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> They should stop just short of regulating the underlying cryptocurrencies themselves. The problem with not regulating a currency at all, is that it implies a

> They should stop just short of regulating the underlying cryptocurrencies themselves. The problem with not regulating a currency at all, is that it implies a permission for someone to print it at will. Cryptocurrency is no exception to this scenario; you are asked to trust the developers (technocracy) and node operators (50%+1 attack and all the usual power dynamics of the rich having more say than the majority) to not do it. The most important question you must ask yourself is, how long will the interests of that elite continue to align with yours (if they ever did). The dream of a decentralized, community-run, grassroots infrastructure died sometime around the first GPU PoC - Satoshi themselves expressed discontent, saying GPUs would trivially out-mine the common man. Communities can self-regulate because they run on trust; it's extremely difficult to build trust in a system designed around distrusting every single one of your peers.

matheusmoreira 3y ago
> The problem with not regulating a currency at all, is that it implies a permission for someone to print it at will. Not a problem. This is determined by code in ways everyone can see and understand. It's actually better than governments printing money whenever they feel like it. The economic impact of money printing is actually minimal. Most inflation is actually generated by fractional reserve banking and their loans which is already something exchanges do. BTC maxis don't seem to grasp this fact. > you are asked to trust the developers (technocracy) You are asked to trust code. Either way I'm actually OK with this. I actually trust them a whole lot more than the communists in charge of my country's economy right now. > node operators (50%+1 attack and all the usual power dynamics of the rich having more say than the majority) The only problem with this is it turned out cryptocurrency mining is not actually as decentralized as it was supposed to be. It should have been one CPU one vote but it turned into massive operations involving custom hardware. New cryptocurrencies need technology to fix that problem. Monero uses ASIC resistant proof of work algorithms to mitigate it. > The dream of a decentralized, community-run, grassroots infrastructure died sometime around the first GPU PoC - Satoshi themselves expressed discontent, saying GPUs would trivially out-mine the common man. Exactly. That's the true tragedy of cryptocurrencies.
- rollcat 3y ago
  > This is determined by code in ways everyone can see and understand. That's just a slightly more wordy way of saying "technocracy". An overwhelming majority of people in the world (including cryptocurrency enthusiasts) are incapable of following through a fizzbuzz program, let alone an SHA256 implementation, and the hash algorithm is barely the tiniest building block. > Monero uses ASIC resistant proof of work algorithms to mitigate it. Proof of waste stopped being sexy the moment we realized the environmental impact, and continuing to defend it on any "practical" merits is shortsighted at best. > Exactly. That's the true tragedy of cryptocurrencies. With all of your doubling down on technocracy, I find it odd that you defend a concept that, by design, began falling apart as soon as it started gaining traction. The original idea was noble, but it was almost meant to be perverted. What we should have done was to get back to the drawing board: how can we build distributed/decentralized infrastructure that actually helps people.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    > An overwhelming majority of people in the world (including cryptocurrency enthusiasts) are incapable of following through a fizzbuzz program, let alone an SHA256 implementation, and the hash algorithm is barely the tiniest building block. So? It's still more open than traditional finance. You can actually see how it works if you try. Unlike some central bank's political machinations at some abstract far away place. We need exactly one guarantee: that nobody can change how the system works to benefit themselves. Besides... The overwhelming majority of people do not even understand the nature of money itself. They do not understand fractional reserve banking. Most people think inflation is caused by the government printing money. Somehow that's not an argument against having money. > Proof of waste stopped being sexy the moment we realized the environmental impact Not this nonsense again. Even at the peak of the last bullrun, it didn't even amount to 1% of global energy consumption. > The original idea was noble, but it was almost meant to be perverted. I agree it was a noble idea and that it failed. I disagree that it was "meant" to be perverted. > What we should have done was to get back to the drawing board: how can we build distributed/decentralized infrastructure that actually helps people. Agree. At this moment in time, I think Monero is closest to that ideal. I am not opposed to even better and more decentralized technology. Ethereum's zero knowledge proofs are very interesting.
mgaunard 3y ago
Most of crypto trading is on centralized exchanges. What made crypto big was making trading approachable to the common man, mostly through sophisticated loan systems.
everfree 3y ago
It's a classic blockchain fallacy that a 51% attack allows you to print the underlying crypto at will. As for the developers, they could write code to print a billion bitcoins if they wanted to, but for it to take effect everyone's gotta agree to run it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Terr_ 3y ago
  The attackers could mint new coins under a new process and then force everyone to transition over by trading old for new. Holdouts will find that old-coin transactions never succeed, and will have no other choice except to walk away in financial ruin.
  - everfree 3y ago
    It's not entirely clear to me what you mean by "regime", but it seems most likely to me that if forced with a choice of two hard-forks: 1) Removing the attacker directly (PoS) / changing the hashing algorithm to remove the attacker (PoW) or 2) Submitting to the whims of the attacker it would be a no-brainer to just remove the attacker. Embracing an attacker-controlled chain seems like a strictly worse option than removing the attacker, no matter how messy. It seems like a choice between disruption or certain ruin. An attacker at that scale would certainly understand this game theory, and realize that if they attack, after some potentially very messy shake-out and serious temporary disruption, they will soon have no influence over the chain anymore.

