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I’m exhausted by cryptocurrency. There’s a kernel of neat tech innovation and a reasonable argument about monetary policy obliterated by an avalanche of greed,

by eqmvii 5y ago

I’m exhausted by cryptocurrency. There’s a kernel of neat tech innovation and a reasonable argument about monetary policy obliterated by an avalanche of greed, hype, fraud, and magical thinking.

jes 5y ago
With respect, do you see currencies just consed up out of thin air as free of the avalanche of negatives you mentioned?
- smt88 5y ago
  No crypto asset is currency or will be currency. They're tradable assets, not unlike Beanie Babies. And I don't see fiat that way because: 1. I use if every day. It's widely usable as currency, it's inflationary, and its value doesn't fluctuate wildly. 2. Fiat only ever promised to fix the problems with gold, and it did that (in the US and Europe at least). It didn't ride a wave of hype that it couldn't live up to. 3. No one's hobby is talking about fiat. They don't harass me when I say I don't think it's interesting. They don't talk about the world falling apart and fiat plucking us from the ashes.
  - wahnfrieden 5y ago
    There’s plenty of fiat criticism outside of crypto, maybe you are in a bubble of neoliberalism
    - smt88 5y ago
      I don't know what you're arguing against in my comment, but it's not something I actually said. Fiat, The Fed, and active monetary policy are certainly criticized from all angles. I never said otherwise.
    - pc86 5y ago
      Not by anybody taken seriously.
      - jkhdigital 5y ago
        I’ll take my discussions about money without the added gatekeeping, thank you.
  - notahacker 5y ago
    Also, ironically, crypto is at least as conjured up out of thin air as a properly operated "fiat" currency. A person decided - for whatever reason - that there should be up to 21 million of a new type of token in existence, and his software started printing them and dishing them out to random participants in the network. With a "fiat" currency the actual number in circulation goes up and down according to actual market demand for debt, and in a properly run "fiat" currency the active intervention in that market is taken by named individuals with set targets who publish minutes of the decisions they're going to take.
    - jfengel 5y ago
      Crypto is fiat currency without even so much as the fiat. Meaning it floats completely at random based on the mood of the participants... which now is driven solely by wanting to sell that crypto to some Greater Fool.
      - ejanus 5y ago
        What about company stocks, maybe Evergrande. Hold them while waiting for Greater Fool.
        notahacker 5y ago
        Sure, if the company becomes insolvent, then the stocks will be backed by as little as Bitcoin, and more fixed in supply. Perhaps HODLers of crappy stocks should just forget about the whole revenue-generating business that was supposed to be behind them, and insist that they're a store of value
        smt88 5y ago
        Do you genuinely not see a difference between Bitcoin and a stock? Stock is ownership of a company and entitlement to its profits. If you gamble on an unprofitable company with no assets, then sure, your stock could be worth very little. But even then, the company likely has cashflow or something in its financials that's valuable. Companies selling stock are also analyzed to death and publish their audited financials.
  - jrm4 5y ago
    "Currency" is still mostly not there, but there's things between that and tradable assets. A lot of people do, today, use crypto to e.g. send money back home.
gjsman-1000 5y ago
I remember being shocked that my uncle was doing NFT trading and buying and selling digital land in the metaverse over Thanksgiving (though not his primary job). I thought I was an early adopter for having 1.4 ETH.
- smt88 5y ago
  Your uncle is gambling, just like every day-trader on the traditional stock market before crypto was ever invented.
  - mmargerum 5y ago
    At this point the equities market is also gambling based on what the fed decides to do next.
    - dnautics 5y ago
      > At this point the equities market is also gambling. FTFY "Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security but [also] at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. "Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become "profiteers," who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery. - John Maynard Keynes (ironically) Technically he was talking about short term high inflation, but there is no mechanistic reason why this would be false for long-term low inflation, and it is exactly what we are seeing after 50 years of secular inflation as a policy.
lalaland1125 5y ago
The most innovative part of crypto is how it encourages "normal" people to become personally financially invested in promoting it.
- ohgodplsno 5y ago
  Decentralised MLMs. That and nobody wants to be the bag holder.
- k__ 5y ago
  Too many grass-roots movements failed, or at least struggled, because money was an after thought.
- BrianOnHN 5y ago
  "Mary Kay for men."
  - mritchie712 5y ago
    How long until Mary Kay is pushing NFT's?
  - ChainOfFools 5y ago
    Financial herpes
    - meepmorp 5y ago
      This is much closer, imo.
    - sdoering 5y ago
      I like that metaphor. I see where it falls short, but I see the spreadable aspect and like that.
- Rexxar 5y ago
