4 ms·

Crypto is the chain-letter scams of the 30s; the pyramid schemes of the 60s, 70s; and the Ponzi schemes of 90s/00s. People are susceptible to a specific sort o

Crypto is the chain-letter scams of the 30s; the pyramid schemes of the 60s, 70s; and the Ponzi schemes of 90s/00s. People are susceptible to a specific sort of social-proof, social-recursion type of fraud. Enough people do something early, on paper it grows rapidly, and the scam artist sells that rapid growth as value. You get in late, they cash out by you getting in, and hence defraud you. The 10s is going to be seen as the decade where Amway was replaced by crypto, and gullible housewives replaced with gullible tech bros. The value of a product or service is in its use, the value its consumers place on it. "Crypto" is just another "amway soap dispenser": a piece of cheese in a mouse trap. They say "everyone wants to buy our soap!" (coins, etc.) ... but no one does. Your job, with soap/coins in your hand, is to go out and "pump the value"... and likewise, all the way down the pyramid. No one wants the soap, the coins, the crypto. The marginal value to a consumer is zero. The only value it has now is the future expected amount people can be defrauded. It's fraud, and the people buying in early are exiting at ATHs paid for by people who are being scammed. This needs to be called out for what it is and regulated into oblivion. People are loosing everything because reputable grifters (celebs, etc.) are selling a scam.

whywhywhywhy 4y ago
It’s pointless arguing it because we have whole generations who are completely screwed and unless they invest (gamble) they will never ever own a house. They have two choices, sit back, own nothing and watch their savings evaporate with inflation. Or just try every thing they can and pray one of them works. If we don’t want to have people getting sucked into crypto, then maybe start by making our actual currency more trustworthy, rather than work your ass off, pay the money of half the hours worked away in tax, then sit and watch the measly pile you hoarded get evaporated away with inflation as houses skyrocket. Compared to that, a ”scam” like Bitcoin starts to look like a way out to many.
- mjburgess 4y ago
  But this messaging is part of the scam... It's the same messaging for pyramid schemes: become your own boss. The 9-5 has failed you. etc. I think crypto has been interpreted as a ponzi.. but that misses the whole social phenomenon. It's actually a pyramid: it's a cult out to defraud. Your job as a coin holder is to recruit others into the system, that's how you exit. You only make money if you can get others into the system. You dont make money from the coins ever actually being used. Your messaging here is the "cheese in the mousetrap". It's a scam. It's a scam. Really, your eyes aren't deceiving you. No one uses crypto. No one wants crypto. No one wants your "vitamin supplements" and "essential oils" sold door-to-door. There is no product. It's a warehouse of useless crap no one wants. I think we need to be really really really clear here: it's a scam. The last 95% of people buying in will be left with be left with a loss. We need to stop positioning fradulent schemes in the same breath as critiques of the job market. They're making it worse: they're defrauding those people most vulerable. Everyone in crypto wants you to be talking about the economy, just as everyone in pyramids wants you to be talking about vitamin supplements. Both are irrelevant. The proposition is a scam, you're being defrauded and invited to defraud others. Ignore vitamin science, ignore economics, ignore the job market: this is a scheme to transfer money from dupes to grifters
  - Geee 4y ago
    That's how money works. The difference is that no one can create bitcoin from thin air. Creating money from thin air is the actual scam.
    - mjburgess 4y ago
