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Good. May the entire of crypto be brought down with it.
by colesantiago 3y ago
Good.
May the entire of crypto be brought down with it.
- ivanmontillam 3y agoIf you could please elaborate, for the free curious spirits of HN. Crypto has brought good in underdeveloped countries like Venezuela and Argentina. Venezuelans use USDT to purchase real, physical goods. Sometimes groceries.
- AlexandrB 3y agoHave any numbers on this? The only numbers I could find are very modest[1]. IIRC Zeke Faux, the author of "Number Go Up" also noted that adoption is very illusory - like the "Accepts Bitcoin" stickers you see all over the place Canada when there's no functioning bitcoin payment processing inside. But besides all that, I think it's criminal to leave people in underdeveloped countries at the whims of unaccountable central-bank-style institutions like USDT. What will proponents of this crap say if/when USDT collapses? "They knew the risks"? Is the "crypto community" going to bail out people who invested their life savings in this garbage[2]? [1] https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/latin-america-cryptocurrency-adoption/ https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/latin-america-cryptocurrenc... [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/AxieInfinity/comments/10ovcoo/lost_my_savings_and_more_investing_into_axie/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AxieInfinity/comments/10ovcoo/lost_...
- keep_reading 3y agoI think it's criminal to leave people in underdeveloped countries at the whims of unaccountable central-bank-style institutions like Federal Reserve.
- EFreethought 3y agoIt's criminal to leave people in underdeveloped countries at the whims of criminals.
- keep_reading 3y agocentral bankers are indeed criminals!
- Kranar 3y agoHow does this in any way deter crypto, if anything it strengthened it. Binance continues to operate, Zhao won't face any actual penalty and continues to be a billionaire. Seems to me like Binance and crypto is the winner here.
- AlexandrB 3y ago"This is good for Bitcoin"
- almost_usual 3y ago> May the entire of crypto be brought down with it Pretty hard to get rid of decentralized systems.
- colesantiago 3y agoCrypto is pretty centralised thanks to these exchanges and many blockchains running solely on AWS such as Ethereum. Crypto being ‘decentralised’ is a well known myth.
- lawn 3y agoYou don't need exchanges for cryptocurrencies to work, they just make onboarding easier.
- zshrdlu 3y agoDo you mean that, once on-boarded, crypto holders would only need to trade with fellow crypto holders?
- everfree 3y agoEthereum running “solely” on AWS is a myth. If AWS were shut down, the chain would continue as usual.
- colesantiago 3y agoEven Vitalik knows that Ethereum is centralised. > If AWS were shut down, the chain would continue as usual. Continue laundering money for foreign state actors and narcotics businesses, sounds about right as this is is what crypto is good for. https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/united-states-seized-and-files-forfeiture-action-recover-over-54-million-cryptocurrency https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/united-states-seized-and-...
- everfree 3y agoDo you think it would continue or not? Your comments seem to hold conflicting points.
- wonderwonder 3y agoAnyone in the variety of South American countries experiencing massive inflation would have been worlds better if they had just parked their money in BTC. Crypto is full of scams but there is also a world of positives and opportunity there.
- n2d4 3y agoThey would've also been worlds better if they had parked their money in Gamestop, or honestly even in a casino, but that doesn't make it a sound investment
- hi5eyes 3y agowhy does orange reddit always have comments like this whenever coins get mentioned
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zarzavat 3y ago“Orange reddit” was one of the first places that Bitcoin was discussed. Consequently there’s an awful lot of people here who know exactly how much they missed out, and express this by being saltier than dead sea whenever the topic comes up. The accepted wisdom on HN, when the bitcoin price was in the single digits, was that it was a “tulip bubble” and you should absolutely not buy it under any circumstances.
- boeingUH60 3y agoAnd many people were scammed and lost their savings to BTC and other crypto schemes. It's funny how the Ponzi promoters always forget that part when touting whatever cooked-up reason they promote crypto for. But sure, in a sector where most of the biggest names are fraudsters, some people still manage to be adherents.
- 3y ago
- throwayaw84329 3y ago[dead]
- unclebucknasty 3y agoReflecting on how crypto once fit with the HN ethos. Hard to say where the community is now, partly because I don't spend as much time here. But it definitely seems to not be the darling it once was. Don't know if this is because it's mainstreamed in a way that makes it less "hacker"-appealing (quotes intentional), the HN community has changed, or because crypto went full crypto-bro so hard. May be some combination.
- gizajob 3y agoProbably because the brave new world of cryptopunk anonymity and liberation has turned into this mess of fraud and in-your-face centralisation and crime.
- methodical 3y agoI have to admit I do find it pretty funny when the people who have touted blockchain and cryptocurrency as great because of its decentralization have discovered /why/ a central authority is incredibly important in finance. All of the crypto pumpers start crying for government support when they're the ones who get fleeced, when that's literally built into the technology as a feature.
- suoduandao3 3y agoI imagine HN in particular is also quite dominated by traditional US finance.
- ravenstine 3y agoI honestly don't remember the time you are describing. As far as I can remember, the most prevalent voices about crypto from HN have been from the naysayers by far. The craze just simply isn't there anymore, which is a very good thing. People who refuse to try and understand cryptocurrencies but tout fanciful things about them shouldn't be the ones representing them.
- tnel77 3y agoAnd why would that be?
- pawelduda 3y agoBecause he's salty about it, the comment doesn't point at anything else
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- colesantiago 3y agoName any positive valid use case that crypto does better than the current financial system.
- glerk 3y agoUncensorable money across borders
- colesantiago 3y agoThis is a perfect use case for criminals and ransomware gangs which is certainly why crypto is popular for these groups. Especially for funding the North Korean regime. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-18/how-north-korea-makes-a-fortune-stealing-crypto/103107824 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-18/how-north-korea-makes...
- afroboy 3y agoYou so realise that cash and gold are used by those groups as first choice?
- colesantiago 3y agoExcept crypto is way easier for criminals to move funds around better than what you've suggested.
- seydor 3y agoIt won't though