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Can we acknowledge that both of those options are utter trash compared to conventional banking, though? The system that the crypto advocates hate on, but provi

Can we acknowledge that both of those options are utter trash compared to conventional banking, though? The system that the crypto advocates hate on, but provides 250k per person + per bank + per account type as insurance by default to all registered financial institutions?

MichaelCollins 4y ago
Abso-fucking-lutely. The best time to not be involved in crypto was always, and the second best time is now. Get out now if you have any sense.
- nobody9999 4y ago
  >Abso-fucking-lutely. The best time to not be involved in crypto was always, and the second best time is now. Get out now if you have any sense. But I have drugs to buy and cannabis to smoke and joints to roll before I sleep.[0] More seriously, there are use cases for cryptocurrency (smart contracts are a different think, unaddressed here), they're just mostly illegal. Whether that illegality is appropriate or not is another question. That said, there are use cases for cryptocurrency. [0] With apologies to Robert Frost.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > smart contracts are a different think, unaddressed here Let me address this, then: - they are not smart - they are not contracts - they are programs written in esoteric programming languages running on world's slowest and most inefficient VM - due to esoteric nature their own authors cannot find trivial bugs in their implementations that are exploited at scale which would make any real platform nonviable - cannot be updated or reverted because blockchain - have literally no use outside the virtual imaginary world of crypto - have zero legal standing, and cannot be enforced - in every single case would be more efficient and better served by Visual Basic running on a single Raspberry Pi from a sqlite database.
    - zeroclip 4y ago
      Do you really feel that Uniswap is better run with sqlite on a Raspberry Pi? If so, you are advocating for putting your money into a CEX, because somebody has to own and control that database and physical device.
      - dmitriid 4y ago
        > Do you really feel that Uniswap is better run with sqlite on a Raspberry Pi? Literally everything I wrote applies to Uniswap. > because somebody has to own and control that database and physical device. You've missed the point completely.
        zeroclip 4y ago
        Your point is that centralized financial services on sqlite is good, decentralized protocols on a blockchain is bad? If that is your point, it's a funny one to make in a thread about a CEX collapsing.
        dmitriid 4y ago
        > Your point is that centralized financial services on sqlite is good, decentralized protocols on a blockchain is bad? Where exactly in this comment did I say that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33606218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33606218? > If that is your point, it's a funny one to make in a thread about a CEX collapsing. What's funny is inventing arguments for other people and valiantly fighting against them. "Smart contracts" were mentioned as "other uses of crypto currency, as yet unaddressed". I addressed them. I couldn't even care less how you made the illogical leap from that to whatever you accuse me of.
        zeroclip 4y ago
        Uniswap is a good application of smart contracts. Your comments explicitly suggest that Uniswap would be better run on something like sqlite, which needs a centralized owner, which is functionally the same as replacing a DEX with a CEX. > in every single case would be more efficient and better served by Visual Basic running on a single Raspberry Pi from a sqlite database
rglullis 4y ago
Have you seen how much wealth was destroyed in 2008?
- Filligree 4y ago
  2008 doesn't seem like a good argument for "Re-running the entire history of finance scams, up to and including 2008 if we can get that far".
  - rglullis 4y ago
    2008 wasn't caused by a finance scam. It was caused by an already heavily-regulated banking industry, supported by governments addicted to growth. Not that different from what is happening now with the crypto "exchanges", by the way.
    - bboygravity 4y ago
      Wow, you must've missed that little something about Glass Steagal.
      - rglullis 4y ago
        Wow, you must've missed the point entirely. I'm talking about how both bubbles were a consequence of all the money being pumped relentlessly by governments. That it was going to pop, we should not have no doubt. If it wasn't for crypto "exchanges", it would be a dot-com v2 (which is also happening, but without crypto to take all that capital this crisis would be bigger still), or it would be something else entirely... but at the end of the day, as long as we have governments addicted to growth, we will have boom and bust cycles.
dvngnt_ 4y ago
I've never seen it as a replacement, but a supplement with it's own pros and cons
- gureddio 4y ago
  Well it can't be a replacement anyway. You can't really spend it anywhere
tablespoon 4y ago
> Can we acknowledge that both of those options are utter trash compared to conventional banking, though? Yes, yes we can. The only things that ever justified the use of cryptocurrency were ideological fantasies and speculative gambling. Every other justification is just hype created as a post-hoc rationalization for one of those two things. If you look at any of them closely, they completely fall apart when compared with competitor technologies (such as fiat paper money esp. the US dollar, conventional banking, and even gold). I look forward to a future where "crypto" again unambiguously means cryptography.
- alasdair_ 4y ago
  Buying drugs online was a real use case that actually worked, as was being able to smuggle wealth out of a country with exit restrictions. As for legal uses, yeah, there are not many at the moment. Maybe some day there will be a DAO-type org that is worth being invested in or something but not today.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > Buying drugs online was a real use case that actually worked, Kinda sorta. Wasn't that back when people assumed cryptocurrency provided the same kind of privacy that cryptography does, which was (in retrospect), pretty dumb? > as was being able to smuggle wealth out of a country with exit restrictions. That one doesn't make much sense either. How are you supposed to get your cryptocurrency to smuggle out in such a country? Wire your money to a foreign exchange? > As for legal uses, yeah, there are not many at the moment. Maybe some day there will be a DAO-type org that is worth being invested in or something but not today. I agree the "best" actual use cases involve illegal activity, but I think even those are sketchy. Most of the ideas don't actually work unless cryptocurrency is ubiquitous, but that doesn't matter since it will never become ubiquitous without compelling use cases. And given the illegal activity it enables, even if it did have compelling use cases, it would probably be made illegal if it was on its way to becoming ubiquitous (which would instantly marginalize it in a way it could never overcome).
    - 4y ago
rufusroflpunch 4y ago
In Lebanon, people are robbing banks to get their own money out. Maybe they are a little bit more comfortable than you are with holding keys to an unseizable asset.
- asoneth 4y ago
  If you live in the US and are hedging against the collapse of the FDIC you may be better served by investing in things like dried goods and seeds than cryptocurrencies.
  - horsawlarway 4y ago
    Correct. Banking may well collapse in the US (I'm not betting it will - quite the opposite, to be honest - but historically speaking it's not an impossibility.) The issue is that if banking in the US collapses... well - we have much, much bigger issues than "crypto". You'd be far better served with a stash of dried/canned products and a gun or three. Also - it won't be crypto that matters in this case. It will be the new currency of whatever regional nation states pop up in the US after the collapse, or if the federal gov manages to hang on, the new USD. Side note - last time I bought in bulk (because hedging against this is relatively cheap, all things considered) split peas were the best bang for the buck in terms of cost/calorie. Just slightly beating out plain white sugar. 75 days of food for 4 people at 2000 calories per day cost about $350 (not including storage containers) and will last a very long time if it's composed of dried legumes, flour, oats, sugar, rice, oil, etc... in airtight containers. If you cook yourself and rotate through, it's actually a fairly cost effective way to eat cheap and healthy (although without any additional inputs - also very bland) while also keeping storage on hand and not feeling like a complete prepper.

