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Why a thief? Bitcoin is a silly idea based on scarcity that doesn't exist. If someone generated the right numbers by chance and had luck, I wouldn't say they'd

by henvic 5y ago

Why a thief? Bitcoin is a silly idea based on scarcity that doesn't exist. If someone generated the right numbers by chance and had luck, I wouldn't say they'd be doing anything wrong getting whatever is there. It's not the same as stealing data, and is not the same as hacking into a banking system. It's decentralized, and there isn't the concept of real scarcity. It's not even hacking. https://henvic.dev/posts/bitcoin/ https://henvic.dev/posts/bitcoin/

matheusmoreira 5y ago
> If someone generated the right numbers by chance and had luck The whole point of cryptography is nobody could possibly guess these numbers within the lifetime of the universe. If this assumption is somehow proven wrong, we've probably got bigger problems than one person losing money.
jmoreno94 5y ago
Because whether or not Bitcoin is silly, someone else paid their hard earned money for the coins, usually we say that makes someone the owner. What do you usually call someone who takes a thing from its owner without permission?
- hellojesus 5y ago
  The problem with crypto is the ownership (edit: maybe I should say authorization to transact) is defined only by the private key. You may get lucky with KYC, but who in their right mind would gen a collision only to get caught on the cash out? You're not in control once someone has your pk unless you can mobilize a 51% attack to fix your problem.
- seanw444 5y ago
  Borrowing it, obviously ;)
- henvic 5y ago
  Except that they aren't taking anything from anyone. It's information. They might be copying it. And you might argue things like privacy count, and I'd be willing to hear your reasoning, but this shouldn't be like magic. Yeah, someone was silly to pay hard earned money in exchange from useless tokens. It was a gamble. If the useless tokens get stolen, I'm sorry to say, but whoever paid for BTC already lost their wealth in the first place when they converted whatever they had before for it.
  - iosjunkie 5y ago
    The balance of your bank account is similarly “information”. But since everyone places value on that information, it’s valuable. And these days, they way society is using traditional currency is become less tangible all the time. It’s is 100% possible to live life with never touching physical currency. Get paid via direct deposit, credit cards for your daily expenses, ACH your housing bill and credit card expenses. All just information flowing around. Crypto is certainly overhyped and overvalued days, but it’s seems that at the core, crypto and modern banking are accomplishing the same thing: managing numbers(information) that people value.
    - AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
      The key difference is that one of these things has the backing and approval of recognized governments who also control law enforcement, while the other is just some guys on the internet. I'm not so sure "finding a pre-existing bitcoin wallet I can claim, and doing so" is really any different than "generating hashes until the blockchain hands me a prize".
      - azth 5y ago
        That's not an argument. In any case, more and more governments are now recognizing crypto as something real, and are coming onboard. E.g. most recently Dubai.
        CamelRocketFish 5y ago
        Could you tell me how it’s changing in Dubai?
        azth 5y ago
        Look up dubai crypto hub
        CamelRocketFish 5y ago
rafale 5y ago
Causing demonstrable harm or damage by taking something is sufficient to be considered a thief.
satronaut 5y ago
it's only silly because you ignored it and now feel envy for everyone who did their research before you and got in early
- dinobones 5y ago
  Henrique Vicente (henvic, the person you are replying to) wrote what is basically a 5 page essay on how much he dislikes Bitcoin in 2021: https://henvic.dev/posts/bitcoin/ https://henvic.dev/posts/bitcoin/ Basically parroting the same thing other people have been saying for years, absolutely no unique insight. He is so angry he missed the train, he just had to let it all out. Don't worry Henrique, Bitcoin will go to $0 any day now!
  - satronaut 5y ago
    Lol, one of those "devs"
- teekert 5y ago
  I think this is an underrated assessment, which I also always feel. The technological genie is out of the bottle, we all wish it was more energy efficient and hope it soon will be. But I think everybody deep down feels like they should have gotten some BTC in 2012 ;) Tbh, I did get some early but I ordered sushi (thuisbezorgd.nl accepted btc) and raspberry pi stuff from Pi Hut for amounts that make me cry in retrospect. Still, I'm not that 10k BTC pizza guy so there's that.
  - satronaut 5y ago
    exactly. Honestly, Bitcoin is very efficient with its energy usage. The economics encourage miners to find untapped energy sources, such as; methane gas that would otherwise be flared, excess hydro power when flood water demands a dam be open beyond capacity, solar farms during the peak of the day when they generate too much electricity. Hardly anybody plugs into the wall and buys electricity at market rate; it's too expensive
teekert 5y ago
Printed money is also artificially scarce, so don't mind if I help myself to yours if do ever find your wallet.
toolz 5y ago
Bitcoin has a hard cap on how many will ever be in existence. If that's not the definition of real scarcity, then what is? Your implication that bitcoin is easily divided somehows means it isn't finite is simply wrong. Firstly it's not infinitely divisible, secondly things that _are_ infinitely divisible do not just become inflated simply because this property exists. I find it rather revealing that so many anti-crypto blog posts offer no novel solutions, they only ramble on about how they know crypto isn't the solution. Seems rather uninspired to say you understand a problem domain but have no suggestions on how to solve the problem other than literally a solution that has already been tried at large scale and failed. Sure, the gold standard in an alternate reality seems like a great idea, but we live in this reality where central powers were able to quite easily strip society away from this contract with barely any resistance.
- SgtBastard 5y ago
  Bitcoin has no hardcap. We agree that only 21m bitcoins will be mined into the existence as block rewards… until we don’t agree and change it.
  - toolz 5y ago
    Show me a single node operator or developer that has stated they would consider ever raising the hard cap on bitcoin. Until then you're just making up FUD for the sake of being argumentative.
greyhair 5y ago
My father always said, if you find something, and it isn't yours, it belongs to someone else. There are actual laws in the US that if you find money, you are supposed to report it to the authorities, and if no one reports losing the money in some fixed time (30 days?) then you keep it.
- henvic 5y ago
  Get real. You're not getting anyone's property if you discover a private key by accident that that a distributed blockchain with no owner accepts to transfer a token in a virtual wallet like that. We're talking about something non-fungible and not scarce. Bitcoin's supposedly scarcity is a joke that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
- swiftcoder 5y ago
  > There are actual laws in the US that if you find money How lucky for everyone that the crypto folks have specifically attempted to evade all the laws that apply to real money
ornxka 5y ago
>Bitcoin is a silly idea based on scarcity that doesn't exist. If its scarcity isn't real, then why can't you conjure up an arbitrary number of bitcoins at will?

