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The hole in your reasoning is that “it’s a Ponzi scheme!!!” is not a reasonable argument against crypto and shows a misunderstanding of both Ponzi schemes and c

by md2020 5y ago

The hole in your reasoning is that “it’s a Ponzi scheme!!!” is not a reasonable argument against crypto and shows a misunderstanding of both Ponzi schemes and cryptocurrency. And it is always at the top of HN threads about cryptocurrency. “why don’t they just believe” ends up being the response because if you look around, there are well-reasoned arguments against nearly all of the criticisms of the main cryptocurrencies, and people continue to willfully ignore them, giving us never-ending comments about Ponzi schemes. Reasonable criticism is what is happening within the development communities of these projects.

BoiledCabbage 5y ago
And the hole in your argument is that nothing in /u/ colechristensen 's argument said anything about a Ponzi scheme. The argument /u/ bko was replying to. The and yet bko went immediately to arguing against ponzi scheme. Nothing in my argument said ponzi scheme and you went to arguing against ponzi scheme. Lots of users casually and incorrectly use Ponzi scheme to describe crypto as shorthand for speculative "asset". And while I'm pulling a number out of thin air, I argue after excluding people doing wash sales and using it to simply move to other crypto, 90%+ of the owners of the most popular crypto currency Bitcoin are 'buy and hold'. Ie speculating on price appreciation and nothing more. I'd love to see a number to prove that wrong. And also out of thin air, 90% of crypto created, while I can't describe intent have followed the exact pattern of a pump and dump. Including the majority of their volume being wash sales by early insiders to inflate their value. Again please show me if this is completely wrong. The majority of price movement in smaller alt-coins is driven by memes, hype and social media pushes and not due to sudden changes in fundamentals or revisions they made in their technology post launch. Proof of work is here to stay. No matter how much 'greener' supposed alternatives like 'proof of stake' are. Who has any own to eliminate proof of work? Not add an alternative - but to get the people deeply financially invested in POW to move off of POW to their financial detriment to an alternative like POS? Motivated by the egalitarian nature against their financial interests? The mamy people who have argued againstvand downplayed in environmental impact of crypto for so long are suddenly going to want to lose money to be greener? The belief the exponential growth in electricity consumption isn't a loaded gun. Every person who responds 'oh but is only 1% of world energy usage' that appears to show no idea of how exponential growth works. Finally, those who believe in democracy and are very concerned by the outsized influence the money has in for example American democracy, and how much the current declininh state of the US has been due to the growing impact of money in the country. How money via influence, lobbying and similar gets way more votes in politics than those without. How they use that influence for regulatory capture by setting the rules in their favor to accumulate more wealth in a feedback loop. To reach the point where instead of one person one vote it's effectively one dollar one vote. And that somebody in crypto came along and said hey, that's surely a good idea, let's name it proof of stake. And somehow thought that was an egalitarian action! No matter how wealthy someone was they never controlled the money supply. You think you had issues with the 1% of the 1% before, wait till they buy into POS and their votes literally define the rules of the money you're using. All of the above I'd love to hear responses to and not vague 'the problem will just go away', or minimizing their importance which is usually what crypto supporters do when their isn't and answer. And definitely please not redherring arguments about the word 'Ponzi'.

by md2020 5y ago

BoiledCabbage 5y ago

And the hole in your argument is that nothing in /u/ colechristensen 's argument said anything about a Ponzi scheme. The argument /u/ bko was replying to. The and yet bko went immediately to arguing against ponzi scheme. Nothing in my argument said ponzi scheme and you went to arguing against ponzi scheme. Lots of users casually and incorrectly use Ponzi scheme to describe crypto as shorthand for speculative "asset". And while I'm pulling a number out of thin air, I argue after excluding people doing wash sales and using it to simply move to other crypto, 90%+ of the owners of the most popular crypto currency Bitcoin are 'buy and hold'. Ie speculating on price appreciation and nothing more. I'd love to see a number to prove that wrong. And also out of thin air, 90% of crypto created, while I can't describe intent have followed the exact pattern of a pump and dump. Including the majority of their volume being wash sales by early insiders to inflate their value. Again please show me if this is completely wrong. The majority of price movement in smaller alt-coins is driven by memes, hype and social media pushes and not due to sudden changes in fundamentals or revisions they made in their technology post launch. Proof of work is here to stay. No matter how much 'greener' supposed alternatives like 'proof of stake' are. Who has any own to eliminate proof of work? Not add an alternative - but to get the people deeply financially invested in POW to move off of POW to their financial detriment to an alternative like POS? Motivated by the egalitarian nature against their financial interests? The mamy people who have argued againstvand downplayed in environmental impact of crypto for so long are suddenly going to want to lose money to be greener? The belief the exponential growth in electricity consumption isn't a loaded gun. Every person who responds 'oh but is only 1% of world energy usage' that appears to show no idea of how exponential growth works. Finally, those who believe in democracy and are very concerned by the outsized influence the money has in for example American democracy, and how much the current declininh state of the US has been due to the growing impact of money in the country. How money via influence, lobbying and similar gets way more votes in politics than those without. How they use that influence for regulatory capture by setting the rules in their favor to accumulate more wealth in a feedback loop. To reach the point where instead of one person one vote it's effectively one dollar one vote. And that somebody in crypto came along and said hey, that's surely a good idea, let's name it proof of stake. And somehow thought that was an egalitarian action! No matter how wealthy someone was they never controlled the money supply. You think you had issues with the 1% of the 1% before, wait till they buy into POS and their votes literally define the rules of the money you're using. All of the above I'd love to hear responses to and not vague 'the problem will just go away', or minimizing their importance which is usually what crypto supporters do when their isn't and answer. And definitely please not redherring arguments about the word 'Ponzi'.