  Let's call it "Scamtech"
mmargerum 5y ago
There's a lot of hype but there's also a lot of potential to revolutionize commerce. imagine if you could pay 10 cents to read an article or tip a web site. How badly does this torpedo googles ad biz?
- pc86 5y ago
  Not to be flippant but I would still just wait for someone to post the archive link.
- UnlockedSecrets 5y ago
  And what feature of cryptocurrency allows and or benefits this whereas traditional finance systems cannot?
  - ejanus 5y ago
    Everybody suddenly uses same currency, and it makes it pretty easy for all to get involved. It removes currency barriers.
- pjc50 5y ago
  > imagine if you could pay 10 cents to read an article or tip a web site. 1) nobody actually wants to pay this, though; the whole set of pre-existing arguments against micropayments apply, too many to list here. My fave one is "micropayments enable microfraud", though. And if you think cookie banners are annoying wait until you see the cryptobanners. 2) you definitely can't scale this on a blockchain, and any scalable system you build to do it will be Not A Blockchain. How many web pages does the world view in the time of a single bitcoin block? Would you say it was more or less than ten million?
  - noxer 5y ago
    1) Why do people buy "pro" apps to remove ads but would not do that for content on the web? Also the micro fraud argument is kinda funny since everyone knows the ad business is full or fraud and everyone somehow involved with ads pays a huge junk for this. I think micropayment is far move fraud resistant because all the bots pretending to be humans and clicking ads do not work anymore. 2) That true. but it doesn't have to be a blockchain in fact there is already proposed protocols to do micropayment on global scale its called Interledger Protocol (ILP). Its a protocol like TCP/IP it scales the same way. And as the name suggest it can be used with multiple ledgers including blockchains but it doesn't have to be one.
seaourfreed 5y ago
* 3% taken by credit card companies from merchants shows a rigged economy. It must get fixed * 3% interest should be paid on savings accounts (like 1900 - 1980). ~0% today is a rigged economy * Many other examples of the financial system being the root of the rigged economy (2008 Mortgage crisis, Libor rigged, front running trades, etc.). Crypto brings the freedom to compete. We need to fix the rigged financial system by using competition.
- pjc50 5y ago
  https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/hr/IP_15_4585 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/hr/IP_15_... : "As a general rule, the Regulation will cap interchange fees at 0.2% of the transaction value for consumer debit cards and at 0.3% for consumer credit cards." Problem solved. > 3% interest should be paid on savings accounts By whom? I'm quite happy with my 1.2% mortgage, why do you want to impoverish me by driving that up? What's the interest rate on a 25 year mortgage in Bitcoin again?
lowkey 5y ago
I’m exhausted by the fiat money scam 2% annual inflation over a 40 year career amounts to 40% less earnings. Inflation is theft. Bitcoin fixes this. No one has ever explained a better solution to inflation than Bitcoin. Fiat money printing is a scam that lets politicians spend more money without directly raising taxes. Bitcoin is honest sound money with a fixed inflation policy forever that cannot be manipulated by any central actors. It is an idea who’s time has come, given the inflationary realities of today.
- KarlKemp 5y ago
  Have you heard of asking for a raise? Also, last I checked, the price of essential good in Bitcoin, assuming the contra-factual that it were possible to buy such things with Bitcoin, hasn’t exactly been constant for 40 years.
  - lowkey 5y ago
    Asking for a raise works for me and you since we have pricing power, but what of those less fortunate? What about those on minimum wage, or fixed salaries or pensions or welfare? They don’t have the ability to continuously increase their prices to match inflation. TL;DR your solution works for the most in-demand workers in society but it causes greater and greater income inequality over time leading those who are most vulnerable to fall further and further behind. For more details, see https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
- hiq 5y ago
  > Bitcoin fixes this. No one has ever explained a better solution to inflation than Bitcoin. Does anyone seriously claim that Bitcoin is currently solving inflation? I've heard some claims that it will eventually be the case, but claiming it is already a "solution to inflation" sounds like a stretch even for bitcoin supporters. Bitcoin was apparently at 30kUSD some time in July this year after reaching 60kUSD in June, while it is now at 48kUSD. I don't see how this indicates that bitcoin is any protection against inflation. Or if it is and you're fine with this kind of volatility, I wonder why you discarded other investments such as stocks.
ufo 5y ago
For me, one of the saddest things about the El-Salvador Bitcoin saga is seeing people here turn a blind eye to Bukele's power grabbing, because he plays into the narrative of their crypto greed.
GracefullyBlind 5y ago
I love this sentence. Might steal it. Thanks

by eqmvii 5y ago

I’m exhausted by cryptocurrency. There’s a kernel of neat tech innovation and a reasonable argument about monetary policy obliterated by an avalanche of greed, hype, fraud, and magical thinking.