      You're quite literally creating bit coin from thin air.. right? I mean, it's pure fiat: it only has value because of people's willingness to use it. And no one uses it: so, where's its value from? (fyi: pure ponzi, ones the fraud ends, its zero). A gov-backed fiat has a whole government and international finance system (including army, police, taxation system conducted in the currency...) behind it. Gold, at least, is gold. It has some marginal use value in producing goods. The scam here relies on this profound economic illiteracy, in much the way that pyramid schemes do: here, sell this goods door-to-door and beat amazon! The cypto system is a pure fiat currency, many of which exist, which are "made out of nothing", and no one uses -- that has no army, that has no shops, stores, no taxation system.. It's a false cancer cure sold by pyramid marketing. Inasmuch as vit-c doesnt cure the cold, "digital mining" is a false economy that will collapse. All the value people think they hold is smoke and mirrors. When the scam ends, everything will be obliterated.
      - Geee 4y ago
        It requires energy / work to produce bitcoin or gold, and there's limited amount in total. Fiat currencies are created by a press of a button, and there's no limit.
        mjburgess 4y ago
        There's as many crypto coins as you want: eth, btc, etc. The use of "energy" to make something has nothign to do with its value, right? We can use many kWhs of power to boil a grape, but so what? Value is in supply and demand. There is no demand for bitcoin as a coin; no one uses it. If anyone ever actually tried, the whole system would collapse.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > a ”scam” like Bitcoin starts to look like a way out to many. That's what all scams look like.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > They have two choices, sit back, own nothing and watch their savings evaporate with inflation. Or just try every thing they can and pray one of them works. This is an excluded middle fallacy. There are a lot more reasonable options than those two.
  - whywhywhywhy 4y ago
    Consider just how much more you need to be earning year on year to outpace inflation and house prices. Reasonable options don't cut it in the eyes of people betting on this.
kordlessagain 4y ago
Cryptocurrency is perfect for one thing only: micropayments for ML model use. Crypto provides a secure means of exchange of value and identity, which is exactly what is needed for various API usage. API use is crypto’s killer use case, but we aren’t there yet. I would predict a huge spike in crypto market value when the ability for one model (or AI entity) to make calls to other entities or models becomes a standard thing. I’d really like to see OpenAI and Microsoft add this ability with the Lightning Network.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Currencies are the only non-scam use-cases of crypto. However, the problem is that cryptocurrencies make trade-offs to be able to operate in a hostile environment. If you don't operate in a hostile environment (let's say your business has no reason of being shut down by neither the mainstream payment processors nor governments) then you're better off using established, trust-based payment methods which are more efficient because they don't have to operate within the threat model that cryptocurrencies operate in.
  - mjburgess 4y ago
    Crypto is trust-based, vastly more than government-backed fiat The value of a coin, and the whole crypto system, is easily manipulated by the few-% who own most of those coins -- and likewise, by the two-or-three mining companies who mine the vast vast majority of them "trust" in the crypto sense is a bizarre mathematical term, which has no relationship to trust in the fiat sense.. in that sense, crypto is a more extreme version of fiat -- there is nothing backing it, no gov, etc. other than the faith of its users
pessimizer 4y ago
> The 10s is going to be seen as the decade where Amway was replaced by crypto Surprised they haven't merged yet. Why aren't suburban housewives throwing crypto parties to sell new coins and the devices/apps to manage them?