by henvic 5y ago

matheusmoreira 5y ago

> If someone generated the right numbers by chance and had luck The whole point of cryptography is nobody could possibly guess these numbers within the lifetime of the universe. If this assumption is somehow proven wrong, we've probably got bigger problems than one person losing money.

jmoreno94 5y ago

Because whether or not Bitcoin is silly, someone else paid their hard earned money for the coins, usually we say that makes someone the owner. What do you usually call someone who takes a thing from its owner without permission?

hellojesus 5y ago
The problem with crypto is the ownership (edit: maybe I should say authorization to transact) is defined only by the private key. You may get lucky with KYC, but who in their right mind would gen a collision only to get caught on the cash out? You're not in control once someone has your pk unless you can mobilize a 51% attack to fix your problem.
seanw444 5y ago
Borrowing it, obviously ;)
henvic 5y ago
Except that they aren't taking anything from anyone. It's information. They might be copying it. And you might argue things like privacy count, and I'd be willing to hear your reasoning, but this shouldn't be like magic. Yeah, someone was silly to pay hard earned money in exchange from useless tokens. It was a gamble. If the useless tokens get stolen, I'm sorry to say, but whoever paid for BTC already lost their wealth in the first place when they converted whatever they had before for it.
- iosjunkie 5y ago
  The balance of your bank account is similarly “information”. But since everyone places value on that information, it’s valuable. And these days, they way society is using traditional currency is become less tangible all the time. It’s is 100% possible to live life with never touching physical currency. Get paid via direct deposit, credit cards for your daily expenses, ACH your housing bill and credit card expenses. All just information flowing around. Crypto is certainly overhyped and overvalued days, but it’s seems that at the core, crypto and modern banking are accomplishing the same thing: managing numbers(information) that people value.
  - AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
    The key difference is that one of these things has the backing and approval of recognized governments who also control law enforcement, while the other is just some guys on the internet. I'm not so sure "finding a pre-existing bitcoin wallet I can claim, and doing so" is really any different than "generating hashes until the blockchain hands me a prize".
    - azth 5y ago
      That's not an argument. In any case, more and more governments are now recognizing crypto as something real, and are coming onboard. E.g. most recently Dubai.
      - CamelRocketFish 5y ago
        Could you tell me how it’s changing in Dubai?
        azth 5y ago
        Look up dubai crypto hub
        CamelRocketFish 5y ago

