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Owning crypto != actually using it. Exchanges run private order books like any other investment org. People trading (gambling?) one ticker symbol (crypto or no
by kkielhofner 4y ago
Owning crypto != actually using it.
Exchanges run private order books like any other investment org. People trading (gambling?) one ticker symbol (crypto or not) vs another (crypto or not) has absolutely nothing to do with real world use or utility. I can watch the Euro move up and down on forex and buy/sell to make money in my currency of choice while never touching a Euro, using it for anything, or having any real long term confidence, understanding, or belief in anything Euro or European related. I just know it made me X in USD this day/week/month and that's all I care about. Fill in EUR with BTC, ETH, etc. No one on exchanges cares about anything other than what it means for them in their local currency.
The use of exchanges is a get rich quick scheme not unlike penny stocks in the late 80s/early 90s or dot coms in the late 90s. In the late 90s very few in the general population jumping on dot com stocks had any idea what the hell any of it meant. They just heard a story about someone making $100k in a day and wanted in.
Look at the FOMO ads during the SuperBowl... There was zero value or utility demonstrated and 100% of the messaging was "everyone else is getting rich quick at crypto.com so don't miss out". Their fees (in real money) are absolutely bonkers so of course they're doing everything they can to bring people in.
Have you seen Wolf of Wall Street? There's a scene where the main character gets taken to lunch by an experienced broker. Long story short the lesson was this:
"Fuck the clients. Best case scenario let them think they're getting rich on paper while meanwhile we take home cold hard cash every time they trade via commission."
Be careful with surveys you "read somewhere"... The often cited "300 million crypto users worldwide" stat[0] (for example) comes from a blockchain payments company (surely they're unbiased, right?) that for some reason estimated this number from a Central Bank of Canada phone survey extrapolated to the worldwide population...
It's really interesting that whenever I bring up blockchain explorers and the fact that blockchain has the most transparent and reliable adoption metrics ever no one takes me up on an analysis of the data and deflects to virtually anything else instead.
Adoption and use data is there without bias. It requires some interpretation to determine something more akin to MAU/DAU but even very generous measure will show that 13 years after the launch of bitcoin blockchain is the most poorly adopted technology platform in recent history[1].
0 - https://triple-a.io/crypto-ownership/ https://triple-a.io/crypto-ownership/
1 - https://blog.cryptostars.is/blockchain-the-most-poorly-adopted-platform-in-recent-history-6f5d97f7d51f https://blog.cryptostars.is/blockchain-the-most-poorly-adopt...
- bowsamic 4y agoIs this supposed to be a critique of all financial investment or speculation? I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to take from this. Also talk about moving the goalposts, we've gone from "no one knows about crypto or cares about if its good or bad" to "they don't really use it they just trade it"
- kkielhofner 4y agoIt's not a critique of financial investment or speculation. It's calling all of it what it is - financial investment and/or speculation. If someone claimed they were participating in changing the world and building the future of everything by shuffling Euros around on some forex platform and taking it home as USD you would be skeptical, correct? How is trading BTC any different? You misunderstand me. Many people trade crypto but this doesn't equate to actual use. Crypto exchanges run order books just like a forex exchange or other investment platform with a SQL or whatever backend. Do you really consider people speculating on insert-random-coin-ticker-on-exchange-here as use? It moves on an internal order book, it doesn't touch the blockchain itself. That is not use. That is people investing or speculating with an asset just like any other asset. It has nothing to do with the underlying technology or use. Nothing. Looking at the chains themselves you will see that very few people actually transact off exchanges on actual blockchains (real use). This is what I mean when I say cryptocurrency USE is irrelevant. Buying and selling BTC to take it home in USD to buy a Lambo is not USE of BTC. It's financial investment/speculation on some random asset and USE of USD.
- bowsamic 4y agoI do consider it a use of crypto, in this case it is a highly volatile speculative investment that can be moved into a hardware wallet where it can be kept safe from theft, and also transferred into fiat. Even if crypto never becomes more than that, I still think this is a valuable thing. With DeFi things get more interesting
- kkielhofner 4y agoI suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree on use. I'm still of the position that trading cryptocurrency on an exchange and never using the underlying technology or touching the network isn't use of that cryptocurrency. The ironic aspect of this debate is I'm on my second blockchain startup for a reason - I believe there are plenty of use cases where it makes sense. I just don't think the cryptocurrency/blockchain communities are doing themselves a favor operating under the mass delusion that crypto is a big thing (while still being early?) when all available real data says otherwise. Trying to pump the underlying cryptocurrency by shoehorning the tech into anything and everything (and doing so poorly) will backfire as well (and already is). Blockchain and cryptocurrency advocates need to look inwards to identify blockers to mass adoption and address them while identifying real world use cases where blockchain/cryptocurrency provides real value and utility.