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>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

>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
- unusualmonkey 4y ago
  This sounds like 'whelp the bubble hasn't popped yet, and it'll probably keep going up for a bit'. Not exactly the reassuring defense of crypto.

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
unusualmonkey 4y ago
This sounds like 'whelp the bubble hasn't popped yet, and it'll probably keep going up for a bit'. Not exactly the reassuring defense of crypto.