whywhywhywhy 4y ago

It’s pointless arguing it because we have whole generations who are completely screwed and unless they invest (gamble) they will never ever own a house. They have two choices, sit back, own nothing and watch their savings evaporate with inflation. Or just try every thing they can and pray one of them works. If we don’t want to have people getting sucked into crypto, then maybe start by making our actual currency more trustworthy, rather than work your ass off, pay the money of half the hours worked away in tax, then sit and watch the measly pile you hoarded get evaporated away with inflation as houses skyrocket. Compared to that, a ”scam” like Bitcoin starts to look like a way out to many.

mjburgess 4y ago
But this messaging is part of the scam... It's the same messaging for pyramid schemes: become your own boss. The 9-5 has failed you. etc. I think crypto has been interpreted as a ponzi.. but that misses the whole social phenomenon. It's actually a pyramid: it's a cult out to defraud. Your job as a coin holder is to recruit others into the system, that's how you exit. You only make money if you can get others into the system. You dont make money from the coins ever actually being used. Your messaging here is the "cheese in the mousetrap". It's a scam. It's a scam. Really, your eyes aren't deceiving you. No one uses crypto. No one wants crypto. No one wants your "vitamin supplements" and "essential oils" sold door-to-door. There is no product. It's a warehouse of useless crap no one wants. I think we need to be really really really clear here: it's a scam. The last 95% of people buying in will be left with be left with a loss. We need to stop positioning fradulent schemes in the same breath as critiques of the job market. They're making it worse: they're defrauding those people most vulerable. Everyone in crypto wants you to be talking about the economy, just as everyone in pyramids wants you to be talking about vitamin supplements. Both are irrelevant. The proposition is a scam, you're being defrauded and invited to defraud others. Ignore vitamin science, ignore economics, ignore the job market: this is a scheme to transfer money from dupes to grifters
- Geee 4y ago
  That's how money works. The difference is that no one can create bitcoin from thin air. Creating money from thin air is the actual scam.
  - mjburgess 4y ago
    You're quite literally creating bit coin from thin air.. right? I mean, it's pure fiat: it only has value because of people's willingness to use it. And no one uses it: so, where's its value from? (fyi: pure ponzi, ones the fraud ends, its zero). A gov-backed fiat has a whole government and international finance system (including army, police, taxation system conducted in the currency...) behind it. Gold, at least, is gold. It has some marginal use value in producing goods. The scam here relies on this profound economic illiteracy, in much the way that pyramid schemes do: here, sell this goods door-to-door and beat amazon! The cypto system is a pure fiat currency, many of which exist, which are "made out of nothing", and no one uses -- that has no army, that has no shops, stores, no taxation system.. It's a false cancer cure sold by pyramid marketing. Inasmuch as vit-c doesnt cure the cold, "digital mining" is a false economy that will collapse. All the value people think they hold is smoke and mirrors. When the scam ends, everything will be obliterated.
    - Geee 4y ago
      It requires energy / work to produce bitcoin or gold, and there's limited amount in total. Fiat currencies are created by a press of a button, and there's no limit.
      - mjburgess 4y ago
        There's as many crypto coins as you want: eth, btc, etc. The use of "energy" to make something has nothign to do with its value, right? We can use many kWhs of power to boil a grape, but so what? Value is in supply and demand. There is no demand for bitcoin as a coin; no one uses it. If anyone ever actually tried, the whole system would collapse.
pessimizer 4y ago
> a ”scam” like Bitcoin starts to look like a way out to many. That's what all scams look like.
JohnFen 4y ago
> They have two choices, sit back, own nothing and watch their savings evaporate with inflation. Or just try every thing they can and pray one of them works. This is an excluded middle fallacy. There are a lot more reasonable options than those two.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  Consider just how much more you need to be earning year on year to outpace inflation and house prices. Reasonable options don't cut it in the eyes of people betting on this.

kordlessagain 4y ago

Cryptocurrency is perfect for one thing only: micropayments for ML model use. Crypto provides a secure means of exchange of value and identity, which is exactly what is needed for various API usage. API use is crypto’s killer use case, but we aren’t there yet. I would predict a huge spike in crypto market value when the ability for one model (or AI entity) to make calls to other entities or models becomes a standard thing. I’d really like to see OpenAI and Microsoft add this ability with the Lightning Network.

Nextgrid 4y ago
Currencies are the only non-scam use-cases of crypto. However, the problem is that cryptocurrencies make trade-offs to be able to operate in a hostile environment. If you don't operate in a hostile environment (let's say your business has no reason of being shut down by neither the mainstream payment processors nor governments) then you're better off using established, trust-based payment methods which are more efficient because they don't have to operate within the threat model that cryptocurrencies operate in.
- mjburgess 4y ago
  Crypto is trust-based, vastly more than government-backed fiat The value of a coin, and the whole crypto system, is easily manipulated by the few-% who own most of those coins -- and likewise, by the two-or-three mining companies who mine the vast vast majority of them "trust" in the crypto sense is a bizarre mathematical term, which has no relationship to trust in the fiat sense.. in that sense, crypto is a more extreme version of fiat -- there is nothing backing it, no gov, etc. other than the faith of its users

pessimizer 4y ago

> The 10s is going to be seen as the decade where Amway was replaced by crypto Surprised they haven't merged yet. Why aren't suburban housewives throwing crypto parties to sell new coins and the devices/apps to manage them?