9 ms·

At some point there won't be any more suckers left. That's when crypto will really collapse.

by pontifier 3y ago

tyingq 3y ago
I don't know...multi-level marketing still seems alive and kicking.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 3y ago
  https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ but instead it's the unlucky 10k per day learning about a scam the hard way
- orangepurple 3y ago
  Even MMM Global seems to be operating still http://www.mmmglobal.in/ http://www.mmmglobal.in/
- api 3y ago
  ... as are casinos. I don't think it will collapse. It has found product-market fit: mostly gambling, some money laundering and crime, and some legitimate use for international wires and payments under oppressive political conditions (this last part is the smallest amount by volume). There will occasionally be attempts to pump some new use case (e.g. NFTs), but these are just casino advertising. They'll draw in some new suckers/players and the cycle will repeat. The maximalist cult will continue to exist as well, patiently awaiting the coming of the space brothers in the form of a massive economic collapse causing Bitcoin to "moon" and become the new global reserve currency. This is identical to the goldbug cult of previous generations and involves many of the same types of people. Apocalyptic cults can exist for a long, long time and failed prophecies do not deter true believers.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
InCityDreams 3y ago
I dunno - you ever met a banker?
Mistletoe 3y ago
I feel exactly the opposite- “At some point there won't be any more suckers left. That's when banking will really collapse.” The news every day sends the message more urgently that a global hard money that can never be debased by money printing and that is free from the whims of governments and dictators is sorely needed.
- rini17 3y ago
  But for that, general population to be able (and willing!) to manage secret keys properly is sorely needed.
  - misnome 3y ago
    This is never going to happen, and nor should it. Any system that you can lose your entire life savings without any recourse by forgetting, revealing, or being hit by a wrench, for one number - is irreparably flawed and extremely unsuitable.
  - G3rn0ti 3y ago
    Yes, handling private keys is very inconvenient. I also can’t imagine my mother (although rather tech-savy for her age) handling all her financials with crypto wallets. However, one of the next Ethereum upgrades (ERC-4337) will make it possible to safely recover wallets without a key seed phrase. Its implications seems to be huge but I am not deep enough into it to explain how exactly it is going to work. Perhaps somebody more competent than me can elaborate on that. https://beincrypto.com/learn/erc-4337/ https://beincrypto.com/learn/erc-4337/
    - lxgr 3y ago
      You can't eat your cake and have it too: Either you are the only party controlling access to your accounts – which then necessarily includes the possibility of losing everything – or you don't, in which case somebody else does. This isn't a tradeoff unique to cryptocurrencies: Cash works exactly the same way (qualitatively, if not quantitatively, in terms of the risks of losing access to it) – if you store your life savings under your mattress, they can be stolen easily or burn down together with your apartment.
detrites 3y ago
The flaw here was in a dependency introduced by targeting WASM, and could apply to any project of any kind relying on random number generation for a cryptographic purpose. It is not a "crypto-currency" specific problem.
- snapcaster 3y ago
  It sort of is because cryptocurrency inherently makes the stakes so high (all your money). Currently software development is more an art than a science, and even very competent people make mistakes or have unforeseen problems/behavior in their programs
- veeti 3y ago
  The flaw was not in a dependency but Trust Wallet's first party code [1]. They decided that Mersenne Twister would be sufficient for generating cryptographically random data and specifically called it "secure" [2]. Very unfortunate. [1] https://github.com/trustwallet/wallet-core/blob/3.1.0/wasm/src/Random.cpp https://github.com/trustwallet/wallet-core/blob/3.1.0/wasm/s... [2] https://github.com/trustwallet/wallet-core/pull/2240 https://github.com/trustwallet/wallet-core/pull/2240
  - detrites 3y ago
    Yes, a terrible decision - but still a decision left up to any developer in a similar position - which, with the trend to WASMify things may well happen again in other projects, until it's better addressed at the source. Honestly, it's so bad it makes me wonder if a bad actor could have had influence over such a decision in this case. Reports of Trust Wallet accounts being randomly pilfered without some plausible other cause might go some way to figuring that out.
    - lxgr 3y ago
      This makes no sense. What source should it be addressed? This is an issue of standard libraries, whereas WASM is a specification of an execution environment. WASM doesn't have a standard library, since it doesn't even have a canonical source language! It's like demanding that x86 or aarch64 offer better Unicode or SVG support.
