11 ms·

> what if crypto becomes anathema? From your lips to God’s ears. I’ve often wished there were a way to organize against crypto, since the incentives are so hi

by eqmvii 5y ago

> what if crypto becomes anathema? From your lips to God’s ears. I’ve often wished there were a way to organize against crypto, since the incentives are so high for true believers to organize for it and find more people to buy into the ecosystem.

MarkPNeyer 5y ago
> I’ve often wished there were a way to organize against crypto, From my perspective, it's a peaceful revolution against a corrupt global status quo. The only people hurt by this false perception (bitcoin makes renewables more profitable by acting as a buyer when nobody else will) are people who don't buy bitcoin. And it's their loss. What would you say to someone in el salvador who's happy accepting bitcoin because they no longer have to trek to ATM's and risk getting mugged? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVVZXUFItZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVVZXUFItZY
- mad182 5y ago
  > makes renewables more profitable In other words - increases energy prices for everyone.
- IAmEveryone 5y ago
  Is “ making renewables profitable” the new talking point? I’m glad for the change because I got tired reading about all these dams China had apparently built in areas not connected to their grid.
  - spiralx 5y ago
    Don't forget all those power plants generating power when there was no demand! “Making renewables profitable” is the same talking point as “utilising excess power” as I see it, or at least a minor variation of it.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  > From my perspective, it's a peaceful revolution against a corrupt global status quo. It's not though. It's broadly a combination of ignorance of how the present system actually works, tinfoil hat economics and anarcocapitalist libertarian ideology. It replaces one set of corruption (accountable to the people) with a whole new set of corruption. Money laundering, crime, wash trading, tape painting, spoof orders - an Inspector Gadget run shadow bank in the Bahamas printing ersatz dollars - the whole shebang. Out with the old criminals technically accountable, in with new criminals definitely unaccountable. This is strictly worse by all metrics. And that's before we even broach how terrible deflationary money actually is in practice. > The only people hurt by this false perception (bitcoin incentives clean energy production and makes renewables more profitable) are people who don't buy bitcoin. And it's their loss. If you build a bunch of green energy then waste it all, you haven't incentivized anything. You've just wasted a bunch of green energy - without that benefit accruing to the actual grid. Any time the price goes up so does the budget for waste. It's everyone's loss. > What would you say to someone in el salvador who's happy accepting bitcoin because they no longer have to trek to ATM's and risk getting mugged? I would say if they're happy with digital money they can open a Wise Multicurrency account. But they're not happy accepting bitcoin. [1, 2] They're being forced by an authoritarian dictator to accept it, at gunpoint. [1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/majority-salvadorans-do-not-want-bitcoin-poll-shows-2021-09-02/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/majority-salvadorans-do-n... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-58579415 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-58579415
  - notch656a 5y ago
    Only 29% of El Salvador has a bank account and you want them to use Wise? How are they supposed to get their money OUT of wise, transfer it again to someone with a bank account? Seems like an extra step when they can just receive BTC (and even spend it locally), go to the ATM and be done with it. You think you have used less energy than the average El Salvadorian who uses BTC? It's really entertaining to see the watt-police coming out when many of these same people have A/C or heat turned up in their house way beyond the maximum survivable bands of the temperature range.
  - MarkPNeyer 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- lezojeda 5y ago
  Thank you for this response. I think this whole issue is always addressed from the point of view of people from well developed first world countries, such as aynthing related to climate change. Sometimes I wished they lived just one year in my country with 50% of inflation and see how they deal with that...
  - nikanj 5y ago
    Not sure how to put this in a non-blunt way, but the hardcore crypto bros are not from your country either.
    - lezojeda 5y ago
      And? I don't have to agree with the """ hardcore crypto bros """ either. Both extremes can be harmful.
      - shagie 5y ago
        In using crypto, you are exporting the wealth of your country to those miners in other countries through transaction fees. The more you use it, the more of your country's wealth is exported (which in turn means that the country's currency is worth less and accelerates the inflation that is experienced).
