4 ms·

I find it very ironic that Satoshi created Bitcoin with the objective to be more resilient than banks, with the famous genesis block containing "The Times 03/Ja

by y04nn 4y ago

I find it very ironic that Satoshi created Bitcoin with the objective to be more resilient than banks, with the famous genesis block containing "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks". A decade later, the bitcoin creation generated an entire industry of "crypto banks" that are opaque, played with customers money and went bankrupt.

zeroclip 4y ago
Indeed, ironic. But this also laid the path for DeFi, which processes similar volumes per day as centralized exchanges, without the single counterparty risk.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sytelus 4y ago
Bitcoin purists say that we shouldn't be having any "exchanges" or "crypto banks". If we have them and use them then we deserve this fate.
rglover 4y ago
It's a beautiful lesson in human behavior and greed. You're given a perfect form of money (Bitcoin) that you can safely hold with minimal effort and your shortsighted greed ("yield farming") forces you to lose it all to a conman. The silver lining to all of this is that people might actually start listening to Bitcoin maxi's after this year.
- Nursie 4y ago
  > You're given a perfect form of money Ha, wow. Yeah no, Bitcoin is not a perfect form of money at all. It- - uses vast amounts of energy - can only process a few TPS - confirms slowly - has limited quantities which warps economies - is irreversible in cases of theft or fraud - is lost forever if you lose your keys And that's just off the top my head. I get what you're saying - "not your keys not your coins", but the idea that this system is somehow an optimum is just plain wrong. For those of us who do not fetishize decentralisation, those negatives are unacceptable in any form of 'money'. Even if you do believe in decentralisation, it's clear that this is far from perfect.
  - rglover 4y ago
    - uses vast amounts of energy Bank branches, ATMs, armored cars, computer systems for the banks, computer systems for card processors, credit rating firms, etc. Bitcoin replaces all of that and, comparatively, for significantly less energy. This is a surface-level argument intended for shortsighted thinkers. - can only process a few TPS - confirms slowly On main net. Lightning network can outpace Visa. - has limited quantities which warps economies By warp, you actually mean makes them fair and natural. It encourages free trade, merit, and competition. Not fiendish scamming and Machiavellianism. - is irreversible in cases of theft or fraud Which is good. It increases the need for reliable actors in the world and creates a citizenry that's more discerning about whom they spend their money with (i.e., building strong, trustworthy relationships). - is lost forever if you lose your keys Which is good. It makes you value it. If I hold all of my money in cash and have a house fire, it's lost forever. No difference. > For those of us who do not fetishize decentralisation Slaves?
    - Nursie 4y ago
      > Bitcoin replaces all of that No, it doesn't, it doesn't offer 1% of the services those things you mentioned can offer. > This is a surface-level argument intended for shortsighted thinkers. Yes, that describes your argument perfectly. > On main net. Lightning network can outpace Visa. The fact the lightning network needs to exist shows flaws in bitcoin, or lightning wouldn't be required. Lightning also has massive flaws and is unlikely to be able to scale very far due to routing issues, and requiring the locking of funds. Its main utility seems to be for people to handwave away problems with bitcoin. > By warp, you actually mean makes them fair and natural. No, we have a lot of history to show us currency that is in limited amounts is a very poor idea, favouring and rewarding