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> There's no fundamental belief in blockchain technology. For skeptics, sure. But there are many investors who hold crypto precisely because they believe in th

> There's no fundamental belief in blockchain technology. For skeptics, sure. But there are many investors who hold crypto precisely because they believe in the technology. > Put your money in a broad index fund and don't look at it for 10 years. This is a good safe and low risk bet. It doesn’t invalidate an investment thesis based on crypto currencies and blockchain tech. Crypto is higher risk and higher maintenance, potentially higher returns, and better suited to those who want to manage their own portfolios.

nradov 4y ago
But the technology doesn't actually work for anything useful (besides tax evasion). Cryptocurrency is a zero-sum ponzi scheme; for someone to win, others have to lose. With stocks, there are on average more winners than losers because new value is being created.
- randomran01234 4y ago
  Is it really a good way to evade taxes? Each transaction is recorded publicly on-chain forever. User would have to be very careful with their on-chain privacy and very determined to skirt the legal system. The average crypto user will begrudgingly pay their crypto taxes to avoid having to live the life of a criminal, and would happily welcome more frictionless ways of having taxes recorded and collected on-chain. > Cryptocurrency is a zero-sum ponzi scheme This is repeated a lot on HN but it is easy to refute. A user can purchase $1000 of DAI and send this to another person in the world within 30-60 seconds, without the beneficiary needing to set up a USD bank account or disclose private data to a third party. The beneficiary can decide to hold this asset or exchange it to another asset such as fiat, gold, ETH, food. These are not zero-sum games - they are more comparable to a PayPal exchange than a zero-sum game. > With stocks, there are on average more winners than losers because new value is being created. This is questionable. Many stocks are overpriced far beyond their intrinsic value. The expectation that they will continue to go up forever and provide returns depends on people continuing to buy them at higher and higher prices, just like crypto. Some investors do not feel that NFLX and META will continue to go up in value forever, as the price already exceeds their value. And when you own stock, you cannot do much except hodl and sell. When you own ETH, you can hodl and sell, but also use the token to send transactions to the network and interact with smart contracts.
  - acdha 4y ago
    > A user can purchase $1000 of DAI and send this to another person in the world within 30-60 seconds, without the beneficiary needing to set up a USD bank account or disclose private data to a third party. Your “refutation” is leaving out some key details: 1. You do in fact have to deal with legal requirements - it’s a requirement for converting into useful money and tax evasion has serious consequences in most of the world. 2. Replacing Western Union has some appeals but it’s not enough to justify the returns which blockchain salespeople have been claiming, especially when the established player can cut margins easily and blockchain users need a fairly large just to compensate for currency conversion and increased risk. The Ponzi claims aren’t because someone is claiming that they can beat PayPal’s overhead by 2% — it’s from all of the people claiming double or triple digit returns which are obviously unsustainable, and hand waving questions away claiming that you should just buy now before the price goes up. > And when you own stock, you cannot do much except hodl and sell My dividend income suggests you might be leaving something out here too.
    - randomran01234 4y ago
      20% returns as you see in Terra is probably ponzi-like, but ETH protocol is not promising free yield for doing nothing, or doubling or tripling your investments. > You do in fact have to deal with legal requirements - it’s a requirement for converting into useful money and tax evasion has serious consequences in most of the world. I never said otherwise. Buyer can purchase the DAI on a KYC exchange that is regulated by their government. The beneficiary can report taxes on income and capital gains as they do with other assets. > Replacing Western Union has some appeals but it’s not enough to justify the returns which blockchain salespeople have been claiming, especially when the established player can cut margins easily and blockchain users need a fairly large just to compensate for currency conversion and increased risk. This is now a subjective argument about what you feel is better or more valuable. To some people, reducing commission for global transfers to 0%, with 30-60s finality and better privacy features is all desirable and valuable. > My dividend income suggests you might be leaving something out here too. Not very compelling when you compare dividend income over the last 5 or 10 year period between crypto and stocks. The point is that just having an asset that generates yield based on speculative investments is not that useful, and it’s the sort of zero-sum game that everybody is mocking Terra and crypto for.

nradov 4y ago

But the technology doesn't actually work for anything useful (besides tax evasion). Cryptocurrency is a zero-sum ponzi scheme; for someone to win, others have to lose. With stocks, there are on average more winners than losers because new value is being created.

randomran01234 4y ago
Is it really a good way to evade taxes? Each transaction is recorded publicly on-chain forever. User would have to be very careful with their on-chain privacy and very determined to skirt the legal system. The average crypto user will begrudgingly pay their crypto taxes to avoid having to live the life of a criminal, and would happily welcome more frictionless ways of having taxes recorded and collected on-chain. > Cryptocurrency is a zero-sum ponzi scheme This is repeated a lot on HN but it is easy to refute. A user can purchase $1000 of DAI and send this to another person in the world within 30-60 seconds, without the beneficiary needing to set up a USD bank account or disclose private data to a third party. The beneficiary can decide to hold this asset or exchange it to another asset such as fiat, gold, ETH, food. These are not zero-sum games - they are more comparable to a PayPal exchange than a zero-sum game. > With stocks, there are on average more winners than losers because new value is being created. This is questionable. Many stocks are overpriced far beyond their intrinsic value. The expectation that they will continue to go up forever and provide returns depends on people continuing to buy them at higher and higher prices, just like crypto. Some investors do not feel that NFLX and META will continue to go up in value forever, as the price already exceeds their value. And when you own stock, you cannot do much except hodl and sell. When you own ETH, you can hodl and sell, but also use the token to send transactions to the network and interact with smart contracts.
- acdha 4y ago
  > A user can purchase $1000 of DAI and send this to another person in the world within 30-60 seconds, without the beneficiary needing to set up a USD bank account or disclose private data to a third party. Your “refutation” is leaving out some key details: 1. You do in fact have to deal with legal requirements - it’s a requirement for converting into useful money and tax evasion has serious consequences in most of the world. 2. Replacing Western Union has some appeals but it’s not enough to justify the returns which blockchain salespeople have been claiming, especially when the established player can cut margins easily and blockchain users need a fairly large just to compensate for currency conversion and increased risk. The Ponzi claims aren’t because someone is claiming that they can beat PayPal’s overhead by 2% — it’s from all of the people claiming double or triple digit returns which are obviously unsustainable, and hand waving questions away claiming that you should just buy now before the price goes up. > And when you own stock, you cannot do much except hodl and sell My dividend income suggests you might be leaving something out here too.
  - randomran01234 4y ago
    20% returns as you see in Terra is probably ponzi-like, but ETH protocol is not promising free yield for doing nothing, or doubling or tripling your investments. > You do in fact have to deal with legal requirements - it’s a requirement for converting into useful money and tax evasion has serious consequences in most of the world. I never said otherwise. Buyer can purchase the DAI on a KYC exchange that is regulated by their government. The beneficiary can report taxes on income and capital gains as they do with other assets. > Replacing Western Union has some appeals but it’s not enough to justify the returns which blockchain salespeople have been claiming, especially when the established player can cut margins easily and blockchain users need a fairly large just to compensate for currency conversion and increased risk. This is now a subjective argument about what you feel is better or more valuable. To some people, reducing commission for global transfers to 0%, with 30-60s finality and better privacy features is all desirable and valuable. > My dividend income suggests you might be leaving something out here too. Not very compelling when you compare dividend income over the last 5 or 10 year period between crypto and stocks. The point is that just having an asset that generates yield based on speculative investments is not that useful, and it’s the sort of zero-sum game that everybody is mocking Terra and crypto for.