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The USP of cryptocurrency is the ability to self-custody. If you sent your money to a company like Voyager, instead of controlling your keys yourself, you misse

The USP of cryptocurrency is the ability to self-custody. If you sent your money to a company like Voyager, instead of controlling your keys yourself, you missed the point.

wmf 3y ago
It's really not though. The point was to get rich and if you can get rich quicker in a custodial pump-and-dump than in a self-custodied decentralized boiler room... you might as well.
- EscapeFromNY 3y ago
  There's nothing in the bitcoin whitepaper about getting rich quick. If that's your goal, go ahead and send your money to FTX, Luna, Voyager, or Binance. But that's not my goal. I'm here so I can have self-sovereignty of my money.
  - fladrif 3y ago
    > I'm here so I can have self-sovereignty of my money. Except you aren't really. You will always be beholden to one entity or another, in bitcoin the 51% who need to clear your transactions. You just decide to not trust in the current financial apparatus and instead bet on the new.
    - saurik 3y ago
      Betting on something where there is no single interest that can decide to screw you is fundamentally different than trusting something where one entity is in control. In a more principled world, I'd like to think the latter would never exist and people would be willing to go to great lengths to avoid or even protest against its existence.
  - Avshalom 3y ago
    >self-sovereignty of my money. the entire concept of money is a social construct. It's a culture wide bluff that we all agree to never call. "self-sovereignty" is antithetical to the idea of money.
    - UncleOxidant 3y ago
      Well said. If you want self-sovereignty buy a large sailboad or maybe a remote plot of land and seeds.
    - AlexandrB 3y ago
      It's also notable how much technological infrastructure is required to make this "self-sovereign" money possible - from specialized ASICs to constant internet connectivity. Gold is a much more self-sovereign store of value than any cryptocurrency.
    - Etrnl_President 3y ago
      @Alexander B Specialized ASIC were developed after crypto became popular.
      - AlexandrB 3y ago
        Why does that matter? I'm pretty sure Bitcoin couldn't go back to CPU/GPU mining without killing the transaction rate or spiking the transaction cost. Using your self-sovereign money successfully (and at its current value) requires specialized ASICs to continue to be available.
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    > There's nothing in the bitcoin whitepaper about getting rich quick. Sure there is. The capped supply is intended to cause deflation and enrich early adopters if/when Bitcoin goes mainstream. To argue otherwise is to claim that the author of the whitepaper was ignorant of how a currency with limited supply would behave. And if that's true, it's more damning of Bitcoin than the "get rich quick" stuff.
jrflowers 3y ago
To a lot of people the USP of crypto is spending a few bucks for a chance of making money without leaving home or doing anything. It’s like scratch off tickets that you can buy online.
this_user 3y ago
And then you are still losing your money, because your supposedly secure hardware wallet had a backdoor all along. Or you are downloading a wallet app that is compromised. Or you are making any one of a million possible mistakes that can lose your everything you have in crypto. At the end of the day, you need to keep your keys on an a dedicated air-gapped system where you have epoxied the USB ports and have ideally written the OS and all of the firmware (and the compiler) yourself. But then what's the point of a supposed currency of the future that is barely usable without paranoid security measures?
- EscapeFromNY 3y ago
  I'm fine with taking on that risk. I encrypt my laptop's hard drive and my backups. If I forget those passwords all my data is gone forever too. I'm willing to take that risk with my data and my money. If you aren't willing to take that risk, crypto might not be for you. (These are the hard truths they won't tell you in the super bowl commercials)
  - fsckboy 3y ago
    > If you sent your money to a company like Voyager, instead of controlling your keys yourself, you missed the point. so eschewing exchanges, you conduct all your commercial transactions directly in crypto straight from your crypto wallets? it's cool you can avoid all fiat like that, but doesn't it limit your purchasing options? Or have I missed another one of the points of crypto?
    - EscapeFromNY 3y ago
      Most of my commercial transactions are still in fiat. I do use crypto when I can, and yes it's done straight from a local wallet. I use an android app called Cake Wallet and the private key stays locally on the device. I keep as much on my phone as I would paper cash in a leather wallet, under $100. The rest is on a hardware wallet. I use an exchange occasionally, but I don't keep money parked there long-term like a bank. Deposit fiat, trade for crypto, withdraw crypto. I'm never exposed for more than an hour.
Retric 3y ago
Let’s be real, a large fraction of all interest in crypto is as a financial asset. The financial transaction / storage side is relatively uninteresting to people because the existing financial system generally works really well for them in terms of risks, fees, uptime etc. Which isn’t to say the existing financial system works well for everybody all the time, but in practice crypto just isn’t showing real benefits to offset its many downsides.
- cmcaleer 3y ago
  One thing crypto does having going for it is the lack of moralising payment processors. I'm really baffled that sex workers and other groups who provide legal services that payment processors don't like aren't embracing crypto. Seems like a perfect environment for it and the on and off-ramps today are far better than what existed back in 2016.
  - emodendroket 3y ago
    Most customers are not willing to go to these lengths unless they’re doing something illegal.
    - thaumasiotes 3y ago
      Many sex workers are doing something illegal.
      - cmcaleer 3y ago
        The majority of sex workers online are not.
        thaumasiotes 3y ago
        How do you know? Most prostitutes still have to advertise.
        3y ago
emodendroket 3y ago
I’m sure if he kept it all on personal drives that were lost or destroyed people would be calling him a fool for that too.