rafale 5y ago

Causing demonstrable harm or damage by taking something is sufficient to be considered a thief.

satronaut 5y ago

it's only silly because you ignored it and now feel envy for everyone who did their research before you and got in early

dinobones 5y ago
Henrique Vicente (henvic, the person you are replying to) wrote what is basically a 5 page essay on how much he dislikes Bitcoin in 2021: https://henvic.dev/posts/bitcoin/ https://henvic.dev/posts/bitcoin/ Basically parroting the same thing other people have been saying for years, absolutely no unique insight. He is so angry he missed the train, he just had to let it all out. Don't worry Henrique, Bitcoin will go to $0 any day now!
- satronaut 5y ago
  Lol, one of those "devs"
teekert 5y ago
I think this is an underrated assessment, which I also always feel. The technological genie is out of the bottle, we all wish it was more energy efficient and hope it soon will be. But I think everybody deep down feels like they should have gotten some BTC in 2012 ;) Tbh, I did get some early but I ordered sushi (thuisbezorgd.nl accepted btc) and raspberry pi stuff from Pi Hut for amounts that make me cry in retrospect. Still, I'm not that 10k BTC pizza guy so there's that.
- satronaut 5y ago
  exactly. Honestly, Bitcoin is very efficient with its energy usage. The economics encourage miners to find untapped energy sources, such as; methane gas that would otherwise be flared, excess hydro power when flood water demands a dam be open beyond capacity, solar farms during the peak of the day when they generate too much electricity. Hardly anybody plugs into the wall and buys electricity at market rate; it's too expensive

teekert 5y ago

Printed money is also artificially scarce, so don't mind if I help myself to yours if do ever find your wallet.

toolz 5y ago

Bitcoin has a hard cap on how many will ever be in existence. If that's not the definition of real scarcity, then what is? Your implication that bitcoin is easily divided somehows means it isn't finite is simply wrong. Firstly it's not infinitely divisible, secondly things that _are_ infinitely divisible do not just become inflated simply because this property exists. I find it rather revealing that so many anti-crypto blog posts offer no novel solutions, they only ramble on about how they know crypto isn't the solution. Seems rather uninspired to say you understand a problem domain but have no suggestions on how to solve the problem other than literally a solution that has already been tried at large scale and failed. Sure, the gold standard in an alternate reality seems like a great idea, but we live in this reality where central powers were able to quite easily strip society away from this contract with barely any resistance.

SgtBastard 5y ago
Bitcoin has no hardcap. We agree that only 21m bitcoins will be mined into the existence as block rewards… until we don’t agree and change it.
- toolz 5y ago
  Show me a single node operator or developer that has stated they would consider ever raising the hard cap on bitcoin. Until then you're just making up FUD for the sake of being argumentative.

greyhair 5y ago

My father always said, if you find something, and it isn't yours, it belongs to someone else. There are actual laws in the US that if you find money, you are supposed to report it to the authorities, and if no one reports losing the money in some fixed time (30 days?) then you keep it.

henvic 5y ago
Get real. You're not getting anyone's property if you discover a private key by accident that that a distributed blockchain with no owner accepts to transfer a token in a virtual wallet like that. We're talking about something non-fungible and not scarce. Bitcoin's supposedly scarcity is a joke that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
swiftcoder 5y ago
> There are actual laws in the US that if you find money How lucky for everyone that the crypto folks have specifically attempted to evade all the laws that apply to real money

ornxka 5y ago

>Bitcoin is a silly idea based on scarcity that doesn't exist. If its scarcity isn't real, then why can't you conjure up an arbitrary number of bitcoins at will?