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The general populace was sold the idea that crypto is "investing", when in reality it is an overly complicated, asset-less, currency trading system, with questi

The general populace was sold the idea that crypto is "investing", when in reality it is an overly complicated, asset-less, currency trading system, with questionable value and questionable stability.

EdwardDiego 4y ago
For a lot of every-day "investors", it's not even currency trading, not as far as I understand currency trading tactics (that said, there's definitely very smart people trading cryptocurrencies like regular currencies) It often feels like it's just "number go higher" gambling, à la 1987 stock "investing".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ggm 4y ago
With ponzi qualities and market manipulation to force massive speculative gain by an inner core. I leveraged $200 to $650 in BTC a couple of years back and quit to buy a Pixel 1. It felt like gambling. Never going back.
rwmj 4y ago
It's like investing in gold, if anyone could invent new elements.
- beberlei 4y ago
  Except you need to convince no one gold is valuable given it was used as currency and jewelry for thousands of years. Cant use bitcoin to signify a marriage
  - smt88 4y ago
    Gold isn't intrinsically valuable as currency or jewelry. Those are cultural attachments that can disappear. It is, however, intrinsically valuable because of its many medical and electronic applications, which means its value can never theoretically reach zero (unlike a crypto token).
    - CPLX 4y ago
      People always say that. But the fact that gold was considered incredibly valuable by literally every civilization for thousands of years makes it a lot more durable than, like the English language, or books. I mean like when the Europeans arrived in pre-Colombian America looking for gold, the people they encountered also had it as a major cultural attachment too, without any coordination whatsoever. I’m not sure there’s a better definition of intrinsic value than that.
      - smt88 4y ago
        I gave a better definition of intrinsic value in the second paragraph: it has unique applications for extremely important categories of goods. I agree it's not a coincidence that most societies valued gold, even without contact with each other. But that's also because of its elemental qualities. Silver and most other shiny metals will tarnish. A lot of metals are difficult to shape into jewelry or stamped coins. And other metals are denser and heavier, making them hard to transport. Gold is better than other metals for coins and jewelry for many reasons. That doesn't mean its current price is 0% cultural or that that cultural element is permanent. I agree it's likely going to last for as long as society does, but I don't think that's a guarantee inherent to gold as a metal.
        pezezin 4y ago
        > And other metals are denser and heavier, making them hard to transport. Gold is the 8-th densest chemical element, and by far the densest element know to mankind until the discovery of platinum and tungsten (slightly less dense, but very close) in the 18th century. I don't have a source for this, but I suspect that part of its popularity was because being so dense made it impossible to counterfeit. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chemical_elements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chemical_elements (sort the list by density)
    - otikik 4y ago
      Aside of its cultural preferences (high luster, desirable yellow color), gold is valuable as jewelry because of its tarnish resistance, ability to be drawn into wires, hammered into sheets, or cast into shapes. Other than that I agree with you.
- smt88 4y ago
  And also if the elements had no industrial or cultural utility.
ilaksh 4y ago
There are two very important advances that cryptocurrency bring to money in the digital age: 1) digital signatures to enable transactions without exposing secrets like credit card or account numbers 2) block chains to ensure the integrity of the entire system These are both critical for moving to a sound monetary system that does not rely on trusting institutions that operate in a legacy paradigm.
- andreskytt 4y ago
  This is not what happens. Trust is moved from institutions to code and math. General public has no chance to evaluate the trustworthiness of either while there is a mechanism to certify the first and not the latter.
  - ilaksh 4y ago
    That's what I thought I was saying.
- Vanit 4y ago
  "Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it."
- Scaevolus 4y ago
  EMV/tap to pay doesn't expose credit card or account numbers. This is sufficient for most user's banking needs. Bank ledgers generally provide better integrity for people than blockchains, because they allow fraud remediation. The two primary advantage of cryptocurrencies in my view is semi-anonymous payments for grey/black market transactions, and international money transfers.
- jimbob45 4y ago
  I agree that those are both significant advances but having transactions and wallets reside on exchanges nullifies those benefits entirely. The fear early on was that you’d never be able to achieve mass-adoption due to the upfront cost of setting up a wallet and waiting on transactions. Despite crypto’s popularity today, that fear has never truly been overcome.
MattDemers 4y ago
It sucks, because there ARE crypto projects that have interesting applications, but the entire conversations about them online are about how much money the community can be making, or the disappointment that they aren't making as much as they'd like to. You can't actually talk about the project, because once it gets too big it's just a farm for speculators. The devs don't give a shit because their project getting buzz boosts their coin's value, but it also means the project itself stops mattering.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > there ARE crypto projects that have interesting applications Name some. Some that can't be better done with an sqlite database running on a Raspberry Pi.
  - shriphani 4y ago
    - Ethereum's PKI allowed an e2ee messenger app to be built w/o a phone number https://twitter.com/dwr/status/1575248197454135296 https://twitter.com/dwr/status/1575248197454135296
    - api 4y ago
      Why do you need cryptocurrency for that? Just make a p2p app and trade public keys. The only reason Signal uses phone numbers is convenience in locating people and restoring accounts.
      - shriphani 4y ago
        the pki does make life easy - ethereum address as a global unique id + seed phrase around for recovery + integrate this thing with the rest of the ethereum ecosystem (e.g. other apps can require ownership of an account on this app by looking for a signed message on chain)
  - marshmallowmad 4y ago
    Do you trust a single Rasperry Pi over a secured blockchain? If so, I think we can agree to disagree.
avereveard 4y ago
> an overly complicated, asset-less, currency trading system, with questionable value and questionable stability. robber barons 2.0

EdwardDiego 4y ago

For a lot of every-day "investors", it's not even currency trading, not as far as I understand currency trading tactics (that said, there's definitely very smart people trading cryptocurrencies like regular currencies) It often feels like it's just "number go higher" gambling, à la 1987 stock "investing".