MichaelCollins 4y ago

Abso-fucking-lutely. The best time to not be involved in crypto was always, and the second best time is now. Get out now if you have any sense.

nobody9999 4y ago
>Abso-fucking-lutely. The best time to not be involved in crypto was always, and the second best time is now. Get out now if you have any sense. But I have drugs to buy and cannabis to smoke and joints to roll before I sleep.[0] More seriously, there are use cases for cryptocurrency (smart contracts are a different think, unaddressed here), they're just mostly illegal. Whether that illegality is appropriate or not is another question. That said, there are use cases for cryptocurrency. [0] With apologies to Robert Frost.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > smart contracts are a different think, unaddressed here Let me address this, then: - they are not smart - they are not contracts - they are programs written in esoteric programming languages running on world's slowest and most inefficient VM - due to esoteric nature their own authors cannot find trivial bugs in their implementations that are exploited at scale which would make any real platform nonviable - cannot be updated or reverted because blockchain - have literally no use outside the virtual imaginary world of crypto - have zero legal standing, and cannot be enforced - in every single case would be more efficient and better served by Visual Basic running on a single Raspberry Pi from a sqlite database.
  - zeroclip 4y ago
    Do you really feel that Uniswap is better run with sqlite on a Raspberry Pi? If so, you are advocating for putting your money into a CEX, because somebody has to own and control that database and physical device.
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      > Do you really feel that Uniswap is better run with sqlite on a Raspberry Pi? Literally everything I wrote applies to Uniswap. > because somebody has to own and control that database and physical device. You've missed the point completely.
      - zeroclip 4y ago
        Your point is that centralized financial services on sqlite is good, decentralized protocols on a blockchain is bad? If that is your point, it's a funny one to make in a thread about a CEX collapsing.
        dmitriid 4y ago
        > Your point is that centralized financial services on sqlite is good, decentralized protocols on a blockchain is bad? Where exactly in this comment did I say that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33606218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33606218? > If that is your point, it's a funny one to make in a thread about a CEX collapsing. What's funny is inventing arguments for other people and valiantly fighting against them. "Smart contracts" were mentioned as "other uses of crypto currency, as yet unaddressed". I addressed them. I couldn't even care less how you made the illogical leap from that to whatever you accuse me of.
        zeroclip 4y ago
        Uniswap is a good application of smart contracts. Your comments explicitly suggest that Uniswap would be better run on something like sqlite, which needs a centralized owner, which is functionally the same as replacing a DEX with a CEX. > in every single case would be more efficient and better served by Visual Basic running on a single Raspberry Pi from a sqlite database

rglullis 4y ago

Have you seen how much wealth was destroyed in 2008?