those who hold the tokens over those who actually produce. > Which is good. It makes you value it. If I hold all of my money in cash and have a house fire, it's lost forever. No difference. Wow. This is why people don't do that, and use banks, precisely to avoid that sort of catastrophic loss. Though you've just told us in previous comments that you shouldn't trust crypto custodial services either. You're basically saying "this is a huge risk and in my perfect system you just have to live with it, and there's no recourse if it goes wrong and it's your fault" No thanks! > Slaves? Yeah, this is idealogical nonsense at this point, not any sort of reasoned debate. But regardless of whether you agree with the points I raise, the idea that bitcoin is 'perfect' doesn't really hold up. The huge energy use is not a desirable feature for a monetary system, one that is 'perfect' would not have that. Perhaps we cannot create such a 'perfect' system, perhaps (and this is not my view, obviously) bitcoin is the absolute best we can ever do(!), it's still not 'perfect', because it encompasses a set of compromises.
- nootropicat 4y ago
  Money must be backed by something. Bitcoin is backed by nothing. This makes it a ponzi, not money. It's very simple. It can be used as a means of exchange, but due to being unbacked isn't and can't ever become a store of value, which in turns means it's completely useless as a unit of account due to eternal volatility. The only way to get real wealth in exchange for bitcoin is to hope someone later decides to buy it. That's again a characteristic of something that isn't money. Americans are forced to sell wealth for us dollars, and without that force it would die. That's actual backing enforced by governmental force.
  - rsj_hn 4y ago
    > Money must be backed by something. One of my favorite bond films is Goldfinger (1965), starring Sean Connery as James Bond and Gert Frobe as Auric Goldfinger. In the movie, Goldfinger hatches a plan (they always hatch a plan) to destroy the gold reserves at Fort Knox. This will make his own gold holdings much more valuable, but, Bond intones, it will also destroy the world's economy, since the gold in Fort Knox "backs" our money, and if it were to disappear, we'd have hyperinflation. And I wondered about that a bit. Suppose a meteor filled with gold were to crash onto Federal Property, and they hook up some tractors and drag the thing into Fort Knox. Would this massive new pile of gold cause hyper-deflation? Bottom line, I don't think money needs to be backed by anything. It just needs to be limited in its quantity. For example, if gold is money, then what is gold backed by? Anyway, Goldfinger is worth a watch -- great film.
    - nootropicat 4y ago
      Gold isn't money. It was when the US government (and other before) forced people to sell other wealth for it to pay taxes. It was an early implementation of money. Gold has very weak utility today. >I don't think money needs to be backed by anything. Which was empirically tested for the last 13 years. What happens is that people get bored of old ponzi schemes and stop buying them, instead preferring to be early in new ones. Which is why inflation-adjusted btc is at the very early Dec 2017 price. Nobody borrows in bitcoin (denominated in it - borrow x btc, pay back x+y btc) for unrelated investments which is one of the main use cases for money. >It just needs to be limited in its quantity Artificial scarcity is infinite. Claiming first artificial scarcity is token is somehow special is just a marketing spiel - one that's visibly losing its effectiveness. Which is why bitcoin dominance is dropping so fast.
joshlemer 4y ago
But fundamentally and crucially, nobody is bailing these banks out. Bitcoin itself, and its holders (other than those who left their money in FTX) are untouched. It seems to be unironically working as intended, no?