The USP of cryptocurrency is the ability to self-custody. If you sent your money to a company like Voyager, instead of controlling your keys yourself, you missed the point.

wmf 3y ago

It's really not though. The point was to get rich and if you can get rich quicker in a custodial pump-and-dump than in a self-custodied decentralized boiler room... you might as well.

EscapeFromNY 3y ago
There's nothing in the bitcoin whitepaper about getting rich quick. If that's your goal, go ahead and send your money to FTX, Luna, Voyager, or Binance. But that's not my goal. I'm here so I can have self-sovereignty of my money.
- fladrif 3y ago
  > I'm here so I can have self-sovereignty of my money. Except you aren't really. You will always be beholden to one entity or another, in bitcoin the 51% who need to clear your transactions. You just decide to not trust in the current financial apparatus and instead bet on the new.
  - saurik 3y ago
    Betting on something where there is no single interest that can decide to screw you is fundamentally different than trusting something where one entity is in control. In a more principled world, I'd like to think the latter would never exist and people would be willing to go to great lengths to avoid or even protest against its existence.
- Avshalom 3y ago
  >self-sovereignty of my money. the entire concept of money is a social construct. It's a culture wide bluff that we all agree to never call. "self-sovereignty" is antithetical to the idea of money.
  - UncleOxidant 3y ago
    Well said. If you want self-sovereignty buy a large sailboad or maybe a remote plot of land and seeds.
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    It's also notable how much technological infrastructure is required to make this "self-sovereign" money possible - from specialized ASICs to constant internet connectivity. Gold is a much more self-sovereign store of value than any cryptocurrency.
  - Etrnl_President 3y ago
    @Alexander B Specialized ASIC were developed after crypto became popular.
    - AlexandrB 3y ago
      Why does that matter? I'm pretty sure Bitcoin couldn't go back to CPU/GPU mining without killing the transaction rate or spiking the transaction cost. Using your self-sovereign money successfully (and at its current value) requires specialized ASICs to continue to be available.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  > There's nothing in the bitcoin whitepaper about getting rich quick. Sure there is. The capped supply is intended to cause deflation and enrich early adopters if/when Bitcoin goes mainstream. To argue otherwise is to claim that the author of the whitepaper was ignorant of how a currency with limited supply would behave. And if that's true, it's more damning of Bitcoin than the "get rich quick" stuff.

jrflowers 3y ago

To a lot of people the USP of crypto is spending a few bucks for a chance of making money without leaving home or doing anything. It’s like scratch off tickets that you can buy online.

this_user 3y ago

And then you are still losing your money, because your supposedly secure hardware wallet had a backdoor all along. Or you are downloading a wallet app that is compromised. Or you are making any one of a million possible mistakes that can lose your everything you have in crypto. At the end of the day, you need to keep your keys on an a dedicated air-gapped system where you have epoxied the USB ports and have ideally written the OS and all of the firmware (and the compiler) yourself. But then what's the point of a supposed currency of the future that is barely usable without paranoid security measures?

EscapeFromNY 3y ago
I'm fine with taking on that risk. I encrypt my laptop's hard drive and my backups. If I forget those passwords all my data is gone forever too. I'm willing to take that risk with my data and my money. If you aren't willing to take that risk, crypto might not be for you. (These are the hard truths they won't tell you in the super bowl commercials)
- fsckboy 3y ago
  > If you sent your money to a company like Voyager, instead of controlling your keys yourself, you missed the point. so eschewing exchanges, you conduct all your commercial transactions directly in crypto straight from your crypto wallets? it's cool you can avoid all fiat like that, but doesn't it limit your purchasing options? Or have I missed another one of the points of crypto?
  - EscapeFromNY 3y ago
    Most of my commercial transactions are still in fiat. I do use crypto when I can, and yes it's done straight from a local wallet. I use an android app called Cake Wallet and the private key stays locally on the device. I keep as much on my phone as I would paper cash in a leather wallet, under $100. The rest is on a hardware wallet. I use an exchange occasionally, but I don't keep money parked there long-term like a bank. Deposit fiat, trade for crypto, withdraw crypto. I'm never exposed for more than an hour.

Retric 3y ago

Let’s be real, a large fraction of all interest in crypto is as a financial asset. The financial transaction / storage side is relatively uninteresting to people because the existing financial system generally works really well for them in terms of risks, fees, uptime etc. Which isn’t to say the existing financial system works well for everybody all the time, but in practice crypto just isn’t showing real benefits to offset its many downsides.

cmcaleer 3y ago
One thing crypto does having going for it is the lack of moralising payment processors. I'm really baffled that sex workers and other groups who provide legal services that payment processors don't like aren't embracing crypto. Seems like a perfect environment for it and the on and off-ramps today are far better than what existed back in 2016.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  Most customers are not willing to go to these lengths unless they’re doing something illegal.
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    Many sex workers are doing something illegal.
    - cmcaleer 3y ago
      The majority of sex workers online are not.
      - thaumasiotes 3y ago
        How do you know? Most prostitutes still have to advertise.
        3y ago

emodendroket 3y ago

I’m sure if he kept it all on personal drives that were lost or destroyed people would be calling him a fool for that too.