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I found this article to be poorly-written and deliberately inflammatory. I'll gloss over the regular criticism of "stop conflating cryptocurrencies with blockch

by z3c0 4y ago

I found this article to be poorly-written and deliberately inflammatory. I'll gloss over the regular criticism of "stop conflating cryptocurrencies with blockchains". It makes continual leaps from Satoshi Nakamoto's intentions to short-comings of non-BTC cryptocurrencies, and then snowballs this into the tremendously non-sequitur subheading Bitcoin has failed. Cryptocurrencies and DeFi platforms are now more vulnerable to privacy breaches and hacking than traditional banking. Personally, all I see are a string of obvious scams collapsing. These scams were perpetrated by imposters pretending to be a part of a movement so that they could better tug on their victims' heartstrings. But I fail to see how the goals of these imposters should be conflated with the intentions of Satoshi Nakamoto, purely because the imposters bastardized Nakamoto's tech. Also - the title is barely the subject of the article, but even if it were, I don't think that it, in any way, stands contrary to the goals of Bitcoin. I could see it being an issue for a blockchain meant for privacy, like Monero, but I didn't see any such reference in the article.

RuggedPineapple 4y ago
>Personally, all I see are a string of obvious scams collapsing. I think you and rational people agree, it's just the rational people see the whole space as a scam, and they're not wrong. It's been, from it's very start, a Dunning-Kruger trap sold on lies. First it was supposed to be a currency, but was created from the ground up to be deflationary, which is a death knell for a currency and leads to perpetual recession. Then it was an asset that can only go up, until the price crashed and people realized its intrinsic value is 0 and there is no floor. Then it was an inflation hedge that would keep you up when markets went down, except it turned out to be largely correlated to the market. Every use case they come up with is a bag of magic beans with the sole intention of getting you to carry their bags. I've heard it described as digital beanie babies and that moniker is more apt then most could have imagined.
- saurik 4y ago
  I mean, I would argue that the use cases people come up with simply pre-suppose the idea that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" and that there will be at least some people out there who would--or at least should--value avoiding giving those players such power. If, tomorrow, everyone suddenly forgot what e-mail was and someone suddenly tried to invent it there would be a ton of people angry that it served no purpose and would ever catch on because it would be full of spam and people would have to run their own email servers instead of using centralized messaging servers and all the same arguments people make about crypto would re-surface ("well, maybe people could run servers on behalf of other people" "well doesn't that undermine your precious decentralization?" "somewhat, sure, but federation is still valuable" etc.).
- Stagnant 4y ago
  >First it was supposed to be a currency >Then it was an asset that can only go up >Then it was an inflation hedge that would keep you up when markets went down All of these are just random narratives that you sometimes see being pushed on reddit or twitter. No credible person would make the last two claims. I get it, shitting on crypto has become hip especially in the last couple of years. But it doesn't change the fact that the general trend for bitcoin has been a steady increase in value, and given how much money is currently being invested to crypto adjacent businesses I don't see the trend changing anytime soon.
  - smcl 4y ago
    So can you tell us what the use case is? Because I've been watching for far longer than the last couple of years, and I've seen those three narratives being pushed exactly as GP described. If there's someone credible who knows, they're not making themselves heard and it's certainly not clear to me right now what it's for if not those. > I get it, shitting on crypto has become hip To be honest if GP was trying to shit on crypto they would've mentioned the ridiculous NFT craze and multitude of shitcoin grifts of the last few years. They're being very charitable by sticking to some very simple things. > the general trend for bitcoin has been a steady increase in value There has been nothing steady about Bitcoin's value, wild swings up and down are the norm. I mean if you look at the exchange rate to an actual currency 10 years ago vs today then pretend nothing happened in between, then yes that's a nice steady rate of growth. However that would be ignoring multiple huge, sudden spikes and falls that have happened during this period.
    - imtringued 4y ago
      There is no usecase just look at RAI or maybe the unlaunched Nuon, they are cryptocurrencies that try to minimize volatility. That turns the rest of the ecosystems into a bad joke. The point of these cryptocurrencies is to beat the central banks at their own game.
      - smcl 4y ago
        No use case, got it
zaphar 4y ago
The modern monetary system used to have all of the same obvious scams. They made participating in any economic activity risky and depressed local as well as global economic activity as a result. None of these scams are new and the regulations and tools that crypto is attempting to get away from were created as a response to these scams in the past. To my mind Crypto has not yet made the case that it is better than the current system and the extreme impact that all these scams have on the currencies they are run on, e.g. high volatility in price, indicates that they are substantially worse as a currency than the US dollar.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- irusensei 4y ago
  This argument pops at least 10 times everytime crypto is mentioned but I'm not sure it holds water when you compare Bitcoin and the traditional system. The traditional monetary system prevents fraud by relying on trust and reputation of participating entities. Frauds can happen naturally but also can be reverted by making a few calls. Of course this system suffer from its own problems specially being prone to corruption. You need permission to participate on a monetary network that is controlled by few. I'm not even talking about underground gray black market activity because unless you were living in a cave it wasn't long ago that Robinhood and others were blocking, reverting and force selling stocks from Gamestop and AMC. Such things are rooted on the creation Bitcoin: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks" is written on the genesis block. Bitcoin transactions are final and do not depend on trust. You don't need permission to participate. Bitcoin won't kick you because you spoke some wrong on social media or is trying to raise money from a cause your government doesn't like like Belarus or Nigerian protests. As many things in life the alternatives have trade offs. Personal responsibility is important. Keep your keys safe and do not participate in scammy or bleeding edge experimental defi or meme coin schemes.
  - zaphar 4y ago
    I'm pretty good at stuff like keeping keys safe and personal op sec. But even I have issues where I need a key reset or some other escape hatch at least once every couple years. The level of care required to participate in the crypto world as you describe means it's effectively a non-starter for me beyond the occasional speculation. Everything you said above is true and as a result crypto is fundamentally unsuited for the vast majority of the human population to use and always will be. Unless they begin to adopt the same safeguards that the current monetary system uses.

