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Good. I hope its overall era is over soon too. Insane that we allowed crypto to exist in the first place; a massive sink of time and energy just to allow crimin

Good. I hope its overall era is over soon too. Insane that we allowed crypto to exist in the first place; a massive sink of time and energy just to allow criminals to defraud people easier.

w4yai 1y ago
Sounds like money in general.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- Swenrekcah 1y ago
  Regular money is useful for all people, including criminals. Bitcoin and derivatives are of little to use for people other than criminals and gamblers.
  - broken-kebab 1y ago
    That's a very first world opinion. You can find physical crypto-fiat exchange booths all over the developing world. Because usual banking gets complicated when you passport is not first-class.
    - Swenrekcah 1y ago
      That is interesting. I do wonder, given all the volatility, if they are really used by the general population there or if they mostly exist to facilitate questionable business activities.
      - broken-kebab 1y ago
        It seems like you missed the elephant in my commentary: there are plenty of "general population" who can't use banking system at least cross-border. So imagine yourself in need to choose between 1) significant risk of frozen transfers, or even not having account at all at a place you are now, and also maybe risk of extortion and corruption at a place where recipients are, and 2) this scary VOLATILITY? Also, in practical terms there are stablecoins which are quite stable, and bitcoin has been mostly growing for years now
        Swenrekcah 1y ago
        ok, that’s a fair point.
    - robocat 1y ago
      I tried using crypto in Argentina, Uruguay, Brasil and Chile last year. I wouldn't recommend it, except as a learning experience for how useless crypto is for personal travel usage. Carrying hundreds of USD currency worked better and felt safer.
      - broken-kebab 1y ago
        Having no details about your misadventure I cannot be a judge for the case, I just can say for my need (sending money to family members) it always worked well. Though you definitely need a practical experience (even if you're techie) to get it right. Not sure it would work well for a travel cause you have to measure reputations, and assess concomitant risks which is hard to do when you aren't a part of community, don't speak language, and can't read omens so to say. However, as a counterexample, my colleague who visited Argentina some years ago got scammed at usual exchange, and robbed 10 minutes later (which she believes to be connected events) so maybe having cash is not necessary better in some places where foreigner is a game to hunt.
        robocat 1y ago
        No misadventures. Did some successful exchanges from crypto to obtain cash in Argentina (useful to get discounted Blue Rate). Certainly would be useful to get money safely to rellies in AR. Conversational Spanish, so that wasn't a problem. Definitely didn't feel that safe, although fortunately I was not robbed. I only had a few thousand worth of crypto. I have absolutely no crypto now.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
sneak 1y ago
Crypto is just messages in a permissionless p2p network. To not “allow” it to exist is the legislature banning what is presently considered protected expression/free speech. Crypto is speech, not property. I really don’t think you’d like where that can of worms leads. It doesn’t even matter if you like cryptocurrencies or not; we all have a vested interest in being able to create p2p networks amongst the whole internet and send any kind of messages/frames within them that we wish.
- ben_w 1y ago
  > Crypto is speech, not property. Crypto*graphy* is speech. To assert that crypto*currency* is not property is quite bizarre.
  - sneak 1y ago
    They’re called virtual currencies for a reason; they don’t actually exist. It’s just a set of consensus rules about who can make which transfers. The transfers themselves are just packets. To use bitcoin is to send packets containing signatures, nothing more. Practically speaking, they can’t be anything but speech.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      What you call it doesn't matter. If you can use it like a currency, it's property. Even if you can't use it like a currency but it's tradable at all, it's property.
- pavlov 1y ago
  Similarly savings accounts and loans are just messages that describe agreements between private parties. So how can we have bank regulation, when everything that a bank does is just speech? The answer is that the law is interested in the content of communications, and whether the messages are cryptographically peer-to-peer this-or-that is irrelevant. If your crypto messaging is about selling drugs or unregistered securities, it's not much of an excuse that you were doing it peer-to-peer.
owebmaster 1y ago
If someone comes back 100 years from the future, one of the few things I'd bet to still be around would be Bitcoin and JavaScript.
- rimbo789 1y ago
  What a hell that would be
- ben_w 1y ago
  Around? Perhaps. When I was a kid, I had a typewriter. Was even still possible to buy ink ribbons for it in a local stationary store, not that I could afford them on pocket money, but I've not seen ink ribbons in a stationary store since the early 90s. Despite that, typewriters are still around: https://www.amazon.com/Royal-79101t-Classic-Manual-Typewriter/dp/B07SWV2X82 https://www.amazon.com/Royal-79101t-Classic-Manual-Typewrite...
  - owebmaster 1y ago
    I think Bitcoin will be the currency of an interplanetary humanity. And I don't even own any bitcoins or think it will continue going up in the next years. But technically, blockchains will be key as store of data in the (distant) future.
    - Ekaros 1y ago
      Bitcoin is absolute crap for interplanetary use. Delay to Mars is between 3 and 22 minutes. So at worst you would have 2 blocks in between. Have fun with double spends. Or distributing the mining... Expand to other solar system and it will get worse still.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      Blockchains don't need to be a currency, we've already got git, it's much less computationally intensive. If you're using the bitcoin consensus approach in an interplanetary era, you quickly end up with using the full output of Dyson swarm just to stop someone else doing the same, not for any real gain over "I trust you to keep this ledger correct because we all know what 'accountants' and 'lawsuits' are".
timbit42 1y ago
How would you do online banking and shopping without crypto?

