5 ms·

The end of an era.

by datadeft 3y ago

The end of an era.

danielschonfeld 3y ago
[flagged]
- BowBun 3y ago
  Considering the EU is unable step up, I think you'll miss the enemy we knew after all is said and done (if there is a significant shift in the leading powers). I'm not wearing rose-tinted glasses about the past (I'm not American), but the up-and-coming alternatives seem real scary.
  - WinstonSmith84 3y ago
    The EU is the same as the US: pretending to be the land of free but effectively controlled by interests, driven by hidden agendas. Some other countries don't try to pretend to be free nor pretend to work for the people, and maybe less hypocrisy is not worse (China or India). A healthy balance of competition between world powers is much welcomed.
- WinstonSmith84 3y ago
  logical assumption. There has never been a blockchain era yet.
- wellthisisgreat 3y ago
  lol I am pretty sure the GP is talking about the era of crypto swindlers who rode the good ideas of liberty, financial diversification, and such into the ground and will all hopefully pay for it
soco 3y ago
The era of the few crypto billionaires and the crowd of regular Joe money-losers. Ah, those times.
- koonsolo 3y ago
  Go and take a look at the long term price of bitcoin. How anyone can lose money in that market is beyond me.
  - soco 3y ago
    Money is not created out of thin air. There's electricity to mine, there's funds investing in crypto, there's fiat used to pay ransoms... All this means real world money got spent.
  - samb1729 3y ago
    If everyone is supposed to have made money, where did that money come from?
    - koonsolo 3y ago
      Just because the market cap of Bitcoin is 520.50B, doesn't mean 520.50B has been invested into it. Basically, as long as the price of Bitcoin is >0, more was won than lost. It's now at 25k, so a lot has been won. So still in another way: if you bought bitcoin with fiat, your bitcoin now is still worth 25k
DJBunnies 3y ago
Unlikely.
WinstonSmith84 3y ago
[flagged]
- moolcool 3y ago
  I don't think any serious people in the world are considering the idea that the US would balance their reserves against cryptocurrency.
  - WinstonSmith84 3y ago
    So 1- I was not referring to cryptocurrencies, crypto market is way too small anyway 2- I'm referring to every country except the US, obviously... From Middle East to China or even Japan, every country is reducing their global reserves in dollars, and diversifying in other (national) currencies. Also, many countries are trying to conduct trades in other currencies than the US dollar. Basically, I'm just referring to the decline of the US dollar and that's welcome for everybody except maybe for the US government. https://wolfstreet.com/2023/04/02/status-of-us-dollar-as-global-reserve-currency-v-exchange-rates-slow-long-term-decline-on-track/ https://wolfstreet.com/2023/04/02/status-of-us-dollar-as-glo...
- mindslight 3y ago
  I would have written this comment 15 years ago, on the heels of an unnecessarily large military being abused to wage two poorly thought out elective wars. Continued market arbitrage away from wasteful US dominance seemed inevitable, just as the break up of the Soviet Union was. Now, after economic integration with China has run its course and not produced democracy? After Russia's attack on Ukraine demonstrated that wildly irrational tin-pot dictators still exist, they had just been contained? It would seem that the USD empire is more valuable than I gave it credit for - it's the worst hegemon, except for all the others. I still do hold hope of reducing the power of centralized entities in the long term. But real change like that has to happen from the bottom up due to fundamental conditions changing (eg individual adoption of cryptocurrencies), which is excruciatingly slow. If this is to be the trend, it will happen over many decades. There is certainly the open question of whether China will surpass the US military and become a world reserve currency based on the draw of military might alone. But that doesn't have anything to do with decentralization, rather just a different centralizer. PS treating the diminishing of US power as a foregone conclusion and framing it as a political question of whether the Republicans might "embrace change" (ie overtly facilitate the US's decline) seems like a terribly self-destructive paradigm.
seydor 3y ago
what era? playing monopoly with bitcoin? good riddance, time to use it for some real purpose.