by y04nn 4y ago

zeroclip 4y ago

Indeed, ironic. But this also laid the path for DeFi, which processes similar volumes per day as centralized exchanges, without the single counterparty risk.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

sytelus 4y ago

Bitcoin purists say that we shouldn't be having any "exchanges" or "crypto banks". If we have them and use them then we deserve this fate.

rglover 4y ago

It's a beautiful lesson in human behavior and greed. You're given a perfect form of money (Bitcoin) that you can safely hold with minimal effort and your shortsighted greed ("yield farming") forces you to lose it all to a conman. The silver lining to all of this is that people might actually start listening to Bitcoin maxi's after this year.

Nursie 4y ago
> You're given a perfect form of money Ha, wow. Yeah no, Bitcoin is not a perfect form of money at all. It- - uses vast amounts of energy - can only process a few TPS - confirms slowly - has limited quantities which warps economies - is irreversible in cases of theft or fraud - is lost forever if you lose your keys And that's just off the top my head. I get what you're saying - "not your keys not your coins", but the idea that this system is somehow an optimum is just plain wrong. For those of us who do not fetishize decentralisation, those negatives are unacceptable in any form of 'money'. Even if you do believe in decentralisation, it's clear that this is far from perfect.
- rglover 4y ago
  - uses vast amounts of energy Bank branches, ATMs, armored cars, computer systems for the banks, computer systems for card processors, credit rating firms, etc. Bitcoin replaces all of that and, comparatively, for significantly less energy. This is a surface-level argument intended for shortsighted thinkers. - can only process a few TPS - confirms slowly On main net. Lightning network can outpace Visa. - has limited quantities which warps economies By warp, you actually mean makes them fair and natural. It encourages free trade, merit, and competition. Not fiendish scamming and Machiavellianism. - is irreversible in cases of theft or fraud Which is good. It increases the need for reliable actors in the world and creates a citizenry that's more discerning about whom they spend their money with (i.e., building strong, trustworthy relationships). - is lost forever if you lose your keys Which is good. It makes you value it. If I hold all of my money in cash and have a house fire, it's lost forever. No difference. > For those of us who do not fetishize decentralisation Slaves?
  - Nursie 4y ago
    > Bitcoin replaces all of that No, it doesn't, it doesn't offer 1% of the services those things you mentioned can offer. > This is a surface-level argument intended for shortsighted thinkers. Yes, that describes your argument perfectly. > On main net. Lightning network can outpace Visa. The fact the lightning network needs to exist shows flaws in bitcoin, or lightning wouldn't be required. Lightning also has massive flaws and is unlikely to be able to scale very far due to routing issues, and requiring the locking of funds. Its main utility seems to be for people to handwave away problems with bitcoin. > By warp, you actually mean makes them fair and natural. No, we have a lot of history to show us currency that is in limited amounts is a very poor idea, favouring and rewarding those who hold the tokens over those who actually produce. > Which is good. It makes you value it. If I hold all of my money in cash and have a house fire, it's lost forever. No difference. Wow. This is why people don't do that, and use banks, precisely to avoid that sort of catastrophic loss. Though you've just told us in previous comments that you shouldn't trust crypto custodial services either. You're basically saying "this is a huge risk and in my perfect system you just have to live with it, and there's no recourse if it goes wrong and it's your fault" No thanks! > Slaves? Yeah, this is idealogical nonsense at this point, not any sort of reasoned debate. But regardless of whether you agree with the points I raise, the idea that bitcoin is 'perfect' doesn't really hold up. The huge energy use is not a desirable feature for a monetary system, one that is 'perfect' would not have that. Perhaps we cannot create such a 'perfect' system, perhaps (and this is not my view, obviously) bitcoin is the absolute best we can ever do(!), it's still not 'perfect', because it encompasses a set of compromises.
nootropicat 4y ago
Money must be backed by something. Bitcoin is backed by nothing. This makes it a ponzi, not money. It's very simple. It can be used as a means of exchange, but due to being unbacked isn't and can't ever become a store of value, which in turns means it's completely useless as a unit of account due to eternal volatility. The only way to get real wealth in exchange for bitcoin is to hope someone later decides to buy it. That's again a characteristic of something that isn't money. Americans are forced to sell wealth for us dollars, and without that force it would die. That's actual backing enforced by governmental force.
- rsj_hn 4y ago
  > Money must be backed by something. One of my favorite bond films is Goldfinger (1965), starring Sean Connery as James Bond and Gert Frobe as Auric Goldfinger. In the movie, Goldfinger hatches a plan (they always hatch a plan) to destroy the gold reserves at Fort Knox. This will make his own gold holdings much more valuable, but, Bond intones, it will also destroy the world's economy, since the gold in Fort Knox "backs" our money, and if it were to disappear, we'd have hyperinflation. And I wondered about that a bit. Suppose a meteor filled with gold were to crash onto Federal Property, and they hook up some tractors and drag the thing into Fort Knox. Would this massive new pile of gold cause hyper-deflation? Bottom line, I don't think money needs to be backed by anything. It just needs to be limited in its quantity. For example, if gold is money, then what is gold backed by? Anyway, Goldfinger is worth a watch -- great film.
  - nootropicat 4y ago
    Gold isn't money. It was when the US government (and other before) forced people to sell other wealth for it to pay taxes. It was an early implementation of money. Gold has very weak utility today. >I don't think money needs to be backed by anything. Which was empirically tested for the last 13 years. What happens is that people get bored of old ponzi schemes and stop buying them, instead preferring to be early in new ones. Which is why inflation-adjusted btc is at the very early Dec 2017 price. Nobody borrows in bitcoin (denominated in it - borrow x btc, pay back x+y btc) for unrelated investments which is one of the main use cases for money. >It just needs to be limited in its quantity Artificial scarcity is infinite. Claiming first artificial scarcity is token is somehow special is just a marketing spiel - one that's visibly losing its effectiveness. Which is why bitcoin dominance is dropping so fast.

joshlemer 4y ago

But fundamentally and crucially, nobody is bailing these banks out. Bitcoin itself, and its holders (other than those who left their money in FTX) are untouched. It seems to be unironically working as intended, no?