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> The Feds and the bankers hate it because it's a direct threat to their business model. There's no room for a middle man to fugazi in btc. Crypto has spawned

> The Feds and the bankers hate it because it's a direct threat to their business model. There's no room for a middle man to fugazi in btc. Crypto has spawned their own classes of middle-men. At best, you have a changing of the guard - new boss, same as the old boss. At worst, you have traditional finance buying a stake in crypto and ending up in the exact dominant same spot they were before. And of course, all of these people have to do business on the terms of their host countries. Crypto does not herald a new set of rules, it merely aims to be a new mechanism by which value is transferred, which by most objective measures it's very bad at doing.

fwungy 3y ago
Yes, but the blockchain can be publically audited, unlike the current regime.
everfree 3y ago
> At best, you have a changing of the guard - new boss, same as the old boss. At best you send some of it directly to someone else with no trusted middleman, which is impossible to do over the internet with any other kind of system. At worst you have a changing of the guard.
- LexiMax 3y ago
  > At best you send some of it directly to someone else with no trusted middleman This is impossible. If you trade crypto, at some point that money has to become fiat for you to pay bills, pay taxes or cash out. If the currency _is_ crypto, you either have to transact on-chain where it is inefficient and slow by design, or off-chain, where you are trusting a middle-man by definition. Either way, you are beholden to the currency controls of your country, and unlike you, they have the resources of a nation-state and can de-anonymize and use violence to force you to bend the knee.
  - everfree 3y ago
    > If the currency _is_ crypto, you either have to transact on-chain where it is inefficient and slow by design Not slow or inefficient enough so as to be unusable. > Either way, you are beholden to the currency controls of your country, and unlike you, they have the resources of a nation-state and can de-anonymize and use violence to force you to bend the knee. Everything a person does is beholden to law. I don’t see how that’s really relevant.
jsutton 3y ago
> it merely aims to be a new mechanism by which value is transferred, which by most objective measures it's very bad at doing. What objective measures are you using? Over $3 Billion in value is transferred over the Bitcoin network every day. There has never been any downtime, nor has it ever been hacked, and fees are flat and transparent (just a few bucks to transfer unlimited value across the world).
- its_ethan 3y ago
  one objective measure: speed. another: efficiency + energy demanded to maintain

fwungy 3y ago

Yes, but the blockchain can be publically audited, unlike the current regime.

everfree 3y ago

> At best, you have a changing of the guard - new boss, same as the old boss. At best you send some of it directly to someone else with no trusted middleman, which is impossible to do over the internet with any other kind of system. At worst you have a changing of the guard.

LexiMax 3y ago
> At best you send some of it directly to someone else with no trusted middleman This is impossible. If you trade crypto, at some point that money has to become fiat for you to pay bills, pay taxes or cash out. If the currency _is_ crypto, you either have to transact on-chain where it is inefficient and slow by design, or off-chain, where you are trusting a middle-man by definition. Either way, you are beholden to the currency controls of your country, and unlike you, they have the resources of a nation-state and can de-anonymize and use violence to force you to bend the knee.
- everfree 3y ago
  > If the currency _is_ crypto, you either have to transact on-chain where it is inefficient and slow by design Not slow or inefficient enough so as to be unusable. > Either way, you are beholden to the currency controls of your country, and unlike you, they have the resources of a nation-state and can de-anonymize and use violence to force you to bend the knee. Everything a person does is beholden to law. I don’t see how that’s really relevant.

jsutton 3y ago

> it merely aims to be a new mechanism by which value is transferred, which by most objective measures it's very bad at doing. What objective measures are you using? Over $3 Billion in value is transferred over the Bitcoin network every day. There has never been any downtime, nor has it ever been hacked, and fees are flat and transparent (just a few bucks to transfer unlimited value across the world).

its_ethan 3y ago
one objective measure: speed. another: efficiency + energy demanded to maintain