        FabHK 5y ago
        And it is about $100 per BTC transaction that the miners extract (most of it in form of the coinbase mining reward, some of it in the form of fees).
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - streamofdigits 5y ago
    I feel the despair in your comment but you can not fix a broken thing with another, even more broken thing (which is this greedy cryptomania) it is broken government that is the problem and it causes far more ills than monetary inflation what needs fixing is government. you cannot have a stable meaningful life, society, economy without a semi-decent government that is accountable, democratic and somewhat competent if the financial system still needs fixing after you fix government it would probably be a marginal patch and not starting from zero
- amluto 5y ago
  > The only people hurt by this false perception (bitcoin makes renewables more profitable by acting as a buyer when nobody else will) are people who don't buy bitcoin. And it's their loss. And everyone harmed by the rather sizable ecosystem of outright crime that takes advantage of cryptocurrency.
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    You mean the ecosystem that's a fraction of crime supported by the traditional finance system?
  - shafyy 5y ago
    > bitcoin makes renewables more profitable by acting as a buyer when nobody else will You don't really believe this, do you?
- twic 5y ago
  > What would you say to someone in el salvador who's happy accepting bitcoin They aren't: https://cointelegraph.com/news/some-salvadorans-claim-funds-are-missing-from-their-chivo-wallets https://cointelegraph.com/news/some-salvadorans-claim-funds-...
- munificent 5y ago
  > bitcoin makes renewables more profitable by acting as a buyer when nobody else will Yes, and landmines make blood donation more profitable, but that doesn't make them a net moral good.
- immibis 5y ago
  The crypto status quo is no different from the global status quo. The only difference is the set of people at the top is somewhat permuted by the set of people who were lucky enough to be interested in magic internet money back in 2009.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
boringg 5y ago
Yeah the incentive system is stacked for people to invest in crypto - everyone in the ecosystem is pulling for it to make money off their investments - and thats what this is at this point. There are for sure some cool projects but the lions share is to make money (hence the big push from VCs - see A16z investments) and they are taking a lot of talent to if Chris Dixon's comment's are accurate. What better way to make something stick then make peoples livelihoods depend on it?
- anonporridge 5y ago
  We all worship the thing that feeds us.
bb88 5y ago
To me they're destroying themselves. NFTs are the worst so far and seemed to be prepped for a huge backlash. https://twitter.com/carsonturner/status/1477520574620606465 https://twitter.com/carsonturner/status/1477520574620606465 And I just saw this article on Barron's today which compared BTC to a tech stock rather than a store of value like gold. https://www.barrons.com/articles/coinbase-marathon-digital-microstrategy-cryptocurrency-stocks-bitcoin-51641462613 https://www.barrons.com/articles/coinbase-marathon-digital-m...
- rcxdude 5y ago
  NFTs have provoked a huge backlash amongst artists. I think often it is a little underinformed (though the conclusion is usually pretty sound) but you're not going to win hearts and minds when the first most of them hear about the tech is other people making lots of money off stolen or mass-produced art.
colesantiago 5y ago
> I’ve often wished there were a way to organize against crypto How about we rally to completely ban crypto. Talking about this isn't going to solve anything.
- haswell 5y ago
  While certain implementations of crypto are certainly a problem, rallying to ban it seems to imply there are no redeeming qualities and no path forward that addresses the downsides. Is that your position on this, or am I missing something?
  - IAmEveryone 5y ago
    It’s had, what, 13 years? And it’s still a solution in search of a problem.
    - haswell 5y ago
      It’s not fair to say that crypto is not solving any problems, or isn’t likely to solve any problems. Thinking specifically about the identity space for a moment, it certainly brings a new approach to solving a set of problems that still has yet to be solved well. Should something be banned on the grounds that it’s not ready yet, or hasn’t evolved fast enough? Plenty of tech on the cutting edge will appear this way before it has matured.
      - IAmEveryone 5y ago
        It also took 13 years from the first splitting of the atom to Hiroshima.
        haswell 5y ago
        Should Nuclear power be banned? I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
      - mvindahl 5y ago