yieldcrv 3y ago
if we made international headlines for every phishing attack, you would feel the same about the tech sector or tangentially "computing" at all. this was the case in the 90s pretty often. now we choose to highlight properly run organizations and advances, while largely ignoring the rest. new problems presented by home computing and electronic funds transfer didnt go away. its more likely the same will happen with crypto assets and industry. when I look at mainstream news like Bloomberg, thats what I see already.
jackmott42 3y ago
There is another sucker born every minute
zimbatm 3y ago
That kind of argument can be applied to any value-based systems. s/crypto/ with /banks/, /religion/, /houses/. The real question is how big the risk is relative to inflation, central banks collapses, bank runs and all other types of institutional risks.
- leoedin 3y ago
  Maybe you have a point with religion, but housing and banking are a necessary evil for everyone, regardless of their views on the market. I've contributed to the price of housing by virtue of existing and bidding it up in my city. That doesn't mean I'm buying a house to make money.
- mellosouls 3y ago
  That kind of argument can be applied to any value-based systems. s/crypto/ with /banks/, /religion/, /houses/. No. False equivalence. The other examples have a long history of applications that add value to people's lives (as well as disbenefits depending on your viewpoint and ideology). Crypto-currency has never yet demonstrated any significant value to normal people, though plenty of the latter.
  - codedokode 3y ago
    I believe that is wrong. If you keep your money as cash or in a bank deposit then you lose several percents every year because Western governments maintain a certain inflation rate. But inflation is basically stealing from everyone who has cash or bank deposits. You had 100 dollars and next year they become equivalent to 98 dollars. Cryptocurrency is different. No government is able to steal your Bitcoins by printing some more colored paper. Yes today there are issues with volatility, but conceptually cryptocurrency is better than fiat money for the reason written above. But if you like getting robbed every year then of course continue using fiat money.
    - edent 3y ago
      As opposed to having 100% stolen by poor security - the subject of this discussion - or fraudulent exchanges, or heavily pump-and-dumped new coins, or... the list goes on.
alphanullmeric 3y ago
Yeah I’m sure one day those “suckers” will decide they don’t need financial privacy and have no problem with the state reaching into their wallets at will. Then they’ll go back to happily storing their money in a bank account that can get locked for having the wrong opinion, or restricted by alleged investor protections that aren’t even opt out.
- Twirrim 3y ago
  Financial privacy on a completely open and visible block chain, that makes transaction analysis incredibly easy, that has resulted in the FBI etc. consistently being able to "de-anonymise" users? That's a really weird definition of "privacy". Crypto currency makes it easier for them, not harder. They don't even have to go to the effort of getting warrants because you're literally giving them your data saying "Track me, please!"
  - alphanullmeric 3y ago
    The IRS says otherwise. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2020/09/14/irs-will-pay-up-to-625000-if-you-can-crack-monero-other-privacy-coins/amp/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2020/09/14/irs...
- vimda 3y ago
  Lol. > will decide they don’t need financial privacy The block chain is publicly auditable. That's the opposite of privacy. > that can get locked for having the wrong opinion Any actual evidence of this happening?
  - alphanullmeric 3y ago
    Canadian government did it last year.
    - vimda 3y ago
      Anecdotal stories are not evidence. Links?
birracerveza 3y ago
[flagged]
toss1 3y ago
Except for: "There's a sucker born every minute" — P. T. Barnum After that 'discovery' in the mid-1800s, there seems to be an endless supply, and at today's higher brithrates and infant survival rates... we can't really expect that they'll ever run out ;-P
- latchkey 3y ago
  "there is no evidence that he actually said it" -- wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_minute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_...
wslh 3y ago
This could also apply to other financial instruments. At the core decentralization is about power. Crypto as we know it now could fail but the core tener is about new ways of power in the financial world. From the technological level is also about the freedom to experiment with finances where regulations don't enable to. Even if it is at a sandbox level.
5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
> At some point there won't be any more suckers left As long as there is survivorship bias I think it will survive. Can think of it more as a poverty tax, like the lottery. When there is a possibility of easy money, people will overlook every kind of red flag and inconvenience.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