The end of an era.

danielschonfeld 3y ago

[flagged]

BowBun 3y ago
Considering the EU is unable step up, I think you'll miss the enemy we knew after all is said and done (if there is a significant shift in the leading powers). I'm not wearing rose-tinted glasses about the past (I'm not American), but the up-and-coming alternatives seem real scary.
- WinstonSmith84 3y ago
  The EU is the same as the US: pretending to be the land of free but effectively controlled by interests, driven by hidden agendas. Some other countries don't try to pretend to be free nor pretend to work for the people, and maybe less hypocrisy is not worse (China or India). A healthy balance of competition between world powers is much welcomed.
WinstonSmith84 3y ago
logical assumption. There has never been a blockchain era yet.
wellthisisgreat 3y ago
lol I am pretty sure the GP is talking about the era of crypto swindlers who rode the good ideas of liberty, financial diversification, and such into the ground and will all hopefully pay for it

soco 3y ago

The era of the few crypto billionaires and the crowd of regular Joe money-losers. Ah, those times.

koonsolo 3y ago
Go and take a look at the long term price of bitcoin. How anyone can lose money in that market is beyond me.
- soco 3y ago
  Money is not created out of thin air. There's electricity to mine, there's funds investing in crypto, there's fiat used to pay ransoms... All this means real world money got spent.
- samb1729 3y ago
  If everyone is supposed to have made money, where did that money come from?
  - koonsolo 3y ago
    Just because the market cap of Bitcoin is 520.50B, doesn't mean 520.50B has been invested into it. Basically, as long as the price of Bitcoin is >0, more was won than lost. It's now at 25k, so a lot has been won. So still in another way: if you bought bitcoin with fiat, your bitcoin now is still worth 25k

DJBunnies 3y ago

Unlikely.

WinstonSmith84 3y ago

[flagged]

moolcool 3y ago
I don't think any serious people in the world are considering the idea that the US would balance their reserves against cryptocurrency.
- WinstonSmith84 3y ago
  So 1- I was not referring to cryptocurrencies, crypto market is way too small anyway 2- I'm referring to every country except the US, obviously... From Middle East to China or even Japan, every country is reducing their global reserves in dollars, and diversifying in other (national) currencies. Also, many countries are trying to conduct trades in other currencies than the US dollar. Basically, I'm just referring to the decline of the US dollar and that's welcome for everybody except maybe for the US government. https://wolfstreet.com/2023/04/02/status-of-us-dollar-as-global-reserve-currency-v-exchange-rates-slow-long-term-decline-on-track/ https://wolfstreet.com/2023/04/02/status-of-us-dollar-as-glo...
mindslight 3y ago
I would have written this comment 15 years ago, on the heels of an unnecessarily large military being abused to wage two poorly thought out elective wars. Continued market arbitrage away from wasteful US dominance seemed inevitable, just as the break up of the Soviet Union was. Now, after economic integration with China has run its course and not produced democracy? After Russia's attack on Ukraine demonstrated that wildly irrational tin-pot dictators still exist, they had just been contained? It would seem that the USD empire is more valuable than I gave it credit for - it's the worst hegemon, except for all the others. I still do hold hope of reducing the power of centralized entities in the long term. But real change like that has to happen from the bottom up due to fundamental conditions changing (eg individual adoption of cryptocurrencies), which is excruciatingly slow. If this is to be the trend, it will happen over many decades. There is certainly the open question of whether China will surpass the US military and become a world reserve currency based on the draw of military might alone. But that doesn't have anything to do with decentralization, rather just a different centralizer. PS treating the diminishing of US power as a foregone conclusion and framing it as a political question of whether the Republicans might "embrace change" (ie overtly facilitate the US's decline) seems like a terribly self-destructive paradigm.

seydor 3y ago

what era? playing monopoly with bitcoin? good riddance, time to use it for some real purpose.