jes 5y ago

With respect, do you see currencies just consed up out of thin air as free of the avalanche of negatives you mentioned?

smt88 5y ago
No crypto asset is currency or will be currency. They're tradable assets, not unlike Beanie Babies. And I don't see fiat that way because: 1. I use if every day. It's widely usable as currency, it's inflationary, and its value doesn't fluctuate wildly. 2. Fiat only ever promised to fix the problems with gold, and it did that (in the US and Europe at least). It didn't ride a wave of hype that it couldn't live up to. 3. No one's hobby is talking about fiat. They don't harass me when I say I don't think it's interesting. They don't talk about the world falling apart and fiat plucking us from the ashes.
- wahnfrieden 5y ago
  There’s plenty of fiat criticism outside of crypto, maybe you are in a bubble of neoliberalism
  - smt88 5y ago
    I don't know what you're arguing against in my comment, but it's not something I actually said. Fiat, The Fed, and active monetary policy are certainly criticized from all angles. I never said otherwise.
  - pc86 5y ago
    Not by anybody taken seriously.
    - jkhdigital 5y ago
      I’ll take my discussions about money without the added gatekeeping, thank you.
- notahacker 5y ago
  Also, ironically, crypto is at least as conjured up out of thin air as a properly operated "fiat" currency. A person decided - for whatever reason - that there should be up to 21 million of a new type of token in existence, and his software started printing them and dishing them out to random participants in the network. With a "fiat" currency the actual number in circulation goes up and down according to actual market demand for debt, and in a properly run "fiat" currency the active intervention in that market is taken by named individuals with set targets who publish minutes of the decisions they're going to take.
  - jfengel 5y ago
    Crypto is fiat currency without even so much as the fiat. Meaning it floats completely at random based on the mood of the participants... which now is driven solely by wanting to sell that crypto to some Greater Fool.
    - ejanus 5y ago
      What about company stocks, maybe Evergrande. Hold them while waiting for Greater Fool.
      - notahacker 5y ago
        Sure, if the company becomes insolvent, then the stocks will be backed by as little as Bitcoin, and more fixed in supply. Perhaps HODLers of crappy stocks should just forget about the whole revenue-generating business that was supposed to be behind them, and insist that they're a store of value
      - smt88 5y ago
        Do you genuinely not see a difference between Bitcoin and a stock? Stock is ownership of a company and entitlement to its profits. If you gamble on an unprofitable company with no assets, then sure, your stock could be worth very little. But even then, the company likely has cashflow or something in its financials that's valuable. Companies selling stock are also analyzed to death and publish their audited financials.
- jrm4 5y ago
  "Currency" is still mostly not there, but there's things between that and tradable assets. A lot of people do, today, use crypto to e.g. send money back home.

gjsman-1000 5y ago

I remember being shocked that my uncle was doing NFT trading and buying and selling digital land in the metaverse over Thanksgiving (though not his primary job). I thought I was an early adopter for having 1.4 ETH.

smt88 5y ago
Your uncle is gambling, just like every day-trader on the traditional stock market before crypto was ever invented.
- mmargerum 5y ago
  At this point the equities market is also gambling based on what the fed decides to do next.
  - dnautics 5y ago
    > At this point the equities market is also gambling. FTFY "Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security but [also] at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. "Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become "profiteers," who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery. - John Maynard Keynes (ironically) Technically he was talking about short term high inflation, but there is no mechanistic reason why this would be false for long-term low inflation, and it is exactly what we are seeing after 50 years of secular inflation as a policy.

lalaland1125 5y ago

The most innovative part of crypto is how it encourages "normal" people to become personally financially invested in promoting it.

ohgodplsno 5y ago
Decentralised MLMs. That and nobody wants to be the bag holder.
k__ 5y ago
Too many grass-roots movements failed, or at least struggled, because money was an after thought.
BrianOnHN 5y ago
"Mary Kay for men."
- mritchie712 5y ago
  How long until Mary Kay is pushing NFT's?
- ChainOfFools 5y ago
  Financial herpes
  - meepmorp 5y ago
    This is much closer, imo.
  - sdoering 5y ago
    I like that metaphor. I see where it falls short, but I see the spreadable aspect and like that.
Rexxar 5y ago
Let's call it "Scamtech"

mmargerum 5y ago

There's a lot of hype but there's also a lot of potential to revolutionize commerce. imagine if you could pay 10 cents to read an article or tip a web site. How badly does this torpedo googles ad biz?