by z3c0 4y ago

RuggedPineapple 4y ago

>Personally, all I see are a string of obvious scams collapsing. I think you and rational people agree, it's just the rational people see the whole space as a scam, and they're not wrong. It's been, from it's very start, a Dunning-Kruger trap sold on lies. First it was supposed to be a currency, but was created from the ground up to be deflationary, which is a death knell for a currency and leads to perpetual recession. Then it was an asset that can only go up, until the price crashed and people realized its intrinsic value is 0 and there is no floor. Then it was an inflation hedge that would keep you up when markets went down, except it turned out to be largely correlated to the market. Every use case they come up with is a bag of magic beans with the sole intention of getting you to carry their bags. I've heard it described as digital beanie babies and that moniker is more apt then most could have imagined.

saurik 4y ago
I mean, I would argue that the use cases people come up with simply pre-suppose the idea that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" and that there will be at least some people out there who would--or at least should--value avoiding giving those players such power. If, tomorrow, everyone suddenly forgot what e-mail was and someone suddenly tried to invent it there would be a ton of people angry that it served no purpose and would ever catch on because it would be full of spam and people would have to run their own email servers instead of using centralized messaging servers and all the same arguments people make about crypto would re-surface ("well, maybe people could run servers on behalf of other people" "well doesn't that undermine your precious decentralization?" "somewhat, sure, but federation is still valuable" etc.).
Stagnant 4y ago
>First it was supposed to be a currency >Then it was an asset that can only go up >Then it was an inflation hedge that would keep you up when markets went down All of these are just random narratives that you sometimes see being pushed on reddit or twitter. No credible person would make the last two claims. I get it, shitting on crypto has become hip especially in the last couple of years. But it doesn't change the fact that the general trend for bitcoin has been a steady increase in value, and given how much money is currently being invested to crypto adjacent businesses I don't see the trend changing anytime soon.
- smcl 4y ago
  So can you tell us what the use case is? Because I've been watching for far longer than the last couple of years, and I've seen those three narratives being pushed exactly as GP described. If there's someone credible who knows, they're not making themselves heard and it's certainly not clear to me right now what it's for if not those. > I get it, shitting on crypto has become hip To be honest if GP was trying to shit on crypto they would've mentioned the ridiculous NFT craze and multitude of shitcoin grifts of the last few years. They're being very charitable by sticking to some very simple things. > the general trend for bitcoin has been a steady increase in value There has been nothing steady about Bitcoin's value, wild swings up and down are the norm. I mean if you look at the exchange rate to an actual currency 10 years ago vs today then pretend nothing happened in between, then yes that's a nice steady rate of growth. However that would be ignoring multiple huge, sudden spikes and falls that have happened during this period.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    There is no usecase just look at RAI or maybe the unlaunched Nuon, they are cryptocurrencies that try to minimize volatility. That turns the rest of the ecosystems into a bad joke. The point of these cryptocurrencies is to beat the central banks at their own game.
    - smcl 4y ago
      No use case, got it

zaphar 4y ago

The modern monetary system used to have all of the same obvious scams. They made participating in any economic activity risky and depressed local as well as global economic activity as a result. None of these scams are new and the regulations and tools that crypto is attempting to get away from were created as a response to these scams in the past. To my mind Crypto has not yet made the case that it is better than the current system and the extreme impact that all these scams have on the currencies they are run on, e.g. high volatility in price, indicates that they are substantially worse as a currency than the US dollar.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
irusensei 4y ago
This argument pops at least 10 times everytime crypto is mentioned but I'm not sure it holds water when you compare Bitcoin and the traditional system. The traditional monetary system prevents fraud by relying on trust and reputation of participating entities. Frauds can happen naturally but also can be reverted by making a few calls. Of course this system suffer from its own problems specially being prone to corruption. You need permission to participate on a monetary network that is controlled by few. I'm not even talking about underground gray black market activity because unless you were living in a cave it wasn't long ago that Robinhood and others were blocking, reverting and force selling stocks from Gamestop and AMC. Such things are rooted on the creation Bitcoin: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks" is written on the genesis block. Bitcoin transactions are final and do not depend on trust. You don't need permission to participate. Bitcoin won't kick you because you spoke some wrong on social media or is trying to raise money from a cause your government doesn't like like Belarus or Nigerian protests. As many things in life the alternatives have trade offs. Personal responsibility is important. Keep your keys safe and do not participate in scammy or bleeding edge experimental defi or meme coin schemes.
- zaphar 4y ago
  I'm pretty good at stuff like keeping keys safe and personal op sec. But even I have issues where I need a key reset or some other escape hatch at least once every couple years. The level of care required to participate in the crypto world as you describe means it's effectively a non-starter for me beyond the occasional speculation. Everything you said above is true and as a result crypto is fundamentally unsuited for the vast majority of the human population to use and always will be. Unless they begin to adopt the same safeguards that the current monetary system uses.