Good. I hope its overall era is over soon too. Insane that we allowed crypto to exist in the first place; a massive sink of time and energy just to allow criminals to defraud people easier.

w4yai 1y ago

Sounds like money in general.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Swenrekcah 1y ago
Regular money is useful for all people, including criminals. Bitcoin and derivatives are of little to use for people other than criminals and gamblers.
- broken-kebab 1y ago
  That's a very first world opinion. You can find physical crypto-fiat exchange booths all over the developing world. Because usual banking gets complicated when you passport is not first-class.
  - Swenrekcah 1y ago
    That is interesting. I do wonder, given all the volatility, if they are really used by the general population there or if they mostly exist to facilitate questionable business activities.
    - broken-kebab 1y ago
      It seems like you missed the elephant in my commentary: there are plenty of "general population" who can't use banking system at least cross-border. So imagine yourself in need to choose between 1) significant risk of frozen transfers, or even not having account at all at a place you are now, and also maybe risk of extortion and corruption at a place where recipients are, and 2) this scary VOLATILITY? Also, in practical terms there are stablecoins which are quite stable, and bitcoin has been mostly growing for years now
      - Swenrekcah 1y ago
        ok, that’s a fair point.
  - robocat 1y ago
    I tried using crypto in Argentina, Uruguay, Brasil and Chile last year. I wouldn't recommend it, except as a learning experience for how useless crypto is for personal travel usage. Carrying hundreds of USD currency worked better and felt safer.
    - broken-kebab 1y ago
      Having no details about your misadventure I cannot be a judge for the case, I just can say for my need (sending money to family members) it always worked well. Though you definitely need a practical experience (even if you're techie) to get it right. Not sure it would work well for a travel cause you have to measure reputations, and assess concomitant risks which is hard to do when you aren't a part of community, don't speak language, and can't read omens so to say. However, as a counterexample, my colleague who visited Argentina some years ago got scammed at usual exchange, and robbed 10 minutes later (which she believes to be connected events) so maybe having cash is not necessary better in some places where foreigner is a game to hunt.
      - robocat 1y ago
        No misadventures. Did some successful exchanges from crypto to obtain cash in Argentina (useful to get discounted Blue Rate). Certainly would be useful to get money safely to rellies in AR. Conversational Spanish, so that wasn't a problem. Definitely didn't feel that safe, although fortunately I was not robbed. I only had a few thousand worth of crypto. I have absolutely no crypto now.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

sneak 1y ago

Crypto is just messages in a permissionless p2p network. To not “allow” it to exist is the legislature banning what is presently considered protected expression/free speech. Crypto is speech, not property. I really don’t think you’d like where that can of worms leads. It doesn’t even matter if you like cryptocurrencies or not; we all have a vested interest in being able to create p2p networks amongst the whole internet and send any kind of messages/frames within them that we wish.

ben_w 1y ago
> Crypto is speech, not property. Crypto*graphy* is speech. To assert that crypto*currency* is not property is quite bizarre.
- sneak 1y ago
  They’re called virtual currencies for a reason; they don’t actually exist. It’s just a set of consensus rules about who can make which transfers. The transfers themselves are just packets. To use bitcoin is to send packets containing signatures, nothing more. Practically speaking, they can’t be anything but speech.
  - ben_w 1y ago
    What you call it doesn't matter. If you can use it like a currency, it's property. Even if you can't use it like a currency but it's tradable at all, it's property.
pavlov 1y ago
Similarly savings accounts and loans are just messages that describe agreements between private parties. So how can we have bank regulation, when everything that a bank does is just speech? The answer is that the law is interested in the content of communications, and whether the messages are cryptographically peer-to-peer this-or-that is irrelevant. If your crypto messaging is about selling drugs or unregistered securities, it's not much of an excuse that you were doing it peer-to-peer.

owebmaster 1y ago

If someone comes back 100 years from the future, one of the few things I'd bet to still be around would be Bitcoin and JavaScript.

rimbo789 1y ago
What a hell that would be
ben_w 1y ago
Around? Perhaps. When I was a kid, I had a typewriter. Was even still possible to buy ink ribbons for it in a local stationary store, not that I could afford them on pocket money, but I've not seen ink ribbons in a stationary store since the early 90s. Despite that, typewriters are still around: https://www.amazon.com/Royal-79101t-Classic-Manual-Typewriter/dp/B07SWV2X82 https://www.amazon.com/Royal-79101t-Classic-Manual-Typewrite...
- owebmaster 1y ago
  I think Bitcoin will be the currency of an interplanetary humanity. And I don't even own any bitcoins or think it will continue going up in the next years. But technically, blockchains will be key as store of data in the (distant) future.
  - Ekaros 1y ago
    Bitcoin is absolute crap for interplanetary use. Delay to Mars is between 3 and 22 minutes. So at worst you would have 2 blocks in between. Have fun with double spends. Or distributing the mining... Expand to other solar system and it will get worse still.
  - ben_w 1y ago
    Blockchains don't need to be a currency, we've already got git, it's much less computationally intensive. If you're using the bitcoin consensus approach in an interplanetary era, you quickly end up with using the full output of Dyson swarm just to stop someone else doing the same, not for any real gain over "I trust you to keep this ledger correct because we all know what 'accountants' and 'lawsuits' are".

timbit42 1y ago

How would you do online banking and shopping without crypto?