At some point there won't be any more suckers left. That's when crypto will really collapse.

tyingq 3y ago

I don't know...multi-level marketing still seems alive and kicking.

sjsdaiuasgdia 3y ago
https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ but instead it's the unlucky 10k per day learning about a scam the hard way
orangepurple 3y ago
Even MMM Global seems to be operating still http://www.mmmglobal.in/ http://www.mmmglobal.in/
api 3y ago
... as are casinos. I don't think it will collapse. It has found product-market fit: mostly gambling, some money laundering and crime, and some legitimate use for international wires and payments under oppressive political conditions (this last part is the smallest amount by volume). There will occasionally be attempts to pump some new use case (e.g. NFTs), but these are just casino advertising. They'll draw in some new suckers/players and the cycle will repeat. The maximalist cult will continue to exist as well, patiently awaiting the coming of the space brothers in the form of a massive economic collapse causing Bitcoin to "moon" and become the new global reserve currency. This is identical to the goldbug cult of previous generations and involves many of the same types of people. Apocalyptic cults can exist for a long, long time and failed prophecies do not deter true believers.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

InCityDreams 3y ago

I dunno - you ever met a banker?

Mistletoe 3y ago

I feel exactly the opposite- “At some point there won't be any more suckers left. That's when banking will really collapse.” The news every day sends the message more urgently that a global hard money that can never be debased by money printing and that is free from the whims of governments and dictators is sorely needed.

rini17 3y ago
But for that, general population to be able (and willing!) to manage secret keys properly is sorely needed.
- misnome 3y ago
  This is never going to happen, and nor should it. Any system that you can lose your entire life savings without any recourse by forgetting, revealing, or being hit by a wrench, for one number - is irreparably flawed and extremely unsuitable.
- G3rn0ti 3y ago
  Yes, handling private keys is very inconvenient. I also can’t imagine my mother (although rather tech-savy for her age) handling all her financials with crypto wallets. However, one of the next Ethereum upgrades (ERC-4337) will make it possible to safely recover wallets without a key seed phrase. Its implications seems to be huge but I am not deep enough into it to explain how exactly it is going to work. Perhaps somebody more competent than me can elaborate on that. https://beincrypto.com/learn/erc-4337/ https://beincrypto.com/learn/erc-4337/
  - lxgr 3y ago
    You can't eat your cake and have it too: Either you are the only party controlling access to your accounts – which then necessarily includes the possibility of losing everything – or you don't, in which case somebody else does. This isn't a tradeoff unique to cryptocurrencies: Cash works exactly the same way (qualitatively, if not quantitatively, in terms of the risks of losing access to it) – if you store your life savings under your mattress, they can be stolen easily or burn down together with your apartment.

detrites 3y ago

The flaw here was in a dependency introduced by targeting WASM, and could apply to any project of any kind relying on random number generation for a cryptographic purpose. It is not a "crypto-currency" specific problem.

snapcaster 3y ago
It sort of is because cryptocurrency inherently makes the stakes so high (all your money). Currently software development is more an art than a science, and even very competent people make mistakes or have unforeseen problems/behavior in their programs
veeti 3y ago
The flaw was not in a dependency but Trust Wallet's first party code [1]. They decided that Mersenne Twister would be sufficient for generating cryptographically random data and specifically called it "secure" [2]. Very unfortunate. [1] https://github.com/trustwallet/wallet-core/blob/3.1.0/wasm/src/Random.cpp https://github.com/trustwallet/wallet-core/blob/3.1.0/wasm/s... [2] https://github.com/trustwallet/wallet-core/pull/2240 https://github.com/trustwallet/wallet-core/pull/2240
- detrites 3y ago
  Yes, a terrible decision - but still a decision left up to any developer in a similar position - which, with the trend to WASMify things may well happen again in other projects, until it's better addressed at the source. Honestly, it's so bad it makes me wonder if a bad actor could have had influence over such a decision in this case. Reports of Trust Wallet accounts being randomly pilfered without some plausible other cause might go some way to figuring that out.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    This makes no sense. What source should it be addressed? This is an issue of standard libraries, whereas WASM is a specification of an execution environment. WASM doesn't have a standard library, since it doesn't even have a canonical source language! It's like demanding that x86 or aarch64 offer better Unicode or SVG support.