by eqmvii 5y ago

MarkPNeyer 5y ago

> I’ve often wished there were a way to organize against crypto, From my perspective, it's a peaceful revolution against a corrupt global status quo. The only people hurt by this false perception (bitcoin makes renewables more profitable by acting as a buyer when nobody else will) are people who don't buy bitcoin. And it's their loss. What would you say to someone in el salvador who's happy accepting bitcoin because they no longer have to trek to ATM's and risk getting mugged? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVVZXUFItZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVVZXUFItZY

mad182 5y ago
> makes renewables more profitable In other words - increases energy prices for everyone.
IAmEveryone 5y ago
Is “ making renewables profitable” the new talking point? I’m glad for the change because I got tired reading about all these dams China had apparently built in areas not connected to their grid.
- spiralx 5y ago
  Don't forget all those power plants generating power when there was no demand! “Making renewables profitable” is the same talking point as “utilising excess power” as I see it, or at least a minor variation of it.
arcticbull 5y ago
> From my perspective, it's a peaceful revolution against a corrupt global status quo. It's not though. It's broadly a combination of ignorance of how the present system actually works, tinfoil hat economics and anarcocapitalist libertarian ideology. It replaces one set of corruption (accountable to the people) with a whole new set of corruption. Money laundering, crime, wash trading, tape painting, spoof orders - an Inspector Gadget run shadow bank in the Bahamas printing ersatz dollars - the whole shebang. Out with the old criminals technically accountable, in with new criminals definitely unaccountable. This is strictly worse by all metrics. And that's before we even broach how terrible deflationary money actually is in practice. > The only people hurt by this false perception (bitcoin incentives clean energy production and makes renewables more profitable) are people who don't buy bitcoin. And it's their loss. If you build a bunch of green energy then waste it all, you haven't incentivized anything. You've just wasted a bunch of green energy - without that benefit accruing to the actual grid. Any time the price goes up so does the budget for waste. It's everyone's loss. > What would you say to someone in el salvador who's happy accepting bitcoin because they no longer have to trek to ATM's and risk getting mugged? I would say if they're happy with digital money they can open a Wise Multicurrency account. But they're not happy accepting bitcoin. [1, 2] They're being forced by an authoritarian dictator to accept it, at gunpoint. [1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/majority-salvadorans-do-not-want-bitcoin-poll-shows-2021-09-02/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/majority-salvadorans-do-n... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-58579415 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-58579415
- notch656a 5y ago
  Only 29% of El Salvador has a bank account and you want them to use Wise? How are they supposed to get their money OUT of wise, transfer it again to someone with a bank account? Seems like an extra step when they can just receive BTC (and even spend it locally), go to the ATM and be done with it. You think you have used less energy than the average El Salvadorian who uses BTC? It's really entertaining to see the watt-police coming out when many of these same people have A/C or heat turned up in their house way beyond the maximum survivable bands of the temperature range.
- MarkPNeyer 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lezojeda 5y ago
Thank you for this response. I think this whole issue is always addressed from the point of view of people from well developed first world countries, such as aynthing related to climate change. Sometimes I wished they lived just one year in my country with 50% of inflation and see how they deal with that...
- nikanj 5y ago
  Not sure how to put this in a non-blunt way, but the hardcore crypto bros are not from your country either.
  - lezojeda 5y ago
    And? I don't have to agree with the """ hardcore crypto bros """ either. Both extremes can be harmful.
    - shagie 5y ago
      In using crypto, you are exporting the wealth of your country to those miners in other countries through transaction fees. The more you use it, the more of your country's wealth is exported (which in turn means that the country's currency is worth less and accelerates the inflation that is experienced).
      - FabHK 5y ago
        And it is about $100 per BTC transaction that the miners extract (most of it in form of the coinbase mining reward, some of it in the form of fees).
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- streamofdigits 5y ago
  I feel the despair in your comment but you can not fix a broken thing with another, even more broken thing (which is this greedy cryptomania) it is broken government that is the problem and it causes far more ills than monetary inflation what needs fixing is government. you cannot have a stable meaningful life, society, economy without a semi-decent government that is accountable, democratic and somewhat competent if the financial system still needs fixing after you fix government it would probably be a marginal patch and not starting from zero
amluto 5y ago
> The only people hurt by this false perception (bitcoin makes renewables more profitable by acting as a buyer when nobody else will) are people who don't buy bitcoin. And it's their loss. And everyone harmed by the rather sizable ecosystem of outright crime that takes advantage of cryptocurrency.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  You mean the ecosystem that's a fraction of crime supported by the traditional finance system?
- shafyy 5y ago
  > bitcoin makes renewables more profitable by acting as a buyer when nobody else will You don't really believe this, do you?
twic 5y ago
> What would you say to someone in el salvador who's happy accepting bitcoin They aren't: https://cointelegraph.com/news/some-salvadorans-claim-funds-are-missing-from-their-chivo-wallets https://cointelegraph.com/news/some-salvadorans-claim-funds-...
munificent 5y ago
> bitcoin makes renewables more profitable by acting as a buyer when nobody else will Yes, and landmines make blood donation more profitable, but that doesn't make them a net moral good.
immibis 5y ago
The crypto status quo is no different from the global status quo. The only difference is the set of people at the top is somewhat permuted by the set of people who were lucky enough to be interested in magic internet money back in 2009.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