Filligree 4y ago
2008 doesn't seem like a good argument for "Re-running the entire history of finance scams, up to and including 2008 if we can get that far".
- rglullis 4y ago
  2008 wasn't caused by a finance scam. It was caused by an already heavily-regulated banking industry, supported by governments addicted to growth. Not that different from what is happening now with the crypto "exchanges", by the way.
  - bboygravity 4y ago
    Wow, you must've missed that little something about Glass Steagal.
    - rglullis 4y ago
      Wow, you must've missed the point entirely. I'm talking about how both bubbles were a consequence of all the money being pumped relentlessly by governments. That it was going to pop, we should not have no doubt. If it wasn't for crypto "exchanges", it would be a dot-com v2 (which is also happening, but without crypto to take all that capital this crisis would be bigger still), or it would be something else entirely... but at the end of the day, as long as we have governments addicted to growth, we will have boom and bust cycles.

dvngnt_ 4y ago

I've never seen it as a replacement, but a supplement with it's own pros and cons

gureddio 4y ago
Well it can't be a replacement anyway. You can't really spend it anywhere

tablespoon 4y ago

> Can we acknowledge that both of those options are utter trash compared to conventional banking, though? Yes, yes we can. The only things that ever justified the use of cryptocurrency were ideological fantasies and speculative gambling. Every other justification is just hype created as a post-hoc rationalization for one of those two things. If you look at any of them closely, they completely fall apart when compared with competitor technologies (such as fiat paper money esp. the US dollar, conventional banking, and even gold). I look forward to a future where "crypto" again unambiguously means cryptography.

alasdair_ 4y ago
Buying drugs online was a real use case that actually worked, as was being able to smuggle wealth out of a country with exit restrictions. As for legal uses, yeah, there are not many at the moment. Maybe some day there will be a DAO-type org that is worth being invested in or something but not today.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Buying drugs online was a real use case that actually worked, Kinda sorta. Wasn't that back when people assumed cryptocurrency provided the same kind of privacy that cryptography does, which was (in retrospect), pretty dumb? > as was being able to smuggle wealth out of a country with exit restrictions. That one doesn't make much sense either. How are you supposed to get your cryptocurrency to smuggle out in such a country? Wire your money to a foreign exchange? > As for legal uses, yeah, there are not many at the moment. Maybe some day there will be a DAO-type org that is worth being invested in or something but not today. I agree the "best" actual use cases involve illegal activity, but I think even those are sketchy. Most of the ideas don't actually work unless cryptocurrency is ubiquitous, but that doesn't matter since it will never become ubiquitous without compelling use cases. And given the illegal activity it enables, even if it did have compelling use cases, it would probably be made illegal if it was on its way to becoming ubiquitous (which would instantly marginalize it in a way it could never overcome).
  - 4y ago

rufusroflpunch 4y ago

In Lebanon, people are robbing banks to get their own money out. Maybe they are a little bit more comfortable than you are with holding keys to an unseizable asset.

asoneth 4y ago
If you live in the US and are hedging against the collapse of the FDIC you may be better served by investing in things like dried goods and seeds than cryptocurrencies.
- horsawlarway 4y ago
  Correct. Banking may well collapse in the US (I'm not betting it will - quite the opposite, to be honest - but historically speaking it's not an impossibility.) The issue is that if banking in the US collapses... well - we have much, much bigger issues than "crypto". You'd be far better served with a stash of dried/canned products and a gun or three. Also - it won't be crypto that matters in this case. It will be the new currency of whatever regional nation states pop up in the US after the collapse, or if the federal gov manages to hang on, the new USD. Side note - last time I bought in bulk (because hedging against this is relatively cheap, all things considered) split peas were the best bang for the buck in terms of cost/calorie. Just slightly beating out plain white sugar. 75 days of food for 4 people at 2000 calories per day cost about $350 (not including storage containers) and will last a very long time if it's composed of dried legumes, flour, oats, sugar, rice, oil, etc... in airtight containers. If you cook yourself and rotate through, it's actually a fairly cost effective way to eat cheap and healthy (although without any additional inputs - also very bland) while also keeping storage on hand and not feeling like a complete prepper.