yieldcrv 3y ago

if we made international headlines for every phishing attack, you would feel the same about the tech sector or tangentially "computing" at all. this was the case in the 90s pretty often. now we choose to highlight properly run organizations and advances, while largely ignoring the rest. new problems presented by home computing and electronic funds transfer didnt go away. its more likely the same will happen with crypto assets and industry. when I look at mainstream news like Bloomberg, thats what I see already.

jackmott42 3y ago

There is another sucker born every minute

zimbatm 3y ago

That kind of argument can be applied to any value-based systems. s/crypto/ with /banks/, /religion/, /houses/. The real question is how big the risk is relative to inflation, central banks collapses, bank runs and all other types of institutional risks.

leoedin 3y ago
Maybe you have a point with religion, but housing and banking are a necessary evil for everyone, regardless of their views on the market. I've contributed to the price of housing by virtue of existing and bidding it up in my city. That doesn't mean I'm buying a house to make money.
mellosouls 3y ago
That kind of argument can be applied to any value-based systems. s/crypto/ with /banks/, /religion/, /houses/. No. False equivalence. The other examples have a long history of applications that add value to people's lives (as well as disbenefits depending on your viewpoint and ideology). Crypto-currency has never yet demonstrated any significant value to normal people, though plenty of the latter.
- codedokode 3y ago
  I believe that is wrong. If you keep your money as cash or in a bank deposit then you lose several percents every year because Western governments maintain a certain inflation rate. But inflation is basically stealing from everyone who has cash or bank deposits. You had 100 dollars and next year they become equivalent to 98 dollars. Cryptocurrency is different. No government is able to steal your Bitcoins by printing some more colored paper. Yes today there are issues with volatility, but conceptually cryptocurrency is better than fiat money for the reason written above. But if you like getting robbed every year then of course continue using fiat money.
  - edent 3y ago
    As opposed to having 100% stolen by poor security - the subject of this discussion - or fraudulent exchanges, or heavily pump-and-dumped new coins, or... the list goes on.

alphanullmeric 3y ago

Yeah I’m sure one day those “suckers” will decide they don’t need financial privacy and have no problem with the state reaching into their wallets at will. Then they’ll go back to happily storing their money in a bank account that can get locked for having the wrong opinion, or restricted by alleged investor protections that aren’t even opt out.

Twirrim 3y ago
Financial privacy on a completely open and visible block chain, that makes transaction analysis incredibly easy, that has resulted in the FBI etc. consistently being able to "de-anonymise" users? That's a really weird definition of "privacy". Crypto currency makes it easier for them, not harder. They don't even have to go to the effort of getting warrants because you're literally giving them your data saying "Track me, please!"
- alphanullmeric 3y ago
  The IRS says otherwise. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2020/09/14/irs-will-pay-up-to-625000-if-you-can-crack-monero-other-privacy-coins/amp/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2020/09/14/irs...
vimda 3y ago
Lol. > will decide they don’t need financial privacy The block chain is publicly auditable. That's the opposite of privacy. > that can get locked for having the wrong opinion Any actual evidence of this happening?
- alphanullmeric 3y ago
  Canadian government did it last year.
  - vimda 3y ago
    Anecdotal stories are not evidence. Links?

birracerveza 3y ago

[flagged]

toss1 3y ago

Except for: "There's a sucker born every minute" — P. T. Barnum After that 'discovery' in the mid-1800s, there seems to be an endless supply, and at today's higher brithrates and infant survival rates... we can't really expect that they'll ever run out ;-P

latchkey 3y ago
"there is no evidence that he actually said it" -- wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_minute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_...

wslh 3y ago

This could also apply to other financial instruments. At the core decentralization is about power. Crypto as we know it now could fail but the core tener is about new ways of power in the financial world. From the technological level is also about the freedom to experiment with finances where regulations don't enable to. Even if it is at a sandbox level.

5350-uiop-1130 3y ago

> At some point there won't be any more suckers left As long as there is survivorship bias I think it will survive. Can think of it more as a poverty tax, like the lottery. When there is a possibility of easy money, people will overlook every kind of red flag and inconvenience.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]