boringg 5y ago

Yeah the incentive system is stacked for people to invest in crypto - everyone in the ecosystem is pulling for it to make money off their investments - and thats what this is at this point. There are for sure some cool projects but the lions share is to make money (hence the big push from VCs - see A16z investments) and they are taking a lot of talent to if Chris Dixon's comment's are accurate. What better way to make something stick then make peoples livelihoods depend on it?

anonporridge 5y ago
We all worship the thing that feeds us.

bb88 5y ago

To me they're destroying themselves. NFTs are the worst so far and seemed to be prepped for a huge backlash. https://twitter.com/carsonturner/status/1477520574620606465 https://twitter.com/carsonturner/status/1477520574620606465 And I just saw this article on Barron's today which compared BTC to a tech stock rather than a store of value like gold. https://www.barrons.com/articles/coinbase-marathon-digital-microstrategy-cryptocurrency-stocks-bitcoin-51641462613 https://www.barrons.com/articles/coinbase-marathon-digital-m...

rcxdude 5y ago
NFTs have provoked a huge backlash amongst artists. I think often it is a little underinformed (though the conclusion is usually pretty sound) but you're not going to win hearts and minds when the first most of them hear about the tech is other people making lots of money off stolen or mass-produced art.

colesantiago 5y ago

> I’ve often wished there were a way to organize against crypto How about we rally to completely ban crypto. Talking about this isn't going to solve anything.

haswell 5y ago
While certain implementations of crypto are certainly a problem, rallying to ban it seems to imply there are no redeeming qualities and no path forward that addresses the downsides. Is that your position on this, or am I missing something?
- IAmEveryone 5y ago
  It’s had, what, 13 years? And it’s still a solution in search of a problem.
  - haswell 5y ago
    It’s not fair to say that crypto is not solving any problems, or isn’t likely to solve any problems. Thinking specifically about the identity space for a moment, it certainly brings a new approach to solving a set of problems that still has yet to be solved well. Should something be banned on the grounds that it’s not ready yet, or hasn’t evolved fast enough? Plenty of tech on the cutting edge will appear this way before it has matured.
    - IAmEveryone 5y ago
      It also took 13 years from the first splitting of the atom to Hiroshima.
      - haswell 5y ago
        Should Nuclear power be banned? I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
    - mvindahl 5y ago