5 ms·
Not sure if all crypto is a scam necessarily, but sure that world is chock full of scammers trying to out-scam each other.
by pantulis 1y ago
Not sure if all crypto is a scam necessarily, but sure that world is chock full of scammers trying to out-scam each other.
- fullstop 1y agoI don't think that it's all a scam, but I do think that it gives scammers a vehicle to con people without oversight or regulation. They also end up with "real" money which can be spent.
- askl 1y ago[flagged]
- fullstop 1y agoYou can keep telling yourself that, but there's enough utility and momentum behind it that it is not going anywhere. I'm saying this as a person with no stake in the matter, just observing from the sidelines.
- aprilthird2021 1y agoWhat is the utility behind it? I don't see people using to actually do any transactions because of the volatility and fluctuating transaction fees. Scams can have momentum behind them
- aaronax 1y agoTrue fiscal self-sovereignty. Albeit quite volatile.
- aprilthird2021 1y agoYou can't have this if you are a citizen of any country
- fullstop 1y agoAgain, I'm going to mention that I'm looking at this from the sidelines. I would argue that people make more purchases with Bitcoin than they do with gold.
- ceejayoz 1y agoGold is similarly worthless as a currency. Which is why we don't use it as one any more. It has plenty of utility, though. Open up any electronic device.
- yreg 1y agoThere are people who use crypto for transactions. Stablecoins are stable and for some people the fees are far lower than any alternatives.
- aprilthird2021 1y agoI'm not much aware of this type of use case, but is that really the future of crypto? Stablecoins for countries hit by sanctions, etc.?
- ceejayoz 1y agoBernie Madoff's investments had a lot of utility and momentum for decades, too.
- fullstop 1y agoThis is true but his records were well hidden, and the Bitcoin ledger is public.
- ceejayoz 1y agoNothing in the Bitcoin ledger will tell you when someone's doing wash trading to manipulate the price.
- fullstop 1y agoWash trading still happens in the NYSE, despite being illegal.
- andirk 1y agoInteresting point about wash trading being somewhat untraceable. How about a coin that connects a hash whatever to each chunk of the token as it moves around so every coin has a backstory written into the blockchain. And that sounds like current fiat banking.
- ggandv 1y agoDitto baseball cards.
- fullstop 1y agoYou can't send baseball cards instantly across the world and you have no guarantee of their authenticity.
- lern_too_spel 1y agoYou can sell ownership across the world instantly, and you can use a centralized authority for authenticity and grading. Done. All for less cost than crypto and without enabling DPRK to steal your card with no recourse. This is exactly what happened with gold, and then people realized that basing money on gold was stupid, so now we have the system we have today. Cryptofools are two financial revolutions behind modernity.
- fullstop 1y agoI hear what you are saying and you're putting an awful lot of trust in that centralized authority. We used to back our money with precious metals, but no longer do so. The dollar is now backed by aircraft carriers, jets, and military might.
- lern_too_spel 1y ago> you're putting an awful lot of trust in that centralized authority. No, I'm putting my trust in the rule of law. > The dollar is now backed by aircraft carriers, jets, and military might. It is mainly backed by trust in government monetary policy. Otherwise, what is the GBP backed by? The Royal Navy isn't what it used to be.
- askl 1y agoTbh, I just made this comment because I thought it would be funny to use your username in it. (Doesn't mean my opinion is something else, though)
- fullstop 1y agoHa, I was wondering. Thanks for the chuckle. :-)
- freejazz 1y agoReally? Seems more like the scams that keep it going? What's the utility that is keeping it going?
- underdown 1y agoWell, now I’m convinced
- askl 1y agoGlad I was able to help.
- yreg 1y agoThis is an absurd claim since it takes a single counter-example to disprove. E.g. you can pay for Mullvad in crypto, Mullvad is not a scam. You can trade predictions on Polymarket, Polymarket is not a scam.
- jakupovic 1y agoPeople don't want logic, they want to believe what they want.
- dang 1y agoOk, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News. We want curious conversation here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- pavlov 1y agoAnd if you give the scammers a platform that's not useful for anything else than building endless variations of memecoins and productless fake-tech penny stocks, what is the expected output?
- pydry 1y agothe dynamics of the crypto market seem to push non scammers out. im not sure whether this is gresham's law or the dynamics of a lemon market in action or what though.
- aurareturn 1y agothe dynamics of the crypto market seem to push non scammers out. Anyone with any morals would leave crypto after a while.
- aurareturn 1y agoNot sure if all crypto is a scam necessarily, but sure that world is chock full of scammers trying to out-scam each other. It's all scams. Even if the coin itself is not a total scam, the exchanges do some of the most shady things you can imagine. They'll actively trade against their customers. They'll do insider trading, rugpull their customers, gets "hacked" by an insider and steal all your coins, etc. Even BTC and ETH are shady. ETH should have been classified as security. BTC is an environmental disaster and centralized by a few large miners.