as state-backed currencies doesn't mean they are not impacted by real world power hierarchies at all -- nor at least less so. Literally the only thing guaranteeing the "value" of anything is (state) violence. The reason you can charge ten bucks for a fancy cup of coffee is that if I drink without paying, you can call the cops.
timeon 5y ago
Isn't the article arguing otherwise?

evilos 5y ago

Can't it still be fucked with via regulation? eg China banning it outright etc.

IAmGraydon 5y ago
Yep. That’s the thing that crypto supporters just seem to ignore: it requires an infrastructure that is owned and controlled by a higher power. Namely, the internet. In the end, the government has the power to easily shut this entire thing down. It only exists because they let it.
- glenvdb 5y ago
  You think they're going to shutdown the Internet to kill Bitcoin? Even if they did, once the Internet was back up and running what would stop the Bitcoin network from continuing where it left off? There's thousands of people around the world running their own Bitcoin nodes, many also protected behind Tor [1]. In what realistic way could governments shut it down globally? They could go for centralised custodial businesses like the exchanges, but that doesn't stop the Bitcoin network itself. Also there are decentralised exchanges like Bisq that can't be shutdown. "Yes (you will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography.), but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years. Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own." — Satoshi Nakamoto "A lot of people automatically dismiss e-currency as a lost cause because of all the companies that failed since the 1990’s. I hope it’s obvious it was only the centrally controlled nature of those systems that doomed them. I think this is the first time we’re trying a decentralized, non-trust-based system." — Satoshi Nakamoto 1. https://bitnodes.io/dashboard/ https://bitnodes.io/dashboard/
  - IAmGraydon 5y ago
    No, I’m not talking about shutting down the internet. I’m talking about filtering its traffic. I also did not say they would do this. I said that they could do it and have the power to do it. My point is that if the US Govt really wants crypto to go away, it will.
- christophilus 5y ago
  Not sure about the rest of the world, but if the US shut down it’s internet, we’d have an entirely new government in the next election, if not sooner.

hnbad 5y ago

Well, unless you can exert sufficient influence on the system itself from outside. Ask Tor how the whole "anonymity is guaranteed by decentralization" thing works out when individual actors control the majority of the nodes involved. To say nothing about rubber-hose cryptanalysis or simply banning crypto currencies an seizing assets. It also doesn't really matter if the person fucking with a resource is a state or an extremely rich individual or a company, except for ideological reasons. Diamonds (even natural ones) are fairly abundant and largely worthless but that doesn't stop De Beers from selling them at ridiculously inflated prices because they hold enough of a monopoly to be able to create artificial scarcity (and spend a lot of money on marketing to distinguish their "product" from the cheaper but higher quality artificial alternative). That crypto currencies aren't subject to the power hierarchies of the institutions you name in the exact same way as state-backed currencies doesn't mean they are not impacted by real world power hierarchies at all -- nor at least less so. Literally the only thing guaranteeing the "value" of anything is (state) violence. The reason you can charge ten bucks for a fancy cup of coffee is that if I drink without paying, you can call the cops.

timeon 5y ago

Isn't the article arguing otherwise?