matheusmoreira 3y ago

> The problem with not regulating a currency at all, is that it implies a permission for someone to print it at will. Not a problem. This is determined by code in ways everyone can see and understand. It's actually better than governments printing money whenever they feel like it. The economic impact of money printing is actually minimal. Most inflation is actually generated by fractional reserve banking and their loans which is already something exchanges do. BTC maxis don't seem to grasp this fact. > you are asked to trust the developers (technocracy) You are asked to trust code. Either way I'm actually OK with this. I actually trust them a whole lot more than the communists in charge of my country's economy right now. > node operators (50%+1 attack and all the usual power dynamics of the rich having more say than the majority) The only problem with this is it turned out cryptocurrency mining is not actually as decentralized as it was supposed to be. It should have been one CPU one vote but it turned into massive operations involving custom hardware. New cryptocurrencies need technology to fix that problem. Monero uses ASIC resistant proof of work algorithms to mitigate it. > The dream of a decentralized, community-run, grassroots infrastructure died sometime around the first GPU PoC - Satoshi themselves expressed discontent, saying GPUs would trivially out-mine the common man. Exactly. That's the true tragedy of cryptocurrencies.

rollcat 3y ago
> This is determined by code in ways everyone can see and understand. That's just a slightly more wordy way of saying "technocracy". An overwhelming majority of people in the world (including cryptocurrency enthusiasts) are incapable of following through a fizzbuzz program, let alone an SHA256 implementation, and the hash algorithm is barely the tiniest building block. > Monero uses ASIC resistant proof of work algorithms to mitigate it. Proof of waste stopped being sexy the moment we realized the environmental impact, and continuing to defend it on any "practical" merits is shortsighted at best. > Exactly. That's the true tragedy of cryptocurrencies. With all of your doubling down on technocracy, I find it odd that you defend a concept that, by design, began falling apart as soon as it started gaining traction. The original idea was noble, but it was almost meant to be perverted. What we should have done was to get back to the drawing board: how can we build distributed/decentralized infrastructure that actually helps people.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  > An overwhelming majority of people in the world (including cryptocurrency enthusiasts) are incapable of following through a fizzbuzz program, let alone an SHA256 implementation, and the hash algorithm is barely the tiniest building block. So? It's still more open than traditional finance. You can actually see how it works if you try. Unlike some central bank's political machinations at some abstract far away place. We need exactly one guarantee: that nobody can change how the system works to benefit themselves. Besides... The overwhelming majority of people do not even understand the nature of money itself. They do not understand fractional reserve banking. Most people think inflation is caused by the government printing money. Somehow that's not an argument against having money. > Proof of waste stopped being sexy the moment we realized the environmental impact Not this nonsense again. Even at the peak of the last bullrun, it didn't even amount to 1% of global energy consumption. > The original idea was noble, but it was almost meant to be perverted. I agree it was a noble idea and that it failed. I disagree that it was "meant" to be perverted. > What we should have done was to get back to the drawing board: how can we build distributed/decentralized infrastructure that actually helps people. Agree. At this moment in time, I think Monero is closest to that ideal. I am not opposed to even better and more decentralized technology. Ethereum's zero knowledge proofs are very interesting.

mgaunard 3y ago

Most of crypto trading is on centralized exchanges. What made crypto big was making trading approachable to the common man, mostly through sophisticated loan systems.

everfree 3y ago

It's a classic blockchain fallacy that a 51% attack allows you to print the underlying crypto at will. As for the developers, they could write code to print a billion bitcoins if they wanted to, but for it to take effect everyone's gotta agree to run it.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Terr_ 3y ago
The attackers could mint new coins under a new process and then force everyone to transition over by trading old for new. Holdouts will find that old-coin transactions never succeed, and will have no other choice except to walk away in financial ruin.
- everfree 3y ago
  It's not entirely clear to me what you mean by "regime", but it seems most likely to me that if forced with a choice of two hard-forks: 1) Removing the attacker directly (PoS) / changing the hashing algorithm to remove the attacker (PoW) or 2) Submitting to the whims of the attacker it would be a no-brainer to just remove the attacker. Embracing an attacker-controlled chain seems like a strictly worse option than removing the attacker, no matter how messy. It seems like a choice between disruption or certain ruin. An attacker at that scale would certainly understand this game theory, and realize that if they attack, after some potentially very messy shake-out and serious temporary disruption, they will soon have no influence over the chain anymore.