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Corruption is probably a bad description. It is more like what happened to Tulips during Tulip Mania, or Beanie Babies during that bubble. Beanie Babies are not

Corruption is probably a bad description. It is more like what happened to Tulips during Tulip Mania, or Beanie Babies during that bubble. Beanie Babies are not "corrupted". They are "associated" with a bubble. Crypto as a whole is becoming increasingly associated with zero sum scams like Ponzi/MLMs. And it is partially due to the fee extraction entities that are making a profit of off the "investor's" cash.

fartcannon 4y ago
I mean Mt Gox was almost a decade ago. Bad people try to do bad things with other peoples money. That's the value in bitcoin though. You dont need to use these exchanges. If you're smart, you dont trust large institutions of any kind with your money.
- dividedbyzero 4y ago
  That mitigates these risks for people who are able to have an in-depth understanding of Bitcoin, which is in itself extremely complex and requires tons of prior knowledge. Everyone else has to trust someone with their crypto needs and is left to be fleeced with no recourse at all. As of now, that merely replaces the group that profits disproportionately with a crypto bros and the like.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    Crypto Bros are the vaguely defined boogeyman, scape goat, and hate magnet for a coordinated disinformation campagain against crypto .. Are you sure you want to associate your position with that kinda PR?
    - headsoup 4y ago
      Don't try to stand up a strawman. The exchanges are manipulating the value of Bitcoin, which affects those not using exchanges' ability to trade at a 'proper' value.
      - fartcannon 4y ago
        The strawman here is dividebyzeros fictional people who are too dumb to use bitcoin but somehow smart enough to navigate the financial system. Crytpo bros are a PR boogeyman.
        dividedbyzero 4y ago
        The vast majority of people are well able to have a bank account and pay for things within the existing banking system without getting fleeced (or at least only to a small degree). If you want to solve trust at scale, that'll all have to become some sort of distributed ledger or the like. Scaling this tech to the point where it can do that will pretty much certainly not make it any simpler, so you'll get intermediaries who I've summarized as "crypto bros", but you're free to call them something else, but who will be in a terribly good position to fleece the masses. That's true for almost all areas; if it is to be absolutely governed by a highly obscure piece of software, people who understand the details will have great leverage to game the system, and I don't think that's an improvement over what we have now. It just transfers trust to another level in the chain and power to other people (possibly).
        fartcannon 4y ago
        A distributed ledger.. Like bitcoin? It's already solved! Sorry, Im struggling to understand your point. If you want people not to get fleeced, education is the key. Explain the value of bitcoin to them. Explain why it was created. And the financial system is obscure already and actively fleeces people all the time. Bitcoin was a direct response to the 2008 financial crisis (read: fleecing). Theyd destroyed lives and got bailed out.
        headsoup 4y ago
        This is a redundant argument as it applies just as well to the current financial markets: education is key. But it's not reality, and Bitcoin opened up to fleecing at massive scale as its growth increased and middlemen services popped up to manage the 'complexity.' Not that I'm saying the current financial system is good or not corrupted, it certainly is. Bitcoin is not the answer people think it is though.

fartcannon 4y ago

I mean Mt Gox was almost a decade ago. Bad people try to do bad things with other peoples money. That's the value in bitcoin though. You dont need to use these exchanges. If you're smart, you dont trust large institutions of any kind with your money.

dividedbyzero 4y ago
That mitigates these risks for people who are able to have an in-depth understanding of Bitcoin, which is in itself extremely complex and requires tons of prior knowledge. Everyone else has to trust someone with their crypto needs and is left to be fleeced with no recourse at all. As of now, that merely replaces the group that profits disproportionately with a crypto bros and the like.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  Crypto Bros are the vaguely defined boogeyman, scape goat, and hate magnet for a coordinated disinformation campagain against crypto .. Are you sure you want to associate your position with that kinda PR?
  - headsoup 4y ago
    Don't try to stand up a strawman. The exchanges are manipulating the value of Bitcoin, which affects those not using exchanges' ability to trade at a 'proper' value.
    - fartcannon 4y ago
      The strawman here is dividebyzeros fictional people who are too dumb to use bitcoin but somehow smart enough to navigate the financial system. Crytpo bros are a PR boogeyman.
      - dividedbyzero 4y ago
        The vast majority of people are well able to have a bank account and pay for things within the existing banking system without getting fleeced (or at least only to a small degree). If you want to solve trust at scale, that'll all have to become some sort of distributed ledger or the like. Scaling this tech to the point where it can do that will pretty much certainly not make it any simpler, so you'll get intermediaries who I've summarized as "crypto bros", but you're free to call them something else, but who will be in a terribly good position to fleece the masses. That's true for almost all areas; if it is to be absolutely governed by a highly obscure piece of software, people who understand the details will have great leverage to game the system, and I don't think that's an improvement over what we have now. It just transfers trust to another level in the chain and power to other people (possibly).
        fartcannon 4y ago
        A distributed ledger.. Like bitcoin? It's already solved! Sorry, Im struggling to understand your point. If you want people not to get fleeced, education is the key. Explain the value of bitcoin to them. Explain why it was created. And the financial system is obscure already and actively fleeces people all the time. Bitcoin was a direct response to the 2008 financial crisis (read: fleecing). Theyd destroyed lives and got bailed out.
        headsoup 4y ago
        This is a redundant argument as it applies just as well to the current financial markets: education is key. But it's not reality, and Bitcoin opened up to fleecing at massive scale as its growth increased and middlemen services popped up to manage the 'complexity.' Not that I'm saying the current financial system is good or not corrupted, it certainly is. Bitcoin is not the answer people think it is though.