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> 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 pres

> 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
Would you say you're at all surprised at how long bitcoin has lasted, or how high the price is now? What kind of data would change your mind?
- arcticbull 5y ago
  The price started getting pumped up by Tether, and now it's managed by Alameda and Cumberland in cooperation with Tether. USDT volume is 50% higher than the sum of BTC and ETH volume. The price you see, $42500 or whatever, that's not USD. That's USDT. If you control the printing of the currency, and you buy shit with it, you can absolutely set it to whatever you want. [1] To quote Bitfinex right before they fired up the Tether printer: BTC could tank to below 1k if we don't act quickly So no, I'm not surprised by the price. The action dragged in a few profiteering hedge funds. [1] https://cryptonews.com/news/how-merlin-lost-patience-trying-to-save-bitfinex-s-usd-851-m-3760.htm https://cryptonews.com/news/how-merlin-lost-patience-trying-...
  - BrianOnHN 5y ago
    Does anyone know what that does to inflation? Iirc the btc/eth market caps are more than the amount of "printed" USD throughout the pandemic. Does tether printed act the same on inflation as USD printed?
  - FabHK 5y ago
    From the cited article, that quote was Bitfinex to one of their banks not processing fiat redemption requests (so people could not withdraw money from Bitfinex). Of course, prolonged bouts of that would've reduced trust in crypto and exchanges, reasonably so. Not evident what that has to do with the Tether printer? And btw, do you have any links on the hedge fund connection, and Alameda and Cumberland?
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      > Not evident what that has to do with the Tether printer? Shortly after that exchange, they realized they could just take the money out of the Tether bank account, and use it to satisfy their withdrawal requests. I speculate this is the moment they realized that they did not have to actually back their USDT, and turned on the printer. > Of course, prolonged bouts of that would've reduced trust in crypto and exchanges, reasonably so. I think that is a completely reasonable alternative explanation. > And btw, do you have any links on the hedge fund connection, and Alameda and Cumberland? Check this out. Protos did the legwork to figure out where all the USDT issuances were going. Of $96B in outbound distributions to market makers, $36B went to Alameda and $24B went to Cumberland. That's almost 70% of all distributions ever made to large accounts. [1] https://protos.com/tether-papers-crypto-stablecoin-usdt-investigation-analysis/ https://protos.com/tether-papers-crypto-stablecoin-usdt-inve...
lezojeda 5y ago
Freelancers in my country (Argentina) will happily accept crypto instead of dollars so they aren't robbed by our government, it is really an alternative for us. Not only that, is another way for us to save money in cash since we have an extremely limited to other currencies (we have 50% annual inflation so saving in our national currency isn't an option)
- deleted 5y ago
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- nikanj 5y ago
  Bluecollar people have happily accepted cash to avoid taxes since forever. Calling taxes "Being robbed by your government" is such a cliché
  - lezojeda 5y ago
    >Calling taxes "Being robbed by your government" is such a cliché Tell me, where are you from? Do you have free access to other currencies where you live? Because I don't, and where I live we have 50% inflation (even 100% for groceries). It's not taxes when we don't get anything in return and we can't even save in the currency we are paid. I'd like to see how you live here for a year.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      You do have access to other currencies via a Wise multi-currency account. They're free, and available in Argentina.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      To be clear nobody is supposed to save in the currency they are paid, ever, anywhere on earth. I’m not saying that makes 50% inflation ok just that this not the argument. Not least because bitcoin has once again seen 50% inflation in the last 60 days. Again though, why not USDC?
      - 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
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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

Would you say you're at all surprised at how long bitcoin has lasted, or how high the price is now? What kind of data would change your mind?

arcticbull 5y ago
The price started getting pumped up by Tether, and now it's managed by Alameda and Cumberland in cooperation with Tether. USDT volume is 50% higher than the sum of BTC and ETH volume. The price you see, $42500 or whatever, that's not USD. That's USDT. If you control the printing of the currency, and you buy shit with it, you can absolutely set it to whatever you want. [1] To quote Bitfinex right before they fired up the Tether printer: BTC could tank to below 1k if we don't act quickly So no, I'm not surprised by the price. The action dragged in a few profiteering hedge funds. [1] https://cryptonews.com/news/how-merlin-lost-patience-trying-to-save-bitfinex-s-usd-851-m-3760.htm https://cryptonews.com/news/how-merlin-lost-patience-trying-...
- BrianOnHN 5y ago
  Does anyone know what that does to inflation? Iirc the btc/eth market caps are more than the amount of "printed" USD throughout the pandemic. Does tether printed act the same on inflation as USD printed?
- FabHK 5y ago
  From the cited article, that quote was Bitfinex to one of their banks not processing fiat redemption requests (so people could not withdraw money from Bitfinex). Of course, prolonged bouts of that would've reduced trust in crypto and exchanges, reasonably so. Not evident what that has to do with the Tether printer? And btw, do you have any links on the hedge fund connection, and Alameda and Cumberland?
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    > Not evident what that has to do with the Tether printer? Shortly after that exchange, they realized they could just take the money out of the Tether bank account, and use it to satisfy their withdrawal requests. I speculate this is the moment they realized that they did not have to actually back their USDT, and turned on the printer. > Of course, prolonged bouts of that would've reduced trust in crypto and exchanges, reasonably so. I think that is a completely reasonable alternative explanation. > And btw, do you have any links on the hedge fund connection, and Alameda and Cumberland? Check this out. Protos did the legwork to figure out where all the USDT issuances were going. Of $96B in outbound distributions to market makers, $36B went to Alameda and $24B went to Cumberland. That's almost 70% of all distributions ever made to large accounts. [1] https://protos.com/tether-papers-crypto-stablecoin-usdt-investigation-analysis/ https://protos.com/tether-papers-crypto-stablecoin-usdt-inve...

lezojeda 5y ago

Freelancers in my country (Argentina) will happily accept crypto instead of dollars so they aren't robbed by our government, it is really an alternative for us. Not only that, is another way for us to save money in cash since we have an extremely limited to other currencies (we have 50% annual inflation so saving in our national currency isn't an option)

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
nikanj 5y ago
Bluecollar people have happily accepted cash to avoid taxes since forever. Calling taxes "Being robbed by your government" is such a cliché
- lezojeda 5y ago
  >Calling taxes "Being robbed by your government" is such a cliché Tell me, where are you from? Do you have free access to other currencies where you live? Because I don't, and where I live we have 50% inflation (even 100% for groceries). It's not taxes when we don't get anything in return and we can't even save in the currency we are paid. I'd like to see how you live here for a year.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    You do have access to other currencies via a Wise multi-currency account. They're free, and available in Argentina.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    To be clear nobody is supposed to save in the currency they are paid, ever, anywhere on earth. I’m not saying that makes 50% inflation ok just that this not the argument. Not least because bitcoin has once again seen 50% inflation in the last 60 days. Again though, why not USDC?
    - 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

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