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ggm 4y ago

With ponzi qualities and market manipulation to force massive speculative gain by an inner core. I leveraged $200 to $650 in BTC a couple of years back and quit to buy a Pixel 1. It felt like gambling. Never going back.

rwmj 4y ago

It's like investing in gold, if anyone could invent new elements.

beberlei 4y ago
Except you need to convince no one gold is valuable given it was used as currency and jewelry for thousands of years. Cant use bitcoin to signify a marriage
- smt88 4y ago
  Gold isn't intrinsically valuable as currency or jewelry. Those are cultural attachments that can disappear. It is, however, intrinsically valuable because of its many medical and electronic applications, which means its value can never theoretically reach zero (unlike a crypto token).
  - CPLX 4y ago
    People always say that. But the fact that gold was considered incredibly valuable by literally every civilization for thousands of years makes it a lot more durable than, like the English language, or books. I mean like when the Europeans arrived in pre-Colombian America looking for gold, the people they encountered also had it as a major cultural attachment too, without any coordination whatsoever. I’m not sure there’s a better definition of intrinsic value than that.
    - smt88 4y ago
      I gave a better definition of intrinsic value in the second paragraph: it has unique applications for extremely important categories of goods. I agree it's not a coincidence that most societies valued gold, even without contact with each other. But that's also because of its elemental qualities. Silver and most other shiny metals will tarnish. A lot of metals are difficult to shape into jewelry or stamped coins. And other metals are denser and heavier, making them hard to transport. Gold is better than other metals for coins and jewelry for many reasons. That doesn't mean its current price is 0% cultural or that that cultural element is permanent. I agree it's likely going to last for as long as society does, but I don't think that's a guarantee inherent to gold as a metal.
      - pezezin 4y ago
        > And other metals are denser and heavier, making them hard to transport. Gold is the 8-th densest chemical element, and by far the densest element know to mankind until the discovery of platinum and tungsten (slightly less dense, but very close) in the 18th century. I don't have a source for this, but I suspect that part of its popularity was because being so dense made it impossible to counterfeit. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chemical_elements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chemical_elements (sort the list by density)
  - otikik 4y ago
    Aside of its cultural preferences (high luster, desirable yellow color), gold is valuable as jewelry because of its tarnish resistance, ability to be drawn into wires, hammered into sheets, or cast into shapes. Other than that I agree with you.
smt88 4y ago
And also if the elements had no industrial or cultural utility.

ilaksh 4y ago

There are two very important advances that cryptocurrency bring to money in the digital age: 1) digital signatures to enable transactions without exposing secrets like credit card or account numbers 2) block chains to ensure the integrity of the entire system These are both critical for moving to a sound monetary system that does not rely on trusting institutions that operate in a legacy paradigm.

andreskytt 4y ago
This is not what happens. Trust is moved from institutions to code and math. General public has no chance to evaluate the trustworthiness of either while there is a mechanism to certify the first and not the latter.
- ilaksh 4y ago
  That's what I thought I was saying.
Vanit 4y ago
"Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it."
Scaevolus 4y ago
EMV/tap to pay doesn't expose credit card or account numbers. This is sufficient for most user's banking needs. Bank ledgers generally provide better integrity for people than blockchains, because they allow fraud remediation. The two primary advantage of cryptocurrencies in my view is semi-anonymous payments for grey/black market transactions, and international money transfers.
jimbob45 4y ago
I agree that those are both significant advances but having transactions and wallets reside on exchanges nullifies those benefits entirely. The fear early on was that you’d never be able to achieve mass-adoption due to the upfront cost of setting up a wallet and waiting on transactions. Despite crypto’s popularity today, that fear has never truly been overcome.

MattDemers 4y ago

It sucks, because there ARE crypto projects that have interesting applications, but the entire conversations about them online are about how much money the community can be making, or the disappointment that they aren't making as much as they'd like to. You can't actually talk about the project, because once it gets too big it's just a farm for speculators. The devs don't give a shit because their project getting buzz boosts their coin's value, but it also means the project itself stops mattering.

dmitriid 4y ago
> there ARE crypto projects that have interesting applications Name some. Some that can't be better done with an sqlite database running on a Raspberry Pi.
- shriphani 4y ago
  - Ethereum's PKI allowed an e2ee messenger app to be built w/o a phone number https://twitter.com/dwr/status/1575248197454135296 https://twitter.com/dwr/status/1575248197454135296
  - api 4y ago
    Why do you need cryptocurrency for that? Just make a p2p app and trade public keys. The only reason Signal uses phone numbers is convenience in locating people and restoring accounts.
    - shriphani 4y ago
      the pki does make life easy - ethereum address as a global unique id + seed phrase around for recovery + integrate this thing with the rest of the ethereum ecosystem (e.g. other apps can require ownership of an account on this app by looking for a signed message on chain)
- marshmallowmad 4y ago
  Do you trust a single Rasperry Pi over a secured blockchain? If so, I think we can agree to disagree.

avereveard 4y ago

> an overly complicated, asset-less, currency trading system, with questionable value and questionable stability. robber barons 2.0