pc86 5y ago
Not to be flippant but I would still just wait for someone to post the archive link.
UnlockedSecrets 5y ago
And what feature of cryptocurrency allows and or benefits this whereas traditional finance systems cannot?
- ejanus 5y ago
  Everybody suddenly uses same currency, and it makes it pretty easy for all to get involved. It removes currency barriers.
pjc50 5y ago
> imagine if you could pay 10 cents to read an article or tip a web site. 1) nobody actually wants to pay this, though; the whole set of pre-existing arguments against micropayments apply, too many to list here. My fave one is "micropayments enable microfraud", though. And if you think cookie banners are annoying wait until you see the cryptobanners. 2) you definitely can't scale this on a blockchain, and any scalable system you build to do it will be Not A Blockchain. How many web pages does the world view in the time of a single bitcoin block? Would you say it was more or less than ten million?
- noxer 5y ago
  1) Why do people buy "pro" apps to remove ads but would not do that for content on the web? Also the micro fraud argument is kinda funny since everyone knows the ad business is full or fraud and everyone somehow involved with ads pays a huge junk for this. I think micropayment is far move fraud resistant because all the bots pretending to be humans and clicking ads do not work anymore. 2) That true. but it doesn't have to be a blockchain in fact there is already proposed protocols to do micropayment on global scale its called Interledger Protocol (ILP). Its a protocol like TCP/IP it scales the same way. And as the name suggest it can be used with multiple ledgers including blockchains but it doesn't have to be one.

seaourfreed 5y ago

* 3% taken by credit card companies from merchants shows a rigged economy. It must get fixed * 3% interest should be paid on savings accounts (like 1900 - 1980). ~0% today is a rigged economy * Many other examples of the financial system being the root of the rigged economy (2008 Mortgage crisis, Libor rigged, front running trades, etc.). Crypto brings the freedom to compete. We need to fix the rigged financial system by using competition.

pjc50 5y ago
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/hr/IP_15_4585 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/hr/IP_15_... : "As a general rule, the Regulation will cap interchange fees at 0.2% of the transaction value for consumer debit cards and at 0.3% for consumer credit cards." Problem solved. > 3% interest should be paid on savings accounts By whom? I'm quite happy with my 1.2% mortgage, why do you want to impoverish me by driving that up? What's the interest rate on a 25 year mortgage in Bitcoin again?

lowkey 5y ago

I’m exhausted by the fiat money scam 2% annual inflation over a 40 year career amounts to 40% less earnings. Inflation is theft. Bitcoin fixes this. No one has ever explained a better solution to inflation than Bitcoin. Fiat money printing is a scam that lets politicians spend more money without directly raising taxes. Bitcoin is honest sound money with a fixed inflation policy forever that cannot be manipulated by any central actors. It is an idea who’s time has come, given the inflationary realities of today.

KarlKemp 5y ago
Have you heard of asking for a raise? Also, last I checked, the price of essential good in Bitcoin, assuming the contra-factual that it were possible to buy such things with Bitcoin, hasn’t exactly been constant for 40 years.
- lowkey 5y ago
  Asking for a raise works for me and you since we have pricing power, but what of those less fortunate? What about those on minimum wage, or fixed salaries or pensions or welfare? They don’t have the ability to continuously increase their prices to match inflation. TL;DR your solution works for the most in-demand workers in society but it causes greater and greater income inequality over time leading those who are most vulnerable to fall further and further behind. For more details, see https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
hiq 5y ago
> Bitcoin fixes this. No one has ever explained a better solution to inflation than Bitcoin. Does anyone seriously claim that Bitcoin is currently solving inflation? I've heard some claims that it will eventually be the case, but claiming it is already a "solution to inflation" sounds like a stretch even for bitcoin supporters. Bitcoin was apparently at 30kUSD some time in July this year after reaching 60kUSD in June, while it is now at 48kUSD. I don't see how this indicates that bitcoin is any protection against inflation. Or if it is and you're fine with this kind of volatility, I wonder why you discarded other investments such as stocks.

ufo 5y ago

For me, one of the saddest things about the El-Salvador Bitcoin saga is seeing people here turn a blind eye to Bukele's power grabbing, because he plays into the narrative of their crypto greed.

GracefullyBlind 5y ago

I love this sentence. Might steal it. Thanks